earthfirst – Page 189

Bristol Co-Mutiny 12th – 20th Sept “Social Change Not Climate Change”

Capitalism and its puppet de‘mock’cracy are spiralling out of control:a self-created recession, rocketing unemployment, soaring national debt, the illegal and unjust occupation of Afghanistan & Iraq, apathy towards massacres in Palestine and Sri Lanka, the criminalisation of free movement, the police assaults and murders of people on the streets, the construction of larger airports and coal-fired power stations in the face of devastating environmental degradation, the privatisation of social housing, the list goes on.

But there is hope. There are anti government protests from Greece to Paris, and China to London, as well as factory and school occupations across the U.K. World wide there are growing, active, and increasingly angry radical & working class movements standing up and resisting climate chaos, oppression, poverty, insecurity and state control.

Hand-in-hand with these protests are grassroots actions to build a new society and take control of our own lives. Ordinary people are finding ways to help each other in the face of the credit crisis created by the banks and corporations. We are re-learning old skills and learning new ones for the transition to a just society; enabling us to create community gardens, establish housing, food and worker’s co-ops, and use new economics in the neighbourhoods where we live

In Bristol and surrounds, a diverse bunch of enraged creative, dreamers and schemers, builders and gardeners, workers, students and unemployed have been drawn together by the common threads of our indignation at how a combination of corporate greed, social injustice and environmental degradation is leading us all towards climate chaos and financial collapse.

We invite you to converge on Bristol for an uprising of autonomous actions and events from 12th – 20th of September 2009.

The themes for those events and days of action are:

* Freedom of movement (surveillance, migration)
* Anti-militarism (Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Palestine, Filton)
* Climate justice (Just transition, financing of climate chaos, coal, airports)
* Financial collapse / community growth (role of banks, creating a new economy)
* Work (Workers’ solidarity, co-operative working, workplace occupations)
* Food (animal rights, sustainable food production, permaculture)
* Autonomous spaces (gentrification, housing, squatting)

The Co-Mutineers will be organising actions and events but we need you to get involved, wherever you are from and whatever your experience.

We encourage autonomous actions. Come on down, join the mutiny, get in touch!

comutiny@riseup.net
http://comutiny.wordpress.com

Dates for your diary:
Sat 12th September – Bristol Anarchist Book Fare
Sun 13th – Sun 20th September – CoMutiny Action Convergence – insert your revolution here!
Fri 18th – Sun 20th September – Days of action in defence of squats and autonomous spaces.

Otaraua hapu save wahi tapu from oil pipeline in Aotearoa

28th May 2009
The Otaraua hapu in Taranaki began packing up their occupation camp today after finally protecting their wahi tapu, from Greymouth Petroleum’s new pipeline.

After occupying the entrance to the well site and disrupting work on the new well for more than two months, the hapu’s request to have Tikorangi Pa officially identified as a wahi tapu by the New Plymouth District Council, was approved for an independent review last night.

After previously demanding a written agreement from GMP, the hapu informed Greymouth Petroleum via fax yesterday, stating it was willing to accept a verbal statement by CEO Mark Dunphy that GMP would not drill a pipeline through Tikorangi Pa. The hapu seem confident that the District Council review, due out in a few months, will provide the protection they need for their pa.

Mr Doorbar said while the occupation had brought the hapu together and closer to achieving a common goal, the fight was “not over”.

“It is important oil companies who work in our communities understand the impact they have, not just on tangata whenua but on the wider farming community … for ourselves we feel we have achieved the outcomes of why we undertook this occupation. Greymouth Petroleum did not drill through Tikorangi Pa. It remains to be seen whether or not we have to return to any form of peaceful occupation in the future.”

Updates: Day 11 | Day 17 | Day 55

Calais No Border Camp Call-Out 23-29 June 2009

The Calais No Border camp is a joint venture between French and Belgian activists and migrant support groups and the UK No Borders Network.

It aims to highlight the realities of the situation in Calais and Northern France; to build links with the migrant communities; to help build links between migrants support groups; and lastly, but not least, to challenge the authorities on the ground, to protest against increased repression of migrants and local activists alike.

This camp calls for the freedom of movement for all, an end to borders and to all migration controls. We call for a radical movement against the systems of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens, into the documented and the undocumented.

Why Calais?

We have chosen Calais for two main reasons; it is an important location in the history, development and practice of European migration controls and has long been a major bottleneck for those seeking to get to Britain. But more importantly, it is also a focus of the struggle between those who would see an end to all migration into the EU, and those trying to break down the barriers between peoples, the borders that prevent the freedom of movement for all, not just the privileged few.

Since the mid-nineties tens of thousands have lived in destitution, sleeping rough in Calais, waiting for their chance to cross the channel to England. Between 1999 and 2002 the Red Cross ran a centre at neighbouring Sangatte but this was forced to close after political pressure from France and Britain. Since then, the massive police presence and repression in Calais has forced thousands of men woman and children to wander the Calais region and all along the North coast of France, Belgium and Holland. They are routinely brutalised by the police; tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and repeatedly interned at the nearby Coquelles detention centre. The police regularly burn their shelters and the few meagre possessions that they contain. The local groups that support the migrants by providing food and other humanitarian aid are coming under increasing attack from the police and a number of activists have been arrested in recent months. Meanwhile British Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has been calling for the construction of a permanent holding/detention centre for migrants in Calais docks.

The Bigger Picture

Calais however remains only one small part of the overall picture of European migration controls, a major internal border within the hi-tech EU borders regime. Since the beginning of the decade, the EU been attempting to build ‘Fortress Europe’; externalising EU borders into Africa and Asia with EU border guards patrolling the Mediterranean, in Libya and off the West Coast of Africa courtesy of the Frontex borders agency; and via the European Neighbourhood Policy, where countries from the Ukraine all the way round the Mediterranean to Morocco are now paid by the EU to do its migration prevention work for it.

Migrants’ Rights Are Workers’ Rights

Through this system of border controls, authorities create two kinds of migrants: a small number of ‘skilled’ migrants, who are designated as ‘useful’ to the state; and a massive number of undocumented workers who have no rights and are therefore exploitable as cheap labour. Thus is our fight for freedom of movement also a fight for the rights of all workers.

Transnational solidarity works!

Building links and working together allows us to share information between us on a transnational level. It also allows us to exploit the fault-lines and cracks in Fortress Europe. Last November, transnational solidarity helped to prevent the planned deportation of Afghans from Calais to Kabul.

Campaigning Against Borders

This camp will continue the tradition of the No Border camps across the world since the late 1990s and, like the camp taking place this year in Lesvos in August, it will be a space to share information, skills, knowledge and experiences; a place to plan and take action together against the system of borders which divides us all. For centuries European imperial powers have exploited the land, resources and people of the majority world to become wealthy and powerful, leaving war, environmental destruction and massive inequality in their wake. Those who attempt the journey to the UK or elsewhere in Europe are challenging this injustice by their movement. The situation in Calais is a result of the compromise and conflict of interest between French and UK immigration policy and we call on groups, networks and individuals here to take action across Europe and to become part of a global movement of solidarity that defends their right to choose where they move .

Equal rights for all !!

*No One Is Illegal. Freedom Of Movement And The Right To Stay For All*

http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/

http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

Saving Iceland Summer Mobilisation 2009!

Join us from 18th July to resist the industrialisation of Europe’s last remaining great wilderness and take direct action against heavy industry!

The Struggle So Far

Join us from 18th July to resist the industrialisation of Europe’s last remaining great wilderness and take direct action against heavy industry!

The Struggle So Far

The campaign to defend Europe’s greatest remaining wilderness continues. For the past four years direct action camps in Iceland during the summer have targeted aluminium smelters, mega-dams and geothermal power plants.

After the terrible destruction caused at Kárahnjúkar and Hengill, it is time to crush the ‘master plan’ that would have seen every single major glacial river dammed, every substantial geothermal field exploited and the construction of aluminium smelters, oil refineries and silicon factories, as well as a significant increase in Iceland’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The Situation Now

Despite optimism following the ‘cutlery revolution’ where mass street protests and direct action brought down the Icelandic government and forced the issue of heavy industry back onto the political agenda, the battle is far from over.

The fall of aluminium prices on the world market and the global economic crisis has taken its toll on heavy industry projects and aluminium companies in Iceland, putting many of the plans for aluminium smelters, mega-dams and geothermal power plants on hold, or ruled out completely. The heavy industry machine is far from having been defeated but recent uprisings show the deep impact Saving Iceland has had on the grassroots and the political landscape.

Political Changes

The recent elections are a major blow for the environmental movement in Iceland, with the ‘Left Greens’ booting the minister of the environment out for being too much of a genuine environmentalist. We are looking at a heavily fortified pro-heavy industry government, doing away with any pretence of the government being ‘Green’ or even remotely Left wing. On top of this, national energy companies have already started negotiations with other types of industry in the North, where some politicians ruled out a new smelter.

Anarchy in Iceland

Years of work by Saving Iceland to introduce the ideas of direct action and anarchy into mainstream society, coupled with a radicalised population following the downfall of the government, has resulted in a constantly growing movement of radical activists and anarchists in Iceland.

Over the past few months squatters have twice taken a social centre and defended it from eviction, refugee and no borders activism is going strong, Food Not Bombs hit the streets every week and actions such as the four “skyr attacks” (where green yoghurt is thrown all over displays, computers and suits) in two months have targeted politicians and nature killers.

The mutual support between the Icelandic radical community and Saving Iceland this summer will make for a very exciting and action-filled mobilisation!

Targets this Summer

The Helguvík aluminium smelter, targeted by Saving Iceland last summer with an action that stopped construction for a whole day after 40 activists invaded the site, is still being built. Powering the smelter will mean eight new power plants, at least seven of which will be geothermal from the Reykjanes Peninsula, drying it up, and Hellisheiði – also targeted by Saving Iceland last summer that saw a drill rig shut down costing thousands of pounds. One of the geothermal plants powering Century’s smelter could be in Bitra, close to Hengill, where a local campaign last winter stopped construction from taking place. The eighth power plant will probably be a mega-dam on the beautiful Þjórsá River.

If ever there was a building site and "test drilling sites" destroying unique and fragile ecosystems and vulnerable to direct action this summer they are on the Reykjanes peninsula, South West Iceland!

Get involved!

Come to Iceland from the 18th July and join us for a summer of resistance and direct action. Check www.savingiceland.org for regular updates and information for people joining us, or email us on savingiceland@riseup.net to let us know when you’re arriving.

Help support our struggle with donations, translations, solidarity actions and by spreading the word.

Climate Rush Pedal Power

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Monday 1st June the UK Parliament returns from recess for the summer sitting.
We want to give them a warm welcome and remind them of the heat they can expect if they continue to ignore climate change.

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

Ed Miliband (Secretary of State Energy and Climate Change) is in Bonn that evening, discussing with other ‘world leaders’ the agenda for the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Let’s give our ‘leaders’ a taste of the civil disobedience they can expect if real climate justice fails to materialise.

It is also the first evening of a coal conference at the illustrious ‘Chatham House’. Everyone who’s anyone, at least in the coal world, will be there.

We’ll begin our bike-ride outside their conference before winding our way through town.

Meet us from 5pm on St James Square, SW1Y 4LE. We’ll then move off at 6pm and take our bikes for a relaxed tour through London. Labour might think that investing in electric cars is the solution to climate change but we know that cars using electricity from coal-fired power stations is yet another red-herring.

Camp Climat at Nantes

Activists campaigning against a proposed local airport near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 – 9 August 2009.

“Le Camp Climat” concept is taking off over the channel, just as it is in the UK. Activists campaigning against the proposed construction of a new airport 16 kilometres north of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique, 44) have announced a camp from the 3 – 9 August 2009.

Activists campaigning against a proposed local airport near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 – 9 August 2009.

The airport plans have a long history, with the origins of the plan to construct a “hub” for north-west France, dating from 30 years ago. The proposed airport will concrete over 2000 hectares of traditional bocage: pastoral land divided by traditional hedgerows. By contrast Britain’s second busiest airport Gatwick occupies a site of only 300 hectares. And all this despite 3 airports already operational (Nantes, Angers, Rennes) within 100 kilometres of the proposed sites. None of the existing airports are operating at anything like full capacity at the moment, nor will they in the future if current air tickets sales continue their present downward trend.

Despite being beyond any reasonable concept of utility, the Pharaonique project rolls forward, with forced sales of farms, homes, and land. Surveys and geological sampling of the site began in October 2008.

Opposition to the project is centred on two main organisations: the Camp Climat, and a coalition that unites resident groups called ACIPA, which has long pursued a civil campaign amongst the French bureaucracy.

As the threat becomes more imminent, many acts of resistance have already occurred: with tractor roadblocks and sabotage of survey works. A visiting official from the prefecture, come to announce the loss of land and homes, was flanned. The survey workers now work alongside an escort of up to sixty gendarmes. Eight activists face fines of up to 15,000 euros and sentences of 2 – 4 months for their part in the resistance.

Le camp fonctionnera de manière autogérée, avec pour principes de base : une empreinte écologique minimum, des actions à fort impact auprès de la population locale et/ou des médias, des échanges de savoirs sur les pratiques alternatives et écologiques, la mise en commun des bénéfices, la pratique du prix libre ou coûtant et le développement de réseaux. Il s’inscrira dans le cadre d’une semaine de résistance sur le site et fera suite à deux moments forts sur place : le festival « Le Plancher des Vaches » (samedi 1er août) et le pique-nique annuel des opposants au projet d’aéroport (dimanche 2 août).

(The basic principles of the autonomous camp are: a minimal ecological footprint, strong local links, strong media impact, educational activities and exchanges, development of networks, and communal living with food at prix libre (contribute as you can afford). The camp forms part of a week of resistance at the site with a music festival on the 1 August, and an annual local picnic on the 2 August.)

Notre-Dames-De-Landes is 202 kilometres from the ferry terminal at St. Malo, which makes for a pleasant two day ride to be here, but Nantes is also well served by rail: the TGV from Paris (1 train/hour) takes 2h 20mins.

www.campclimat.org

Scottish Climate Camp 3-10 August – details

“Global ecosystems are in collapse, species extinction is unparalleled in human history and dangerous climate change is a reality affecting us all. There is no time to act but now. Join us 3-10 August for a week of low-impact living and high-impact direct action.”

The camp will be set up somewhere around the Firth of Forth in central scotland – surrounded by coal-fired power stations, gas and oil refineries, coal ports, open cast coal mines, corporate HQs, an airport, a nuclear power station, a cement factory and oil terminals.

This camp will cut carbon emissions. Climate Camp Scotland will raise the profile of direct action in Scotland, showing that the nature of the climate crisis is such that we no longer have time to wait for our political and business ‘leaders’ to act for us.

In addition, we aim to radicalise the political analysis of climate change and its solutions, placing it within a wider political context of social change and the reshaping of society towards more egalitarian and libertarian values.

Join us in August to take action against the root causes of climate change!

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Fundraiser 4th June:

2 DEGREES 2 HOT – A night of Revolutionary Hip-Hop!

Thursday 4th June, 11-3am at the Bongo Club

Support us by coming to the Bongo Club in Edinburgh (37 Holyrood Road) on Thursday 4th June for great music, a great night out and raising money for our summer of direct action!

Acts confirmed so far: Radical performance and poetry by Tickle, Burning Bright, Mechanical Beast, Lifeshows, 1sp and DePTHS!

Boiling Over – Scotland’s Gathering for Climate Action: 11th – 14th June, The Phoenix Centre, Glasgow

Boiling Over will be a space for thought, analysis, learning, movement building, training and creativity. Ultimately, we hope to develop a strategy for stopping climate change from within Scotland.

Social Change not Climate Change

Despite years of rhetoric about Climate Change Bills, Kyoto Protocols, Technofixes and Sustainability, CO2 emissions are still rising, ecosystems are still collapsing and society is as unequal as ever. This is testimony to the fact that we need to take matters into our own hands and find bottom up solutions to climate chaos.

What’s happening?

The programme will include four days of talks, film showings and discussion, culminating in planning and visioning sessions. We will skill-share practical skills such as cooking for large numbers of people and direct action trainings which will lay the foundations for the Camp for Climate Action happening in Scotland from 3-10 of August.

Come along!

The space will be a safe, accessible and open environment, free from oppression, hierarchy and discrimination. Food and accommodation will be provided.

Register early!

Register and donate early to help us plan and fund Boiling Over.
Download the Registration Form from our website and post it back to us, or email your information to climatecampscotland@riseup.net and make your donation online.

If you would like to see a particular workshop/discussion/filmshowing/etc happen or would like to facilitate one please get in touch and send an email to *climatecampscotland [at]
riseup.net*

http://www.climatecampscotland.org.uk/

Peru Indigenous In Standoff With Government

May 22nd 2009
For more than a month, indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon have been maintaining blockades of roads, rivers, airports and oil and gas pipelines to protest a series of new laws that would lead to increased industrial exploitation of their territories. The decrees were passed in accordance with the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement.

An estimated 13,000 people from 65 tribes and 1200 communities are taking part in the protests.

In response, President Alan Garcia declared a state of emergency, suspended civil liberties and dispatched the army to the affected regions. The Peruvian and Argentinian national oil companies have both been forced to cease operations in the region.

The police, military and extraction companies have used violence to attempt to break the blockades, resulting in injuries and disappearances — but the indigenous groups are refusing to back down. Despite Garcia’s insistence that none of the laws will be revisited, the Peruvian legislature has repealed one of the 10 laws and opened negotiations about the other nine.

The Peruvian government’s response to the crisis has sparked outrage among indigenous people and their allies worldwide, and the Peruvian mission to the United Nations was recently met with protests in New York.

For links to more news stories, visit Intercontinental Cry.

For more information, updates and photos/video of police brutality at the protests, visit Amazon Watch.

Rossport Shell to Sea Gathering, 29th May – 1st June

Everyone is invited to the third annual June gathering here at Rossport.

Friday 29th May – Monday 1st June.

The campaign has been running for years now, and you can find out more on the Rossport Solidarity Camp website: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/

Everyone is invited to the third annual June gathering here at Rossport.

Friday 29th May – Monday 1st June.

The campaign has been running for years now, and you can find out more on the Rossport Solidarity Camp website: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/

The gathering is a great chance to see the area (really really beautiful), find out what’s really going on, and to meet the people involved – campaigners, locals, cats.

Also, music, workshops, surfing, kayaking, food (including seaweed).

Preparation is going on now, and it feels exciting.

Last year, when shell tried to lay the RAW gas pipeline, the people resisted all summer. Eventually, the solitaire (the biggest pipe laying ship in the world) was forced to fuck off, with its tail between its legs.

This year they will try again, and it is the special blend of locals, and activists, from near and far, that have kept them away so far.

Come and see what it’s like when all types of people coming together for a common cause. Shell is so powerful, please come along and help.

ps. if you can’t make it for the gathering, you are welcome any time you like through the summer, even if it’s only for a day or two.

pps. please spread the word; emailing, texting, talking about rossport and the gathering.

Hoping to see you here!

Eco-village occupation London June 6th

Hello friends,

you may be aware of the eco-village occupation which is being planned for Saturday June 6th. The idea is to occupy a disused urban site in SW London near Hammersmith and to start an eco-village community based on sustainable methods of living such as vegetable growing, compost toilets the works. There is a press release below- please can you distribute it to all and sundry and tell everyone you know who would want to know that this thing is going down or up? (depending on which way you look at it 😎

Hello friends,

For immediate release…

Background:

In May 1996, 500 The Land is Ours activists occupied 13 acres of derelict land on the banks of the River Thames in Wandsworth, highlighting the misuse of urban land, the lack of provision of affordable housing and the deterioration of the urban environment. That action grew into far more than just a simple land rights action.

A community grew up on the site called Pure Genius!! over the 5½ months that the occupation lasted for…..

Then and now:

“Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars” Martin Luther King.

In the first three months of 2009, nearly 13,000 Britons lost their home to repossessions. Now, perhaps more than ever, the ideas of peaceful land reclamation and eco-villages are becoming recognized as the solution to problems such as overcrowding in cities and the destruction of the land due to harmful agricultural practices.

Action:

In the spirit of Pure Genius, On June 6th 2009, hundreds of activists will converge on a piece of derelict land close by to Hammersmith in south west London to create an eco-village community based entirely on sustainable technology and construction techniques.

Come and be a part of this eco-village community.

Inspired:

This eco-village occupation is inspired by campaigns like The Land is Ours which campaigns peacefully for access to the land, its resources, and the decision-making processes affecting them, for everyone, irrespective of race, gender or age. for more information, please visit:

www.tlio.org.uk

Meet-up:

The exact location of the site will be revealed on the day. The meet up point is at Waterloo Station (under the clock in the middle of the station) at 10AM on Saturday 6th June. Please try to be on time as we don’t want to be hanging around all morning.

If you would like to speak to someone regarding the campaign or the occupation, please contact Carolyn on: 01727 812369 or Gareth on: 07515 166011 or email: diggers360@yahoo.co.uk