Author: earthfirst

Stop Incineration Now! SchNEWS Film and Roast Fundraiser !

Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now Film and Roast Fundrais­er -
Just released:SchNEWS Film:Wasters:The quirky & inspir­ing sto­ry of a group of cli­mate activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! & Cli­mate Camp, who occu­pied the site of pro­posed Newhaven Incin­er­a­tor last year, July 2008.
Also featured:The Sto­ry of Stuff.
Announce­ment of Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Incin­er­a­tion: 11 July 2009

Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now Film and Roast Fundrais­er -
Just released:SchNEWS Film:Wasters:The quirky & inspir­ing sto­ry of a group of cli­mate activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! & Cli­mate Camp, who occu­pied the site of pro­posed Newhaven Incin­er­a­tor last year, July 2008.
Also featured:The Sto­ry of Stuff.
Announce­ment of Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Incin­er­a­tion: 11 July 2009
and 2 day Car­a­van against Incineration:September 26 & 27 2009

Address: The Cow­ley Club, 12 Lon­don Road, Brighton BN1 4JA
Direc­tions: From frnt of Brighton Sta­tion, turn left down Trafal­gar St to end, then left ont o Lon­don Road, keep walk­ing till u come to Somer­fields, the Club is just a few steps fur­ther down the same road.
Near­est Pub­lic Trans­port: Bus­es on Lon­don Road, Brighton train Sta­tion
Post­code: BN1 4JA | View Map
Time: 2pm onwards
Price: Noth­ing to enter, £3.50 dona­tion for roast
Phone: 07505016362
Email: mkechnge7@wildmail.com
Web: http://stopincinerationnownetwork.wordpress.com

Protests Resume at Tara

30.1.09
Yes­ter­day 13 Tara Activists staged a return to ambush protests . The Video speaks for itself.

–

Call­ing all Pro­tec­tors of Tara!

Fol­low­ing on from last Thurs­day’s suc­cess­ful day of Direct Action, peace­ful
protest again on Wednes­day 4th Feb

All wel­come

–

A chairde

30.1.09
Yes­ter­day 13 Tara Activists staged a return to ambush protests . The Video speaks for itself.

–

Call­ing all Pro­tec­tors of Tara!

Fol­low­ing on from last Thurs­day’s suc­cess­ful day of Direct Action, peace­ful
protest again on Wednes­day 4th Feb

All wel­come

–

A chairde

To raise funds for Action Days, there will be a Tara Pix­ie buskathon in
Gal­way on Sat­ur­day 6th Feb. Shop Street, 12pm to 5pm

Music, per­form­ers and guests want­ed.

Crash space avail­able but please RSVP ASAP

Lou and Emma Rua ()

Teamhair Abu

***********************************

Sáb­háil Teamhair
Shell Chun Sáille
www.tarapixie.net

Lou McMan­mon
loumcmanmon@gmail.com

Ten Thousand People Encircle the Niyamgriji Mountains in Orissa, India

Jan­u­ary 30 2009

Jan­u­ary 30 2009
Three days ago, 10 thou­sand peo­ple, a major­i­ty of them trib­al, formed a 17 km long human chain around the Niyam­grii moun­tains in Oris­sa, India. The peo­ple were protest­ing the plans of Vedan­ta, a British min­ing com­pa­ny, to start baux­ite min­ing the moun­tains. Baux­ite is the most impor­tant raw mate­r­i­al for alu­minum pro­duc­tion and last year the Supreme Court said two of the planned min­ing projects could go ahead.

The protest was the sec­ond large-scale demon­stra­tion in ten days: on 17 Jan­u­ary up to 7,000 pro­test­ers marched to the gates of Vedanta’s alu­mini­um refin­ery in the near­by town of Lan­ji­garh.

“The rul­ing meant that an arm of the British-list­ed min­ing giant Vedan­ta could use baux­ite from a moun­tain in Oris­sa which local hill tribes view as sacred,” says on BBC News and con­tin­ues:

In a sep­a­rate rul­ing last year, South Kore­an steel firm Posco was also giv­en the go-ahead by the court for a $12bn plant in the same state. Envi­ron­men­tal and trib­al cam­paign­ers have called on India’s prime min­is­ter to halt the Vedan­ta project. They argue that India’s rush to devel­op­ment should not come at the expense of tra­di­tion­al and sus­tain­able ways of life of trib­al and mar­gin­alised peo­ple.

Many who took part in Tuesday’s protest bran­dished tra­di­tion­al weapons, such as bows and arrows. They car­ried plac­ards with slo­gans includ­ing “Vedan­ta, Go Back” and “Stop min­ing in Niyam­giri”. Their demon­stra­tion was fol­lowed by a pub­lic meet­ing in which speak­ers railed against the Lon­don-based com­pa­ny, which is cur­rent­ly set­ting up a large alu­mi­na refin­ery in the area.

Don­gia Khond­Speak­ers said they would oppose min­ing in the hills until their “last breath”. They demand­ed the imme­di­ate can­cel­la­tion of the min­ing lease to Vedan­ta. “The Niyam­giri hill is the life­line of the trib­als and there is no way we can allow baux­ite min­ing here,” Lin­garaj Azad, a leader who spoke at the meet­ing, told the BBC.

The Don­gria Kondh tribe, who live in the Niyam­giri hills, con­sid­er the hill sacred. They have been oppos­ing the min­ing lease giv­en to Vedan­ta for years, say­ing it would destroy their lives, liveli­hood, reli­gion and cul­ture. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists have also opposed plans to start baux­ite min­ing, because they say that the area is eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive. They say that if min­ing goes ahead it would lead to the destruc­tion of for­est, large scale dis­place­ment and would dry up or pol­lute dozens of rivers and streams.

Vedan­ta claims that “no-one is going to be dis­placed…” and that the com­pa­ny is “com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of the area.”

Protest­ing in front of Vedan­ta’s meet­ingsSamaren­dra Das, an Indi­an author, film mak­er and activist, who has been fight­ing the case of the Don­gria Kondh tribe, says that the baux­ite min­ing will lead to cul­tur­al geno­cide. The tribes will be forced to leave their lands and adapt to a lifestyle they do not want to. Samaren­dra and Felix Padel have writ­ten sev­er­al arti­cles about the con­se­quenses of the baux­ite min­ing and some of the have been puplished here on Sav­ing Iceland’s web­site: Agya, What Do You Mean by Devel­op­ment? and Dou­bleDeath: Aluminium’s Links With Geno­cide.

Sur­vival International’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said yes­ter­day: “By these protests the Don­gria Kondh are show­ing just how far the author­i­ties have failed them. The fact that the machines are run by a major British com­pa­ny should be a cause for shame in the City of Lon­don. This is a scan­dal which won’t go away until Vedan­ta leaves the tribe in peace.”

15 years on — Solsbury Hill anti-road resistance photo exhibition, book launch and on-line archive

Sols­bury Hill near Bath was the set­ting for an ear­ly ’90s bat­tle against road build­ing (and by exten­sion depend­ing who you talked to from the cam­paign — unsus­tain­able development/romans/global warming/industrial infra­struc­tur­al growth/spectacular society/babylon/illogical trans­port policy/the tories/civilisation.)

Sols­bury Hill near Bath was the set­ting for an ear­ly ’90s bat­tle against road build­ing (and by exten­sion depend­ing who you talked to from the cam­paign — unsus­tain­able development/romans/global warming/industrial infra­struc­tur­al growth/spectacular society/babylon/illogical trans­port policy/the tories/civilisation.)

Adri­an Arbib a pho­tog­ra­ph­er who was also active in the cam­paign (and who has worked with indige­nous groups world­wide) is pub­lish­ing a book of his pho­tos from the cam­paign and has set up a linked on-line video/document archive.

The book is being launched at a view­ing and par­ty of the Sols­bury Hill Pho­to exhib­it on Fri­day 20th Feb­ru­ary 6 — 8:30pm In the Wal­cot Chapel Gallery, Bath and over the road after to the Bell Pub.

The Exhi­bi­tion is run­ning until March 8th and the book of pho­to’s is com­ing out to coin­cide with the open­ing.
(Bring old photo’s/ news paper cuttings/ posters etc to up-load on the web page to make a big­ger archive.)

For more details and to check out the archive see: www.solsburyhill.org.uk

ps please for­ward to any con­tacts from the hill.

Climate Rush gets chained to Parliament

28 jan­u­ary 2009

Climate Rush chained to parliament28 jan­u­ary 2009
As I write this blog our MPs are debat­ing the sub­ject of the third run­way in the Com­mons. Although any deci­sion made will not be bind­ing it is pos­si­ble that there will be a labour revolt over the cur­rent deci­sion to go ahead when a vote is held at 7pm this evening. A not insignif­i­cant amount of MPs are seri­ous­ly annoyed with our gov­ern­men­t’s col­lu­sion with BAA, with two MPs decid­ing to resign over the issue this morn­ing.

Cli­mate Rush were out­side the gates of Par­lia­ment to show what they think of our far­ci­cal democ­ra­cy at 10.30am this morn­ing, cun­ning­ly bear­ing chains under large coats. It was an easy stroll over to the rail­ings and a leisure­ly pad­lock­ing ensued before any police even took any notice. Eight women and two men dressed in assort­ed Edwar­dian-style gear unfurled their lov­ing­ly sten­cilled aprons bear­ing the immor­tal DEEDS NOT WORDS, and pro­ceed­ed to smile for the atten­dant press.

After about an hour the police decid­ed to move every­one else off the area with a bit of force, before then mak­ing a u‑turn and let­ting every­one back in. They threat­ened arrest sev­er­al times, for protest­ing in a SOCPA area (you have to apply to protest any­where near Par­lia­ment) with­out a per­mit, and then for refusals to unchain. This was much to the amuse­ment of the pro-cannabis lob­by over the way in the square, who heck­led us through their mega­phone. I think they may take tips from us in the future. Tourists stopped to have their pho­tos tak­en. Suf­fragettes drank tea from a flask and ate turk­ish delight.

Even­tu­al­ly, the bolt­cut­ters arrived, and the police chopped through the chains. But still no arrests, in fact they appeared des­per­ate to avoid any arrests, clear­ly dread­ing the extra pub­lic­i­ty over our demon­stra­tion of true democ­ra­cy in action — orders seemed to change rapid­ly from whomev­er was pass­ing them down from on high. After all the Suf­fragettes had been freed a group hud­dle ensued to decide on whether to fur­ther attempt arrest, but it was decid­ed that this might prove near­ly impos­si­ble giv­en that it had already proved so dif­fi­cult, and instead we went off for a cup of tea and a plate of chips in the Methodist Church Hall cafe.

I’d like to think that some­thing sen­si­ble might occur in gov­ern­ment today, like our elect­ed politi­cians real­is­ing that build­ing a third run­way is not com­pat­i­ble with cut­ting 80% of our CO2 emis­sions, as already agreed. Alas I fear not.…
Join the fun with Cli­mate Rush if you’d like to voice your opin­ion on this mat­ter on a future date.

climaterush.co.uk

More pho­tos at http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/amelias_blog/2009/01/climate_rush_gets_chained_to_p.php

Arson attacks on luxury/railway cars, construction machines and airport fencing, Germany

26/01/09: Again cars torched

Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
26/01/09: Again cars torched
22/01/09: Arson attack on cars of the Ger­man Rail­way Ser­vice (Deutsche Bahn)
19/01/09: Exter­nal fence prop­er­ty of the police dam­aged
14/01/09: Three upper­class cars burned
10/01/09: Two cars and a moto burned down
09/01/09: Unknown per­sons set con­struc­tion machines in flames

———————————–

Again cars torched

Berlin, 25 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Again arsons attacks in Friedrichshain.
In the night to Sun­day, three cars got burned.
In the Elde­naer­str. a Porsche Cayenne got torched, togeth­er with a Golf parked next to it.
A few min­utes lat­er, a pass­er-by dis­cov­ered a burn­ing DHL vehi­cle in the Thaer­str.
The state secu­ri­ty took up the inves­ti­ga­tions.

Source: Berlin­er Zeitung

———————————–

Arson attack on cars of the Ger­man Rail­way Ser­vice (Deutsche Bahn)

Berlin, 22 of Jan­u­ary 2009

a claim we received:

„Attack the handy­men of the nuclear-lob­by

Before the Cas­tor’s trans­port 2008 took place, sev­er­al rail­ways line have been sab­o­taged through hook­claws in France and Ger­many. Short­ly after­wards, 9 com­rades have been arrest­ed in France, accused of mem­ber­ship with­in a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion and of being respon­si­ble of the sab­o­tages.
One of them is still in prison.

It is not a new thing, that in France one inprison activist upon antiter­ror laws. Already in Jan­u­ary 2008, it came to the impris­on­ment of five per­sons, described by cops and press as part of the „ultra­left­ists, anar­cho-autonomen“ move­ment, and they are wait­ing since then for their tri­al, in the dun­geons of the french jus­tice.

Such a way of pro­ceed­ing seems to be a strong trend with­in euro­pean author­i­ties respon­si­ble for the secu­ri­ty issues. Also the ger­man state secu­ri­ty works a lot on its ter­ror­ist-con­struc­tion, which new­ly land­ed in a tri­al against alleged mem­bers of the Mil­i­tant Group.
In Greece, 13 youths are sit­ting in prison since the begin­ning of the Decem­ber insur­rec­tion, also con­front­ed with the antiter­ror para­graph.

That is why on the 22 of Jan­u­ary we torched 5 cars of the Deutsche Bahn dur­ing the action week for the Tarnac 9.

As long as the Deutsche Bahn will keep on offer­ing its rail­ways for the nuclear trans­port, they will remain always a tar­get of our protest.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty means attack

a few „ultra-left­ists-anar­cho-autonome“.“

More pic­tures here: http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/foto/
_bin/index.php/Berliner+Zeitung/wieder_brannten_autos/2

———————————–

Exter­nal fence prop­er­ty of the police dam­aged

Frank­furt’s air­port, 19 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Mon­day the 19.1.09 one reck­oned that unknown per­sons dam­aged the exter­nal fence put by the police had been seri­ous­ly dam­aged, pre­cise­ly on its north­ern and west­ern side.

The amount of the dam­age is quite high.

Tues­day the 20.1.09, a group, which is clear­ly against the expan­sion of the air­port and calls itself „frank­furt’s gen­er­al sweep­ing blow“ (n.t.: wordgame in ger­man, the group name is almost the same as the one of the most impor­tant frank­furt’s news­pa­per), took respon­s­abil­i­ty for the attack by send­ing a claim.
Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the „frank­furt’s com­mon sweep­ing blow“!

Source: http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

———————————–

Three upper­class cars burned

Berlin, 14 of Jan­u­ary 2008

Three cars have been destroyed by arson on the ear­ly hours of wednes­day.
A pass­er byer notice a mer­cedes burn­ing in the Wiener­str. (Kreuzberg) around 2.20am and called the cops. The fire­bri­gade came to extin­guish the fire, the car got seri­ous­ly dam­aged though.

At Michaelkirch­platz, Mitte, a bmw burned around 3.15am.
Just 100m far­away, in Leuschn­er­damm, Kreuzberg, anoth­er bmw burned. The fire brigade extin­guished both fires. The cops sus­pect a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion behind the actions, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Tage­spiegel

———————————–

Two cars and a moto burned down

Berlin, 10 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Unknown per­son set last night a car and a moto on fire, in the Geth­se­manes­traße. The moto was a bmw, an opel car parked next got also dam­aged. Few min­ut­ed lat­er, cops reck­oned that an audi parked in the area was also in flames.

Since cops believe a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion behind the facts, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Tage­spiegel

———————————–

Unknown per­sons set con­struc­tion machines in flames

Berlin, 9 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Unknown per­sons set up sev­er­al con­struc­tion machines in flames, it hap­pened on a con­struc­tion site in Pankow.
Inhab­i­tants saw the flames on the spot, sit­ed in the Richard-Ermisch-straße and called the cops.
A dig­ger and two rad­lad­er got burned. State secur­tiy inves­ti­gates, since a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion is believed, there is no trace of the authors.

Source: ddp

infos about the con­struc­tion site: http://www.concepta-stadthaeuser.de/en/news/building-projects.html

Note for eng­lish speak­ing per­sons: sev­er­al lux­u­ri­ous hous­es are being build on this spot, close to an area where sev­er­al house­pro­jects are locat­ed.

———————————–

direct action news from greece
http://directactionde.blogspot.com

Tribal Solidarity category created

Fol­low­ing requests, this cat­e­go­ry has been cre­at­ed. For relat­ed sto­ries pre-dat­ing Jan­u­ary 2009, please search using spe­cif­ic terms in the box top right, or find them through oth­er cat­e­gories, such as wilder­ness defence

Fol­low­ing requests, this cat­e­go­ry has been cre­at­ed. For relat­ed sto­ries pre-dat­ing Jan­u­ary 2009, please search using spe­cif­ic terms in the box top right, or find them through oth­er cat­e­gories, such as wilderness”>http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/wildernessdefence”>wilderness defence

Imbolc at Tara

***************CALLING ALL TARA WARRIORS**************

Imbolg is fast approach­ing and the Protest Sea­son is kick­ing off again in style!

DAY OF ACTION for Tara, this Thurs­day 29 Jan­u­ary. Meet­ing Wednes­day night at Vig­il Farm, for actions ear­ly and all day Thurs­day.
Come pre­pared — bring sleep­ing bag, torch, water­proof warm clothes, cam­eras, ban­ners, cos­tumes, musi­cal instru­ments etc etc

***************CALLING ALL TARA WARRIORS**************

Imbolg is fast approach­ing and the Protest Sea­son is kick­ing off again in style!

DAY OF ACTION for Tara, this Thurs­day 29 Jan­u­ary. Meet­ing Wednes­day night at Vig­il Farm, for actions ear­ly and all day Thurs­day.
Come pre­pared — bring sleep­ing bag, torch, water­proof warm clothes, cam­eras, ban­ners, cos­tumes, musi­cal instru­ments etc etc

*All wel­come, please tell lit­er­al­ly every­one. Protests can­not con­tin­ue unless we have the num­bers to sup­port us.
*
If you can­not make it on Thurs­day but would like to help out, we need help with:
Press releas­es
Ban­ner mak­ing mate­ri­als
Cam­eras
Food
Any­thing else you thing that could be help­ful!
Tara is call­ing, the days are get­ting longer and warmer. Protest­ing is great cra­ic, it’s nev­er to late for TARA

For more details con­tact me on the num­ber below
Slán a Pix­ie
Lou

***********************************
00 353 86 3600478
Sáb­háil Teamhair
Shell Chun Sáille
www.tarapixie.net

http://www.savetara.com

E.On Ref Off!

On Sat­ur­day 24th Jan­u­ary a group of Lon­don Cli­mate Camp activists turned up at Stam­ford Bridge dressed as foot­ball ref­er­ees to show E.ON the red card.

Eon red card 1Eon red card 2On Sat­ur­day 24th Jan­u­ary a group of Lon­don Cli­mate Camp activists turned up at Stam­ford Bridge dressed as foot­ball ref­er­ees to show E.ON the red card. Over 40,000 Chelsea and Ipswich fans arriv­ing for the game heard us blow­ing the whis­tle on E.ON’s dirty FA Cup spon­sor­ship mon­ey, and thou­sands of them were per­son­al­ly hand­ed an “E.ON F.OFF” red card explain­ing how the com­pa­ny is mak­ing foul prof­its from the cli­mate cri­sis. It was all good fun and reac­tions were pret­ty pos­i­tive — E.ON them­selves would have paid tens of thou­sands to get the oppo­site pub­lic­i­ty for their brand!

Activists take action “In Defence of Ancient Forests”

26.01.2009
Today, pro­test­ers climbed trees and hung ban­ners in front of the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don to raise aware­ness of the con­tin­ued log­ging of Australia’s old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests. An emer­gency report com­piled by envi­ron­men­tal and protest groups in Tas­ma­nia was deliv­ered detail­ing the dev­as­ta­tion of pub­lic forests at the hands of wood­chip com­pa­ny Gunns Ltd. The com­pa­ny pro­pose more than 10km of log­ging roads to access 12 log­ging ‘coupes’ all of which con­tain irre­place­able ecosys­tems and some of the tallest trees on the plan­et.

Australian wilderness protest at Embassy26.01.2009
Today, pro­test­ers climbed trees and hung ban­ners in front of the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don to raise aware­ness of the con­tin­ued log­ging of Australia’s old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests. An emer­gency report com­piled by envi­ron­men­tal and protest groups in Tas­ma­nia was deliv­ered detail­ing the dev­as­ta­tion of pub­lic forests at the hands of wood­chip com­pa­ny Gunns Ltd. The com­pa­ny pro­pose more than 10km of log­ging roads to access 12 log­ging ‘coupes’ all of which con­tain irre­place­able ecosys­tems and some of the tallest trees on the plan­et.

Last Mon­day, con­cerned mem­bers of the British pub­lic deliv­ered a peti­tion with 936 names to the embassy ask­ing for an imme­di­ate halt to log­ging old growth for­est in Tas­ma­nia.
The protest is moti­vat­ed by the evic­tion of the long stand­ing protest camp in the Upper Flo­ren­tine val­ley in Tas­ma­nia. To date 30 pro­test­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers act­ing in the defence of the protest camp have been arrest­ed.

“We have gained sup­port from the Rt Hon Nor­man Bak­er MP, who is in the process of tabling an ear­ly day motion in Par­lia­ment express­ing con­cern about the extent of log­ging in the Upper Flo­ren­tine val­ley in Tas­ma­nia” said for­est cam­paign­er Phil Neale.

In July, fol­low­ing a meet­ing in Que­bec, The World Her­itage Com­mit­tee request­ed the State Par­ty to con­sid­er an “exten­sion of the prop­er­ty to include appro­pri­ate areas of tall euca­lypt for­est”, once more high­light­ing this issue as being an inter­na­tion­al con­cern.
This request has reit­er­at­ed inter­na­tion­al con­cerns with the con­tin­ued destruc­tion of Tas­ma­ni­a’s ancient forests.

“We are call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Rudd and Pre­mier Bartlett to heed the advice of the IUCN now and place an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on log­ging in the glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant forests of the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine” — Ula Majew­s­ki spokesper­son for grass roots cam­paign group ‘Still Wild, Still Threat­ened’.

There where unnec­es­sary amounts of police in the area but no arrests.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it www.huon.org and www.stillwildstillthreatened.org