Author: earthfirst

Armed attack on Ilisu construction workers – Dam construction halted

Fol­low­ing a series of events includ­ing dis­mals, an armed assault, injuries and arson, work­ers have left the Ilisu Dam and Hydro­elec­tric Pow­er Plant con­struc­tion site, thus bring­ing work to a halt. These events show how dan­ger­ous, risky and destruc­tive a project we are con­fronting.

On 19 June (Fri­day), 5 work­ers were dis­missed from work by the Malami­ra com­pa­ny. Malami­ra (based in Ankara with roots in Diyarbakır) employs most of the work­ers at the con­struc­tion site. It replaced oth­er com­pa­nies at the Ilı­su Project when con­struc­tion resumed in Decem­ber 2014 at Ilı­su vil­lage in Dargeçit dis­trict in Mardin province. While meet­ing with Mala Mira Com­pa­ny man­agers on behalf of the dis­missed work­ers and to present demands for union­iza­tion, work­ers were fired upon by the body­guards of the employ­ers and the project direc­tor. The injured work­ers (Ali İnan, 27; Ömer Ekin­ci, 26; and Ömer Erol, 19) are still receiv­ing treat­ment hos­pi­tals.

In response to this, oth­er work­ers and rel­a­tives of the injured – some of whom live in vil­lages close to the Ilı­su Dam – pro­ceed­ed to the scene. Pro­test­ers set fire to offices, heavy equip­ment and vehi­cles belong­ing to the com­pa­ny. As the protest grew, a large num­ber of armored vehi­cles, spe­cial forces, riot police, water canons and sol­diers were dis­patched to the Ilı­su Dam con­struc­tion site.

Because of these events, approx­i­mate­ly 1000 work­ers did not work and returned to their places of res­i­dence with their lug­gage. Thus con­struc­tion work at the Ilisu Dam has been halt­ed.

In and of itself, the halt­ing of the Ilisu Project, which rep­re­sents a huge social, cul­tur­al and eco­log­i­cal cat­a­stro­phe for a greater region, is a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment. How­ev­er, the events wit­nessed over the past three days show how prob­lem­at­ic the Ilisu Project is for region­al peace and tran­quil­i­ty.

The Ilisu Project was halt­ed in the sum­mer of 2014 fol­low­ing the inter­ven­tion of PKK (HPG) guer­ril­las, and con­struc­tion began again with the engage­ment of Malami­ra com­pa­ny in Decem­ber 2014. Malamira’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Ilı­su con­sor­tium despite the ongo­ing high poten­tial for local con­flicts, shows that in pur­suit of prof­it this com­pa­ny did not take into con­sid­er­a­tion the social, eco­log­i­cal and polit­i­cal risks of the project.

Not only those who fired weapons, but the com­pa­ny man­agers be held account­able for this armed attack.

The Ilisu Project, which is a sym­bol of unfair­ness, injus­tice and social-cul­tur­al destruc­tion, must halt­ed as soon as pos­si­ble and debat­ed thor­ough­ly.

Note: You may use attached pho­tographs by acknowl­edg­ing that they were tak­en by DIHA (Dicle Haber Ajan­si /Tigris News Agency)

 Ini­tia­tive to Keep Hasankeyf Alive (www.hasankeyfgirisimi.net)

Mexico: Explosive Attack Against Ministry of Agrarian Territorial and Urban Development

from Insur­rec­tion News / Con­tra Info

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT…

Black June. On June 6 at about 3AM we suc­cess­ful­ly det­o­nat­ed  an explo­sive device made of dyna­mite that was placed inside the offices of SEDATU (Min­istry of Agrar­i­an Ter­ri­to­r­i­al and Urban Devel­op­ment) locat­ed on Rev­o­lu­tion Avenue near the cor­ner of Rio Mix­coac in Mex­i­co City, Mex­i­co. The det­o­na­tion destroyed the glass front of the build­ing.

In Mex­i­co, this sec­re­tari­at – using dif­fer­ent names – has been respon­si­ble for putting an offi­cial stamp on the turn­ing of nature and the earth into com­modi­ties and of nor­mal­iz­ing the dis­pos­ses­sion and vio­lence that the state uses in it’s accu­mu­la­tion of cap­i­tal.

We are a group of insur­rec­tionary anar­chist fem­i­nist witch­es who have gath­ered in a cell of affin­i­ty. Our group was born on August 25 2014 when we det­o­nat­ed an explo­sive device in a PAN (Nation­al Action Par­ty) office in the Mex­i­co City and placed anoth­er device in the Lore­to church in the his­toric cen­ter of the same city.

June is a month of thir­ty days…

We also denounce the vile way in which the mass media hides the news of the attacks and the resis­tance.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the impris­oned com­rades in Chile, Italy, Greece and Spain. We are with you com­rades.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­rades Mario López and Car­los López. We are with you com­rades.

NO VOTES. KILL THEM ALL

Mex­i­co City, June 7, 2015

Lupe la cameli­na
Por la célu­la de difusión del
Coman­do fem­i­nista infor­mal de acción anti­au­tori­taria (Infor­mal Fem­i­nist Com­man­do Of Anti-author­i­tar­i­an Action) 
(COFIAA)

(via con­tra info, trans­lat­ed by Insur­rec­tion News)

Milan (Italy): Incendiary Sabotage Against high-speed TAV trains

1-169-300x199

from cettesemaine.info /trans­lat­ed Act for free­dom now!

The night of May 25 to 26, the offices of Italferr(Italian nation­al rail­ways) locat­ed in Via Tor­cel­lo, close to the goods sta­tion of Gre­co Pirelli, were delib­er­ate­ly set on fire. This com­pa­ny is the engi­neer­ing branch that deals with research and devel­op­ment for the Ital­ian nation­al rail­way com­pa­ny, and is par­tic­u­lar­ly involved in stud­ies for the devel­op­ment of the high speed rail (TAV) between Turin and Pad­ua.

Accord­ing to recon­struc­tions of the cops, the fire was start­ed by pour­ing inflam­ma­ble liq­uid through a pre­vi­ous­ly bro­ken win­dow, then light­ing it with a smoke bomb. With­in min­utes, the fire had devoured the fur­ni­ture, com­put­ers and all the paper­work piled there by hard­work­ing engi­neers. Fire­fight­ers who inter­vened around 3:45 am took almost two hours to extin­guish the fire.

Peterborough Squatters Autonomy Updates

Peter­bor­ough Squat­ters Auton­o­my (PSA) is a Peter­bor­ough Col­lec­tive of Squat­ter & Activists work­ing to com­bat the state and high­light home­less in the city.

Here are some recent updates:

June 6:

Peter­bor­ough squat­ters auton­o­my are still occu­py­ing with­in the city at an unknown loca­tion, the crew are just hav­ing a rest for a few days after a stress­ful day yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the unlaw­ful evic­tion. PSA will con­tin­ue the fight against this unjust sys­tem and pro­vide shel­ter and safe­ty for home­less and vul­ner­a­ble of the city that the coun­cil and social ser­vices don’t care about.

Keep a look out for a ban­ner drop com­ing soon in the city, Peter­bor­ough squat­ters auton­o­my is here to stay until real change is made by this sys­tem. We aint going nowhere as promised we are here to stay.

June 5:

Hired thugs yes­ter­day vio­lent­ly evict­ed peace­ful occu­piers who are most­ly home­less and have nowhere else to go and no court signed war­rant was pre­sent­ed. The thugs broke in and assault­ed the peace­ful occu­piers min­utes after the coun­ty court grant­ed a IPO to the own­ers of the build­ing even though the law­ful own­ers are not based in this coun­try and hide behind a tri­al of deceit and tax dodge weird­ness.

June 4:

We are going to be in Peter­bor­ough court tomor­row fight­ing to keep this build­ing our home and for­mer job cen­tre that has been vacant since it was sold over ten years ago. We have been shel­ter­ing the home­less and vul­ner­a­ble and we have pre­vent­ed a ter­ri­ble tragedy when we helped a man through his seizures this week.

We are mak­ing head­way here for these guys and we real­ly need your sup­port.

Peace and love

 

Germany: Giant Coal Excavator Occupied 145315

from Ham­bach For­est and here (Ger­man Lan­guage link)

June 6th, 2015
(The occu­pa­tion is ongo­ing)
Last night at 1 am, four activists occu­pied a large buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the Inden open­cast mine. They climbed to the top of the exca­va­tor about 70m high. The machine halt­ed is one of the largest machines in the world that nor­mal­ly destroys 24/7, lit­er­al­ly churn­ing the land­scape. In Inden lig­nite is pro­mot­ed for RhenAish min­ing area above ground, that is: Every­thing is about being in the way and will be destroyed; who lives about is expro­pri­at­ed and expelled.  Where vil­lages, fields, mead­ows and woods once stood incon­ceiv­ably huge holes appear in the land­scape, an indus­tri­al waste­land to the hori­zon. Of all of the ener­gy sources, lig­nite, is ridicu­lous­ly inef­fi­cient, releas­ing huge loads of CO2 and par­tic­u­late emis­sions, and the con­ver­sion of pow­er sup­ply to renew­ables sab­o­taged with inflex­i­ble “base­load plants”.
The event is also a sol­i­dar­i­ty greet­ing from the resis­tance against the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area to the resis­tance against the meet­ing of the G7 in Elmau. There is a pre­sump­tion that this polit­i­cal elite of glob­alised cap­i­tal­ism wants to define the solu­tions to the prob­lems that they them­selves have cre­at­ed , The G7 did not even have the decen­cy to pre­tend to demo­c­ra­t­ic legit­i­ma­cy – they coor­di­nate as the oli­garchic gov­ern­ment of the world, sim­ply because they can. This meet­ing of glob­al pow­er elite has no oth­er aim than solid­i­fy­ing their dom­i­nance.
It remains in the sep­a­ra­tion between indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and those that may be exploit­ed as sources of raw mate­ri­als and for­eign mar­kets. The G7 bear most of the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the glob­al cli­mate col­lapse, but the con­se­quences are so far main­ly to oth­er parts of the world, and the cli­mate refugees left behind – which unfor­tu­nate­ly is ter­ri­bly often fatal by the inhu­mane bor­der poli­cies of the indus­tri­alised coun­tries. This meet­ing is noth­ing more than the most pow­er­ful crim­i­nal car­tel of the world – so stop  the G7!
“If four peo­ple can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours in such a gen­tle way …”
“… What might hap­pen if only a small part of all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of the soci­ety were pulled in the same direc­tion?” – From the Action State­ment
It was often said that it is when it comes to cli­mate pro­tec­tion, it is “11:55″, and that the world must act. But the world is not still, and some­one has to start some­where times. In the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area was also often try­ing to stop through the legal and demo­c­ra­t­ic influ­ence on pol­i­tics, the dis­place­ment of peo­ple and the destruc­tion of the Ham­bach for­est. These expe­ri­ences have shown that the deci­sion-mak­ers from the social pow­er elites will always give pri­or­i­ty to prof­it inter­ests – as long as we give them the choice.
This block­ade is not a fur­ther appeal to the politi­cians, to final­ly use their pow­er for good, because we do not trust the pol­i­cy mak­ers any­way. The weapon­ry of the block­ade draws a clear bound­ary: thus far and no fur­ther – Respect exis­tence or expect resis­tance! This action is an appeal to all those who are ready to assume their respon­si­bil­i­ties: Desert­ing from this sys­tem of indus­tri­al destruc­tion, you defied him, the match­ing of forms of resis­tance against it – and then let it decompose.Together we will replace it with some­thing bet­ter! If four peo­ple in such a gen­tle way, can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours – what might hap­pen if only a small part of all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of this soci­ety pulls togeth­er? If we want to bequeath a hab­it­able plan­et, there must be a thor­ough change from below. This occu­pa­tion can only be the start.
Even a small reminder: For the begin­ning of August, the Alliance mobi­lizes “end area” to a mass block­ade of an open pit in Rhineland. Here should be made pos­si­ble to low thresh­old lev­el a broad mass of peo­ple, access to civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and resis­tance. In addi­tion, each of the four for­est occu­pa­tions in Ham­bach for­est clear­ance is con­stant­ly under threat, and also on the cur­rent­ly rel­a­tive­ly safe occu­pa­tion mead­ow near the for­est there are many points of con­tact for moti­vat­ed peo­ple …
Togeth­er we can make the cap­i­tal­ist lig­nite mad­ness put an end!
The hab­it­abil­i­ty of the plan­et is at stake, pre­cise­ly now.
So Let’s do it!
PRESS RELEASE
Buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the brown coal mine Inden occu­pied
Dis­trict of Düren. In the night from Fri­day to Sat­ur­day, a buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the open-cast min­ing inden was occu­pied. Four peo­ple climbed at 1am to the top of the engine at an alti­tude of about 70m. One aim of the cam­paign is to bring the progress of the mine for a few hours to a halt. Sec­ond­ly, the occu­piers explain in their action state­ment sol­i­dar­i­ty with the protests in Elmau against the meet­ing of the G7.
“For the three lig­nite mines in the Rhineland are entire vil­lages and forests per­ma­nent­ly destroyed for­ev­er,” says one par­tic­i­pant action. “We have a respon­si­bil­i­ty for future gen­er­a­tions. Sim­ply ask to politi­cians, and then com­plain that there is no change, is not enough. “As ear­ly as on 15 March, there had been in a sim­i­lar Inden open­cast mine exca­va­tors occu­pa­tion by six peo­ple, inter­rupt­ed in the course of the oper­a­tion of the exca­va­tor for twelve hours.
Today’s block­ade will also release a sign of protest against the meet­ing of the lead­ers of the sev­en largest indus­tri­al nations in Elmau. “There is a pre­sump­tion that this polit­i­cal elite of glob­alised cap­i­tal­ism wants to define the solu­tions to the prob­lems that they them­selves have cre­at­ed,” it says in the action state­ment. “If we want to bequeath a hab­it­able plan­et, there must be a thor­ough change from below. This occu­pa­tion can this be just an impulse. ”
The action is still ongo­ing.
They can be reached under the num­ber 0157 32 48 23 40 and are O‑tones are avail­able. (In regard to the cell phone bat­tery but only to a lim­it­ed extent.) You can also reach activists, the direct con­tact with the exca­va­tors occu­pa­tion hold, on the mead­ow occu­pa­tion under 0157 541 36 100th
16:30 rest. Exca­va­tors eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.
Peo­ple from the area are wel­come to come to the open pit edge.
“It is pos­si­ble to get pret­ty close here.”, Said grade with an activist by tele­phone, who grew up in the vicin­i­ty of the open pit. “From the vil­lage Schophoven there are only a few dirt roads until man stands in front of our exca­va­tors.”
Exca­va­tor in 70m height
14:15 A fire truck arrived.
Some peo­ple climb fur­ther down the exca­va­tor around and to get an idea of ​​the sit­u­a­tion. The police can not see them.
Morn­ing
13:00 twelve hours are man­aged.
The machine stands still; “We are now the only ones here on the exca­va­tor!”
Morn­ing
12:00 loca­tion qui­et. Clothes dry again
Still no police. The clothes are now again most­ly dry. “We hav­ing quite cozy here. Ear­li­er a dog-walk­er wave­dat us. “
Morn­ing
7:00 No more police
The day dawns. Anoth­er pho­to in bright­ness reach us via MMS.
Still no police. Only an ambu­lance is around.
3:00 Police sniffs
Less than 10 Polizist_innen appear, climb up a piece and try to com­mu­ni­cate.
“We’re fine!”, The activists call back.
After some time, the police dis­ap­pear
If four peo­ple can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours in such a gen­tle way … … what might hap­pen if only a small part of pulling all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of the soci­ety in the same direc­tion? – From the Action State­ment
Staffed 1:00 exca­va­tor
Peo­ple arrive at the open pit and climb the buck­et wheel.
Some were lying down in the ear­ly evening with blan­kets in the woods and a lit­tle pre-sleep.
Now they are drenched by thun­der­storms and full of oil from the exca­va­tors to 70m height and try to curl up under a tarp.

Wrong Decision — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspector

On Wednes­day (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal’s appli­ca­tion to mine 520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site is cur­rent­ly agri­cul­tur­al land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a high­ly con­test­ed site with real­ly strong and well orches­trat­ed oppo­si­tion from local peo­ple. Why is this a bad deci­sion? … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Wrong Deci­sion — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspec­tor”

On Wednesday (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal's application to mine
520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site
is currently agricultural land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a highly
contested site with really strong and well orchestrated opposition from
local people.


Why is this a bad decision?



* The community were so very clear that there was NO COMMUNITY CONSENT
* One woman (the planning inspector) thinks she can decide whether a mine
would offer 'national, local or community benefits which would clearly
outweigh the remaining adverse impacts.' How can she possibly say yes when
the community SAYS NO.
* We are moving away from a reliance on coal (but not quickly enough) with
two coal fired power stations announcing closures next year
* The company pursuing the application will not directly operate the site
as they have serious financial difficulties and had to be helped by the
government in closing their last remaining deep mines and were order to
sell off their remaining opencast mines



As the following history of the application shows, the coal company
refused to take no for an answer being determined to sell on the mine with
planning permission. This is not the end of the battle. We need you to
think about what you are going to do to ensure that this piece of rural
Britain is never dug up. We need to stand together to protect the
livelihoods, families, local history, quality of life, homes, air quality,
tranquillity, health, wildlife and ecosystems in this area. Even if the
legal battle is over the fight is not. Get in touch with your suggestions
info@coalaction.org.uk



History of the application.



UK Coal’s first application was rejected by planners in 1986. In 2001 a
second application was rejected.



In February 2011 the planning hearing of Durham Council unanimously
rejected the application, councillors called UK Coal "thugs," "vandals"
and said they were trying to bribe them.



In Autumn 2011 there was a three week appeal which UK Coal lost.



The coal company took this to the High Court in London who said that the
decision was perverse and ordered another appeal.



The second appeal happened in Autumn 2014 and lasted three weeks. It was
well attended by local people, tens of whom spoke out against the mine
with incredible passion, dedication and knowledge.
From the team at The Coal Action Network

For more info on sim­i­lar issues check out 

http://www.coalaction.org.uk 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Coal-Action-Network/429163990497895

HAMBACH FOREST: LIVING ON THE BARRICADES

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers are present­ly block­ing RWE’s open cast lig­nite mine

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers are present­ly block­ing RWE’s open cast lig­nite mine from expand­ing with liv­ing bar­ri­cades and tow­ers which in turn are pro­tect­ing access to the three for­est tree sits with plat­forms, tree­hous­es and inter­conect­ing walk­ways.  
The Ham­bach Mine iron­i­cal­ly named after the for­est it is destroy­ing is Europe‘s largest net CO2 pol­luter and it is record break­ing antro­pogenic cli­mate change, one of the largest plan­e­tary extinc­tions and increas­ing waves of cli­mate refugees that are reminders and ulti­mate glob­al shout-outs that eco-jus­tice is social jus­tice.

After the attack, evic­tion and arrest of 3 activists dur­ing the destruc­tion last week of “Pirate Ship” liv­ing plat­form bar­ri­cade not 3 days have elapsed and we have errect­ed a new tow­er bar­ri­cade.  Almost 3 times high­er than the last one we have named it Remi‘s Tow­er to hon­or Remi Frese, a cli­mate activist who was killed by a police con­cu­sion grenade dur­ing the strugle of Zad de la Teste in South­ern France.  That death is reflec­tive of increas­ing­ly high­er stakes of glob­al eco­log­i­cal strug­gle and at least 2 envi­ro­men­tal activist dying each week.  For these that refuse to be silent and pas­sive in the face of this onslought our hearts and minds are with you.

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers.

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2015/06/02/germany-an-update-from-hambach-forest-defenders/

hambacherforst@riseup.net

Anti-Mining Blockade Evicted in Guatemala

The eviction comes a day before a presidential meeting and a year after a violent eviction against La Puya’s peaceful resistance.

June 3rd, 2015

from Telesur
The com­mu­ni­ty of La Puya in cen­tral Guatemala, resist­ing the U.S.-owned El Tam­bor gold mine project for over three years, faced evic­tion Tues­day after at least 300 secu­ri­ty forces arrived in the ear­ly morn­ing forc­ing ille­gal dis­place­ment of the block­ade, Pren­sa Libre report­ed. Accord­ing to wit­ness­es, in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing secu­ri­ty forces, includ­ing riot police, removed bar­ri­cades block­ing vehi­cle traf­fic to clear the entrance to the mine and also took down the community’s signs accom­pa­ny­ing the block­ade.

Com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives lat­er spoke with with the offi­cers, say­ing the evic­tion was ille­gal and that they await­ed a legal order for the community’s removal. The threat of evic­tion comes days after La Puya reac­ti­vat­ed its peace­ful block­ade and also coin­cides with the one year anniver­sary of vio­lent evic­tion against the com­mu­ni­ty last May.

Com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives have a meet­ing sched­uled Wednes­day with Pres­i­dent Perez Moli­na, whose res­ig­na­tion has been wide­ly called for in recent weeks by social move­ments, to reini­ti­ate a dia­logue on the community’s demands, Pren­sa Libre report­ed. Mem­bers of Guatemala’s Coun­cil for Human Rights also arrived on the scene to observe the increased police pres­ence as a pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure for the com­mu­ni­ty as they faced the threat of a repres­sive crack­down.
Mem­bers of the resis­tance and orga­ni­za­tions in sol­i­dar­i­ty with La Puya held a demon­stra­tion in the cap­i­tal city Tues­day after­noon to denounce the repres­sion against the peace­ful resis­tance and demand “respect for live and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.”
La Puya launched its resis­tance against the con­struc­tion of El Tam­bor gold mine in 2012. Women and indige­nous peo­ple are at the fore­front of the community’s non-vio­lent move­ment that has effec­tive­ly put a stop to the work of at least three transna­tion­al min­ing com­pa­nies.
Dur­ing the first of three years of resis­tance against the mine, La Puya caused $US3 mil­lion in loss­es for the com­pa­ny Exmin­gua, the Guatemalan sub­sidiary of Neva­da-based U.S. transna­tion­al extrac­tive cor­po­ra­tion Kappes Cas­si­day & Asso­ciates.

Germany: An Update from Hambach Forest Defenders

June 2nd, 2015

The defence of the the Mil­lenar­i­an Ham­bach­er For­est against the encroching RWE open cast lig­nite mine con­tin­ues with activist-build tow­ers and live-in bar­ri­cades.  The Ham­bach­er For­est is not only one of the last Mil­lenar­i­an Forests in Europe but also the largest on the edge of most­ly defor­est­ed area of Ruhr Val­ley and the Bel­gium, Nether­lands, Lux­em­burg region hence its impor­tance to bio­di­ver­si­ty and ani­mal migra­tion cor­ri­dors.

The lig­nite mine fought through direct action meth­ods by the activist liv­ing in the for­est for the last 3 years has been devour­ing towns, vil­lages, whole forests and drain­ing the watertable for up to 70 kilo­me­ters  and is also the largest in west­ern europe and Europe’s biggest net CO2 emmiter.

The scale of the mine itself being 12km across and near­ly half a kil­lome­ter deep con­jures analo­gies of Mor­dor or Sci­Fi Prison plan­et with the dig­gers  being the world’s largest machines feed­ing the con­vey­or belts deliv­er­ing the coal to rail links sup­ply­ing the pow­er plants on the edge of the mine itself and through­out this region .  This in turn pales in com­par­i­son to the glob­al and exter­nal­ized costs of lig­nite as a cli­mate chaos agent and a num­ber one source of mer­cury con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in worlds oceans.

The Ham­bach For­est Strug­gle con­tin­ues to expe­ri­ence peri­od­ic police intru­sions, arrests and desc­truc­tion of bar­ri­cades which are pro­tect­ing three for­est tree-sits: Oak­town, Beech­town, and Crusty­Town  which are spread through­out the for­est.  The arrest result in sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and demon­stra­tions and rel­a­tive­ly short releas­es.

This is not some­thing that can be said about the irre­versible habi­tat destruc­tion that con­tin­ues day and night and sad­ly after par­tial vic­to­ry of hav­ing the costs of evic­tions and police actions being deferred to the RWE con­cern  the Ger­man Forestry depart­ment start­ed fil­ing com­plains about the for­est being block­ad­ed against the machin­ery send to destroy it and the tax­pay­er and the Ger­man State resumed again pick­ing up the bill for the repres­sion of eco-activists and eco­log­i­cal destru­c­ion.

For that rea­son we urge all who choose to pur­sue the avenues of civic action to put grass­roots pres­sure on the appro­pri­ate­ly named Fed­er­al Min­istry of Food and Agri­cul­ture in Bonn (www.verbraucherlotse.de) Mon­day to Thurs­day from 9:00 bis 17:00 Tele­fon­num­mer 02 28 – 24 25 26 27, per E‑Mail  info@verbraucherlotse.de, 53168 Bonn und unter der Fax-Num­mer 02 28 – 68 45 72 20.

 

 

For those in the strug­gle to pro­tect the Earth through direct action we urge you to vis­it us and fol­low the strug­gle and become a part of glob­al com­mu­ni­ty of resis­tance.

Our present demand and wish list includes as always plan­e­tary eco-jus­tice fol­lowed by walkie talkies, 12v bat­ter­ies and solar pan­els.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty,

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers!

Didcot Camp Action Round Up: 18 actions against the fossil fuel industry

Block­ades, shut­downs, lock-ons, love-ins, tripods and nanas…..Reclaim the Power’s day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try today (1 June 2015) saw 18 dif­fer­ent actions draw­ing the dots between big ener­gy firms, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, pub­lic rela­tions com­pa­nies, oil arts spon­sor­ship and the frack­ing indus­try.

Let’s take a run-down of the day’s events…(more text and pics com­ing soon!)

Action 1: 9.04am – Npower’s debt collection and pre-payment meter office in Leeds blockaded

We’ve all had the threat­en­ing let­ters from ener­gy com­pa­nies demand­ing pay­ment for bills we can’t afford – and today we hit back. Reclaim the Pow­er groups vis­it­ed RWE Npower’s offices in Leeds and block­ad­ed the front doors. Many house­holds are forced onto pre-pay­ment meters which are more expen­sive than direct deb­it accounts.

Action 2: 9.08am – Delegates at World Coal Association conference locked out of Institute of Directors

The coal indus­try are try­ing to con­tin­ue burn­ing fos­sil fuels by dan­gling the promise of Car­bon-Cap­ture-and-Stor­age tech­nol­o­gy. Con­fer­ence del­e­gates at a World Coal Asso­ca­tion event found all five entrances to the exclu­sive Insti­tute of Direc­tors blocked this morn­ing. There no arrests but lots of marigolds.

Action 3: 9.09am “Wind not gas” protest at DECC

Cheeky pro­test­ers high­light­ed the con­tin­ued fos­sil fuel bias with­in the Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change by blockad­ing its steps. Rowan Tilly explained, “Against the advice of their own Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, the gov­ern­ment has approved the con­struc­tion of up to 30 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions, and intends to go ‘all out’ for shale gas – with up to two thirds of the UK licensed for frack­ing. This new dash for gas is reck­less­ly at odds with our nation­al and inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions on cli­mate change and must be resist­ed, for both the sake of our­selves and future gen­er­a­tions.

“We are now find­ing our­selves at a stage where we don’t know where gov­ern­ment ends and cor­po­ra­tions begin and unless we act now we will soon find our­selves be locked into infra­struc­ture which will burn car­bon for years to come whilst killing off renew­able ener­gy, with polit­i­cal deci­sions ruled by prof­it and act­ing in igno­rance of the bla­tant dan­gers of cli­mate change. We sim­ply can’t afford to let this hap­pen.”

Action 4: 9.10am – Invesco’s Revolving Door between government and Drax

Con­tin­u­ing this theme, Reclaim the Pow­er activists vis­it­ed the offices of Invesco – the invest­ment man­age­ment com­pa­ny which owns 26% of Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire. New DECC junior min­is­ter Andrea Lead­man worked at Invesco for 10 years before tak­ing up her post in gov­ern­ment. The revolv­ing doors were lit­er­al­ly blocked and ban­ner dropped above the Lon­don Wall road.

Action 5: 9.30am – Polishing a turd: office occupation of Media Zoo

Pub­lic rela­tions firm ‘Media Zoo’ rep­re­sent chem­i­cals giant Ineos – who have recent­ly pledged £640 mil­lion invest­ment in frack­ing. Eight activists occu­pied their offices in Impe­r­i­al Wharf, Lon­don car­ry­ing a ban­ner ban­ner read­ing, ‘Frack­ing is Shit. You can’t pol­ish a turd.’ They used arm tubes lock ons to stay put. Sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed around lunch time.

Mediazoo’s web­site boasts exten­sive expe­ri­ence of deal­ing with “indus­tri­al dis­putes”, “fatal acci­dents” and “child labour”. They are con­sult­ing Ineos on PR and media strat­e­gy. The CEO of Ineos Upstream Gary Hay­wood said, “I want Ineos to be the biggest play­er in the shale gas indus­try.” Medi­a­zoo were respon­si­ble for what UNITE described as Ineos’s “cam­paign of fear” dur­ing the dis­pute at Grange­mouth oil refin­ery in Scot­land when 1400 work­ers fought cuts to pay, jobs and pen­sions.

Action 6: 9.45am – Anti-nukes visit Carmargue PR firm

As well as rep­re­sent­ing RWE Npow­er, pub­lic rela­tions firm Camar­gue also spin the work of Hori­zon Nuclear Ener­gy. 12 pro­test­ers tar­get­ed the firm’s offices in Soho. Clare Jones said, “The pub­lic has a right to be informed about the real dan­gers of nuclear – from can­cer to con­t­a­m­i­na­tion to cli­mate change. For the cost of build­ing one nuclear pow­er sta­tion you could build over 1000 off­shore wind tur­bines.”

Action 7: 10.25am – Energy UK lobby group blockaded

Ener­gy UK is the trade body for the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies. They have lob­bied the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce the ‘Capac­i­ty Mar­ket’ into the recent Ener­gy Act (2014) – which uses pub­lic mon­ey to sub­sidise new gas pow­er sta­tions. Three peo­ple block­ad­ed the entrance, includ­ing two in an arm tube lock on.  There were two arrests.

Action 8: 10.30am – Big Six Love-in at Oxfordshire Conservative Party headquarters

Big 6

Action 9: 10.55am – RWE Npower headquarters in Swindon blockaded

Action 10: All morning – Subvertising in Oxford

Action 11: The Bill of Wrongs at British Gas HQ near Oxford

Action 12: 12.11pm – Lancashire Nanas link fracking and gas-fire power stations at Didcot B

Cuadzilla puppet

Action 13: 1.00pm – Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ rebranded by Shell

Shell rebrand

Action 14: 1.00pm – Avonmouth Biofuel plant invaded

Action 15: 1.30pm – “No stone left unfracked” Tripod fracking rig erected at London City Hall

Boris Saya

Action 16: 1.41pm – Edelman PR firm deliver first fracked baby (trigger warning)

Action 17: 2.00pm – Blockade of Cuadrilla offices in Lichfield (again!)

Cuadrilla HQ

Action 18: 2.30pm – Occupation of Imperial College’s Department of Mining