Author: earthfirst

MACHINERY SABOTAGED TO PROTECT WILD LAND, ITALY

anony­mous report, from finoallafine.info (trans­la­tion):

anony­mous report, from finoallafine.info (trans­la­tion):

“Tired of see­ing the Earth destroyed, we decid­ed to act. In the night between April 6 and 7 we entered one of the many con­struc­tion sites in Rome, a city raped by the cement and spec­u­la­tive build­ing that the big man­u­fac­tur­ers, with the com­plic­i­ty of the lit­tle fas­cist may­or Ale­man­no, that are destroy­ing any space that is still wild to con­struct depart­ment stores, malls and park­ing lots. In this case the work involves the destruc­tion of a very large thick­et, with the result­ing dev­as­ta­tion of the habi­tat of many ani­mals, birds, insects and mam­mals. We approached the sev­en machines (bull­doz­ers and oth­ers) that were present; with wire cut­ters we cut oil tubes, cables and wires, and then we poured grav­el and sug­ar in the tanks and we dis­ap­peared leav­ing a writ­ten claim.

This action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all who every­where and at all times strug­gle against speciesism, anthro­pocen­trism and exploita­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the defend­ers of the Russ­ian forests of Khim­ki and Bitcevs­ki.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty also with all ani­mal-eco­log­i­cal pris­on­ers, begin­ning with Wal­ter Bond. For ani­mal lib­er­a­tion, for the lib­er­a­tion of the Earth!”

BP and Culture – time to break it off!

A week of action to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces
14–20 April 2011

A week of action to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces
14–20 April 2011

In the week between BP’s AGM and the one-year anniver­sary of the Gulf of Mex­i­co oil spill, we are call­ing for actions and cre­ative inter­ven­tions to show the true nature of BP’s dam­ag­ing activ­i­ties around the world, and to per­suade our most pres­ti­gious gal­leries and cul­tur­al spaces to lib­er­ate them­selves from BP’s dirty mon­ey.

Spon­sor­ship of gal­leries, muse­ums and oth­er cul­tur­al spaces is one of the most impor­tant ways BP tries to pro­tect its rep­u­ta­tion and buy our accep­tance. By break­ing off BP’s rela­tion­ship with our most pres­ti­gious cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, we strike a blow to BP’s pre­cious brand, top­ple BP’s pow­er­ful posi­tion in our soci­ety, and reclaim our pub­lic spaces. On the anniver­sary of the Gulf spill, let’s reveal the sticky black stuff behind BP’s shiny green logo, and pile on the pres­sure to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces for good.

Cre­ative inter­ven­tions will be pop­ping up at spon­sored gal­leries and insti­tu­tions through­out the week, so watch this space, or bet­ter yet plan your own!

This week of action is called by Art Not Oil, Cli­mate Camp Lon­don, Cli­mate Rush, Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lon­don Ris­ing Tide and UK Tar Sands Net­work

More info includ­ing events list, tar­gets and resources:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction
Face­book event: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198819640150485

INCLUDING…
The Great BP-spon­sored sleep-in

Sun­day 17 April 2011, 2PM at Tate Mod­ern, Bank­side, Lon­don, SE1 9TG

To mark the one year anniver­sary of the BP Gulf of Mex­i­co oil spill, join us for ‘The great BP-spon­sored sleep-in’, a 4‑minute flash­mob art instal­la­tion inside Tate Mod­ern. Imag­ine the tur­bine hall of this for­mer pow­er sta­tion filled with BP-brand­ed sleep­ing fig­ures, who will soon wake from their BP-spon­sored coma to sound the cli­mate alarm.

BP’s green­wash is sleep­walk­ing us into the cli­mate cri­sis. BP spon­sors gal­leries like Tate to try and clean up its tar­nished image, and dis­tract us from its dev­as­tat­ing activ­i­ties around the world. Every pound of dirty oil mon­ey accept­ed by Tate helps legit­imise a long lega­cy of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and human rights abus­es. It’s time to take off the blind­fold, rub the spon­sor­ship sleep from our eyes, and give Tate and BP a wake-up call.

This fam­i­ly friend­ly event will high­light BP’s spon­sor­ship to the pub­lic, and show that we are not pre­pared to stand by as the Tate helps BP green­wash its image… and allow us all a few min­utes to dream of a future free from oil spills and oil spon­sor­ship of the arts.

SIX STEPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SPONSORED SLEEP-IN
1. Syn­chro­nise your watch using this web­site:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=136
2. Enter the build­ing before 2PM
3. Choose your sleep-in spot – café, cor­ri­dor, lift, gift shop, and of course exhibits are all fair game, but please pick some­where on Lev­els 1 (tur­bine hall lev­el), 2 or 3 (this is where our cam­era crews will be to film the fun).
4. At exact­ly 2.15PM, unpack your BP brand­ed sheet, pil­low, pyja­mas, sleep mask, ted­dy bear, alarm clock or any oth­er sleep relat­ed props (see here for ideas and down­load­able props:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction/resources) and start the sleep-in!
5. Exact­ly 4 min­utes lat­er, the flash mob will be over as alarm clocks sound the wake-up call through­out the gallery. Take off your spon­sored blind­folds and bed­ding, leave them behind if you wish, and head out­side to…
6. Post-slum­ber par­ty on the South Bank. Lis­ten to speak­ers from BP-affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties from the Gulf of Mex­i­co and the Cana­di­an Tar Sands, help engage gallery-goers with leaflets and vox pop video mes­sages, and enjoy live music and a ped­al-pow­ered sound sys­tem.

So join us on April 17th, and show the Tate that we won’t take oil spon­sor­ship of the arts lying down!

More info: http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction/flashmob
Face­book event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137704989634221

Cut the crap — GM in Germany

1/4/2011

KWS has again plant­ed genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied sug­ar beet H7‑1 in a field, despite vocif­er­ous protests. Today, Fri­day at noon, we unloaded about 16 tonnes of manure in front of the head­quar­ters in Ein­beck, under the slo­gan: “KWS — keep your GM crap.”

1/4/2011

KWS has again plant­ed genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied sug­ar beet H7‑1 in a field, despite vocif­er­ous protests. Today, Fri­day at noon, we unloaded about 16 tonnes of manure in front of the head­quar­ters in Ein­beck, under the slo­gan: “KWS — keep your GM crap.”

Images of the action here!
Video here!
Our press release: here!

Climate Camp — South Coast: Ressurection for the Insurrection

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Loca­tion: TBA, Sus­sex
Dates: approx 23rd Apr – 1st May
Web: http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/
E‑mail: southcoastcamp@riseup.net
Twit­ter: SC_ClimateCamp
Face­book: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207935279226157
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——————————————————————-
Loca­tion: TBA, Sus­sex
Dates: approx 23rd Apr – 1st May
Web: http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/
E‑mail: southcoastcamp@riseup.net
Twit­ter: SC_ClimateCamp
Face­book: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207935279226157
——————————————————————-

Imag­ine anoth­er world. A world where peo­ple mat­ter, where the out­stand­ing issues of the day, cli­mate change, com­mu­ni­ty resilience and work­ers rights are addressed and we can look for­ward to a more rad­i­cal and sus­tain­able future.

Imag­ined it? Good. Now come to the South Coast Cli­mate Camp this East­er and help us build it.

The South Coast Camp for Cli­mate Action will take place from the East­er week­end through to the May Day cel­e­bra­tions some­where on the beau­ti­ful South Downs in Sus­sex. Through liv­ing, eat­ing and work­ing togeth­er, we hope the camp will act as a pos­i­tive cat­a­lyst for change, trans­form­ing both the camp com­mu­ni­ty and the com­mu­ni­ties around it.

We aim to cre­ate a safe space where peo­ple can meet, share ideas, plan actions and then go do them.

At the end of the week we shall, as tra­di­tion dic­tates be tak­ing part in a mass action. This will form part of Brighton’s May Day cel­e­bra­tions where many direct action groups from around the coun­try are con­verg­ing in the sea­side resort for a very spe­cial day of direct action.

Work­shops are invit­ed from, UK Uncut, Plane Stu­pid, SolFed, Smash EDO, No Bor­ders, Grow Heathrow, Tran­si­tion Towns, the Rebel Clown Army and many more. Skill shares will be held on per­ma­cul­ture, gueril­la gar­den­ing, work­ers rights and tac­tics of resis­tance, cook­ing, build­ing rock­et stoves, bee keep­ing & com­mu­ni­ty organ­is­ing: among oth­er stuff.

We will share the knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence we have gath­ered over many years with local com­mu­ni­ty groups to leave a last­ing lega­cy; a tru­ly rad­i­calised com­mu­ni­ty. The camp itself is just the sow­ing of the seed.

**** After the site has been lib­er­at­ed the loca­tion will be announced on the web­site, twit­ter, face­book etc. Please help spread the word about the camp and get in touch if you can offer any help. ****

Stop GM Gathering, Ireland

Dear Friends,
In mid-Feb­ru­ary, the EU pro­posed a relax­ing of the leg­is­la­tion around the pres­ence of GM ingre­di­ents in food stuffs and ani­mal feed in Europe. This move was sup­port­ed by Bren­dan Smith, then Min­is­ter for Agri­cul­ture, Food and Fish­eries, with­out a man­date from the peo­ple of Ire­land.


Dear Friends,
In mid-Feb­ru­ary, the EU pro­posed a relax­ing of the leg­is­la­tion around the pres­ence of GM ingre­di­ents in food stuffs and ani­mal feed in Europe. This move was sup­port­ed by Bren­dan Smith, then Min­is­ter for Agri­cul­ture, Food and Fish­eries, with­out a man­date from the peo­ple of Ire­land.

It is now time to har­vest the grow­ing momen­tum of con­cern among the peo­ple of Ire­land.

Food Action and GM-Free Ire­land invite you to par­tic­i­pate in ‘Keep­ing Ire­land GM Free/StopGMO – Gath­er­ing Momen­tum’ an all-Island gath­er­ing. This will take place on Sun­day, 10th of April 2011, at the Dublin Food Coop. The aim of this all day event is to:

1. facil­i­tate net­work­ing between food groups, farm­ing groups, com­mu­ni­ty gar­den­ers, social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal, groups, pol­i­cy mak­ers, sci­en­tists, med­ical pro­fes­sion, and indi­vid­u­als,
2. devel­op strate­gies for:
* build­ing resis­tance against the push from the GM sec­tor lob­by­ing at a gov­ern­ment lev­el
* the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of infor­ma­tion around the use of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fi­ca­tion and its impli­ca­tions
* inter-agency work that will strength­en the GM Free move­ment in Ire­land

The pro­gramme for the day is yet to be finalised but will be con­firmed pri­or to the event. A veg­an, whole­food lunch will be pro­vid­ed and we invite atten­dants to give a sug­gest­ed dona­tion of €5.

If you would like to attend, please click here to com­plete the Reg­is­tra­tion Form.

If you need fur­ther details, please con­tact stopgm@riseup.net, 0857296088.

In appre­ci­a­tion, Food Action
http://stopgmevent.wordpress.com/

Protests delay destructive Amazon dams

25.3.11
The con­struc­tion of the Madeira dams in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon has been delayed, fol­low­ing vio­lent protests at the Jirau dam site last week.

Con­struc­tion work­ers report­ed­ly set fire to build­ings and more than 40 bus­es at the site, and ran­sacked shops and cash-points, in protest against low pay and bad work­ing con­di­tions.

The protests brought the dam con­struc­tion to a stand still.

25.3.11
The con­struc­tion of the Madeira dams in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon has been delayed, fol­low­ing vio­lent protests at the Jirau dam site last week.

Con­struc­tion work­ers report­ed­ly set fire to build­ings and more than 40 bus­es at the site, and ran­sacked shops and cash-points, in protest against low pay and bad work­ing con­di­tions.

The protests brought the dam con­struc­tion to a stand still.

The Jirau and San­to Anto­nio dams, part of the Madeira Riv­er hydro­elec­tric com­plex, will dam­age vast areas of land, upon which numer­ous trib­al peo­ples depend for their sur­vival. The Indi­ans did not give their con­sent for the dams to be built.

Domin­gos Par­intintin of the Par­intintin tribe said, ‘We hope that the project will be stopped, because it is our chil­dren who will suf­fer the con­se­quences. They will no longer have enough fish or enough game to feed them­selves’.

The uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans liv­ing in the area are extreme­ly vul­ner­a­ble as they depend com­plete­ly on their for­est, and they have lit­tle resis­tance to out­side dis­eases, which threat­en to dri­ve them to extinc­tion.

A report in the Fol­ha de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s biggest news­pa­pers, warned of an ‘explo­sion of crim­i­nal­i­ty’ in the area, par­tic­u­lar­ly homi­cide, sex­u­al exploita­tion and drug traf­fick­ing, as the dam con­struc­tion has attract­ed thou­sands of immi­grants. More than 37,000 con­struc­tion work­ers are report­ed to be build­ing the two dams.

This huge wave of immi­gra­tion is putting pres­sure on the land and increas­ing the risks faced by the uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans.

French com­pa­ny GDF Suez is lead­ing the con­sor­tium build­ing the Jirau dam.

A banquet of possibilities…the 12th OKasional cafe is on it’s way

March 21, 2011

We are hold­ing reg­u­lar meet­ings in the next few weeks before we open up again in a new loca­tion, so get in touch to find out when and where our next meet up is. It’s a prop­er ban­quet of pos­si­bil­i­ties so come share your ideas and enthu­si­asm, join a work­ing group, and get involved.

March 21, 2011

We are hold­ing reg­u­lar meet­ings in the next few weeks before we open up again in a new loca­tion, so get in touch to find out when and where our next meet up is. It’s a prop­er ban­quet of pos­si­bil­i­ties so come share your ideas and enthu­si­asm, join a work­ing group, and get involved.

We are tak­ing book­ings for work­shops already begin­ning on the 11th of April so hit us up with your pro­pos­als…

give us a shout at our email mcrokcafe@gmail.com

OK-UPY & DEFY.X
http://okcafe.wordpress.com

The Unfair Fare Dodge! A railway adventure

16 April, 12 noon

16 April, 12 noon

Dressed as The Rail­way Chil­dren (as much tweed as you can man­age!) we will hold a ral­ly at Mon­u­ment sta­tion before tak­ing red flan­nel pet­ti­coats and flags to the rail­way plat­form. From there you’re invit­ed to join the Unfair Fare Dodge as we pay a rea­son­able fare for a 30 mile jour­ney (we’ll pay the amount you would pay for the equiv­a­lent jour­ney in Europe). Our gov­ern­ment plans to increase fares a mas­sive 31% over the next 4 years. To cut car­bon emis­sions, we need to cut — not increase — train fares. We can do some­thing about that.

Organ­ised by Cli­mate Rush
More info: http://www.railwayadventure.wordpress.com

The Climate Renegades are GO GO GO!

At a time when cuts and aus­ter­i­ty are grab­bing the head­lines, the need for action on cli­mate change has nev­er been greater. Floods, heat­waves, ener­gy short­ages, ris­ing food prices – these are just the start if we don’t take action now.

At a time when cuts and aus­ter­i­ty are grab­bing the head­lines, the need for action on cli­mate change has nev­er been greater. Floods, heat­waves, ener­gy short­ages, ris­ing food prices – these are just the start if we don’t take action now.

This sum­mer the Cli­mate Rene­gades will tour the coun­try to sup­port grass-root and com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles, both embry­on­ic and estab­lished, based upon local needs and wish­es. Are you part of a local cam­paign against cuts and/or cli­mate change that wants to do some­thing big this sum­mer? Or per­haps you are some­one who has skills to offer? If so, read on…

We are a roam­ing col­lec­tive of expe­ri­enced envi­ron­men­tal activists with skills to share. We are look­ing to hold events that raise aware­ness of the need for action on cli­mate jus­tice, enable inde­pen­dence from a con­strict­ing eco­nom­ic sys­tem, and empow­er com­mu­ni­ties under threat. These events will cre­ate a space for col­lec­tive cre­ativ­i­ty and free expres­sion, will pro­mote and utilise non-vio­lent direct action as a viable tac­tic for inspir­ing rad­i­cal change, and will act as space for a free exchange of skills, knowl­edge and ideas.

Cli­mate Rene­gades is one of a few projects that came out of the Camp for Cli­mate Action’s Space for Change gath­er­ing.

We wish to pro­mote pro­gres­sive change from peo­ple com­ing togeth­er with­in and across com­mu­ni­ties in the face of dom­i­nant pow­ers, to con­front prob­lems and take their fate into their own hands. Through a diver­si­ty of tac­tics we wish to sup­port this change.

We find repres­sion and abuse of social strug­gles by con­cen­trat­ed pow­er – be that state, big busi­ness or ‘rev­o­lu­tion­ary’ Polit­i­cal par­ties. For this rea­son, we share a tra­di­tion and com­mit­ment to active anti-hier­ar­chy and col­lec­tive deci­sion mak­ing.

Cli­mate Rene­gades is not envis­aged to form a move­ment or a mod­el for future years. Our role is one of facil­i­tat­ing and devel­op­ing the strength of cam­paigns, enabling the vision­ing of com­mon solu­tions and high­light­ing the impor­tance of envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles in this time of forced aus­ter­i­ty.

For more info, e‑mail us or check out our Face­book group!

climaterenegades@riseup.net
http://www.facebook.com/help/?mail_sent#!group.php?gid=116697736256

BANK FIREBOMBED BY ELF, RUSSIA

anony­mous report:

“A group of ELF activists reports a bank fire­bombed on the night of March the 12th. Win­dows bro­ken and 4 molo­tovs (3 litres of gaso­line total) thrown inside the office made for a nice and bright firestorm.

anony­mous report:

“A group of ELF activists reports a bank fire­bombed on the night of March the 12th. Win­dows bro­ken and 4 molo­tovs (3 litres of gaso­line total) thrown inside the office made for a nice and bright firestorm.

Bank we have cho­sen to attack plays major role in pro­vid­ing finan­cial sup­port for defor­esta­tion project in Khim­ki for­est: it loaned out about 29 bil­lion rubles to the con­trac­tors respon­si­ble for toll high­way con­struc­tion that has already killed acres of for­est north of Moscow.
We express ten­der sol­i­dar­i­ty with anar­chists from Belarus who suf­fer from state repres­sion for tak­ing an active posi­tion against destruc­tion of our forests (they are blamed for a fire­bomb­ing attempt at russ­ian embassy in Min­sk, Belarus). And we call for decen­tral­ized actions against Sber­bank of Rus­sia, Vin­ci com­pa­ny and Belarus gov­ern­ment offices over­seas on March the 15th (or lat­er, nev­er mind the date) on behalf of our belarus com­rades.

ELF-Rus­sia”