Author: earthfirst

Protesters in Greece Clash with Police Over Gold Mine, Again

Riot police show up to pro­tect min­ing inter­est

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers have bat­tled riot police for hours over plans for a gold mine in north­ern Greece’s Halkidi­ki penin­su­la.

Police fired tear gas to fend off pro­test­ers who had gath­ered in the Skouries area of Halkidi­ki, north­ern Greece, on Sun­day to protest gold min­ing activ­i­ty.

Dozens of res­i­dents of the near­by vil­lage of Ieris­sos, as well as pro­test­ers who arrived by coach­es and cars from Thes­sa­loni­ki, approached the for­est in Skouries, where Hel­lenic Gold, a sub­sidiary of Cana­di­an firm Eldo­ra­do Gold, has begun min­ing activ­i­ty that locals are appeal­ing against.

Pro­test­ers accused the police of mak­ing heavy use of tear gas, caus­ing a fire in the woods, and of chop­ping down trees to pre­vent demon­stra­tors from approach­ing the mine. Police say pro­test­ers threw fire­bombs at them, set­ting ablaze a forest­ed area on the site. Either way, the fire has been put out.

There were reports of sev­er­al peo­ple being arrest­ed and detained at Ieris­sos police sta­tion. Sev­er­al peo­ple were also injured, includ­ing SYRIZA MP Van­ge­lis Dia­man­topou­los.

Hel­lenic Gold has been award­ed an area of 26,400 hectares, of which 410 is for­est land. Almost all the trees in the for­est will be cut down as part of the min­ing firm’s plan to extract gold. The com­pa­ny says it will replant trees when it fin­ish­es its work.

Envi­ron­men­tal oppo­nents of the mine argue it would lead to the destruc­tion of the local for­est and irre­versible dam­age to the ecosys­tem. Own­ers of local tourist lodg­ing are also fierce­ly opposed due to envi­ron­men­tal rea­sons.

This is not the first clash over the gold mine. Oppo­nents suc­ceed­ed a decade ago in can­cel­ing a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar gold min­ing project in a near­by area.      Source

The film below, Trea­sure Hunt, doc­u­ments that strug­gle. This is the first 10 min­utes of the film:

 

The entire doc­u­men­tary with sub­ti­tles can be found online by click­ing this link.

 

Five Arrested in New York Anti-Fracking Sit-In

“Spec­tra Show­down” protest against frack­ing in New York City, Sep. 6, 2012

“Spec­tra Show­down” protest against frack­ing in New York City, Sep. 6, 2012

“Today [Sep 6] the ongo­ing protest called “Spec­tra Show­down,” [in New York City]has final­ly turned into the scene of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence that the group has been antic­i­pat­ing. At least two peo­ple have been report­ed­ly arrest­ed.

“After pre-con­struc­tion in July, Spec­tra Ener­gy begins a new phase of con­struc­tion today that has involved ship­ments of mate­ri­als on a barge on the Hud­son and from the West Side High­way. Spec­tra hard­hats were seen on peo­ple dig­ging at 8:30 this morn­ing right next to the bike path while pro­test­ers gath­ered next to them. A barge with a crane was on the Riv­er. The pro­test­ers held ban­ners but it wasn’t until after 10 AM that it was tweet­ed that two were arrest­ed.

“The protest has been against hydrofrack­ing (a process being used to drill for nat­ur­al gas in the Mar­cel­lus shale fields of Penn­syl­va­nia and the gen­er­al biore­gion).”

 

ALF FREE 123 DUCKS FROM FACTORY FARM

“In Nor­folk UK on the 26th of August 2012 a cru­el fac­to­ry farm breed­ing ducks for meat in which they were fed on growth exhil­a­rat­ing chem­i­cals and have no access to water for swim­ming and liv­ing in their nat­ur­al way, had it’s fence cut open, doors smashed in and 123 pris­on­ers freed and sent to lov­ing tem­po­rary homes, soon to be freed back into the wild.

“In Nor­folk UK on the 26th of August 2012 a cru­el fac­to­ry farm breed­ing ducks for meat in which they were fed on growth exhil­a­rat­ing chem­i­cals and have no access to water for swim­ming and liv­ing in their nat­ur­al way, had it’s fence cut open, doors smashed in and 123 pris­on­ers freed and sent to lov­ing tem­po­rary homes, soon to be freed back into the wild.

This is not hard, all of you com­pas­sion­ate peo­ple CAN JUST DO THIS! Take action tonight. Hit them hard and hit them often right where it hurts. You do not have to be a nin­ja to lib­er­ate, you just need good bolt cut­ters, some strong box­es and homes offered by peo­ple you can trust.

Until all cages are emp­ty and all pris­on­ers freed from abuse and exploita­tion, we will con­tin­ue the war.

For Lib­er­ty and Jus­tice for all

The ALF”

 

Flurry of Anti-Fossil Fuel Direct Actions

Three activists from Tar Sands Block­ade locked them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment near Saltil­lo, TX this morn­ing, shut­ting down the con­struc­tion site com­plete­ly.

Three activists from Tar Sands Block­ade locked them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment near Saltil­lo, TX this morn­ing, shut­ting down the con­struc­tion site com­plete­ly. As of the lat­est update, work­ers and police had all left the site, leav­ing the block­ade intact.

The action is the third so far for Tar Sands Blo­cakde, a group devot­ed to stop­ping TransCanada’s plan to expand the Key­stone XL Pipeline to trans­port oil from the Alber­ta Tar Sands to Texas. It fol­lows only days upon an August 28 action, when four activists locked them­selves to the under­side of a truck actu­al­ly car­ry­ing a piece of the planned pipeline. A total of sev­en pro­test­ers were arrest­ed, but not before all Key­stone con­struc­tion trans­porta­tion for the south­ern seg­ment was shut down for a full day.

 

In an unre­lat­ed action tar­get­ing big ener­gy infra­struc­ture, more than 150 pro­test­ers from Ever­glades Earth First! and Occu­py Wall Street block­ad­ed the access roads to TECO’s Big Bend coal plant on the east­ern shore of Tam­pa Bay, FL on Aug 31, coin­cid­ing with the last day of the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Tam­pa.

Accord­ing to a press release, “Earth First! activists chose this day for their protest in order to high­light Mitt Romney’s plan to expand what the group calls the “ener­gy empire” which favors the inter­est of big donors in oil, gas and coal indus­tries.” TECO was also cho­sen for its involve­ment in moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing.

The plant was suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed for near­ly four hours. Sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed. And as a bonus: the action led freaked-out author­i­ties to tem­porar­i­ly shut down the Port of Tam­pa!

Eco-anarchist Luca “Billy” Bernasconi is free (Switzerland)

Hel­lo to all the com­rades:

I left on Sun­day, August 19. The judge (was foam­ing at the mouth!), like Sil­via, I am also grant­ed parole hav­ing reached two-thirds of the sen­tence. Find­ing the warmth of veg­an com­pas, find­ing sights and words, it’s a pure joy to me.

Hel­lo to all the com­rades:

I left on Sun­day, August 19. The judge (was foam­ing at the mouth!), like Sil­via, I am also grant­ed parole hav­ing reached two-thirds of the sen­tence. Find­ing the warmth of veg­an com­pas, find­ing sights and words, it’s a pure joy to me.

Despite the iso­la­tion imposed on us dur­ing this time, in fact, there has not been a sin­gle time when I had the feel­ing of being alone. From the let­ters, from the news of events and ini­tia­tives, the news that came of actions, was almost pal­pa­ble ener­gy, a strong expe­ri­ence, despite every­thing. So, by force and warmth received from the courage, I can not say thank you enough. Thanks, real­ly.

Nat­u­ral­ly, noth­ing is over, rather, it is just a new begin­ning along “the path off the main street.”

Now miss­ing Cos­ta and Mar­co, Por­co dio!

Total sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those inves­ti­gat­ed and raid­ed by the oper­a­tion “Man­gia­fuo­co” and all the Anar­chist rebels still inside.

Thanks,

Parma: Three mobile phone masts set on fire in solidarity with imprisoned comrades (Italy)

We receive from anony­mous mail and trans­mit:

We receive from anony­mous mail and trans­mit:

In the night between 29th and 30th August we set three mobile phone masts on fire in the vicin­i­ty of Par­ma west exit on the A1 high­way. The land­scape where the masts stood include, in the space of a few hun­dred metres, a rail­way track with adjoin­ing yards, pow­er plants, a high­way, inten­sive farm­ing facil­i­ties, fac­to­ries and lux­u­ry vil­las. Many of these infra­struc­tures feed the mega mon­ster of the tech­no­log­i­cal and indus­tri­al machin­ery and the insa­tiable thirst for ener­gy and mobil­i­ty required by the west­ern civ­i­lized lifestyle.

Each of these struc­tures only inspires us to destroy them and the desire to put an end to this absurd world, as we are proud to be untame­able social mis­fits! To all the indomitable war­riors burn­ing with the instinct of free­dom!

This is for you, Mar­co, broth­er and com­rade! May action spread for all our com­rades in prison!

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Elisa, Ale, Katia, Ser­gio, Pao­la, Ste­fano, Giu­lia and Peppe in prison for oper­a­tion Ardire, to Gabriel Pom­bo Da Sil­va and the inves­ti­gat­ed in oper­a­tion Man­gia­fuo­co.

 

Buenos Aires: Banner drop at the Metro for the Swiss Embassy in solidarity with Marco Camenisch (Argentina)

On Wednes­day 28th August, we hung a ban­ner on the build­ing of the Metro where the Swiss Embassy resides. While we were removed, we scat­tered fly­ers around the place.

On Wednes­day 28th August, we hung a ban­ner on the build­ing of the Metro where the Swiss Embassy resides. While we were removed, we scat­tered fly­ers around the place. With this sim­ple action, we express our sol­i­dar­i­ty with our anar­chist com­rade Mar­co Camenisch, a pris­on­er of Switzer­land, cur­rent­ly on hunger strike. To him we send our love. To him and to all our com­rades that meet behind the walls, but are nev­er defeat­ed, and nev­er repent.

All our hate to the State and the pris­ons. They will nev­er stop us because our sol­i­dar­i­ty is stronger than their repres­sive blows and organ­i­sa­tions.

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary sol­i­dar­i­ty to all the indomitable pris­on­ers all over the world.

Com­rade­ly greet­ings to all those who, day by day, strug­gle against this sys­tem of exploita­tion.

Death to the State!
Long Live Anar­chy!

Indi­vid­u­al­ist Anar­chists

‘Long-Live Luciano Tortuga Cell – International Conspiracy for Revenge – FAI / FRI’ attack electrical substation with incendiary device in Manado (Indonesia)

From Mem­bakar Senj[a]:

From Mem­bakar Senj[a]:

It’s always a rea­son to say that the lack of num­bers is the main rea­son. But for us the only obsta­cle is fear. The­o­ries, rea­sons and sit­u­a­tions are the walls of the labyrinth which always became a rea­son for obstruc­tion and restric­tion. As well as the accu­sa­tions that the kid­nap­ping of two mem­bers, of our com­rades Bil­ly and Eat, is a bar­ri­er to the ongo­ing actions for destruc­tion.

On August 23, at a pow­er plant in Kota­mobagu, North Sulawe­si, we put an incen­di­ary device that failed to ignite. We were dis­ap­point­ed with our­selves and the abil­i­ty of each indi­vid­ual who was involved in the attack. But on the oth­er hand, we learned that no one should regret. Tonight August 31, we re-com­mit to do the same “crimes”. Leav­ing the device in order to burn an elec­tri­cal sub­sta­tion in Tumint­ing, Man­a­do.

The goal is clear. We are angry. Real­ly angry!

This action is also as a response and as an answer to the unlim­it­ed sol­i­dar­i­ty from many rebel­lion com­rades and companer@s.

To the uncon­trolled and brave com­rades in the dark­ness of Bolivia, Chile, Mex­i­co, Greece, Argenti­na, and Eng­land as well as to oth­er places that were nev­er men­tioned.

To Olga and all the com­rades from Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire and Tasos The­ofilou who was recent­ly arrest­ed because he was an anar­chist. Also we do not for­get to men­tion The­ofi­los Mavropou­los, Gabriel Pom­bo da Sil­va, Rami Syr­i­anos, and Mar­co Camenisch who are under­go­ing a hunger strike. All of you are rebels who inspired us despite the fact that you are seized behind bars.

To Luciano Tor­tu­ga and Mario Lopez, also nev­er for­get to men­tion Ivan Sil­va and Car­la Ver­dugo in Chile. Hen­ry Zegar­run­do, Juan Aliste Vega, Fred­dy Fuentevil­la Saa, Marce­lo Vil­lar­roel Sepúlve­da also are an inspi­ra­tion. Do not for­get to dis­si­dents like Felic­i­ty Ryder, Nikos Mazi­o­tis and Pola Roupa also last­ly to K. The fugi­tive mem­ber of the Long Live Luciano Tor­tu­ga Cell, Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion / Inter­na­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Front (FAI / FRI).

But with ful­ly of shame in our face we men­tion our two broth­ers in strug­gle, mem­bers of Long Live Luciano Tor­tu­ga Cell, Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion / Inter­na­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Front; Bil­ly Augus­tan and Rey­hard Rum­bayan (Eat). Also do not for­get the brave one of Kulon­pro­go; Tuk­i­jo. For those we send our greet­ings with the lights of fire from the street. To them we are send­ing our love.

These actions are also as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of anger and dis­ap­point­ment.
Impa­tience for those rebels who after attacks returned to run and hide and spent long time to keep wait­ing, includ­ing us.

Com­rades, it is time to strike back.
Do not wait. Time to light it up!

Long Live Anar­chy!

USA: Six Arrested Blocking Road in front of Duke Energy HQ During DNC

Pro­test­ers sit­ting on a ban­ner that reads “Duke is destroy­ing our earth with tax­pay­er dol­lars” were arrest­ed Thurs­day after­noon at the inter­sec­tion of Try­on and Stonewall streets, near the Duke Ener­gy build­ing. Pho­to: Meghan Cooke

Six pro­test­ers were tak­en away in hand­cuffs ear­li­er Thurs­day near the cor­po­rate head­quar­ters for Duke Ener­gy. They had locked arms and were sit­ting on top of a ban­ner claim­ing that the ener­gy com­pa­ny was harm­ing the envi­ron­ment.

Two dozen offi­cers sur­round­ed them and even­tu­al­ly lift­ed up the pro­test­ers, who refused to move. They then put them into pris­on­er trans­port vans.

Just before her arrest, 26-year-old Christi­na Mounce of Casper, W. Vir­ginia, crit­i­cized the util­i­ty com­pa­ny for burn­ing coal and run­ning nuclear pow­er plants.

“We want Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to stop accept­ing their cam­paign mon­ey,” said Mounce, a marine biol­o­gist. “The pres­i­dent is set­ting a hor­ri­ble exam­ple by being linked with them.”

The demon­stra­tors at Stonewall and Try­on streets said they were demand­ing an audi­ence with Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Ener­gy.

The oth­ers arrest­ed were Amelia Camp­bell, 22, of Boul­der, Colo.; Audrey Camp­bell, 22, of Boul­der, Colo.; Richard French, 39, of Farm­ing­ton, N.M.; Matthew Good­sell, 56; and Michael Joseph Stew­art, 25, of Lake­wood, Colo. All were charged with imped­ing traf­fic.

Count­ing Thursday’s deten­tions, a total of 25 pro­test­ers were arrest­ed or tak­en away in hand­cuffs dur­ing the three-day con­ven­tion, which end­ed Thurs­day night.

 

Fracking on trial verdict

An envi­ron­men­tal activist who climbed a drilling rig in a protest against frack­ing in Decem­ber last year was today found guilty under the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court. She was ordered to pay a £250 fine and £750 costs.

An envi­ron­men­tal activist who climbed a drilling rig in a protest against frack­ing in Decem­ber last year was today found guilty under the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court. She was ordered to pay a £250 fine and £750 costs.

Yes­ter­day two oth­er defen­dants were cleared of charges of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass as part of the same court case. (1)

On 1 Decem­ber 2011, pro­tes­tors from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide occu­pied the test drilling rig, at Cuadrilla Resource’s Hes­keth Bank site, Lan­cashire, shut­ting it down for 13 hours. (2) (3)

Dur­ing the tri­al, it emerged that Cuadrilla had con­tin­ued drilling for two months after their plan­ning per­mis­sion had expired.

In her final sub­mis­sion, the defence bar­ris­ter, Far­raht Arshad said of her client:
“As a con­cerned cit­i­zen no oth­er avenues were open to her.”

She jus­ti­fied this state­ment by the evi­dence giv­en in the tri­al by DECC (4) and Lan­cashire Coun­ty Coun­cil. DECC, the licenc­ing author­i­ty, uses the off-shore oil reg­u­la­tions to licence on-shore frack­ing oper­a­tions and
stat­ed that they are not inter­est­ed in polic­ing breach­es of envi­ron­men­tal law which is the job of the local plan­ning author­i­ty and the Envi­ron­ment Agency.

The local coun­cil plan­ning offi­cer made it clear in his evi­dence that he only had lim­it­ed resources and few pow­ers to police devel­op­ers. The gen­er­al expec­ta­tion from these reg­u­la­tors is that com­pa­nies will reg­u­late
them­selves.

It was clear­ly estab­lished dur­ing tri­al that Cuadrilla Resources had flout­ed the peri­od of their plan­ning per­mis­sion by two months, and had failed to com­ply with their own method state­ment relat­ed to the pro­tec­tion
of birdlife from the near­by Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est. As a result they were poten­tial­ly in breach of the Wildlife and Coun­try­side Act. Nei­ther DECC nor the local coun­cil appeared to be con­cerned about tak­ing action to pre­vent this crime.

Despite these facts, Judge Ward reject­ed the defence’s argu­ment that the activists were pre­vent­ing a crime.

The con­vict­ed activist said:
“This ver­dict con­firms my view that the reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties are hope­less­ly inad­e­quate at their job and don’t have the pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment as a pri­or­i­ty. Com­pa­nies like Cuadrilla are allowed to flout their oblig­a­tions with impuni­ty, while con­cerned cit­i­zens are crim­i­nalised.”

Hydraulic frac­tur­ing is a method of extract­ing gas in shale rock. Huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals are forced into the ground at high pres­sure, a large pro­por­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. In the
Unit­ed States numer­ous spills of these flu­ids have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed irri­ga­tion water, affect­ing food sup­plies, and the health of sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. (5) (6) (7)

There are twelve licens­es to frack for shale gas in the UK, five of which are held by Cuadrilla resources in Lan­cashire. (8)

*Notes*

1. To have com­mit­ted the offence of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass (sec­tion 68 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994) it need­ed to be shown that the defen­dants had:
* Tak­en dis­rup­tive action beyond just tres­pass­ing on pri­vate prop­er­ty. The pros­e­cu­tion failed on this first point.
* Dis­rupt­ed a law­ful activ­i­ty, in this case the drilling oper­a­tions of Cuadrilla.

2.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2011/dec/01/fracking-lancashire-hesketh-bank-cuadrilla

3. Pho­tos of the action are avail­able at:  https://secure.flickr.com/photos/71113300@N08/

4. DECC – Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change is the licenc­ing author­i­ty for frack­ing oper­a­tions and all fos­sil fuel exploita­tion in the UK.

5. ‘Cracks in the Façade: EPA Traced Pol­lu­tion of Under­ground Water Sup­ply to Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing’ (Aug 2011 – EWG)
 http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/fracking/cracks_in_the_facade.pdf

6. ‘Methane con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of drink­ing water accom­pa­ny­ing gas-well drilling and hydraulic frac­tur­ing’ (May 2011 – Duke)
 http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/cgc/pnas2011.pdf

7. ‘Shale gas: a pro­vi­sion­al assess­ment of cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal impacts’ (Jan 2011 – Tyn­dall Cen­tre)
 http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/coop_shale_gas_report_final_200111.pdf

8.  http://frack-off.org.uk/new-homepage/bad-guys/locations/

*For more infor­ma­tion see:*

www.risingtide.org.uk
www.frack-off.org.uk
www.frackingontrial.org