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| Other News |
| Peaceful action taken at last! |
| At 5 am, over one hundred Greenpeace volunteers from the UK, Denmark and the USA invaded Menwith Hill Spy base, near Harrogate, North Yorkshire, to expose the base's proposed role in President George W Bush's 'Star Wars' (National Missile Defence) system. The Menwith Hill base is rented from the RAF by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and is home to over 1,000 American NSA personnel. It is primarily a listening base, which intercepts international phone, fax and email communications. However it also houses two 'golf ball' radomes that George Bush wants permission to use as the 'eyes and ears' of his planned Star Wars system. |
| Fifty Greenpeace volunteers, many carrying flags with the message "Star Wars Starts Wars" and others dressed as missiles to symbolise the new arms race that Star Wars is likely to create, entered the base via the front gate accompanied by the theme tune from Mission Impossible. They are currently occupying a water tower just inside the entrance. The other two teams of volunteers evaded the UK military police that guard the site and scaled a series of three-metre-high razor-wire fences to enter the heart of the base. One team is occupying the area surrounding the radomes that Bush proposes to use as part of Star Wars, the other is occupying the roof of one of the facility's buildings. |