Tesco Blockade in Porthmadog

A protest was held at Tesco’s store in Porth­madog north Wales on Sat­ur­day 14.07.07 to protest about
— Tesco’s token use of Welsh on signs etc with­in their stores
— Tesco’s link to Adec­co recruit­ment agency who recent­ly banned their staff from speak­ing Welsh
— Tesco’s destruc­tion of small local shops and busi­ness­es (see www.tescopoly.com)

Porthmadog Tesco blockade 1Porthmadog Tesco blockade 2A protest was held at Tesco’s store in Porth­madog north Wales on Sat­ur­day 14.07.07 to protest about
— Tesco’s token use of Welsh on signs etc with­in their stores
— Tesco’s link to Adec­co recruit­ment agency who recent­ly banned their staff from speak­ing Welsh
— Tesco’s destruc­tion of small local shops and busi­ness­es (see www.tescopoly.com)

The entrance was blocked and a pro­test­er arrest­ed for plas­ter­ing posters announc­ing that the store was shut

For full details of the protest see http://cymdeithas.org/2007/07/14/former_chairman_arrested_in_porthmadog_demo.html#rhagor

European activist gatherings (Ecotopia, Portugal 4–19 Aug & ASEED international activist camp, Bulgaria, 26–29 July)

You are invit­ed to Eco­topia 2007 — Migra­tions

This year Eco­topia will take place between 4 — 19 August in Aljezur in the south of Por­tu­gal.

Eco­topia is a two-week activist camp and an open event for every­one inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice issues.

You are invit­ed to Eco­topia 2007 — Migra­tions

This year Eco­topia will take place between 4 — 19 August in Aljezur in the south of Por­tu­gal.

Eco­topia is a two-week activist camp and an open event for every­one inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice issues.

More info at http://www.ecotopiagathering.org/

Inter­na­tion­al Activist Camp — Bul­gar­ia 2007 July 26th — 29th

In the skirts of Pirin moun­tain, south-west Bul­gar­ia, about 2.5 kilo­me­ters away from an old vil­lage, peo­ple from Bul­gar­ia, Mace­do­nia, Roma­nia, the Nether­lands and else­where in Europe will get togeth­er to share ideas and strate­gies for cam­paign­ing on envi­ron­men­tal and social issues and get inspired by each oth­ers’ activ­i­ties and work.

More info at http://www.aseed.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=381&Itemid=1

mobile phone masts destroyed by tank, Australia

July 15, 2007

A FORMER Tel­stra work­er alleged­ly stole a tank and used it to demol­ish six mobile phone tow­ers as he led police on a wild two-hour ram­page through west­ern Syd­ney yes­ter­day.

APC destroying phone mastsJuly 15, 2007

A FORMER Tel­stra work­er alleged­ly stole a tank and used it to demol­ish six mobile phone tow­ers as he led police on a wild two-hour ram­page through west­ern Syd­ney yes­ter­day.

More than 20 police chased the tank but were pow­er­less to stop it, retreat­ing to a safe dis­tance as the huge vehi­cle cut a path of destruc­tion through six sub­urbs.

They could only watch as the dri­ver, hang­ing out of the top at times, alleged­ly rammed the tank through fences and into six mobile phone tow­ers, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion relay sheds and an elec­tri­cal sub­sta­tion.

The dam­age caused major dis­rup­tions to mobile phone ser­vices in Syd­ney’s west yes­ter­day.

The divorced father alleged­ly stole the 1967 Tro­jan armoured per­son­nel car­ri­er (APC) from his for­mer work­place, A One Lift Truck Ser­vice, at Minch­in­bury.

His for­mer boss, Greg Mor­ris, said the man had a beef with mobile phone tow­ers.

“He used to work for Tel­stra and told us he was going through a med­ical claim for his head injury.

He said some­thing about the radi­a­tion from the tow­ers had caused it,” Mr Mor­ris said.

“He actu­al­ly worked on the tank he stole, doing a lot of wiring and putting the engine in.”

The dra­ma began at 2am when the ex-British Army tank — com­plete with steel tracks and repli­ca gun tur­ret — was tak­en from a hold­ing shed and head­ed straight for its first tar­get: an elec­tric­i­ty sub­sta­tion at Mich­in­bury.

The tank then alleged­ly rammed a police car as it drove from the Mount Druitt Hos­pi­tal car park.

At its max­i­mum speed of 52km/h per hour, it con­tin­ued on through the sub­urbs of Mount Druitt, Dhar­ruk, Emer­ton, Glen­den­ning and Plump­ton with 10 police vehi­cles in pur­suit.

Sev­er­al times police were forced to retreat when the dri­ver alleged­ly swung the tank towards them.

He taunt­ed police by lean­ing his head out the side win­dow to wave at them.

The joyride end­ed at 4am when the vehi­cle stalled as the dri­ver attempt­ed to destroy a sev­enth mobile phone tow­er.

Police used cap­sicum spray­to sub­due the man, who was dragged head first from the tank by offi­cers.

Mr Mor­ris said he bought the tank from the British mil­i­tary.

He restored the vehi­cle, which is val­ued at $1 mil­lion, and he hires it out for wed­dings and for motor shows.

A col­league who would not be named said the man who stole the tank had a “vendet­ta” against phone tow­ers.

“He told us he’d worked for a gov­ern­ment agency where he had to work around the tow­ers and got radi­a­tion poi­son­ing.

“So he planned out a map of where the tow­ers were that he want­ed to destroy.”

Mr Mor­ris said he was “dev­as­tat­ed” at the news.

“I can’t believe it,” he said.

Mr Mor­ris described the man respon­si­ble for the car­nage as a “qui­et, well spo­ken” man.

He left in Decem­ber but Mr Mor­ris saw him often.

“We were mates, he’d call in for a chat and a few beers.’

“The prob­lem he’s got is not with us. It’s just that it’s the tool he need­ed to do it.”

The chase attract­ed a lot of atten­tion with dri­vers fol­low­ing the tank.

“It’s not some­thing you see in Mount Druitt every day,” William Erring­ton, 26, said.

Anoth­er local res­i­dent expressed sim­i­lar dis­be­lief after being wok­en up by her part­ner to chase the tank.

“Mick said we were going to fol­low a tank and I thought yeah a fuel tanker. Then the thing drove past us,” said Oakhurst res­i­dent “Ally”.

Mount Druitt Chief Inspec­tor Guy Hab­ber­ly said the man had not been drink­ing and did not appear to be affect­ed by drugs.

Yes­ter­day John Robert Pat­ter­son, 45, of Dhar­ruk, appeared in Par­ra­mat­ta Court charged with steal­ing the tank, dan­ger­ous dri­ving and mali­cious dam­age.

He did not enter a plea or apply for bail and he was remand­ed to appear in Pen­rith Court tomor­row.

His defence lawyer Ivan Bertoia told the court that in a police inter­view his client “sug­gest­ed he had the author­i­ty to behave in such a man­ner”.

Mag­is­trate Ter­ry Forbes said there was a strong case to be made for the case to be dealt with under the Men­tal Health Act.

Mayo shell site blockaded, later occupied, jailings & solidarity demo

13.07.2007

Local Pro­test­ers Block­ade Shell Con­struc­tion site in Mayo

A num­ber of Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers have estab­lished a non-vio­lent block­ade of the road lead­ing to the pro­posed gas refin­ery site at Bel­lan­aboy. Two pro­tes­tors are locked on to an immo­bi­lized vehi­cle, pre­vent­ing access to the site.

Bellanaboy car blockade13.07.2007

Local Pro­test­ers Block­ade Shell Con­struc­tion site in Mayo

A num­ber of Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers have estab­lished a non-vio­lent block­ade of the road lead­ing to the pro­posed gas refin­ery site at Bel­lan­aboy. Two pro­tes­tors are locked on to an immo­bi­lized vehi­cle, pre­vent­ing access to the site.

“It is vital for the preser­va­tion of Erris and the pro­tec­tion of its peo­ple that all work on this destruc­tive and exploita­tive project be stopped imme­di­ate­ly. Despite a con­temptible strat­e­gy by the author­i­ties that either ignores or mali­cious­ly per­se­cutes those oppos­ing the project, res­i­dents remain res­olute in their oppo­si­tion.” says John Mon­aghan

This action comes in the wake of the con­vic­tion of three local res­i­dents on a charge of assault, a charge they vig­or­ous­ly deny. The judges’ ver­dict has been met with sur­prise and cha­grin from the com­mu­ni­ty.

Today Shell to Sea sup­port­ers are clear­ly demon­strat­ing that they will not be deterred by Gar­dai vio­lence or false impris­on­ment

for time­line etc go to http://www.indymedia.ie/article/83416

Occu­pa­tion of refin­ery site

Break­ing news — 10pm

100 peo­ple have just occu­pied the pro­posed refin­ery site in Bal­linaboy!

Peo­ple jumped the main front gates of the refin­ery site and just walked on. Over 100 peo­ple occu­pied the site. The atmos­phere was very relaxed and peace­ful.

Peo­ple chat­ted to the secu­ri­ty staff and chal­lenged them as to why they feel the neces­si­ty to work for Shell.

Peo­ple stayed on site for rough­ly half an hour. They had a walk around, and a good look around. Peo­ple walked right to the top of the site and back down again.

There were no Gar­dai there for the dura­tion of the occu­pa­tion.

Peo­ple have just left the site togeth­er as a block and are going on to have a bon­fire togeth­er and with the fish­er­men that have just been released from prison.

This fol­lows a day of all out action by the peo­ple in Erris. Two peo­ple had locked on this morn­ing to a vehi­cle. This blo­cade, sup­port­ed by road blo­cades done by peo­ple on anoth­er road pre­vent­ed the trucks from work­ing for the vast major­i­ty of the day. The two men that ‘locked on’ have both been charged with numer­ous pub­lic order and road traf­fic offences. They are due to appear in the Dis­trict Court in Castle­bar on Wednes­day.

Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers jailed for police assault

A text mes­sage and short phone call last night revealed that three Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors have been jailed on assault charges against the Gar­da.

The text mes­sage from one at the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp said the three men were found guilty of assaults on the police.

One man received three months, anoth­er one month and the last is fac­ing four months in prison.

A forth man is also fac­ing the same charges.

An appeal is set for today to see if they can over turn the charges, but as the mes­sage I received last night said it did not look good.

For fur­ther updates keep your eye on here or on: http://indymedia.ie/mayo

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Jailed anti-Shell Pro­test­ers- Pick­et at Depart­ment of Jus­tice, Dublin

No Jus­tice in Ross­port- the Gar­daí work for Shell
Mayo jail solidarity demo
Sup­port­ers of the cam­paign to have Shell site their refin­ery off­shore and for the Irish govt to secure Irish nat­ur­al resources for the peo­ple showed their sol­i­dar­i­ty with the three Erris fish­er­ment who have been wrong­ly jailed. A large group of about forty pro­test­ers hand­ed in a short let­ter (signed by them all) to the min­is­ter express­ing out­rage at the treat­ment of the three men.

The Gar­daí com­plained that the pres­ence of such as a large group of peo­ple at the entrance of the build­ing had health and safe­ty impli­ca­tions, and tried to order those present to move, but it was poined out the health and safe­ty impli­ca­tions of Shel­l’s scheme for Mayo were a much greater threat to us all.

Gar­da rein­force­ments arrived and tried to intim­i­date the pro­test­ers, who includ­ed some Sinn Féin and Green Par­ty mem­bers (as well as mem­bers of small­er groups and none), but no one paid any atten­tion to them, since they are wide­ly recog­nised as sim­ply being used as mer­cener­ies for Shell now, their author­i­ty is slip­ping away.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.youtube.com/shelltohell

First Directions to The Camp for Climate Action 2007.….

The camp dates are draw­ing near­er and near­er and we’re all des­per­ate to know where it will be… but we’ll just have to wait a lit­tle longer!

But what we do know is that if you get your­self to Staines rail­way sta­tion in West Lon­don by 10am on Tues­day 14th August, you will be greet­ed by our friend­ly wel­come team and prompt­ly trans­port­ed via a mag­i­cal mys­tery tour, to the camp! (There will also be lifts to the camp lat­er in the day and through­out the week.)

The camp dates are draw­ing near­er and near­er and we’re all des­per­ate to know where it will be… but we’ll just have to wait a lit­tle longer!

But what we do know is that if you get your­self to Staines rail­way sta­tion in West Lon­don by 10am on Tues­day 14th August, you will be greet­ed by our friend­ly wel­come team and prompt­ly trans­port­ed via a mag­i­cal mys­tery tour, to the camp! (There will also be lifts to the camp lat­er in the day and through­out the week.)

Camp for Cli­mate Action comes to Heathrow this sum­mer.

Avi­a­tion is the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas emis­sions in the UK, and all our efforts to tack­le cli­mate change in oth­er sec­tors are undone by the mas­sive growth in air trav­el.
Hold­ing the camp at Heathrow aims to high­light the luna­cy of the gov­ern­men­t’s air­port expan­sion plans, tar­get indus­try giants prof­i­teer­ing from the cli­mate cri­sis, and raise aware­ness of the need to fly less.
The camp will also sup­port local res­i­dents in their long-term strug­gle against the build­ing of a third run­way and the destruc­tion of their com­mu­ni­ties.

There will be a day of mass direct action aim­ing to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the air­port and the avi­a­tion indus­try, but in the inter­ests of pub­lic safe­ty there will be no attempt to block­ade run­ways.

Although the loca­tion is dif­fer­ent, the phi­los­o­phy of the camp remains the same: to be a place for the bur­geon­ing net­work of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change around the coun­try to come togeth­er for a week of low-impact liv­ing, edu­ca­tion, debate, net­work­ing, strate­gis­ing, cel­e­bra­tion, and direct action.
The camp will fea­ture over 100 work­shops cov­er­ing top­ics such as cli­mate change impacts, car­bon off­set­ting, bio­fu­els, peak oil, per­ma­cul­ture, prac­ti­cal renew­ables, cam­paign strat­e­gy, skills for direct action, and much more.
Run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along, it will be a work­ing eco­log­i­cal vil­lage using renew­able ener­gy, com­post­ing waste and sourc­ing food local­ly.

It all comes down to us, now. We are the last gen­er­a­tion that can do any­thing about cli­mate change. In 20 or 30 years’ time, should we not change our ways, we’ll be com­mit­ted to emis­sions increas­es that will see forests burn, soils decay, oceans rise, and mil­lions of peo­ple die. If we don’t get this issue right, so much else is lost too.

We still have time, but not for long. Make it count.

Why tar­get avi­a­tion?

It is the fastest grow­ing source of CO2 emis­sions.
It has been left out of the first fal­ter­ing frame­works to con­trol emis­sions, eg. the Kyoto Pro­to­col and the Cli­mate Bill.
It is the most dam­ag­ing form of trans­port.
Unlike the oth­er high emit­ting sec­tors (e.g. ener­gy and food pro­duc­tion), there is no alter­na­tive sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy.

The only way to reduce emis­sions from avi­a­tion is to reduce the num­ber of flights.
And unlike those oth­er sec­tors, avi­a­tion is not a neces­si­ty.
There is a major air­port expan­sion pro­gramme planned at 21 air­ports, with increas­es in capac­i­ty equiv­a­lent to a new Heathrow every 5 years. This expan­sion pro­gramme locks us into increased emis­sions, and undoes all our oth­er efforts else­where to reduce emis­sions.

Why tar­get Heathrow?

Nowhere in the UK is there a larg­er source of CO2 emis­sions. Most coun­tries emit less green­house gas­es than Heathrow’s planes.

Heathrow is the world’s busiest inter­na­tion­al air­port. It is an icon­ic glob­al sym­bol of avi­a­tion.
Heathrow is the heart of the UK?s avi­a­tion indus­try.
Heathrow is the cen­tral plank of the gov­ern­men­t’s air­port expan­sion plans. Heathrow has a planned third run­way that can be stopped.

The third run­way would bull­doze entire vil­lages and destroy com­mu­ni­ties. There is a big, estab­lished, long-term local cam­paign against Heathrow and BAA that we can join forces with.

There is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to high­light bias in the cor­rupt plan­ning process in favour of big busi­ness and devel­op­ment.

The pres­ence of Har­mondsworth deten­tion cen­tre near­by high­lights the plight of envi­ron­men­tal refugees and the fact that cli­mate change is fun­da­men­tal­ly an issue of social and glob­al injus­tice.

Aboriginal Elders Occupy Barrick Gold’s Australian Head Office

July 13th, 2007
Wirad­juri Elders Neville “Chap­py” Williams (third from left) and Ron Gard­ner (back to cam­era in wheel­chair) in tense nego­ti­a­tions with Bar­rick­’s Steve Robin­son (fourth from left) while oth­er Bar­rick staff and pro­tes­tors look on. Bar­rick Gold office foy­er, Perth West­ern Aus­tralia 11 July 2007.

Barrick Gold occupied, AustraliaJuly 13th, 2007
Wirad­juri Elders Neville “Chap­py” Williams (third from left) and Ron Gard­ner (back to cam­era in wheel­chair) in tense nego­ti­a­tions with Bar­rick­’s Steve Robin­son (fourth from left) while oth­er Bar­rick staff and pro­tes­tors look on. Bar­rick Gold office foy­er, Perth West­ern Aus­tralia 11 July 2007.

(Span­ish ver­sion avail­able at: http://barrick.live.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=165)

Elders and sup­port­ers of the Wirad­juri Abo­rig­i­nal Nation have occu­pied the Aus­tralian head office of the world’s largest gold min­ing com­pa­ny, Bar­rick Gold.

Around 35 peo­ple peace­ful­ly occu­pied Bar­rick Gold’s Aus­tralian head­quar­ters in Perth, West­ern Aus­tralia on Wednes­day in a bid to force the com­pa­ny to meet Wirad­juri pro­to­cols relat­ing to peo­ple with blood­lines to Lake Cow­al in Cen­tral New South Wales where Bar­rick is oper­at­ing a gold mine.

Elders Neville ‘Chap­py’ Williams and Ron Gard­ner sought from Bar­rick:

* copy of the Cow­al Gold Project Ancil­lary Deed between Bar­rick Aus­tralia Lim­it­ed and the so-called ‘Wirad­juri Con­dobolin Native Title Claim Group’
* a response to an evic­tion notice deliv­ered to Bar­rick
* a meet­ing with Bar­rick senior man­age­ment, and
* any legal papers the com­pa­ny has that are the prop­er­ty of the Wirad­juri Elders.

Barrick’s response was to call the police and to ask the pro­test­ers to leave the premis­es say­ing they were ‘tres­pass­ing on pri­vate prop­er­ty’. After a sit-in last­ing around an hour and being threat­ened with arrest, the Elders and sup­port­ers agreed to leave on the con­di­tion that Bar­rick agree to respond to the Elders’ ver­bal and writ­ten demands in writ­ing.

“We’re fed up with Barrick’s lack of cour­tesy to Wirad­juri Elders so we’ve been forced to take this kind of action. We’ve been try­ing to get a copy of the ancil­lary deed and oth­er doc­u­ments like a full inven­to­ry of arte­facts col­lect­ed at Lake Cow­al for a long time now,” Mr Williams said.

“All the Wirad­juri with ties to Lake Cow­al have a right to see the deed and the inven­to­ry, not just the five sell-outs who have signed away our ancient cul­tur­al her­itage. We’ve gone through the cor­rect chan­nels, through Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion, let­ters to Bar­rick and a request I made per­son­al­ly to Bar­rick Chair­man, Peter Munk in Cana­da on only 2 May at their AGM. They keep say­ing the deed is ‘com­mer­cial-in-con­fi­dence’. So what have they got to hide? They should be open with all of us Wirad­juri peo­ple, but they keep on act­ing in secret and putting a lot of spin on their pub­lic­i­ty about the mine and its so-called ‘ben­e­fits’. Their Perth pub­lic rela­tions offi­cer was extreme­ly rude to us and showed us no respect at all.”

“Bar­rick has not gone through the appro­pri­ate pro­to­col, nor have they spo­ken to the right Wirad­juri peo­ple about Lake Cow­al,” Ron Gard­ner said. A nine-year vet­er­an of the cam­paign to stop the gold mine in the Wirad­juri Nation’s heart­land, Gard­ner has strong feel­ings about the mine. Until recent­ly ill health has kept him away from the lake.

“I was shocked and emo­tion­al­ly upset to the point of tears when I saw the mine infra­struc­ture on our sacred place,” he said.

“There are buri­als out there and it’s a mas­sacre site. There are thou­sands of arte­facts and scarred trees in the area that are tes­ta­ment to our People’s long and con­tin­u­ing occu­pa­tion of the region, yet Bar­rick won’t release an inven­to­ry of all the arti­facts they have col­lect­ed or tell us what has hap­pened to the scarred trees that have been removed to make way for the mine.

“The mine has split the Wirad­juri com­mu­ni­ty. You don’t know who you can talk to or trust any more. Bar­rick con­tin­ues to deal with just a small group over the $9.2 mil­lion deal they made. They’ve set up the Wirad­juri Con­dobolin Cor­po­ra­tion (WCC) but you have to join to become a mem­ber. As Chap­py says, “We know who we are. You’re born into Wirad­juri. You don’t need a mem­ber­ship appli­ca­tion”.

“The WCC is not ben­e­fit­ing the major­i­ty of Wirad­juri peo­ple. Most of us still have the same prob­lems, poor health, hous­ing in need of main­te­nance and upgrade and lack of edu­ca­tion and job prospects.

“Bar­rick are wreck­ing the ecol­o­gy out there at Lake Cow­al. The com­pa­ny is draw­ing up to 3650 mega­l­itres of water a year out the ground­wa­ter and Lach­lan Riv­er near the lake and we’re still in the worst drought in record­ed his­to­ry.”

“They are using cyanide to leach gold from the ore. This inevitably leach­es into the soil and can make its way into the water sys­tem. Despite what the com­pa­ny says in its PR spin, gold min­ing is just not safe. One tea­spoon of 2% cyanide can kill a human and a lot of cyanide spills have occurred around the world. They are dig­ging up a mas­sive mount of earth out there and will leave a pit 1 kilo­me­tre long, 825 metres wide and 325 metres deep. It will be there for­ev­er, nev­er to be filled in, a lega­cy for future gen­er­a­tions.”

“They’ve cut down thou­sands of old trees that take hun­dreds of years to grow and pro­vide habi­tat for lots of native species. Yes, they’ve replant­ed some veg­e­ta­tion but thou­sands of trees have died because they weren’t watered in the con­tin­u­ing drought”, Mr Gard­ner said.

“So we’re not going to stop our protests against Bar­rick until we get some jus­tice,” Mr Williams said.

“They’ve made their posi­tion very clear and looks like they won’t budge. But we’re not alone. We have many rock sol­id sup­port­ers here in Aus­tralia like Kungarakan/Gurindji Elder Speedy McGuin­ness from the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, who is fight­ing his own bat­tle against new ura­ni­um mines on Abo­rig­i­nal land there.

“We have great sup­port from the stu­dents who sat in at Barrick’s Perth head office and our Abo­rig­i­nal and non-Abo­rig­i­nal friends across Aus­tralia and the world in the Coali­tion to Pro­tect Lake Cow­al. We’ve also got a great inter­na­tion­al coali­tion going with First Nations peo­ples where Bar­rick is dam­ag­ing and destroy­ing Abo­rig­i­nal lands in Africa and North and South Amer­i­ca. We’ll nev­er give up the fight until the mine is stopped and our land is returned to us,” he said.

This is an ongo­ing sto­ry. Bar­rick faxed a let­ter to the Elders yes­ter­day after­noon Perth time in response to their demands. The Elders have referred it to their legal coun­sel for advice.

http://www.savelakecowal.org/intro.html
Con­tact: Neville ‘Chap­py’ Williams +61 416 316 774
Ron Gard­ner +61 414 098 536

Saving Iceland Summer of Resistance Kicks off in Reykjavik

12.07.2007
A day of action in Reyk­javik kick starts Sav­ing Ice­land’s Sum­mer of Resis­tance to heavy indus­try and the alu­mini­um indus­try’s cor­po­rate inva­sion of Europe’s largest wilder­ness.

Iceland blockade12.07.2007
A day of action in Reyk­javik kick starts Sav­ing Ice­land’s Sum­mer of Resis­tance to heavy indus­try and the alu­mini­um indus­try’s cor­po­rate inva­sion of Europe’s largest wilder­ness.

Fol­low­ing on from Sav­ing Ice­land’s inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence: ‘The Glob­al Con­se­quences of Heavy Indus­try’ where speak­ers and del­e­gates from five con­ti­nents gath­ered to unite strug­gles against the alu­mini­um indus­try, was a day of pub­lic actions.

The Inter­na­tion­al Sum­mer of Dis­sent begins!

First­ly at Kringlan Shop­ping Mall:

Over 50 peo­ple from 5 dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents start­ed the day at Kringlan Shop­ping Mall, Reyk­javik, to protest against the con­sumer cul­ture that demands new alu­mini­um fac­to­ries. Rev­erend Bil­ly, from the Church of Stop Shop­ping, and his new deci­ple Rev­erend Snor­ri, lead a flock of devot­ed and extreme­ly noisy earth lovers (also known as Sav­ing Ice­land activists) through the con­sumerist hell that is a the shop­ping mall.

“The for­eign cor­po­ra­tions who want to dam Ice­lands great rivers, and put pol­lut­ing smelters on our shores — they want us to keep shop­ping.”

“The Alu­mini­um indus­try makes most of its mon­ey from war­planes, tanks and mis­siles (30%, actu­al­ly.) They pro­pose the com­plete damming of Ice­lands wilder­ness rivers, this isnald’s famouse beau­ty buried under indus­tri­al reser­voirs. Let us stop the war machine and the ruin of Ice­land’s wilder­ness. The same cor­po­ra­tions that keep us shop­ping, make war around the world. Isn’t a shop­ping mall like a ‘human’ dam? We re stopped, hyp­no­tized, put in debt. Our ener­gy is tak­en from us. Save the coun­try and save our­selves…”

…Then a march down Lau­gave­g­ur (Reyk­javik’s busiest street)…

… for a ral­ly at Alþin­gi

On the lawn out­side the Alþin­gi, the Ice­landic Par­lai­ment, peo­ple gath­ered togeth­er to speak out against the alu­mini­um indus­try. Peo­ple from Trinidad, who are win­ning a fight against Alcoa, from South Africa, who are fight­ing a nuclear pow­ered Alcan plant, from the East of Ice­land, who have been dev­as­tat­ed by the recent Alcoa Rey­dar­fj­dur fac­to­ry and Karah­n­jukar dams, from Brasil, who is fight­ing the damming of the Ama­zon for alu­mini­um fac­to­ry ener­gy, and many more gave inspir­ing speech­es and lead ener­gy filled songs against the alu­mini­um indus­try.

…and final­ly at the Prime Min­is­ter’s Office
Street the­atre activists then set up an alu­mini­um smelter, installed some tomb stones and hand­ed out dirty Ice­landic water (Ice­land prides itself on its pure water, yet it is pol­lut­ing and destroy­ing its water for the sake of heavy indus­try dams).

activist video footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJF7uK4cCOM
RUV cov­er­age (Ice­land’s state TV): http://dagskra.ruv.is/streaming/sjonvarpid/?file=4338360/5

For updates and details of upcom­ing actions see: http://www.savingiceland.org/
For more videos of Sav­ing Ice­land actions and the recent con­fer­ence see: http://www.youtube.com/user/octoplasm

Cabinet refuses consultation with Herefordshire public: ‘Hereford Eight Arrested’

July 12 2007 — Here­ford­shire Coun­cil Cab­i­net refused this after­noon to guar­an­tee that they would con­sult with the pub­lic or even allow full coun­cil to debate the future of the Dine­dor Ser­pent.

July 12 2007 — Here­ford­shire Coun­cil Cab­i­net refused this after­noon to guar­an­tee that they would con­sult with the pub­lic or even allow full coun­cil to debate the future of the Dine­dor Ser­pent.

Cab­i­net mem­ber Cllr. June French told reporters and pro­test­ers that it would not be an agen­da item today, but that it would be dis­cussed at an unspec­i­fied future date. She could not guar­an­tee that it would be debat­ed by the full coun­cil or allowed a vote. Cllr. French announced an inter­nal inquiry into how the coun­cil had han­dled the pub­lic­i­ty around the Ser­pent.

8 pro­test­ers sub­se­quent­ly refused to leave the Coun­cil build­ing until Cab­i­net mem­bers guar­an­teed a full pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion. When this guar­an­tee was not forth­com­ing, the prostestors, includ­ing an elder­ly peo­ple, refused to leave. They were peace­ful­ly escort­ed from the premis­es by the police.

Update 10:15pm: The pro­test­ers were arrest­ed on charges of ‘aggres­sive tres­pass’. They have just been released on bail hav­ing spent sev­er­al hours in police cells in Worces­ter and are expect­ed back in Here­ford short­ly. They will have to report back on July 26th and face either a cau­tion or be tak­en to court.

“All the Coun­cil had to do today was guar­an­tee a prop­er pub­lic debate, and then this would not have hap­pened”, said a cam­paign spokesper­son. “What do they have to hide? Those arrest­ed are the Here­ford suf­fragettes — all because Here­ford­shire Coun­cil won’t be open and demo­c­ra­t­ic in it’s pro­ce­dures.”

Calls con­tin­ue to grow for Here­ford­shire Coun­cil to pause con­struc­tion to allow a full pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion and for all elect­ed coun­cil­lors to have a say in the final deci­sion and not just the Cab­i­net.

Back­ground info & oth­er cam­paign news at http://www.rotherwasribbon.com/

For court case updates, see July 2007 archive.

Camberwell Squatted Centre: Under immediate threat!!! Court & events update

The Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre has seen its court date brought for­ward to TUESDAY 10th JULY plac­ing the Cen­tre under dan­ger of evic­tion in the very near future. How can you help?

Camberwell squat flierThe Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre has seen its court date brought for­ward to TUESDAY 10th JULY plac­ing the Cen­tre under dan­ger of evic­tion in the very near future. How can you help?

Emer­gency meet­ing MONDAY 9th JULY at 7.30 pm
Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre
190 Warham St
off Cam­ber­well New Rd
Cam­ber­well SE5
bus 185, 36, 436
tube Oval

We have been in occu­pa­tion of the build­ing on Warham St since 10th March. Since then we have filled almost every day with events for any and every­one.

Now we are fac­ing the real­i­ty that we have always faced, that we will be thrown out of the build­ing we have lov­ing­ly restored to life.

So see you in court Mr Prop­er­ty Spec­u­la­tor…

Please check our web­site for news and also to see how you can keep the spir­it of the Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre alive

Black Frog Col­lec­tive
@
blackfrog@alphabetthreat.co.uk
http://www.56a.org.uk/warham.html

Court update
»»»»»»

Cam­ber­well Squat — own­ers grant­ed Pos­ses­sion Order

Cam­ber­well Squat Cen­tre | 11.07.2007 01:43 | Free Spaces | Social Strug­gles | Lon­don
Tues­day July 10th, the own­ers of the build­ing were grant­ed a Pos­ses­sion Order to regain the prop­er­ty. Bail­ifs could pay a vis­it any time from Wednes­day 11th. Please come along, we plan to stay in the cen­tre for as long as we can…

After two adjourn­ments and much legal shenan­ni­gan­ing the Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre at 192 Warham Street SE5 has entered its final phase…

Twice we have man­aged to gain adjourn­ments on the grounds that we had a licence to stay in the place grant­ed by Sean Dav­ey and John Desmond, the two char­ac­ters we had been deal­ing with from the own­ers’ side, which had not been prop­er­ly end­ed before the case was brought… This time the licence argu­ment was prop­er­ly test­ed in a court. We thought we would lose.

Although we were telling the truth and Sean had grant­ed a licence, the oth­er side claimed Sean and John hadn’t done any such thing and any­way even if they had, had no author­i­ty to do so, ie they aren’t the own­ers, only care­tak­ers and builders, not enti­tled to give us per­mis­sion to stay…
They gave evi­dence, we gave evi­dence. The Judge chose to believe them.

Prop­er­ty being nine tenths of the law, we had expect­ed that this would hap­pen, regard­less of the facts in the case. The Judge in fact called us liars, though not in such words. And said they were reli­able wit­ness­es. I.e. we were squat­ters and they busi­ness­men. They want the space to demol­ish
it, build yup­pie flats or what­ev­er mon­ey-mak­ing scheme they can con­coct. Our whole project was about sub­vert­ing their world-view.

So it goes. When we squat­ted the build­ing, we expect­ed a short time there; the licence, quick­ly revoked, gave us hope of longer, but in fact we have strung it out thus far and achieved much, We have had some bril­liant events, met and got to know some fine peo­ple, explored new ways of being, in a space under our con­trol, not for prof­it but for fun and with a view to work­ing towards a dif­fer­ent world.

We always knew we would be mov­ing on some time – but this is not the end. Every such occu­pied space is a cre­ation in itself, as well as a stage along a road. The process­es we have evolved in run­ning the space, inter­act­ing there, as well as the ideas, infor­ma­tion, social­is­ing, exchange of ideas and expe­ri­ences, add up to more than the rick­ety four walls or the dead hand of prop­er­ty.

Oth­er projects will arise, oth­er spaces will be squat­ted, all of us who have been through the build­ing will take the four months we have spent there for­ward in our hearts.

We don’t yet know how long we have before the bailiffs arrive. While we are still there we will car­ry on hav­ing events, using the space, cel­e­brat­ing the time we still have. We hope you will all come by, hang out, help to keep up the amaz­ing atmos­phere that has grown up in the place. We do need peo­ple to come and hang out in the day, to keep the build­ing secure, in case of ear­ly evic­tion attempts… Do drop by. You have all helped to make this project a liv­ing thing.

Check the web­site or come by the Squat to keep in touch with what’s hap­pen­ing on the evic­tion front.

Cam­ber­well Ver­sus Death!

EVENTS PLANNED –

Obvi­ous­ly we could be evict­ed before the lat­er ones here!

WEDNESDAY 11th?FILM NIGHT: THE WORKING CLASS GOES TO HEAVEN?
Lulù is a real hard work­er. For this rea­son he is loved by the mas­ters and hat­ed by his own col­leagues. The unions decide agi­ta­tions against the mas­ters. Lulù does­n’t agree…Classic REFUSAL of WORK movie from Italy!! Sub­ti­tles. 7.30pm

THURSDAY 12th:?A talk about the Oper­a­tion Span­ner case of the 1990s, the pros­e­cu­tion and jail­ing of con­sent­ing gay men for their sado-masochis­tic sex lives and the strug­gle against their crim­i­nal­iza­tion. Talk by a founder of the Span­ner Cam­paign.

FRIDAY 13TH: Café/Bar, 8 till 1… Is there any­one out there fan­cies cook­ing for this…? The usu­al cooks are a bit tired and all Ram­sayed out… Any vol­un­teers email us… It’s not that hard.

SATURDAY 14th
Star­bucks Work­ers Rebel… A film night, talk and social in sup­port of Star­bucks work­ers organ­is­ing against their evil cap­i­tal­ist boss­es in 3 con­ti­nents. We will be show­ing the film ’Cof­fee Sirens’ about Star­bucks work­ers organ­is­ing, plus talks from peo­ple involved in pick­et­ing Star­bucks here over their attacks on union organ­is­ers in the USA and else­where. 8pm onwards, plus social after.

SUNDAY 15th
3pm: open meet­ing to dis­cuss what hap­pens next: Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre is in court on the 20th of July, fac­ing evic­tion… We will prob­a­bly lose, after hero­ic adjourn­ments in the last two court appear­ances. So what next? For those who want to see anoth­er local autonomous social and rebel­lious space, we’re meet­ing to work out where to go and how things car­ry on.

MONDAY 16th
BUILDING MEETING
7pm

TUESDAY 17th
POLISH LESSONS. For the very begin­ners and very com­mit­ed. Bring pen and paper. Some home­work. 7.30pm
SPANISH LESSONS. For the not so begin­ners. 7.30pm

WEDNESDAY 18th FILM NIGHT: INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION
Anoth­er clas­sic movie from 1970’s Italy!! A dis­turb­ing por­trait of police pow­er as played out through twist­ed eroti­cism and State repres­sion. Sub­ti­tles. 7.30pm

THURSDAY 19th Peace Time In Pales­tine: Ille­gal occu­pa­tion. Ille­gal Con­fis­ca­tion. Humiliation.?The Wall of Shame. Inter­na­tion­al Sup­port. A talk and slideshow by a wit­ness and human rights observ­er after two months in Pales­tine (more on http://ana-en.blogspot.com). 7.30pm

Saving Iceland Camp Location

BRINGUR, Mos­fell­sheiði, South West Ice­land. You will go through the flat val­ley of Mos­fells­dalur and as you start climb­ing up to the moors you will pass the white vil­la of Gljúfrasteinn. It is the first dirt track on the right after you have passed Gljúfrasteinn. Keep going on the track until you final­ly see the camp! The track is a bit rough but fine for small cars as long as you dri­ve slow­ly.

Saving Iceland camp 2007BRINGUR, Mos­fell­sheiði, South West Ice­land. You will go through the flat val­ley of Mos­fells­dalur and as you start climb­ing up to the moors you will pass the white vil­la of Gljúfrasteinn. It is the first dirt track on the right after you have passed Gljúfrasteinn. Keep going on the track until you final­ly see the camp! The track is a bit rough but fine for small cars as long as you dri­ve slow­ly.
Camp phone for new arrivals (not press!): (+354) 8570709.
Press (fjölmiðlar): (+354)663 7653 or (+354) 8430629.

How to get to the camp:

Take bus 15 from Hlem­mur to Háholt (the end sta­tion).

It goes from Hlem­mur 16 min and 46 past every our on week­days, but 11 and 41 past every our in evenings and week­ends.

From Háholt take bus 27 to Laxnes.

It leaves at 12:28, 16:28, 20:08 and 22:08 on week­days.
8:08, 12:08, 16:08; 20:08 and 22:08 on sat­ur­days.
12:08, 16:08, 20:08 and 22:08 on sun­days.

From there you will have to walk on the main road until you see a small road to the right, which will lead you to the camp. There is a small sign and some ban­ner or clothes hang­ing on the gate.

A bus tick­et costs 280 kr. and you should ask for a tick­et called “skip­ti­mi­di” so you will not have to pay for both bus­es.