Author: earthfirst

What Better Time? Issue One out now!

What Bet­ter Time? is a free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work. Issue one is out now, get em while they’re hot (actu­al­ly after the demo on Sat­ur­day they’re a bit wet and sog­gy).

What Bet­ter Time? is a free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work. Issue one is out now, get em while they’re hot (actu­al­ly after the demo on Sat­ur­day they’re a bit wet and sog­gy).
This month­ly news sheet aims to inform peo­ple across Scot­land, and fur­ther, from a wide range of back-grounds about a fight to save the plan­et (yes, that old chest­nut). As I am sure you are aware human induced cli­mate change is immi­nent, and every per­son on the plan­et has to do some­thing about it. The Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work brings togeth­er activists and con­cerned indi­vid­u­als from across Scot­land so we can sup­port each oth­er in our work to stop cli­mate change through protest and direct action along with build­ing sus­tain­able alter­na­tives.

It is avail­able in hard copy in all good social cen­tres and hip­py hang-outs or online.

Email: what­bet­ter­time [at] riseup.net
Web­site: whatbettertime.livejournal.com

No Christmas Cheer as Arms Giant Lockheed Gets Locked Out

“We nev­er for­get who we’re mur­der­ing and spy­ing for”. Cor­ner­stone of the UK mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex / Orwellian state, US-based arms firm Lock­heed Mar­tin was tar­get­ed ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing (13th Decem­ber) at its cen­tral Lon­don HQ as activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares and Lon­don Catholic Work­er deliv­ered a sea­son­al mes­sage to the com­pa­ny, lock­ing work­ers out of the build­ing for 45 min­utes.

“We nev­er for­get who we’re mur­der­ing and spy­ing for”. Cor­ner­stone of the UK mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex / Orwellian state, US-based arms firm Lock­heed Mar­tin was tar­get­ed ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing (13th Decem­ber) at its cen­tral Lon­don HQ as activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares and Lon­don Catholic Work­er deliv­ered a sea­son­al mes­sage to the com­pa­ny, lock­ing work­ers out of the build­ing for 45 min­utes.

Lock­heed Mar­tin, whose cor­po­rate slo­gan is “We nev­er for­get who we’re work­ing for”, was paid a vis­it on Thurs­day morn­ing by a group of non-vio­lent activists from a Tri­dent Ploughshares affin­i­ty group called the Muriel Lesters, and Lon­don Catholic Work­er. The group chained shut and blocked off all the entrances to the build­ing for 45 min­utes, from around 8am. The anony­mous build­ing (Man­ning House, 22 Carlisle Place, Lon­don. SW1P 1JA), hid­den away in a side street near Vic­to­ria sta­tion, hous­es the UK cor­po­rate head­quar­ters of the arms giant, which makes Tri­dent nuclear weapons (war­heads and mis­siles) and pro­duces sur­veil­lance sys­tems used by intel­li­gence ser­vices to spy on the pub­lic and for com­mer­cial espi­onage. Sev­er­al ban­ners and plac­ards were on dis­play, includ­ing one that read “Lock­heed Mar­tin — Nuclear Crime Scene”, and work­ers and vis­i­tors to the build­ing were leaflet­ed, as well as passers by.

A crowd of work­ers and vis­i­tors try­ing to gain access to the build­ing had gath­ered on the pave­ment with­in a quar­ter of an hour. Sev­er­al accept­ed leaflets. Bel­gravia police were called to deal with the pro­test­ers. There was a delay as the police await­ed bolt-cut­ters and back-up, but the chains were even­tu­al­ly removed from the front door, after which the pro­test­ers block­ing the back entrances, includ­ing an elder­ly lady in a wheel­chair, decid­ed to unchain the doors and move round to the front. Police were admit­ted to the build­ing for dis­cus­sions, but no arrests were made (either of the peace cam­paign­ers or the arms deal­ers). The pro­test­ers were allowed to con­tin­ue demon­strat­ing and leaflet­ing peace­ful­ly out­side the build­ing, until final­ly leav­ing of their own accord at 9.30am.

Father Mar­tin Newell, a Catholic priest from east Lon­don, says: “I feel it is my duty as a Chris­t­ian to fol­low the prince of peace and oppose the hor­ror of nuclear weapons.”

Myra Gar­rett from east Lon­don says: “I felt I had to tar­get the com­pa­ny because of the new nuclear weapons facil­i­ties they are devel­op­ing right here in the UK, at Alder­mas­ton.”

Chris Gwyn­to­pher from east Lon­don says: “the build­ing had to be closed in the inter­ests of pub­lic secu­ri­ty and world peace. Unlike Lock­heed, I feel my pur­pose is to save life, not destroy it. I wish the work­ers would leave the build­ing for good and seek more humane employ­ment.”

Irene Willis from Essex says: “Christ­mas seems an appro­pri­ate time of year to reflect upon the hor­rif­ic effects the arms trade and nuclear weapons have in the world and to ask our­selves whether we real­ly need them.”

The group intends to pay the com­pa­ny anoth­er vis­it in the near future.

Notes:

1. Lock­heed Mar­tin, SERCO and — cur­rent­ly — British Nuclear Fuels Plc (BNFL) are equal share­hold­ers in AWE Man­age­ment Ltd, which the UK Min­istry of Defence has award­ed a mul­ti-bil­lion pound con­tract to man­age and oper­ate the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment (AWE) sites at Alder­mas­ton and Burgh­field, both in Berk­shire, until at least 2025. This is where Britain’s nuclear weapons are devel­oped and main­tained, and where new facil­i­ties are being con­struct­ed to enable the pro­duc­tion of a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons.

http://www.awe.co.uk/main_site/about_awe/the_company/index.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385666.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385357.html
http://www.awe.co.uk/main_site/scientific_and_technical/publications/Strategy_Plans/index.html

2. Lock­heed Mar­tin pro­motes itself thus:

“Our vision: As an increas­ing num­ber of nations of all sizes around the world indi­cate the desire and capac­i­ty to devel­op nuclear, chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal weapons of mass destruc­tion, it is nec­es­sary to expand our field of vision.

“Our aim: To sus­tain capa­bil­i­ty to design a war­head to suc­ceed Tri­dent by facil­i­tat­ing pro­duc­tion of British nuclear war­heads.

“Our pri­or­i­ties: The key ele­ments of the sci­ence-based pro­gramme we are putting in place to main­tain the country’s nuclear stock­pile.

“Our future: We can now look for­ward to a long-term sta­ble future for AWE and for the UK nuclear weapons pro­gramme.”

Lock­heed Mar­tin is the world’s largest arms com­pa­ny. Besides nuclear weapons, it pro­duces a host of killing and spy­ing machines, devices and sys­tems, includ­ing ‘bunker buster’ bombs, clus­ter bombs and land­mines.

The com­pa­ny also pro­vides mil­i­tary inter­roga­tors for places like Guan­tanamo Bay and Iraq. It is also a lead­ing part­ner in the Ech­e­lon glob­al sur­veil­lance net­work. Its employ­ees work along­side the Amer­i­can NSA (Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency) at Men­with Hill spy sta­tion in York­shire.

See the fol­low­ing for details of the above: http://censusalert.org.uk/lockheed_martin.html

As well as being one of two lead bid­ders for the 2011 UK Cen­sus
http://censusalert.org.uk/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/09/census_boycott/ , Lock­heed Mar­tin also has civil­ian con­tracts in the UK with:

Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Ser­vice
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/metpolice.html

Trans­port for Lon­don
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/lul.html

Net­work Rail
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/networkrail.html

Rail­ways — Pos­i­tive Train Con­trol
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/ptc.html

Roy­al Mail
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/ai.html

More on the com­pa­ny here: http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news402.htm

The company’s cor­po­rate web­sites:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk

3. Tri­dent Ploughshares is com­mit­ted to bring­ing about the dis­ar­ma­ment of British nuclear weapons through peace­ful non-vio­lent direct action. They call upon the British gov­ern­ment to stop deploy­ing its sub­ma­rine-launched Tri­dent nuclear weapons sys­tem with imme­di­ate effect, safe­ly decom­mis­sion every one of its war­heads as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble, reverse its deci­sion to renew / replace its (US-depen­dent) Tri­dent sys­tem, and insist that the UN adopt a glob­al Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion out­law­ing all nuclear weapons at the very ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty.

See: http://www.tridentploughshares.org

Reports on recent Tri­dent Ploughshares actions against Lock­heed Mar­tin (Oct 2007):

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384043.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384284.html

Reports and pics from Tri­dent Ploughshares Lon­don ‘weapons inspec­tions’ ear­li­er this year (Feb 2007), which includ­ed Lock­heed Mar­tin:

http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1485

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/363646.html

Reports from pre­vi­ous Tri­dent Ploughshares actions at Lock­heed Martin’s UK head­quar­ters:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/351270.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/314195.html

http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1248

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2004/12/302877.html

Sustainable Xmas — Cheadle leafletting, free space & bike protest

Cheadle­High­Street Against Cli­mate Change say ‘A plan­et is not just for Xmas’

Activists from Cheadle­High­Street Against Cli­mate Change have com­menced their cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas. Nation­al research has indi­cat­ed that peo­ple through hol­i­day eat­ing, trav­el, Christ­mas lights, and gift giv­ing pro­duce on aver­age 650 kg of CO2 emis­sions per indi­vid­ual. This is 5.5% of the year­ly car­bon foot­print of the UK.

Cheadle­High­Street Against Cli­mate Change say ‘A plan­et is not just for Xmas’

Activists from Cheadle­High­Street Against Cli­mate Change have com­menced their cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas. Nation­al research has indi­cat­ed that peo­ple through hol­i­day eat­ing, trav­el, Christ­mas lights, and gift giv­ing pro­duce on aver­age 650 kg of CO2 emis­sions per indi­vid­ual. This is 5.5% of the year­ly car­bon foot­print of the UK.

The aver­age per­son dur­ing the Hol­i­days pro­duces 26 kg of CO2 from Christ­mas food, 96 kg of CO2 from Christ­mas Car trav­el, 218 kg of CO2 from extrav­a­gant light­ing dis­plays, 310 kg of CO2 on Christ­mas Shop­ping.

CACC mem­bers recieved a good response from shop­pers of all nation­al­i­ties with their leaflets ’ A plan­et is not just for Xmas’. Shop­pers were urged to buy local­ly grown conifers in pots rather than import­ed Scan­dana­vian trees and to use solar pow­ered lights . An exchange has been set up for recy­cled presents and those want­i­ng an alter­na­tive to farm pro­duced cru­el­ty have been offered soya tex­tured pro­tein in exchange for the Xmas turkey.

A ‘Xmas free space ’ will be opened for those suf­fer­ing stress at Xmas and those who wor­ship oth­er reli­gions or who are aethe­ists and pagans.There will also be a Box­ing Day bike protest against traf­fic con­ges­tion

National Squatters Meeting 9–10 February 2008 Leeds

So we are invit­ing peo­ple involved in all squat­ted autonomous spaces around the UK to meet and dis­cuss the squat­ting sit­u­a­tion and some prepa­ra­tion for the days of action in April.

Squat action days flierSo we are invit­ing peo­ple involved in all squat­ted autonomous spaces around the UK to meet and dis­cuss the squat­ting sit­u­a­tion and some prepa­ra­tion for the days of action in April.

So we are invit­ing peo­ple involved in all squat­ted autonomous spaces around the UK to meet and dis­cuss the squat­ting sit­u­a­tion and some prepa­ra­tion for the days of action in April. The idea for this meet­ing is inspired by the recent inter­na­tion­al meet­ing in Dijon.

Some of the ideas of what could be dis­cussed at this meet­ing are…
• Build­ing a stronger net­work between the squats/Autonomous spaces through­out the UK.
• Ini­tial plan­ning for the days of action.
• The repres­sion and resis­tance fac­ing Autonomous spaces in the UK.
• How we can make bet­ter use of Autonomous spaces in terms of con­nect­ing them to issues such as increased sur­veil­lance, hous­ing prob­lems, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and the fun­da­men­tal issue of who owns and con­trols our land, space and lives.
• The impact of non squat­ted Autonomous spaces on the squat­ting move­ment.
• Break­ing out of the “squat­ting scene”.
• The impact of drugs on the move­ment.

This is just some ideas of what could come out of this meet­ing, obvi­ous­ly there is no set agen­da as this is decen­tral­ized so we want to make a col­lec­tive deci­sion about what will be dis­cussed at the start of the meet­ing.
We feel this could be a real­ly pos­i­tive week­end; we’d like to see loads of you there. We’ve cho­sen Leeds as a loca­tion even though not all of us live there, because although it might not feel like it to you down south but it’s a cen­tral loca­tion on this island!
Please get in touch if you’re gonna come along, our e‑mail is below. It is impor­tant for us to know how many peo­ple to expect. Please also get in touch if you want help set up or get involved in any oth­er way… Hope to see you all in Feb­ru­ary….

Squat Net­work
squatmeetup@googlemail.com

LOGGING LOCK ON in Bridgetown

2007-12-13
Con­cerned south west cit­i­zens hold up Jar­rah log truck in Bridgetown to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests.

Bridgetown action2007-12-13
Con­cerned south west cit­i­zens hold up Jar­rah log truck in Bridgetown to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests.

Today 12 con­cerned res­i­dents of the South­west have stopped a log truck on Bridgetown’s main street to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of Aus­trali­a’s native forests.

Aus­tralia has just been named the biggest car­bon emit­ter in the world on a per-head basis. Indus­tri­al scale log­ging and burn­ing of native forests is a major con­trib­u­tor to car­bon emis­sions in Aus­tralia.

“By keep­ing the car­bon in the for­est and pro­tect­ing native forests is one of the eas­i­est and sim­plest solu­tions to reduce Aus­trali­a’s green­house gas emis­sions,” said Brett Thomp­son. “Native forests are the lungs of the plan­et they store vast quan­ti­ties of car­bon. By pro­tect­ing native forests Aus­tralia can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce its green­house gas emis­sions and halt the dev­as­tat­ing affects of cli­mate change,” com­ment­ed spokesman Brett Thomp­son.

Bridgetown local res­i­dent Saf­fire Grant quotes” “We need to take action on a local lev­el. Native for­est log­ging in our own back­yard needs to be stopped now if our com­mu­ni­ty is to active­ly help pro­vide solu­tions to cli­mate change.”

“We call on Fed­er­al and State Labor par­ties to pro­tect native forests as an active strat­e­gy to reduce our green­house gas emis­sions and become a world leader in the strug­gle against cli­mate change.”

6 Arrest­ed in Brige­town halt­ing a Jar­rah Log Truck for 6 hours in main street

Con­cerned res­i­dents of the S.W have halt­ed a log truck for six hours on the S.W high­way in Bridgetown. This fol­lows an action at Sim­coa three weeks ago high­light­ing the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests through­out the S.W and Australia.Six protests were arrest­ed for dis­or­der­ly behav­ior with police con­fis­cat­ing mobile phones cam­eras and video equip­ment. Pro­test­ers have vowed to con­tin­ue to high­light the destruc­tion of native forests in W.A through­out the com­ing months with fur­ther actions planned. The six arrest­ed will face court in Bridgetown next Wednes­day the 19th of Decem­ber with a peace­ful gath­er­ing of sup­port out the front of the court planned for 9:30am.

Thurs­day the 13th of Decem­ber 2007, six pro­test­ers were charged with dis­or­der­ly con­duct after hold­ing up a log truck in Bridgetown.

Dur­ing the protest police seized cam­eras, video recorder, mp3 play­er, all record­ing equip­ment and mobile phones.

See the video footage here:
http://www.globalwarmingfg.com/

Fed Up Polar Bear Disrupts National BBC Wildlife Magazine HQ

This morn­ing, Tues­day Decem­ber 11th, at 10am, two mem­bers of “Arc­tic Asso­ciates” (aka Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide), and one grumpy refugee polar bear paid a vis­it to the nation­al offices of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine at the top of Tow­er House in Broad­mead, Bris­tol. More than a hun­dred employ­ees looked on aghast (some wink­ing in sup­port) as “J. Smith” from Arc­tic Asso­ciates, flanked by Mr. Pole R. Bear, made a long and pas­sion­ate speech about the sad and dan­ger­ous irony of allow­ing the world’s sec­ond largest oil com­pa­ny- respon­si­ble for endan­ger­ing thou­sands of species through oil spills, tox­ic pol­lu­tion, and cli­mate change- to spon­sor their Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award Con­test, which is com­ing to Bris­tol Muse­um this Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 15th.

BBC Wildlife polar bearThis morn­ing, Tues­day Decem­ber 11th, at 10am, two mem­bers of “Arc­tic Asso­ciates” (aka Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide), and one grumpy refugee polar bear paid a vis­it to the nation­al offices of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine at the top of Tow­er House in Broad­mead, Bris­tol. More than a hun­dred employ­ees looked on aghast (some wink­ing in sup­port) as “J. Smith” from Arc­tic Asso­ciates, flanked by Mr. Pole R. Bear, made a long and pas­sion­ate speech about the sad and dan­ger­ous irony of allow­ing the world’s sec­ond largest oil com­pa­ny- respon­si­ble for endan­ger­ing thou­sands of species through oil spills, tox­ic pol­lu­tion, and cli­mate change- to spon­sor their Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award Con­test, which is com­ing to Bris­tol Muse­um this Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 15th.

The vis­it evi­dent­ly cre­at­ed quite a stir, as employ­ees of BBC Wildlife gath­ered around to hear what the com­mo­tion was all about, and the press team, direc­tors, and build­ing secu­ri­ty simul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­verged on the pro­test­ers, who were final­ly asked to leave, after cir­cu­lat­ing through both the 9th and 14th floors of the build­ing, and speak­ing to the entire nation­al staff of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine, who are now more aware than ever of the his­toric blun­der than was made when Shell’s £1,500,000 two year spon­sor­ship deal was accept­ed.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the poster child of this year’s Pho­tog­ra­phy Award is a polar bear stuck on a melt­ing ice­berg, the most vis­i­ble sym­bol of the cli­mate-dam­ag­ing nature of Shell’s core busi­ness.

If you’d like to get involved, come to the sHELL Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­phy Exhib­it PROTEST this Sat­ur­day Dec. 15th start­ing at Noon, in front of the Bris­tol Muse­um at the top of Park St. Please come dressed as any wildlife that sHELL is endan­ger­ing, and invite all your friends- putting a stop to green­wash­ing is a key bat­tle in the war against cli­mate change, and we want to stop our pub­lic muse­ums being used for this pur­pose**

The exhib­it will remain at the Muse­um until the 13th of Jan­u­ary.

**We are hav­ing a cos­tume mak­ing party/ plan­ning ses­sion this Wednes­day the 12th at Kebele- 14 Robert­son Rd. in Eas­t­on from 1700 to 2200 or so, with an open dis­cus­sion hap­pen­ing at 1930. There will be at least one sewing machine there, so bring mate­r­i­al, (fake) fur of the Shell- dam­aged wildlife of your choice- avail­able at all fine fab­ric shops, news­pa­per, black felt, ban­ner and sign mak­ing mate­ri­als, and your favourite bev­er­age to share.**

More infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign:

Despite dozens of peo­ple con­tact­ing the Bris­tol City Coun­cil and the muse­um and ask­ing them to reject the exhi­bi­tion, these requests have been met with excus­es, buck pass­ing, or sim­ply silence. It’s clear that our lead­ers would rather not face up to the fact that our pub­lic muse­um is in fact adver­tis­ing and green­wash­ing one of the worst multi­na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies which is wreak­ing hav­oc on peo­ple, wildlife, and habi­tat the world over (all in the name of wildlife pro­tec­tion?)

Appar­ent­ly the Bris­tol Muse­um, Bris­tol City Coun­cil, the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, and BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine see no prob­lem with exhibit­ing pho­tographs of endan­gered polar bears on melt­ing ice as part of a pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tion spon­sored by Shell. Do they think we’re stu­pid?

Our goal is to put pres­sure on the lat­ter two organ­i­sa­tions to reject Shell as a spon­sor, and for Shell to decide that the neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty involved with spon­sor­ing the com­pe­ti­tion sim­ply isn’t worth it any­more.

More infor­ma­tion about Shell:

http://onthelevelblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/shells-wild-lie/

Shell oper­ates in 145 coun­tries world­wide- one of the worst impacts is in Nige­ria, where Shell was com­plic­it in the 1995 mur­der of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an envi­ron­men­tal activist, as well as eight oth­ers by the Niger­ian mil­i­tary jun­ta.

Shell has been work­ing in the Niger Delta since 1956, caus­ing prob­lems to:

• local com­mu­ni­ties — gas flares burn day and night, roar­ing like jet engines and pol­lut­ing the air with thick sooty par­ti­cles that stick to almost every­thing and have seri­ous health impacts

• liveli­hoods — oil is a root of con­flict and suf­fer­ing in Nige­ria. Over 1000 law suits have been filed against Shell, yet it still refus­es to pay com­pen­sa­tion costs.

• the envi­ron­ment — pol­lut­ing oil spills and fires have occurred for decades due to Shel­l’s rust­ing pipes seri­ous­ly affect­ing local vil­lages, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and con­tribut­ing towards cli­mate change.

Come to the protest at noon on Sat­ur­day, and let ‘em know that Bris­to­lians won’t stand idly by while our plan­et is rav­aged, and our muse­um is com­plic­it in cov­er­ing up oil com­pa­ny lies.

The time for blind obe­di­ence has passed- it’s time to start dis­obey­ing.….

“Where oil reigns, life is hell”

-Oron­to Dou­glas, Envi­ron­men­tal Law­er, Niger Delta

rampART gets eviction papers — meeting planned

12.12.2007 — the ram­pART social cen­tre in Lon­don today received court papers for re-pos­ses­sion on the grounds of Tres­pass. The hear­ing date is the 20th Dec.

squat logo 112.12.2007 — the ram­pART social cen­tre in Lon­don today received court papers for re-pos­ses­sion on the grounds of Tres­pass. The hear­ing date is the 20th Dec.

So much for the sea­son of good will.

The ram­pART and neigh­bour­ing hous­es have all been served court papers for a hear­ing on the 20th Dec. Bad tim­ing to say the least as a bunch of us were off to do a pre­sen­ta­tion about the space and show films at an event in Barcelona next week and are poten­tial­ly home­less by xmas.

We’ve start­ed the process of seek­ing advice regard­ing the court hear­ing but don’t hold your breath, the end is nigh.

This obvi­ous­ly impacts on a whole bunch of stuff. For exam­ple we’ve just had the a cam­paign group move their office into the ram­pART, Bicy­col­o­gy were plan­ning on doing up the bike work­shop this week­end and there’s var­i­ous groups got dates booked for events next year, not to men­tion the new years eve par­ty.

Basi­cal­ly we need to have a meet­ing of all the effect­ed groups/individuals to dis­cuss our response and plan what will hap­pen over the next month or so.

Assume this meet­ing will be at the ram­pART next mon­day 7pm.

Strike, demonstrations, clashes (Athens-Thessaloniki-Larissa) — luxury cars, cash machines, CCTV & McD all trashed or burned

12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

CCTV camera bagged12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

One-day long gen­er­al strike was called by fed­er­a­tions, labor unions and syn­di­cates that belong to the GSEE (gen­er­al syn­di­cal­ist union), PAME (tied to the Com­mu­nist Par­ty) but also inde­pen­dent syn­di­cates and oth­er groups, against gov­ern­ment plans to over­haul the pen­sion sys­tem (rais­ing retire­ment ages, cut­ting ben­e­fits etc).

Athens: The police repeat­ed­ly attacked with tear gas and flash light and sting ball grenades in order to tear apart the anarchist/antiautoritarian blocs (more than 1.500 per­sons) from the oth­er demon­stra­tors (more than 150.000) while the demon­stra­tors fought back with stones and sticks. A lux­u­rius car had its win­dows bro­ken and was set on fire, togeth­er with a bank’s ATM and a police sur­veil­lance cam­era. Near Great Britain hotel, the cops attacked again the demon­stra­tion but were held back by the peo­ple. In Omonoia Square, the cops attacked once again the demo and cut back the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs. In Panepis­timiou street, some demon­stra­tors attacked the cops and set free 2 per­sons that were hand­cuffed by the cops, in a pre­vi­ous police attack. Then, there was a con­stant tear gas attack and police strik­ing the demo in order to sep­a­rate the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs from the rest of the demon­stra­tors, though they nev­er man­age to do so, thanks to the strong self-defence of the anarchists/antiautoritarians and the sup­port of the rest of the demon­stra­tors that did n’t run away, regard­less the amounts of tear gas and police attacks. In the same time, employ­ees of “Olympic Air­ways” some of them protest­ing with greek flags against the bunk­rupt­sy of this state-spon­sored com­pa­ny, were offer­ing flow­ers to the police­men ouside the par­lia­ment house… Dur­ing the demon­stra­tions, bank ATMs and sur­veil­lance cam­eras were destroyed, and 2 line­men of the Pub­lic Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion got arrest­ed a few hours after the demon­stra­tions, for cov­er­ing up police sur­veil­lance cam­eras with bags. In total, there were dozens of arrests, and 4 of them are pros­e­cut­ed under mis­de­meanours (dis­rup­tion of pub­lic order, dam­ag­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty).

Thes­sa­loni­ki: Demon­stra­tors broke down the McDon­alds at Lagka­da street and bank win­dows, and burnt up pow­er sup­ply box­es of police sur­veil­lance cam­eras. In total, more than 30.000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in the demon­stra­tions.

Laris­sa: Paint bombs and eggs were thrown at banks and par­ty offices.

March­es and open gath­er­ing were organ­ised in most cities and towns of the coun­try.

Enawene Nawe blockade dam construction site

12th Decem­ber 2007
Con­tin­u­ing their strug­gle against a large hydro­elec­tric dam project in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, the Enawene Nawe set up a block­ade at one of the dam con­struc­tion sites late last week. Accord­ing to Sur­vival, about 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site, demand­ing an inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

12th Decem­ber 2007
Con­tin­u­ing their strug­gle against a large hydro­elec­tric dam project in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, the Enawene Nawe set up a block­ade at one of the dam con­struc­tion sites late last week. Accord­ing to Sur­vival, about 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site, demand­ing an inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

The Enawene Nawe main­tain the dams will have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the breed­ing cycle of the fish they depend on to sur­vive. They say the fish might not even be able to make it to their breed­ing grounds. The grounds them­selves are of great cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance to the Enawene Nawe. If the 11 dams go ahead as planned, the area may be destroyed.

The grounds are already heav­i­ly bur­dened by cat­tle ranch­ers, and the Soya Industry–who is behind the dam project.

Of course, this would not be hap­pen­ing if the Brazil­ian Gov­ern­ment demar­cat­ed the area, in fact the entire Rio Pre­to, when they rec­og­nized Enawene Nawe ter­ri­to­ry in 1996. The gov­ern­ment refused to do so.

Since then, the Enawene Nawe have been work­ing to have the Rio Pre­to includ­ed, but so far their voic­es have fall­en on deaf ears.

When the dam project came into focus late 2006/early 2007, they increased their efforts, for one, by orga­niz­ing block­ades. The ongo­ing one is the third this year.

The pre­vi­ous block­ade, set up on May 31, 2007, was met with some suc­cess.

Brazil Ama­zon Indi­ans Take on Soy Barons Block­ing Dam Site
From Brazz­il Mag, 11 Decem­ber 2007

The remote Enawene Nawe Indi­ans have block­ad­ed the con­struc­tion site of a hydro­elec­tric dam in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, which they say will destroy their vital fish­ing grounds. Around 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site and a near­by high­way on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 6. They want to stop the con­struc­tion of a vast com­plex of hydro­elec­tric dams being built on the Juru­e­na riv­er, upstream from their land.

Com­pa­nies led by the world’s largest soya pro­duc­ers, the Mag­gi fam­i­ly, are push­ing for the con­struc­tion of the dams. But the Enawene Nawe, who eat no red meat, say that if the dams are built, the fish they rely on will no longer be able to reach their spawn­ing grounds.

The Enawene Nawe say they have not been con­sult­ed about the dams. They are demand­ing and inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

A pre­vi­ous block­ade of a major high­way in June led the gov­ern­ment to nego­ti­ate with the Indi­ans, but plans for con­struc­tion of the dams con­tin­ued.

After the first oppo­si­tion action, the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment agreed to sev­er­al key demands of the Enawene Nawe. The government’s Indi­an agency, FUNAI, promised that it would sur­vey lands claimed by the Enawene Nawe and oth­er tribes, with the aim of offi­cial­ly rec­og­niz­ing the areas as indige­nous.

For three days in May, the Indi­ans erect­ed bar­ri­cades in Mato Grosso state to protest against plans to build a series of hydro­elec­tric dams along the Juru­e­na riv­er. They were also demand­ing the offi­cial recog­ni­tion of their vital fish­ing waters in the Rio Pre­to area, which are being rapid­ly destroyed by cat­tle ranch­ers.

Neigh­bor­ing tribes joined the protest in sup­port of the Enawene Nawe’s demands, swelling the num­ber of pro­tes­tors to 200. The gov­ern­ment respond­ed quick­ly by dis­patch­ing offi­cials to nego­ti­ate with the Indi­ans on the bar­ri­cade. It even agreed to pay for rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous tribes in Mato Grosso to trav­el to Brazil­ian cap­i­tal Brasília to meet with FUNAI’s pres­i­dent.

Tasmanian forest defenders halt logging in the Styx Valley

2007-12-11
Yes­ter­day morn­ing, for­est activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed log­ging in coupe SX10F in the Styx Val­ley, to high­light the ongo­ing dev­as­ta­tion of Tasmania’s World Her­itage val­ued forests. This coupe has gained an inter­na­tion­al pro­file over the past few years as an icon­ic exam­ple of Tasmania’s unique old growth forests.

Styx banners action2007-12-11
Yes­ter­day morn­ing, for­est activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed log­ging in coupe SX10F in the Styx Val­ley, to high­light the ongo­ing dev­as­ta­tion of Tasmania’s World Her­itage val­ued forests. This coupe has gained an inter­na­tion­al pro­file over the past few years as an icon­ic exam­ple of Tasmania’s unique old growth forests.

“This pris­tine tract of ancient for­est, locat­ed with­in 1.5km of the World Her­itage bound­ary, is of out­stand­ing con­ser­va­tion val­ue and has been vis­it­ed by thou­sands of peo­ple. Right now, bull­doz­ers and chain­saws are rip­ping apart this irre­place­able ecosys­tem” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“We are call­ing on the fed­er­al Labor Gov­ern­ment to hon­our their inter­na­tion­al envi­ron­men­tal com­mit­ments and put an imme­di­ate halt to this sense­less dev­as­ta­tion of some of Australia’s most out­stand­ing nat­ur­al her­itage” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Jess Wright.

“Here we have yet anoth­er exam­ple of a unique for­est being dec­i­mat­ed in order to fur­ther the inter­ests of greedy wood­chip barons and cor­rupt politi­cians. As world lead­ers gath­er in Bali to dis­cuss the cli­mate emer­gency, the island’s most sig­nif­i­cant car­bon sinks are being destroyed, ren­der­ing Tas­ma­nia an inter­na­tion­al dis­grace” said Ms Majew­s­ki.