Dam-Busters Besiege World's Biggest Wheel

By Simon Gardner

LONDON (Reuters) - Environmental activists used mountaineering gear to scale the world's biggest ferris wheel Monday to call for a halt to major dam projects around the world.

Four protesters from Basque lobby group Solidarios con Itoiz and India's anti-dam body Narmada scrambled up the towering 440 feet structure with mountaineering ropes, unfurling banners proclaiming ``Stop the dams,'' ``Let the rivers run free.''

``These dams are huge projects which wreck people's lives and the environment,'' said protest organizer Nick, who gave no surname. ``This is a protest against dams all around the world.''

He said environmental damage caused at major dam projects on Spain's Itoiz Resvoir and India's Naramda River was the main thrust of the protest.

The groups had targeted the $32 million ``Millennium Wheel'' -- one of several new attractions built for the capital's New Year celebrations -- because in their view, like the dams, it was gratuitous, he said.

``(We) chose the Millennium Wheel because like the dams we don't think it serves any purpose and is simply a symbol of capitalism and outrageous amounts of money being spent on so-called progress when people are suffering,'' he added, saying the group planned to tour Europe with their protest.

Police said officers had been dispatched to the bank of the River Thames in central London where the newly-erected giant ferris wheel dwarfs Big Ben and Parliament.

Police climbers were expected to scramble up the wheel to bring down the demonstrators -- who have strung a red hammock between the wheel's spokes where they hope to sleep overnight.

The ferris wheel, which towers above the city and gives a panoramic 25-mile view of London's skyline, is due to open later this year.

The architects of the wheel -- a joint venture between British Airways and the Tussauds Group, owner of the city's Madame Tussauds waxworks museum -- hope that the white-framed wheel will become a feature of London's skyscape.

But many have denounced the white, metallic wheel as an eyesore which should be pulled down once millennium celebrations are out of the way.