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| Newsletter | June 2001 |
Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Happy Birthday
1999 ended with the Millennium celebrations, everyone looked forward to a new dawn, a new beginning, a world that was a better place. When we all awoke what did we find, the same old environmental degradation, the same political corruption, the gap between rich and poor widening, a world still driven by greed.
The Blackwater Valley was no exception. At the end of 1999 it looked like we could defeat the airfield with the mass support that had been mobilised (a special mention in dispatches for the sterling work put in by Julie Kimber), people made decisions and started new lives, then reality broke in and it all collapsed.
BVEJ was established a year ago in part in reaction to the New Year Blues.
The Blackwater Valley lacked any effective environmental group. In part BVEJ was established to fill that void. But it's remit was to go much further, to recognise that environmental problems were part of much wider socio-economic problems. That unless we analysed and tried to change the wider picture we were doomed to failure as all those who had gone before.
We have established the environmental newsletter for the Blackwater Valley and beyond. We have managed to make the link between many diverse activities, both structurally and geographically. Many of the issues we have highlighted have been picked up by national and international media. Hopefully we have served an educational role and shown what can be achieved when people work together. We have provided help and highlighted issues for those further afield. Equally people outside the area have on several occasions offered their support for local issues, recognising what many nimbyies and reactionaries fail to recognise, that we are all part of the big picture, and that divided we are destined to fail. It is unfortunate that such help has been turned away by others who seem to have their own perverse agendas, something that stimulated our formation in the first place and that wherever and whenever possible we have tried to combat.
Lack of resources has prevented us from going much further. We have failed to produce a hard copy of our newsletter. We have not even managed to produce a pdf version so others can print it off. Our web sites are not functioning. Sadly we have made little headway in making local people, especially those who should know better, see that we are all part of the bigger picture and for the need to cooperate and work together.
Our biggest failure has been our failure to turn around the airfield campaign. By the time we were involved it was too late, it had been effectively lost. That is not to say we have given up and gone away. Far from it. Unlike every one else who has given up, we will continue to harry the operators and their cohorts at every opportunity and make it very clear we are in for the long haul.
We limp along on a wing and a prayer. It hard to believe we have now been around for all of one year. With your help and support we will still be around next year.
April issue was late due to the lack of a high speed connection. We then sent it out as an attachment of zero bytes.
Reference to GM animal feed in last month's newsletter should have been
Find a mistake, let us know and we will correct it.
We have at least two web sites. Neither are currently working. We will, eventually, get around to fixing these. Once fixed then all current and back information, including newsletters, briefings etc will be available for download. In the meantime please bear with us.
Criticism has quite rightly been levelled at George W Bush the Toxic Texan for reneging on Kyoto, but let us look a little closer to home at what the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor is doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A pet project to put solar panels on a community centre to generate electricity may save a little on CO2 emissions, may, as a demonstration project, encourage others to do the same. Far better to have demonstrated passive solar heating, but at least one small step in the right direction, but insignificant in comparison with the CO2 emissions from the business aviation at Farnborough Airport and all the other developments within the borough. To put the community project in context Oxford has pushed for 1,000 houses to have solar water heating and made arrangements for a massive discount to ensure the target is met.
Officers at Rushmoor get allowances to drive polluting cars, as perks they are allowed to buy or are given polluting cars. The dust-carts that collect our rubbish do not use environment friendly fuels. The borough has one official vehicle running on LPG. Other boroughs weight car allowance in favour of LPG, buy LPG vehicles, even have LPG pumps in the council car park. Other boroughs make it a condition of contract for dust-carts to run on CNG.
It is easy to see where the example is set. John Edwards, Rushmoor Director responsible for all environmental matters, has a £28,000, polluting BMW, purchased at the taxpayers expense.
If you are not in Rushmoor how does your borough fare?
Air pollution in Rushmoor is now at dangerous levels.
Areas bordering the M3 have been registering 60 micrograms per cubic metre of nitrogen dioxide. The maximum safe limit is 40 micrograms per cubic metre.
Other areas where there is cause for concern:
Farnborough main road (A325) 40 Farnborough Airfield 35
The massive developments within Farnborough, expansion of the airfield, can only make these figures worse.
Rushmoor is literally killing local residents.
If you refuse this planning application it must be for good and clear reasons that can be substantiated. -- Keith Holland, Rushmoor Head of Planning
This is going to give additional stress to a lot of residents because of the increase in traffic and as local members we have to voice those concerns. -- councillor Charlie Fraser-Fleming
It is the traffic we are concerned about. -- councillor Bob Parker
They have just shoehorned these eight houses in and it's bad overdevelopment of the site. -- councillor Pat Devereux
A planning inspector has overturned the council on a local housing development. Head of Planning Keith Holland has advised the council they must heed the inspector's advice. Councillors have said no, the development is overcrowded, will cause nuisance to neighbours.
Let us now go back a year to post the planning inquiry on the Local Plan and the inquiry inspectors key recommendations that the number of flights from Farnborough Airport be limited to ensure that the 1 in 100,000 risk contour does not extend over residential Farnborough. Rushmoor took legal advice on ignoring the planning inspector. Despite this, the gist of the legal advice was that a further public inquiry should be held. Officials pushed hard for adoption of a Local Plan that would suit TAG, councillors agreed.
Whilst no one wants to see grubby little housing developments and additional traffic generation the environmental impact upon the local community is nothing compared with that of the airfield which the council and officials fell over backwards to promote. As with the recent rejection of planning applications beneath the flight path, one rule for TAG, another for the local community.
[BVEJ Briefing #001 7 July 2000, BVEJ newsletter #0002 July 2000, BVEJ newsletter #0011 April 2001]
Barons, the BMW dealers on the main Farnborough Road have been given the go-ahead for expansion even though they are within the proposed PSZ - cf ban on Kindergarten extension and housing development of Sycamore Road. [BVEJ newsletter #0011 April 2001]
Surely a mere coincidence, Barons have given the go ahead for their trees in the flight path to get the chop.
Barons claim that their expansion will not lead to any more staff being employed. But surely expansion of their showrooms will lead to more customers, or do they have a few excess pounds they wish to shed?
PSZ policy prohibits any developments that leads to an increase in the congregation of people within the 1 in 100,000 risk contour. Barons are within the 1 in 100,000 risk contour.
One rule for business, another for the local community.
That is the opinion of a low ranking civil servant in the Airports Policy Division of DETR writing on behalf of Aviation Minister Chris Mullin to a local resident.
According to Paul Cox, 'the chance of third party casualties [at Farnborough] is likely to be very small, given the large amount of unpopulated land in the vicinity of the airport.' Cox makes this ludicrous statement to justify few casualties after admitting there to be 'a 25% risk of a crash outside of the airport boundaries during a 10 year period, assuming 28,000 business jet movements per year' (ie where many of us live). Residents of Farnborough, especially those living at the end of the runway, ie 'in the vicinity of the airport', will have noticed that they are living in a largely 'unpopulated' area! The area will of course become unpopulated once a major crash has occurred. Maybe Cox is looking into the future.
This crap from Cox is unfortunately typical of the garbage that comes from Rushmoor and other TAG backers and the misleading advice being given to ministers. Other similar crap is that the area is safe, crashes don't occur, local residents are not affected by noise or deteriorating air quality.
All those who are living in this 'unpopulated' area of Farnborough please let Chris Mullin have your views and how you are affected by this unwanted airport. chris_mullin@detr.gsi.gov.uk
Note: Chris Mullin has been replaced as Aviation Minister by Bob Ainsworth.
With their track record it was relief all round when Serco failed to get their grubby mitts on Nats. But it doesn't do for New Labour to offend Big Business too much so they have been offered (or likely to be) the consultation prize of a privatised MoD fire service. The contract is worth around £4 billion and is likely to lead to 2,1000 job losses. [BVEJ Newsletter #0011 April 2001]
Serco have a record of slashing jobs and cutting corners. They run prisons and detention centres for children and immigrants. Former deputy chief of defence procurement Air Marshal Sir Roger Austin serves as a fellow on Serco's strategic forum. It may be misery in the lower ranks, but at the top two Serco executives recently made £5 million cashing in their share options.
All sorts of emergencies have contingency plans in place. The worst case scenario for Farnborough apart from being hit by an asteroid or a nuclear missile would be an air crash. There appears to be no plans in place.
If you have not already done so, obtain and read a copy of the inaugural (May 2001) edition of Farnborough Airfield News. Pass the word on to your friends. greenworld@ntlworld.com
TAG sponsored concert in the park (King George V playing fields Farnborough) will take place on Sunday 1 July. Please help to picket the event during the evening.
DERA is to be split in two. One half (to satisfy the US government) will remain in government hands, the other half will be put into QinetiQ (who dreams up these bloody silly names?) and 49% sold off. James Love and John Egan (veteran of BAA and Jaguar sell-offs) have been signed up by New Labour to ease through the sell-off.
James Love was a one-time DERA finance director. When the Tories sold off the DERA support services, Love arranged the sale, then became managing director of the new company, Comax. Comax then sold its services back to the taxpayer. Comax was, until the facilities were taken over by TAG, running Farnborough Airport. Comax were bought out by the construction giant Amey which was a nice little windfall for Comax shareholders including Love. Love received a wadge of Amey shares and a seat on the Amey board as deputy managing director for its 'processing outsourcing division'.
Love resigned his post last year only to reappear on the board of the soon-to-be privatised QinetiQ.
A nice little revolving door operates with Comax, such that it is difficult to see the blurring of the edges between MoD and Comax. Former deputy chief of defence procurement Lt General Sir Robert Hayman-Joyce became a non-executive director of Comax. Major General John Stokoe, formerly deputy commander in chief of the Army, with board level responsibility for estate management, private finance initiative and public private partnerships, now acts as a senior adviser to the Comax strategic sales team.
Anyone who has ever attended a meeting with Farnborough Airfield manager Commodore Graham Wood (formerly of the Queens Flight) will have had difficulty knowing which hat he was wearing, MoD, Comax or TAG, as it appears to change during the meeting. TAG director Sir Donald Spiers was formerly MoD.
It cost the MoD six months and £400,000 to come up with the damn fool name QinetiQ, only to find the web site www.qinetiq.net was already registered to the digital artist Cici d' Amour.
[Private Eye 1027 4-17 May 2001]
Some excellent campaigners from Rising Tide took the trouble to come down to Farnborough, campaigners with a wealth of experience who were willing to share that experience. The link was there, aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases, global warming is the biggest threat facing the planet. If nothing else an opportunity to kick start the failed airfield campaign.
What was the reaction locally? A handful of local FoE regulars turned up, a couple of members of the public, and that was it. Does no one care in Farnborough?
The situation was not helped by the local residents association who supposedly are opposing the airport, not that anyone has noticed. At the last minute they dropped everyone in the shit by refusing to host the meeting, they even refused to provide any funding claiming their members may object. Their members would have more grounds to object as to why they failed to offer support. Their members may wish to question why no attempt was made to inform them of the Rising Tide tour, which specifically came to Farnborough to make the link between aviation and climate chaos, aviation being the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases and business aviation with its near-empty aircraft being its most obscene manifestation.
Two people from HACAN ClearSkies took the trouble to turn up (they even helped to publicise the event) but no one from the local residents association (FARA) could be bothered to turn up.
The local students union first refused to talk to anyone, then enthused and promised to publicise the event, loads of students expected. Not a single student turned up. One could be forgiven for not noticing that the college lies in the crash zone.
If Farnborough had a bad name before, it has just got a whole lot worse.
[BVEJ newsletter #0011 April 2001, BVEJ newsletter #0012 May 2001]
The Environment Agency has granted the incinerator a licence to pollute.
Incineration in Surrey is an election issue. Make sure your candidate of choice says no to incineration. This is the opportunity to kick off Surrey County Council anyone who has shown a wish to support incineration.
For the Slyfield incinerator to go ahead it has to have a licence to pollute from the Environment Agency and planning permission from Surrey.
The dice reflects the myth of the 'free market' within the Monopoly system ... But this is an obvious lie; the die are loaded from the start. -- Mayday Monopoly guide
I say I've never seen anything like it - I lie. Back home in South Africa, we had something very similar once. It was called the State of Emergency, and that too allowed police total freedom to detain and arrest and harass and intimidate under some draconian 'special' anti-terrorist law. -- Cookie, one of the bloody protesters
Business needs to do more to demonstrate the benefits ... Governments must defend globalisation more vigorously ... Otherwise, [the protesters] may win the battle for public opinion. -- Financial Times
Many people stayed away because they knew to expect violence, not from the protesters but from the police. These fears were well justified.
Days before the police, politicos and media were hyping the violence. Armed police were to be on the streets, tear gas, rubber bullets.
The day started with a mass cycle ride. A breathless, and disappointed, Lord Mayor of London rushed into the BBC studios saying he couldn't find any violence. This was to be typical the coverage through out the day, a desperate media searching for violence and unable to find any, though if the Lord Mayor had been more observant he would have seen a cyclist beaten to the ground by the police cos he took a wrong turning.
It was not until early afternoon that violence erupted. Protesters were herded into Oxford Circus by the police where they were to be illegally detained for several hours. As some protesters tried to leave they were mercilessly clubbed about the head by police. Tourists were detained, as were children young enough to work in a Nike sweatshop.
BBC coverage was terrible. Claims of violence did not match the pictures. ITN coverage was far more measured.
Police, media and politicians were determined to show zero tolerance to any protest against globalisation.
Jeremy Hardy summed up the situation when he said he had seen far more broken glass at a bus shelter.
[BVEJ newsletter #0011 April 2001, BVEJ newsletter #0012 May 2001]
We have mentioned Triumph in the past (BVEJ newsletter #0002 July 2000) and no doubt will be mentioning them again in the future. Were Triumph to have a company philosophy it would be maltreatment of its workers.
Triumph supplies fashion clothes for High Street fashion shops. It is currently operating out of Burma. Unlike other companies who have given way to public pressure and pulled out of Burma (Premier Oil is one of the exceptions), Triumph refuses to budge.
To make matters worse, Triumph's production facilities are sited on land owned by Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, a company whose directors have close links with the military junta and who plough their profits into supporting the junta.
Please write to (see below) demanding an immediate withdrawal from Burma. Also please talk to retailers and ask if they buy from Triumph, if yes, to source from elsewhere. Please forward copies of any correspondence to Labour Behind the Label.
Gunther Spiessshofer Labour Behind the Label President c/o NEAD Triumph-International 38 Exchange Street # 133 Hoi Bun Road Norwich NR2 1AX 7th Floor Piazza Building Kwun Tong tel 01603 610993 Kowloon, Hongkong lbl@gn.apc.org fax 00 85 2234 19487
Other Triumph adresses
Wolfgang Spiessshofer Triumph-International Ltd Triumph-International Arkwright Road / Groundwell Promenadenstrasse 24 Swindon 5330 Zurich Wilts SN2 5BE Switzerland Kowloon, Hongkong tel 01793 722200 fax 01793 721027 fax 00 85 2234 19487
German multinational Triumph is owned by the Spiessshofer and Braun families. It is one of the main European retailers of lingerie, turnover in 1999 reached £1.3 billion, employees 36,000 worldwide.
For more info on the Clean Clothes Campaign
The European Parliament has woken up to the existence of Echelon. Echelon is a worldwide Anglo-Saxon (US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) electronic monitoring system. Each participant monitors within its own area on behalf of the others. One of the most important monitoring stations is Menwith Hill, in Yorkshire. Lead agency in the US NSA, in the UK GCHQ.
The European Parliament has recommended that all e-mail be encrypted to safeguard privacy. A slight problem in the UK as since the passing of the RIP Act the government has access to the encryption keys (BVEJ newsletters passim).
Drinking water is at risk from BSE-contaminated carcasses. During the last major outbreak in the 1960s streams in Yorkshire had their fish wiped out and it has taken up to 30 years for the fish stocks to recover. Bovine tape worms up to 5 metres long are being found in Yorkshire streams.
Milk within a mile of the funeral pyres is contaminated with dioxins. To lessen the risk avoid full fat milk and vary the source of milk, or avoid milk altogether by using soya milk.
The figures for the decline of foot and mouth have been rigged. It is no mere coincidence that the projected figures reached zero by 7 June 2001.
Yawn, boring, boring, is it not all over yet?
It is easy to see why the public is turned off. We are asked to vote for candidates to represent big business. We expect the turnout to be the lowest yet.
Locally we do at least have a genuine choice. The Green Party have fielded a couple of good candidates. If you have a green choice, give them your vote.
It is hard to believe that Farnborough Airport is the biggest local issue, as apart from the Green Party no one dares mention it.
Plans to build a multiplex cinema in Crystal Palace have for the moment been shelved.
Direct action occupied the site which gave sufficient breathing space for legal and other action. Rather ominously Bromley council are now trying to remove the Metropolitan Open Space status (cf Green Belt) from the site leaving it open for further development.
Maybe one day we will report on a council that acts in the interests of local communities not outside developers.
Steward Community Woodland are once again running into problems with planning permission for their low impact developments on Dartmoor. They desperately need letters of support for their planning appeal.
Propose a multimillion pound development with lots of spare cash sloshing around, need planning permission, no problem. Propose a low cost, eco-friendly development and rejection is guaranteed.
[BVEJ newsletters passim, BVEJ newsletter #0004 September 2000, BVEJ newsletter #0008 January 2001]
insanex GENOMICS is a spoof biotech company. One of the services that it offers is human cloning.
EuropaBio is not amused. They have threatened legal action against insanex GENOMICS. This threat has backfired, leading to widespread publicity in Denmark where insanex GENOMICS are based.
Since their initial threat no more has been heard from EuropaBio. Maybe they are reflecting upon the McLibel trial and the massive Monsanto advertising campaign.
If we had known how controversial this project would be we would have saved ourselves a lot of trouble by not taking part in it. -- chairman, Balfour Beatty
At the Balfour Beatty AGM last month it was business as usual. Balfour Beatty refused to accept any responsibility for the Ilisu Dam, putting the blame on the government, a resolution to force Balfour Beatty to accept the guidelines from the World Commission on Dams was rejected (though 40% abstained). The PKK (currently on a voluntary ceasefire) have said they will take up arms again if the Ilisu Dam goes ahead.
The PKK, Kurdish Workers Party, are one of the banned organisations under the Terrorism Act. At a demo outside the Home office, 3,000 protesters wore t-shirts containing the 13 organisations banned under the Terrorism Act, a breach of section 13 of the Act. The crowd chanted 'we are the PKK' and speeches in support of many of the banned organisations were made, breaches of sections 11 and 12 of the Act. At one point Mark Thomas (comedian and activist) and John Wadham (director of Liberty) handed in a t-shirt with all the banned organisations to Jack 'boot' Straw's personal assistant, saying he would have to arrest himself for breach of section 13 by virtue of possession. To emphasise that we are now living in a police state SO23 filmed everyone present.
Spitalfields Market is under threat from development by Balfour Beatty.
[BVEJ newsletters passim]
Go ahead has been given for development adjacent to Queensmead opposite the Clockhouse roundabout and beside the Tumbledown Dick. Yet more unwanted retail space. The adjacent grassy area will be taken as part of the development.
Once again private greed takes public space.
The development of the old post office site is over the top of a culverted stream. A minor oversight by the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor but development will nevertheless go ahead regardless.
Town centre redevelopment has been delayed a further 5 months. Legal problems,ie injunctions from affected neighbours and the discovery that a highway runs through the middle!!!
Noreena Hertz, The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, William Heinemann, 2001
Anyone who saw Noreena Hertz on Mayday either on Channel 4 News or later on BBC2 Newsnight will have seen someone who knew what she was talking about and learnt why people felt the need to take to the streets to protest against global capital.
In The Silent Takeover Noreena Hertz documents the takeover of democracy by global corporations. It is not politicians who are running the show but big business. People don't turn out at elections because they have lost interest in politics, they fail to turnout because they know it is a waste of time, even worse, they are legitimising an illegitimate process by casting their vote.
Of the world's 100 largest economies, 51 are now corporations. If we wish to influence the world in which we live, we don't waste our time with corrupt politicians who only do what their big business paymasters tell them, we take direct action against the global corporations. As Noreena Hertz shows, direct action is effective, it is the only action that is effective.
Governments have lost the confidence of the people. They are only too willing to sell out their people to big business, to use the security forces of the state to stifle any opposition to big business
The name of the game is trade, global trade and neo-liberalism, the Washington consensus, but though GDPs have undoubtedly grown over the last twenty years in the climate set by Reagan-Thatcher, the only game in town, not all have shared in the wealth. The rich have got richer the poor poorer. A widening gap has grown both between rich and poor within countries and between rich and poor countries.
The mainstream media can no longer be trusted. Profit driven and little more than a vehicle for advertising revenues. In addition the media is now itself part of big business and unlikely to kick out its own foundations. If we don't know what is going on, how can we protest and force change?
A timely publication for the June elections. An excellent complement to Naomi Klein's No Logo.
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