Geneva Motor Show: all arrested before demo

Paris, 19 March 2007: For the occa­sion of the clo­sure day of the Gene­va Motor Show, some 10 activists from dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions were plan­ning to do a small demo at the inside of the Gene­va motor show, deploy­ing a ban­ner to point out the hyp­ocrite dis­course of the car man­u­fac­tur­ers.

anti-4x4 logo 1Paris, 19 March 2007: For the occa­sion of the clo­sure day of the Gene­va Motor Show, some 10 activists from dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions were plan­ning to do a small demo at the inside of the Gene­va motor show, deploy­ing a ban­ner to point out the hyp­ocrite dis­course of the car man­u­fac­tur­ers.

As a pre­ven­tive mea­sure, Police Detec­tives of the Gene­va Can­ton have tak­en the whole group of activists and the cam­era crews in their pres­ence in cus­tody, and kept them for more than 8 hours for ques­tion­ing.
Jeroen Ver­ho­even, Coor­di­na­tor of the 4x4network and par­tic­i­pat­ing in the action, has been hand-cuffed and tak­en away to the police sta­tion for ques­tion­ing. The activists have been charged of being” the alleged authors of threats alarm­ing the pub­lic”, even if the action did not take place!

In order to avoid any dis­si­dent voice at the motor show, the activists have been phone-tapped, hand-cuffed, strip searched, their DNA and fin­ger­prints have been tak­en, and video mate­r­i­al, lap­tops and mobile phones have been seized by the Gene­va Police. The dis­pro­por­tion­ate char­ac­ter of the mea­sures tak­en to pre­vent a non-vio­lent action, gives rea­son to ques­tion the under­ly­ing motive of this inter­ven­tion of the Gene­va Police.

Jeroen Ver­ho­even strong­ly rejects the meth­ods of the Swiss Police Detec­tives, who use anti-ter­ror­ist laws to intim­i­date and muz­zle anti-4x4ac­tivists and says that: “Appar­ent­ly point­ing out the risks of cli­mate change is equal to alarm­ing the pub­lic and as such a crim­i­nal act under Swiss law”.
Only car man­u­fac­tur­ers seem to have the right to “inform” the gen­er­al pub­lic trough adver­tis­ing for cli­mate killing gas-guz­zlers.

Because Cli­mate Change is indeed a “threat which can alarm the gen­er­al pub­lic”, the Euro­pean groups unit­ed in the 4x4network will con­tin­ue, despite the intim­i­da­tions, to demand bind­ing leg­is­la­tion for the emis­sions of new­ly sold cars, with a tar­get of 120gC02/km by 2012.

Con­tact:
Jeroen Ver­ho­even +32.2 542 61 01 (mobile phone seized…)
http://www.4x4network.org/

Anti-Trident Protest at Atomic Weapons Establishment — 19th March

Almost thir­ty demon­stra­tors braved the chilly ear­ly morn­ing weath­er at the gates of the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment in Alder­mas­ton, Berk­shire — Britain’s nuclear bomb fac­to­ry — to protest against Par­lia­men­t’s deci­sion last Wednes­day to renew Tri­dent, and against the con­struc­tion and devel­op­ment work that has been going on all the while at the site, even before any demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion has been made on the future of Britain’s nuclear war­heads. Par­tic­u­lar­ly notice­able is the work on the Ori­on laser, which is designed to cir­cum­vent the Com­pre­hen­sive Test Ban Treaty and facil­i­tate the devel­op­ment and test­ing of a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads, in con­tra­ven­tion of the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty.

Peace flagsAlmost thir­ty demon­stra­tors braved the chilly ear­ly morn­ing weath­er at the gates of the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment in Alder­mas­ton, Berk­shire — Britain’s nuclear bomb fac­to­ry — to protest against Par­lia­men­t’s deci­sion last Wednes­day to renew Tri­dent, and against the con­struc­tion and devel­op­ment work that has been going on all the while at the site, even before any demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion has been made on the future of Britain’s nuclear war­heads. Par­tic­u­lar­ly notice­able is the work on the Ori­on laser, which is designed to cir­cum­vent the Com­pre­hen­sive Test Ban Treaty and facil­i­tate the devel­op­ment and test­ing of a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads, in con­tra­ven­tion of the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty.

The action was called by Block the Builders, fresh from their suc­cess­ful block­ade of Par­lia­ment Square in Lon­don on Wednes­day. Amongst those present on Mon­day were the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kent Stu­dent CND — mak­ing their debut at Alder­mas­ton; the knit­ting grannies; and Jane from Bris­tol, who went to school local­ly and was cel­e­brat­ing her 85th birth­day; and of course mass­es of police! The sto­ry was cov­ered by the New­bury Week­ly News, who were par­tic­u­lar­ly intrigued by the knit­ting grannies:

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=3997

The next planned block­ade and protest at Alder­mas­ton has been called by Tri­dent Ploughshares for Tues­day 10th April (just after East­er week­end). Please come along and bring your mates too, and help keep up the pres­sure!

More details:
http://www.tridentploughshares.org/events.php3#1477
http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/index.php

Whitechapel Knees Up against Starbucks

Star­bucks, everyone’s favourite nip­ple-less mer­maid mer­chants, have decid­ed to move into the east end with a new store in Whitechapel. It’s an area with a vibrant com­mu­ni­ty of local cafés and small cof­fee shops, as well as being an area local to many Space Hijack­er agents. As you can prob­a­bly guess, we are less than pleased about our new neigh­bour…

Starbucks knees upStar­bucks, everyone’s favourite nip­ple-less mer­maid mer­chants, have decid­ed to move into the east end with a new store in Whitechapel. It’s an area with a vibrant com­mu­ni­ty of local cafés and small cof­fee shops, as well as being an area local to many Space Hijack­er agents. As you can prob­a­bly guess, we are less than pleased about our new neigh­bour…

We are wor­ried about an oncom­ing bland­ing of local cul­ture, as oth­er multi­na­tion­al chains fol­low Star­bucks into the area and attempt to gen­tri­fy it with their bland cor­po­rate décor, homoge­nous facades and taste­less prod­ucts. In defence of our area, and to show off the love­ly cul­ture we have, we are putting on a tea par­ty out­side the new Star­bucks!

We will be set­ting up a stall and giv­ing out free fair trade teas, home made sand­wich­es, and all man­ner of oth­er good­ies to our neigh­bours, in an attempt to show what the area will be miss­ing if Star­bucks and their ilk are allowed to set­tle in.

Bring along tea, bis­cuits, home-made cakes, jams, and scones to share. Bring your din­ing room fur­ni­ture out into the street, bring bunting, music and of course bring friends.

1pm
Sat 24th March
Out­side the new Star­bucks
Whitechapel High St
Lon­don

Oppo­site Altab Ali Park
Tube — Aldgate east or Whitechapel
Bus – 25, 205, 106 or 254

http://www.spacehijackers.org

Friday 8th June 2007 — International Day of Direct Action against Climate Change and the G8

Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice — Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines ? the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice — Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines ? the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

We have a ten-year win­dow to act. As the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac G8 lead­ers meet in Ger­many, masked behind a bar­ri­er of fences and sol­diers, intent on lead­ing us fur­ther towards cat­a­stroph­ic and irre­versible cli­mate chaos, we must shout, scream and roar ‘no more’. Now is the time to take direct action and shut them down, them and their cli­mate crim­i­nal indus­try friends!

The 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Cli­mate Change and the G8 has been called by the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide Net­work. This is a call for autonomous, decen­tral­ized actions appro­pri­ate for your town, city, or local area. Use this inter­na­tion­al day of action to sup­port local strug­gles against oil refiner­ies, gas pipelines, strip mines and coal-fired pow­er plants. Dis­rupt the finan­cial back­ers of the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Organ­ise work­shops to spread sus­tain­able post-petro­le­um liv­ing skills. Find a weak point in the infra­struc­ture of resource exploita­tion and throw a lit­er­al or sym­bol­ic wrench in the works. It’s time to vis­it your local pol­luters and give ’em hell!

We already know of actions planned across the UK, North Amer­i­ca, Ger­many, Cana­da and Aus­tralia and that’s just the start! By 8th June actions will be planned around the world. Pass this call out on to all envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, cli­mate action, rad­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and relat­ed move­ments in all the G8 coun­tries and the Glob­al South.

Ris­ing Tide will cre­ate a col­lec­tion of out­reach and agit-prop mate­ri­als (includ­ing this call out in five dif­fer­ent lan­guages) that can be used by groups around the world to organ­ise local­ly. These mate­ri­als will be down­load­able from www.risingtide.org.uk and http://risingtidenorthamerica.org.

Direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are the ratio­nal response in this time of cri­sis. Sup­port the 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action against Cli­mate Change and the G8! Tell us about planned actions for cli­mate jus­tice being planned in your com­mu­ni­ty. Con­tact us — info@risingtide.org.uk and contact@risingtidenorthamerica.org

In June 2007 the G8 will under­stand the mean­ing of rebel­lion, revolt and rev­o­lu­tion. Their recipe for cat­a­stro­phe will be met with our world­wide resis­tance!

York Vikings go berserk over Trident

19.03.2007
A twelve strong group from York, dressed as Vikings, have suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed both entrances to the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base. The coor­di­nat­ed action com­plete­ly closed the base for half an hour this morn­ing. Four men and eight women were arrest­ed in the peace­ful protest.

Faslane Viking protest 1
Faslane Viking protest 2
Faslane Viking protest 3
19.03.2007
A twelve strong group from York, dressed as Vikings, have suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed both entrances to the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base. The coor­di­nat­ed action com­plete­ly closed the base for half an hour this morn­ing. Four men and eight women were arrest­ed in the peace­ful protest.

One of the pro­test­ers, Richard Lane, said “The Vikings slaugh­tered tens of thou­sands of peo­ple but they did so over half a mil­len­ni­um. Tri­dent could do the same in a minute.” Dave Tay­lor of York Green Par­ty said “What­ev­er hap­pened to the eth­i­cal for­eign pol­i­cy that New Labour once promised?” “There is noth­ing eth­i­cal about spend­ing bil­lions of pounds on weapons that the human race can­not afford to use,” he added.

The base is sub­ject to a year long cam­paign reject­ing nuclear weapons and, in par­tic­u­lar, the renew­al of Tri­dent. This has attract­ed a lot of inter­na­tion­al sup­port. So far, near­ly 600 peo­ple from all over the world have been arrest­ed in as many actions and block­ades.

4 anti-military activists from Spain poured gallons of red paint over themselves at Faslane

A group of 15 Span­ish activists from five dif­fer­ent areas of Spain, all belong­ing to the Span­ish Con­scien­cious Objec­tion Move­ment, arrived at Faslane for the week-end. With ban­ners, song and dance they protest­ed at the UK’s pos­ses­sion and deploy­ment of nuclear weapons.

Faslane red paint protest 2
Faslane red paint protest 3
Faslane red paint protest 1
A group of 15 Span­ish activists from five dif­fer­ent areas of Spain, all belong­ing to the Span­ish Con­scien­cious Objec­tion Move­ment, arrived at Faslane for the week-end. With ban­ners, song and dance they protest­ed at the UK’s pos­ses­sion and deploy­ment of nuclear weapons.

Last Thurs­day march 18th the British passed the updat­ing of their nuclear arse­nal, includ­ing the nuclear sub­marines nuclear­es with Tri­dent mis­siles with more destruc­tive pow­er (12 nuclear heads) than the bombs
thrown over Hirosi­ma and Nagasa­ki. The cost of this pro­grame goes up to 30.000 mil­lions of euros. These are real mass destruc­tion weapons

In view of this, anti­mil­i­tarist activists of difer­ent parts of the Span­ish State have trav­elled to the mil­i­tary base where this sub­marines are locat­ed in Faslane (Scot­land), to car­ry out an action of block­ade.
This anti­mil­i­tarist action is with­in the frame­work of a cam­paign that is tak­ing place since last octo­ber. Up to now there have been 579 peo­ple from all ovr the world arreested in sev­er­al actions of block­ade. Also,
in front of the mil­i­tary base, there is a peace camp (Faslane Peace Camp) to demand the dis­ar­ma­ment of the base and the non-pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons. This Peace Camp has been oper­at­ing for 25 years.

AA-MOC has been work­ing for years to build a world with­out wars where Armies and weapons ‑par­tic­u­lary if they are nuclear- have no place, a world where the huge mil­i­tary expens­es (almost 18.000 mil­lions of euros
in the Span­ish State this year) are devot­ed to cov­er social neces­si­ties.

Today AA-MOC has bock­ad­ed the North gate of the Mil­i­tary Base of Faslane in Scot­land. To do so, two women and two men from Sala­man­ca, Madrid, Zaragoza and Ali­cante ‑sup­port­ed by oth­er activists of the State- have
poured red paint over them­selves. The red colour sym­bol­izes the suf­fer­ing and the blood­shed that these weapons of mass destruc­tion can cause. The paint has imped­ed the imme­di­ate deten­tion of the activists.
Final­ly they have been arrest­ed and moved to difer­ent police sta­tions. They were released ten hours lat­er with­out charges.

Tele­phone for inter­views: (34) 609.469.599 ó (34) 696.343.586
To dowm­load pho­tos: http://www.box.net/shared/1d8sqy8gcy
Video: http://www.box.net/shared/m1om1e29pc
Fur­ther info (span­ish): www.insumissia.org

http://www.faslane365.org

Camp Titnore needs your help!

Camp Tit­nore near Wor­thing in Sus­sex could do with some com­mit­ted cam­paign­ers to come and lend a hand. Com­ing up to a year in res­i­dence (May 28) the camp could do with some new blood. Be part of group aim­ing to stop Tescos and oth­er scum-bags trash one of the last remain­ing ancient wood­lands on the Sus­sex coastal plain.

Camp Tit­nore near Wor­thing in Sus­sex could do with some com­mit­ted cam­paign­ers to come and lend a hand. Com­ing up to a year in res­i­dence (May 28) the camp could do with some new blood. Be part of group aim­ing to stop Tescos and oth­er scum-bags trash one of the last remain­ing ancient wood­lands on the Sus­sex coastal plain.

We could do with some new camp mem­bers down Tit­nore way. This is a very well defend­ed site, but vet­er­an anti-road cam­paign­ers as well as new blood would be real­ly wel­come. With sum­mer round the cor­ner this is a beau­ti­ful part of the coun­try and the camp ben­e­fits from a well organ­ised sup­port group in the near­by estate, Wor­thing and Brighton. The for­est eco-sys­tem, plus lake is threat­ened by 850 homes, a new Tescos and attached busi­ness units. An evic­tion order has been in place since Novem­ber, but as devel­op­ment plans are stalled, an actu­al attempt­ed evic­tion could be months fur­ther down the line.

http://www.protectourwoodland.co.uk

Spring into Action provisional programme

The pro­vi­sion­al pro­gramme for Spring into Action is now avail­able. Check out the many excit­ing work­shops, from the sci­ence of cli­mate change, through food grow­ing to how to build a rock­et stove.

pro­gramme as pdf — application/pdf 62K

The pro­vi­sion­al pro­gramme for Spring into Action is now avail­able. Check out the many excit­ing work­shops, from the sci­ence of cli­mate change, through food grow­ing to how to build a rock­et stove.

pro­gramme as pdf — application/pdf 62K

The pro­vi­sion­al pro­gramme for Spring into Action is now avail­able. Check out the many excit­ing work­shops, from the sci­ence of cli­mate change, through food grow­ing to how to build a rock­et stove.

info@eastisdeclimateaction.org.uk
http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk

Demonstration and Carnival against the Pipeline- Saturday 24th March, Trebanos

As part of the ongo­ing cam­paign against the pro­posed 150 mile liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas pipeline run­ning through South Wales at a dan­ger­ous­ly high pres­sure, there will be march through the affect­ed vil­lage of Tre­banos, fol­lowed by a ral­ly at Tre­banos RFC club­house.

Stop LNG pipeline bannerAs part of the ongo­ing cam­paign against the pro­posed 150 mile liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas pipeline run­ning through South Wales at a dan­ger­ous­ly high pres­sure, there will be march through the affect­ed vil­lage of Tre­banos, fol­lowed by a ral­ly at Tre­banos RFC club­house.

We invite any­one who wish­es to express their con­cern at the envi­ron­men­tal impact and safe­ty con­sid­er­a­tions of this devel­op­ment, or who wish­es to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple who’s lives are being affect­ed by it.

Meet 2pm at the Lidl Carpark in Pon­tar­dawe to LEAVE FROM THE BOTTOM OF GLYNMEIRCH ROAD AT 2:30PM

Please bring ban­ners, music, colour, flags, fan­cy dress, friends, fam­i­ly and pets.

For more info check out:
http://www.fightthepipe.co.uk
http://www.safehavenpembs.co.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk/bristol/pipeline

There will be a minibus from Cardiff, tak­ing peo­ple direct­ly to the start of the march.

Times from car park at the rear of Cardiff Cen­tral train sta­tion: 10.00 am & 12.00 noon.
Times from Tre­banos RFC club­house to Cardiff Cen­tral: 4.00 pm & 6.00 pm

Tick­ets for a return jour­ney are £5. Please con­tact Amy on 07828671422 or email neverwork@riseup.net to book your place on the minibus.

Please note: there is a lim­it­ed num­ber of places so please make sure your place in secured by no lat­er than Tues­day 20th. If mon­ey is a prob­lem for you, we still may be able to find you space — get in touch!
http://www.fightthepipe.co.uk

Faslane Peace Camp needs visitors!

Faslane Peace Camp recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed its 23rd year of direct action to oppose the Tri­dent nuclear sub­marines sta­tioned 30 miles north of Glas­gow. Vis­i­tors are always wel­come, for a day, a week, or longer!

Faslane Peace Camp recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed its 23rd year of direct action to oppose the Tri­dent nuclear sub­marines sta­tioned 30 miles north of Glas­gow. Vis­i­tors are always wel­come, for a day, a week, or longer!

Direc­tions: Train from Glas­gow Queen Street or 216 bus from Jamaica Street to Helens­burgh Cen­tral. Then catch the 316 bus to the peace camp.

For more info and to check the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion: 01436 820 901
faslanepeacecamp@hotmail.com