Faslane 365 builds

9/1/07 Fol­low­ing on from yes­ter­days protest by aca­d­e­mics from across the world and stu­dents from Oxford, Cam­bridge, Sus­sex and Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ties, today seen elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum con­verge on Faslane in protest against nuclear weapons. Yes­ter­days protest seen aca­d­e­mics hold sem­i­nars on papers they had researched on the sub­ject of nuclear weapons, … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Faslane 365 builds”

Faslane 365 tent
Faslane 365 academics & students
9/1/07
Fol­low­ing on from yes­ter­days protest by aca­d­e­mics from across the world and stu­dents from Oxford, Cam­bridge, Sus­sex and Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ties, today seen elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum con­verge on Faslane in protest against nuclear weapons.

Yes­ter­days protest seen aca­d­e­mics hold sem­i­nars on papers they had researched on the sub­ject of nuclear weapons, which start­ed on the pave­ment but even­tu­al­ly moved onto the road. Over­whelmed by sheer num­bers, with over thir­ty stu­dents and rough­ly fifty aca­d­e­mics, the police had no option but to leave pro­tes­tors block­ing the main entrance to the nuclear base. When it was clear that police were in no posi­tion to clear the road any time soon, and due to the cold tem­per­a­tures and heavy rain, pro­tes­tors erect­ed tents, set up a tea table with a gas pow­ered urn and even­tu­al­ly brought a bra­zier and light a fire in the main road. After five hours Strath­clyde police man­aged to mobilise enough offi­cers and along with rough­ly twen­ty MoD police offi­cers spent a fur­ther hour clear­ing the road of peo­ple. Pro­tes­tors man­aged to keep the gate blocked for just over six hours and five min­utes, which works out as three-hun­dred and six­ty five min­utes, an obvi­ous­ly sig­nif­i­cant record for the Faslane 365 project. There was a total of sev­en­teen aca­d­e­mics and eigh­teen stu­dents arrest­ed.

Today elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from across the UK and Europe turned out at Faslane to once again protest against nuclear weapons. Politi­cians from Labour, SNP, SSP, the Green Par­ty and Sol­i­dar­i­ty along with sup­port­ers gath­ered at ten o’clock to add to the grow­ing protests against nuclear weapons. Krista van Velzen, an MP from Hol­land, urged police to join the pro­tes­tors and uphold inter­na­tion­al law by arrest­ing those who worked on Tri­dent instead of those blockad­ing. She remind­ed them of Ger­man police offi­cers who recent­ly block­ad­ed trains car­ry­ing nuclear waste. SSP MSP Rosie Kane point­ed out the hypocrisy of the UK gov­ern­ment putting pres­sure on oth­er coun­tries over nuclear weapons, and yet they are prepar­ing to replace the Tri­dent sub­marines with a pos­si­ble cost of £76 bil­lion.

After speech­es sev­en elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives and two oth­er sup­port­ers moved onto the road and blocked traf­fic. They were Krista van Velzen (Dutch MP, Social­ist Par­ty), Car­lyn Leck­ie, Rosie Kane, Frances Cur­ran (MSP’s for the SSP), Leanne Wood (AM, Plaid Cym­ru), Jill Evans (MEP, Plaid Cym­ru) and Car­olyn Lucas (MEP, Green). The two sup­port­ers were Bri­an Quail and Har­ry McEachan. They were tak­en to Clyde­bank and Dum­b­ar­ton police sta­tions and were released lat­er this evening with­out charge. These last two days take the total arrests at Faslane since the start of Faslane 365 to four hun­dred and sev­en­ty three, with six­ty one days of pres­ence.

info@faslane365.org
http://www.faslane365.org

New camp set up on route of National Grid’s monster gas pipeline in Wales

9.01.2007

Yes­ter­day (Mon­day 8th) a small camp was set-up across a pub­lic foot­path (in tre­banos, wales) when con­struc­tion work­ers tried to resume work on the gas pipe line. Peo­ple are also occu­py­ing the pipe, and all work has been stopped. The camp can­not be removed as it has been set-up on a pub­lic foot­path. We need peo­ple URGENTLY, to sup­port the small camp, do direct actions on oth­er con­sturction work, occu­py pipes, and to be part of future plans to fight the pipe across wales.

9.01.2007

Yes­ter­day (Mon­day 8th) a small camp was set-up across a pub­lic foot­path (in tre­banos, wales) when con­struc­tion work­ers tried to resume work on the gas pipe line. Peo­ple are also occu­py­ing the pipe, and all work has been stopped. The camp can­not be removed as it has been set-up on a pub­lic foot­path. We need peo­ple URGENTLY, to sup­port the small camp, do direct actions on oth­er con­sturction work, occu­py pipes, and to be part of future plans to fight the pipe across wales.

call 07743495582 and find out how you can get involved.
local group web­site with infor­ma­tion on the pipe: www.safehavenforum.co.uk

PRESS RELEASE — 8TH JANUARY 2007

NO EMBARGO
===========
A coali­tion of local peo­ple and cli­mate action groups, includ­ing Safe­haven and Ris­ing Tide have returned to the route of Nation­al Grid’s mon­ster gas pipeline. They have set up camp on pub­lic foot­paths lead­ing into the con­struc­tion site off Glyn Meirch road, Tre­banos, and are block­ing vehi­cles from gain­ing access. They are back to halt work to stop the destruc­tion of coun­try­side, com­mu­ni­ties and cli­mate.

Mil­ford Haven is today under armed guard due to the threat of ter­ror­ism. Yet this pipeline will com­mit us to anoth­er thir­ty years of fuelling a cause of ter­ror­ism: West­ern cor­po­ra­tions tak­ing coun­tries gas to expand con­sump­tion and their prof­its.

This pipeline will also con­tribute to anoth­er form of ter­ror­ism: cli­mate change. The effects of cli­mate chance on peo­ple are going to be cat­a­stroph­ic yet the gov­ern­ment is con­tin­u­ing to live in the “Carbon Dinosaurâ€? era by refus­ing to move on from fos­sil fuels.

The Stern Report said that we need to reduce green­house gas emis­sions dras­ti­cal­ly and soon or face run­away cli­mate change. A spokesper­son for Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide said “Building the pipe is a step in exact­ly the wrong direc­tion. The £700 mil­lion it will cost could be spent on renew­ables and ener­gy effi­cien­cy. We will take sus­tained direct action to stop it, tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for our lives and our future. â€?

Here in South Wales, Nation­al Quid have been bull­doz­ing their way through com­mu­ni­ties and land­scapes, show­ing con­tempt for both. Safe­ty issues have been ignored and con­sul­ta­tion has been a farce.

As a result of the pre­vi­ous protest, a vic­to­ry was won and the Nation­al Grid were forced to stop blast­ing. How­ev­er locals are still very con­cerned about the risk of an avalanche, sim­i­lar to those of Aber­fan and Pan­teg, as the pipe is being built on old mine work­ings.

Fur­ther­more, the Health and Safe­ty Exec­u­tive have said it is guar­an­teed that a hole will appear with­in the next thir­ty years in the pipeline.

It has been proven that this pipeline is not required for UK gas needs by DrRichard Fur­ness, an inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised gas pipeline expert.

We are here to revent the wan­ton destruc­tion of our coun­try­side and our basic human rights, as well as to safe­guard those of future gen­er­a­tions. We are demand­ing that this pipeline project is scrapped.

For fur­ther details

Rachel Evans 07790450747
Site Phone 07733 190958

26th Jan — Leeds Critical Mass callout

At Novem­ber’s ride, two crit­i­cal mass rid­ers were arrest­ed and assault­ed by police. They were sub­se­quent­ly released with­out charges when the cops realised the rid­ers had­n’t actu­al­ly done any­thing wrong.

Leeds Critical Mass flierAt Novem­ber’s ride, two crit­i­cal mass rid­ers were arrest­ed and assault­ed by police. They were sub­se­quent­ly released with­out charges when the cops realised the rid­ers had­n’t actu­al­ly done any­thing wrong.

Crit­i­cal Mass in Leeds will con­tin­ue, and to show our deter­mi­na­tion let’s make the Jan­u­ary ride the biggest yet.

Crit­i­cal Mass gath­ers out­side Mil­len­ni­um Square every last Fri­day of the month at around 17:30. The next ride will be Jan­u­ary 26th.

http://www.leedscommunity.info/wiki/index.php?title=Critical_Mass

Your assis­tance in pub­li­cis­ing this ride would be appre­ci­at­ed. Fliers and posters are avail­able for down­load at http://www.sendspace.com/file/ot3h9v

York Critical Mass Report

7.1.2007

Crit­i­cal Mass returned to York on Fri­day with about two dozen rid­ers brav­ing the cold to take anoth­er ran­dom ride around the city to cel­e­brate cycling. The route took them to York’s newest road, round a round­about the high­est legal num­ber of times, and into a short inter­rup­tion from York’s boys in blue.

7.1.2007

Crit­i­cal Mass returned to York on Fri­day with about two dozen rid­ers brav­ing the cold to take anoth­er ran­dom ride around the city to cel­e­brate cycling. The route took them to York’s newest road, round a round­about the high­est legal num­ber of times, and into a short inter­rup­tion from York’s boys in blue.

Despite the low­er num­bers, we had no trou­ble tak­ing even mul­ti­ple lanes of traf­fic, even with aggres­sive dri­vers accel­er­at­ing into the ‘Mass. The cops who wit­nessed this, instead of book­ing the dri­ver, decid­ed to stop the cyclists to have a nice chat with us about the high­way code, stay­ing safe on the roads and not play­ing our music too loud. Tsk, tsk! After this brief inter­lude we cycled on to the sound of toots of sup­port (believe it or not) from motorists and even cheers from pedes­tri­ans and passers-by.

At one point the ride head­ed out on Lawrence Street, and into James Street. Some­one shout­ed ‘its a dead­end’. Well, it used to be: now it con­tin­ues through to Lay­erthor­pe, cour­tesy of the new ‘link road’. Despite claims that the new road is des­per­ate­ly need­ed to relieve traf­fic con­ges­tion it was absolute­ly desert­ed apart from us and a few kids prac­tis­ing bike stunts who joined us for a while. The new road cuts across the old cycle route that went straight across the city, now with­out even a tun­nel or bridge to join up the two sec­tions of the cycle path.

After rid­ing past Sains­bury’s and out along Monkgate, we encoun­tered an old favourite of Crit­i­cal Mass, the round­about. It is legal to go 2 1/2 times around such a fea­ture; poor motorists, won­der­ing what we were doing. We then rode through the Groves (qui­et­ly!) and into town along Gilly­gate (this leaves only Lord May­or’s Walk before we’ve been every­where on the inner ring road).

There’s been a request for extra rid­ers to go to Leeds on Jan­u­ary 26th (from 5:30 in Mil­le­ni­um Square), as they were less lucky with the police last time. And with Feb­ru­ary often a bad month for oth­er Crit­i­cal Mass rides, please make an extra effort to bring your bike down to the Min­ster at 5:30pm on 2nd Feb­ru­ary for the next instal­ment of York Crit­i­cal Mass.

Sea Shepherd flagship now running as a Pirate

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety flag­ship Far­ley Mowat is now offi­cial­ly a pirate ves­sel. The ship cleared Aus­tralian Cus­toms in Hobart, Tas­ma­nia, on Decem­ber 29th, 2006, only hours before the nation of Belize struck our flag. The Far­ley Mowat has no home port and can be siezed and sunk by any navy.

Farley Mowat pirate ship

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety flag­ship Far­ley Mowat is now offi­cial­ly a pirate ves­sel. The ship cleared Aus­tralian Cus­toms in Hobart, Tas­ma­nia, on Decem­ber 29th, 2006, only hours before the nation of Belize struck our flag. The Far­ley Mowat has no home port and can be siezed and sunk by any navy.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety flag­ship, ‘Far­ley Mowat’, is now offi­cial­ly a pirate ves­sel. We are at sea with­out a flag, in search of ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions in hos­tile and remote waters at the bot­tom of the world.

The Far­ley Mowat cleared Aus­tralian Cus­toms in Hobart, Tas­ma­nia, on Decem­ber 29th, 2006, only hours before the nation of Belize struck our flag. The Belize reg­istry had only been issued ten days before on Decem­ber 19, 2006

The Belize reg­istry was sought after Britain pulled the reg­istry in ear­ly Decem­ber the same day it was issued. In Octo­ber, the Far­ley Mowat, reg­is­tered under the Cana­di­an flag since April, 2002, had her reg­istry sus­pend­ed by Cana­da.

This is all appar­ent­ly part of a strat­e­gy by Japan to use its eco­nom­ic mus­cle to lean on any nation that allows us to be reg­is­tered under their flag. Accord­ing to a cred­i­ble legal source in Mel­bourne, the Far­ley Mowat as an unreg­is­tered pirate ves­sel may be inter­dict­ed at will by any naval ves­sel of any gov­ern­ment, its crew arrest­ed, and the ship sunk.

‘This is incred­i­ble but not sur­pris­ing’, respond­ed Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, ‘The oceans are crawl­ing with poach­ers fly­ing flags of con­ve­nience and the Japan­ese and Nor­we­gian reg­is­tered whalers are ille­gal­ly slaugh­ter­ing whales in sanc­tu­ar­ies and killing endan­gered species, yet we are forced to have our flag struck for oppos­ing these ille­gal activ­i­ties.’

The Far­ley Mowat will con­tin­ue on to the South­ern Oceans with­out a flag.

‘We have a mis­sion and that mis­sion is to save whales’, said Cap­tain Wat­son, ‘We will not sur­ren­der this ship to any navy and we will not com­ply with any order to can­cel our cam­paign. If any­one wish­es to stop us from pro­tect­ing whales they will have to sink us.’ The cap­tain and the crew of the Far­ley Mowat are not con­cerned about being called pirates.’

‘It was not the British Navy that end­ed pira­cy in the Caribbean, it was Cap­tain Hen­ry Mor­gan who did that and he was a pirate’, Said Cap­tain Wat­son, ‘I am proud to add my name to the long list of hon­ourable and noble pirates like Sir Fran­cis Drake, John Paul Jones and Jean LaFitte. To that end we have our own ver­sion of the Pret­ty Red or Joli Rouge and it is the crossed shepherd’s staff and Neptune’s tri­dent under a human skull engraved with the yin and yang of a dol­phin and a whale. If they want us to be pirates than we will be damn pirates but we will not aban­don the whales to the agony and mis­ery of the har­poons with­out a fight. We are pirates of com­pas­sion in pur­suit of pirates of prof­it.’

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has been oppos­ing ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties since 1977 and 2007 marks the 30th anniver­sary of Sea Shep­herd high seas inter­ven­tions against whalers and ille­gal fish­ing oper­a­tions in the world’s oceans.

Dur­ing the entire three decades of Sea Shep­herd activ­i­ties not one per­son has been injured and not one Sea Shep­herd activists has been con­vict­ed of a felony crime. Sea Shep­herd inter­venes against ille­gal activ­i­ties in accor­dance with the prin­ci­ples estab­lished by and con­tained with­in the Unit­ed Nation World Char­ter for Nature.

tree clearance starts at Tara — help please

6.1.07

Tara digger protest
Tara beehive archaelogyTara M3 route map6.1.07
Oppo­nents of the new M3 motor­way in Co Meath have mount­ed a demon­stra­tion in the Tara-Skryne val­ley today to protest at the felling of trees along the route of the pro­posed road.

The pro­tes­tors are accus­ing the Nation­al Roads Author­i­ty of tear­ing down mature trees at sev­er­al sites on the route, includ­ing the his­toric Rath Lugh area.

——————>

” in the Tara-Skryne war­zone. Seri­ous dam­age has been done to Rath Lugh, Ard­sal­lagh and Sol­diers’ Hill (Blundlestown). But we were able to slow down ongo­ing destruc­tion work to a cer­tain degree with “direct action ” mes­sures.

The dam­age to Rath Lugh is the heav­i­est loss we had to accept. And I have the feel­ing tree felling and earth-removal from around Rath Lugh has not been con­clud­ed yet.

The only area still undam­aged so far is a Coillte plan­ta­tion known is Lis­mullin Woods near Rath Lugh. The Gabhra runs through those woods, and a base camp is under in the plan­ta­tion to serve as last line of defence for our archae­o­log­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal her­itage with­in the Tara — Skryne Val­ley.

Please, if you got the time, head out to this camp, or the nerve cen­tre of the Vig­il on Tara Hill, and play your role in our defen­sive war for our her­itage and cul­ture. Basic food sup­plies are always need­ed and wel­come. ”

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/

See also:

Irish Times: Pro­test­ers bring tem­po­rary halt to work on new M3 motor­way (4 Jan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/message/2097

Irish Inde­pen­dent: Tara pro­test­ers dis­rupt work on M3 (4 Jan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/message/2100

Irish News: M‑way pro­tes­tors vow to save Tara her­itage site (4 Jan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/message/2102

Irish Times: Call for an end to clear­ing of trees near Tara (6 Jan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/taralitigation/message/533

CHICKEN FARM RAIDED, 22 CHICKS FREED

Click here for pic­tures from the res­cue.
View video here: http://www.sarconline.co.uk/tv

anony­mous com­mu­nique:

“0100hrs, 03/11/2006, Fovant Down, Wilt­shire.

Click here for pic­tures from the res­cue.
View video here: http://www.sarconline.co.uk/tv

anony­mous com­mu­nique:

“0100hrs, 03/11/2006, Fovant Down, Wilt­shire.
Tar­get: Lloy­d’s Ani­mal Feeds Ltd — Live­stock Divi­sion.

Look­out in place, tools at the ready, we began. Large bolt-cut­ters were used to chop through the tight secu­ri­ty: one small pad­lock hold­ing the door closed.

We shone our torch­es into the dark­ness and could­nt believe our eyes. Rows upon rows of bat­tery cages, crammed full with thou­sands of Broil­er chicks. They were being kept ille­gal­ly in the tiny cages and grown to become “food” for the glut­to­nous, blood-thirsty meat indus­try.

With­in min­utes we were done. We left hun­dreds of thou­sands of inno­cent lives behind that night, des­ig­nat­ing them to a life of hell and a death that is beyond words. But with us we took 22 friends who are now liv­ing the life they were meant to live: free from exploita­tion and suf­fer­ing in a sys­tem equat­ed to con­cen­tra­tion camps.

For all those left behind, we urge you to act. Ani­mals need YOU, and they need you NOW. They wait inside locked build­ings across the world.. it is up to YOU whether you reach for your bolt-cut­ters and break them out. Noth­ing stands in your way, except your­self.

Ded­i­cat­ed to cur­rent pris­on­ers Don Cur­ray and Joseph Har­ris, and deceased ani­mal lib­er­a­tionist Bar­ry Horne, who passed away five years ago on Novem­ber 5th. The fight goes on in your spir­it.

Until the last fac­to­ry farm is brought to the ground, until the final slaugh­ter­house is made ille­gal, until every lab shuts its doors, until all ani­mals are free from the shack­les self­ish bas­tards place upon them… A.L.F.”

activists lock down Alcoas’ London offices

Late on New Years Day activists tar­get­ed 2 Alcoa front com­pa­nies, (Kawneer in cen­tral Lon­don and ASA in North Lon­don.) Both com­pa­nies had their front access doors locked shut with D‑locks and chains, and were left grafit­ti mes­sages that they should leave Ice­land straight away.

Alcoa graffiti
Alcoa London lockedLate on New Years Day activists tar­get­ed 2 Alcoa front com­pa­nies, (Kawneer in cen­tral Lon­don and ASA in North Lon­don.) Both com­pa­nies had their front access doors locked shut with D‑locks and chains, and were left grafit­ti mes­sages that they should leave Ice­land straight away.
They are destroy­ing the last pris­tine wilder­ness in Europe right now, as well as trash­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems all over the world.
See www.savingiceland.org for a mas­sive amount of resources and infor­ma­tion.

This is a clear mes­sage to all heavy indus­tries — this year, 2007 will be a year of dis­sent and rev­o­lu­tion­ary change. We will no longer hold back, the future of our world and our peo­ples is at enor­mous risk and the time to act is now!
No longer will we allow these multi­na­tion­als to destroy with impuni­ty, hid­ing behind the anonymi­ty of glob­al cap­i­tal­ism.
These are the first drops of a storm that you have reaped and which will inten­si­fy! We will tar­get you every­where and at any time. You will pay for your dirty dol­lars with inse­cu­ri­ty. We are com­mit­ted to shut you down!

It is also a mes­sage to our move­ments. We have been warn­ing of hav­ing lit­tle time left to make change, for too long. That time has run out and the time to act is NOW
We see noth­ing to cel­e­brate in the pass­ing and start­ing of anoth­er year unless it is to her­ald a year of mon­u­men­tal, rev­o­lu­tion­ary change; where a sys­tem based on sense­less, self­ish, greed is destroyed and sys­tems based on respect, respon­si­bil­i­ty and coop­er­a­tion are sup­port­ed to flour­ish.

we are all ‘the peo­ple’
where is every­where
and
now is the time

LOVE+RAGE

Didcot power station trashing lakes — house squatted

Hi all a group of us opposed to the destruc­tion of Radley Lakes by infill­ing them with pul­verised fly ash (PFA) from N pow­ers coal burn­ing Did­cot pow­er sta­tion, have squat­ted a large house on the edge of Thrupp Lake and are now in legal pos­ses­sion. Our inten­tion was to use the house and its ground as a field cen­ter for locals and vis­i­tors, how­ev­er N pow­ers lawyers have been busy and they are in court on wed 10th of Jan to get this over­turned and us evict­ed. We intend to resist this and need peo­ple to turn up who are pre­pared to help defend our stake in the lakes future, so if you get down there for the 10th or short­ly after please do so, for updates call me on 07762733332.

Radley LakesHi all a group of us opposed to the destruc­tion of Radley Lakes by infill­ing them with pul­verised fly ash (PFA) from N pow­ers coal burn­ing Did­cot pow­er sta­tion, have squat­ted a large house on the edge of Thrupp Lake and are now in legal pos­ses­sion. Our inten­tion was to use the house and its ground as a field cen­ter for locals and vis­i­tors, how­ev­er N pow­ers lawyers have been busy and they are in court on wed 10th of Jan to get this over­turned and us evict­ed. We intend to resist this and need peo­ple to turn up who are pre­pared to help defend our stake in the lakes future, so if you get down there for the 10th or short­ly after please do so, for updates call me on 07762733332.

We also need the fol­low­ing:
Ladders/steps
gas heaters,
blan­kets, duvets, sleep­ing bags,
fur­ni­ture,
fluro jack­ets, cook­ing and eat­ing uten­sils,
Net­ting (army/climbing type),
lock on equip­ment,
weld­ing equip­ment,
tarps,
food and gen­er­al stuff.

Fail­ing this sign peti­tion at
http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk/documents/SaveRadleyLakesPetition.htm or
vis­it the web­site at
http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk/

or send us a let­ter or dona­tion to

RLLF,
San­dles,
Thrupp Lane,
Radley (Low­er),
Oxford­shire,
OX14 3NG.

GREYHOUND TRACK DAUBED IN PAINT

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“Portsmouth Grey­hound sta­di­um has been treat­ed to a new paint job. Slo­gans such as ‘ALF’ and ‘You bet they die” were daubed in red paint on the out­er perime­ter fenc­ing to draw atten­tion to the local peo­ple about what is going on inside that hell hole.

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“Portsmouth Grey­hound sta­di­um has been treat­ed to a new paint job. Slo­gans such as ‘ALF’ and ‘You bet they die” were daubed in red paint on the out­er perime­ter fenc­ing to draw atten­tion to the local peo­ple about what is going on inside that hell hole.

Until all are free
ALF”