News In Brief
* Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s state visit was disrupted by Free Tibet and other human rights groups. Police tried as hard as possible to prevent the President seeing anything offensive - banners and flags were confiscated and several arrests were made. Free Tibet’s campaign director commented ‘It is clear that the Chinese government’s most successful export has been its methods of suppressing free speech.’
* In Finland on 26.9.99 the main Finnish road building office was burnt down in Porvoo, about 40 km east of Helsinki.
* About eight hundred concerned citizens protested on 16 th October against the development of a Fortress Europe. The demonstration was part of the international Counter-Summit held in Tampere, Finland which aimed at creating more co-operation between non-governmental grassroot organisations in Europe. Two protesters were arrested, one for trying to improve one of the EU flags.
* After a 3 week trial, 3 women from Trident Ploughshares 2000 were acquitted of causing criminal damage to a Trident laboratory. The sheriff instructed the jury to acquit as the women had shown that Trident could be illegal and the women therefore had lawful excuse. The CPS is appealing to a higher court, but if upheld then this decision could start a precedent. A Tory spokesman said that the judgement would “encourage pacifist loonies”.
* Urgent Agenda For EF! Winter Moot:
Preparations for the winter moot are under. There has been some response to a call for agenda contributions but we want as many people’s thoughts and ideas on this as possible. The last winter moot was a response to a particular sense of crisis in the EF! network, and this year there is no obvious topic/s to be working on. We demand people’s thoughts on this! Please email wintermoot@yahoo.com with suggestions, by December 10th.
The next meeting will be in Manchester. Ring Manc EF! for details nearer the time.
* Southampton has a new squat cafe!
Platform 6,
c/o 6, Kent House,
Kent Street,
Southampton,
email: platform6@angelfire.com
* On 9th September an anonymous tip-off alerted Faslane peace camp that the MoD computer system had failed, making for easy access to the base. Three are facing malicious mischief and breach of bye-laws charges.