Category: Aviation and Roads

anarchists claim string of fires in east bristol

Just before sun­rise this morn­ing we launched a tar­get­ed arson spree along Glebe Road — which meets the main east Bris­tol thor­ough­fare of Church Road — and burned out cor­po­rate, lux­u­ry, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and hunt-scum vehi­cles.

Just before sun­rise this morn­ing we launched a tar­get­ed arson spree along Glebe Road — which meets the main east Bris­tol thor­ough­fare of Church Road — and burned out cor­po­rate, lux­u­ry, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and hunt-scum vehi­cles. Wild­fire in the arter­ies of the city-prison! To break the lie of social peace and inten­si­fy the hos­til­i­ties!

Emer­gency ser­vices were too slow to catch the respon­si­ble as the emp­ty street was bright­ened from end to end as by torch­es. In a few words, the select­ed vans and cars were active com­po­nents of the life they rep­re­sent and also enforce.

Vir­gin Media sup­ply tele­vi­sion and also inter­net, and a nation­al fibre optic cable net­work. To keep us enmeshed in the mod­ern infor­ma­tion econ­o­my and the spec­ta­cle of celebri­ties, video games and adver­tis­ing is their busi­ness. Destroy what domes­ti­cates and stu­pe­fies us!

A car as fan­cy as a Quat­tro is an extra spit in the face for the prop­er­ty-less as well as the earth. In wealthy areas or parts under­go­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion they’re com­mon­place, in Eng­land as in Argenti­na, Syd­ney as in Berlin, and there to be picked off at our leisure.

BWS’s secu­ri­ty vehi­cle in ash­es is one less to aid their task across the UK of keep­ing the haves from the have-nots by threat or force and of expand­ing the matrix of sur­veil­lance cam­eras we pass under hun­dreds of times in a day. Min­ions of the estab­lished order have cho­sen their side! Insur­rec­tion­al action against the con­structs of author­i­ty above us, around us, with­in us.

Either an active fox hunter or a sup­port­er and pro­mot­er of killing wild ani­mals sole­ly for enter­tain­ment — either way, own­er of a heavy-duty 4x4 bear­ing pro-hunt stick­ers — got their incen­di­ary gift too. Some call blood­sport uncivilised, but it’s real­ly per­fect­ly reflec­tive of the dis­dain for the non­hu­man, upper class enti­tle­ment and also cross-class col­lab­o­ra­tion which is the basis and con­tent of civil­i­sa­tion. Let’s make the rich and their ter­ri­er-boys the hunt­ed, let’s harass them in city or coun­try­side.

This deed coin­cid­ed with the call for col­lec­tive action in sup­port of our caged broth­er G. Pom­bo da Sil­va (Spain), who’s resist­ing his forced trans­fer to a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty mod­ule. Hope­ful­ly our flam­ing regards will also make it through the prison bars to the wan­der­ing she-wolves A. Trudeau and F. Rouiller along with com­pa C. ‘Chi­vo’ López (Mex­i­co) — they all face charges over Molo­tov attacks against State and Cap­i­tal­ism. We’re also think­ing of the unnamed ani­mal lib­er­a­tion fight­er who pros­e­cu­tors have tried to link to the anar­chist paper Upprors­Bladet (Swe­den) and the co-con­vict­ed who also had the sense to stay silent before the cops. While A. Cospi­to and N. Gai, G. Iaco­v­ac­ci and A. Antonac­ci will all be tried next on July 4th, we take aim to light up their jail cells with the warmth of our sol­i­dar­i­ty. Pris­on­ers to the streets, run­ning wild and free!

ABOUT THE ACCUSED IN BRISTOL
We learned from the scum-press news­pa­pers that ear­ly on June 12th an indi­vid­ual was stopped in their vehi­cle by police in the Bradley Stoke area and sus­pect­ed of going equipped to com­mit a crime, then arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of four counts of arson. This was in the con­text of four coor­di­nat­ed sab­o­tages in the days before which took down many phone sig­nals and also radio ser­vices — all of which had already been claimed by Live Wires, FAI/ELF, as report­ed in the scum-press and car­ried by anar­chist counter-infor­ma­tion pages (although hid­den once again by the mod­er­a­tors of Bris­tol Indy­media).

After the resound­ing silence so far from the local anar­chist move­ment, the first thing we want to state is that — although none of our­selves, our wider net­work or fleet­ing affini­ties know who this per­son is or any­thing about their sym­pa­thies or com­plic­i­ties — the repres­sive move by the State aims to dis­cour­age sim­i­lar actions and we will not stand com­pla­cent. Either police made an uncon­nect­ed arrest in efforts to shed some of the crit­i­cism they’ve come under in the region­al and nation­al media for fail­ing to stem the flow of anar­chist attacks in their area, in which case it was a fruit­less provo­ca­tion as action con­tin­ues, or that indi­vid­ual real­ly did set out to some­how fight the sys­tem that night — sin­gu­lar­ly, in the con­text of decen­tralised infor­mal groups open to any­one such as FAI or ELF, or anony­mous — in which case they’re a poten­tial com­rade and we would defend them as such.

It seems for now that police have lit­tle inter­est in the arrest­ed indi­vid­ual as accord­ing to the scum-press they’re out on bail after ques­tion­ing, but we call on any­one with more infor­ma­tion to release it if they see fit. Mean­while, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the live wires and who­ev­er shares their moti­va­tions to do the same!

Infor­mal anar­chist federation/Earth lib­er­a­tion front
Rogue fire brigade.

Summary of Repression from ZAD

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 12.46.24 PM 30th June Sum­ma­ry of arrests and tri­als since the demo in Nantes, Feb­ru­ary 22nd, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion found by the anti-repres­sion com­mit­tee (CARILA)

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 12.46.24 PM 30th June Sum­ma­ry of arrests and tri­als since the demo in Nantes, Feb­ru­ary 22nd, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion found by the anti-repres­sion com­mit­tee (CARILA)

Feb­ru­ary 22nd: 14 arrests, two released with­out charge. Of the 12 peo­ple charged, 5 had imme­di­ate tri­als the next day, and the 7 oth­ers will have tri­als lat­er (3 on June 19th, 2 minors in children’s court, and no news for the 2 oth­ers).

Feb­ru­ary 24th: 5 imme­di­ate tri­als, 4 of them judged for “vio­lence against some­one with pub­lic author­i­ty”, and “par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group”. They were all con­vict­ed.
- 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice
- 5 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence
- 5 months of prison
- 5 months of prison and 1 month pro­ba­tion
- 6 months of prison and 6 months of pro­ba­tion + 500 euros for the under­cov­er cops sup­pos­ed­ly injured

Of all those con­vict­ed this day, no one went direct­ly to prison. This means that they can nego­ti­ate a lighter sen­tence.

March 31st: First wave of arrests after the demo: 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed at home (in Car­que­fou, St. Herblain, Nantes, and Ille-et-Vilaine).

- 2 were released with­out charges
- 4 were judged the next day in imme­di­ate tri­als
- 2 minors: one accused of throw­ing fire­works at the police judged in juve­nile court, placed under house arrest until their tri­al in 2015, the oth­er we don’t think they were charged but we have no con­fir­ma­tion
- 1 per­son had a tri­al lat­er but we don’t have con­tact with them

April 1st: Imme­di­ate tri­als for those arrest­ed the day before

- P: 4 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence, for­bid­den to car­ry weapons for a year, for­bid­den to protest in Notre Dame des Lan­des and Nantes for a year
- J: 5 months of prison, for­bid­den to car­ry weapons for 2 years, for­bid­den to protest in Nantes for 2 years
- G: 2 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 2 months prison (sus­pend­ed sen­tence from last arrest), aquit­ted for van­dal­ism
- E: 1 year of prison, start­ing imme­di­ate­ly after the tri­al, for­bid­den to protest for 3 years, for­bid­den to have explo­sives or flam­ma­ble mate­ri­als for 3 years. The judge dou­bled the sen­tence that the DA asked for!

May 14th: G arrest­ed in Paris under a war­rant for van­dal­ism Feb­ru­ary 22nd. He refused an imme­di­ate tri­al, fuzzy pho­tos were the only evi­dence. He was placed in pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion, but got out a month lat­er because of a pro­ce­dur­al error. His tri­al is July 16th.

May 27th: R. arrest­ed in the street in Rennes by under­cov­er cops, trans­ferred to Nantes. He refused imme­di­ate tri­al, and was put under house arrest, and for­bid­den from the Loire-Atlan­tique region until his tri­al, June 19th.

June 13th: Addi­tion­al tri­al for some­one con­vict­ed Feb­ru­ary 24th to decide how much they should pay in dam­ages to the under­cov­er cops. No infor­ma­tion on the ver­dict for the moment.

June 18th:
- O. arrest­ed at home in Rennes, accused of van­dal­ism, he has an imme­di­ate tri­al the next day.
- Some­one from the ZAD arrest­ed in Nantes, who had a war­rant out for vio­lence against the police and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group.

June 19th:
- Tri­al for 3 peo­ple arrest­ed dur­ing the demo ‑K: con­vict­ed of throw­ing paving stones towards the police and arrest­ed in pos­ses­sion of a ham­mer and an iron bar, 4 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence, 18 months pro­ba­tion (forced to find a job or go to voca­tion­al school, and for­bid­den to car­ry weapons) + 105 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice ‑C: con­vict­ed of par­tic­i­pa­tion in an armed group and throw­ing a beer can at the police, sen­tenced to 2 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence ‑G: arrest­ed in pos­ses­sion of a ham­mer, sen­tenced to 1 month sus­pend­ed sen­tence
- Hear­ing for O. (arrest­ed in Rennes the day before): he refus­es his tri­al and is put under house arrest until his tri­al, July 10th
- Tri­al of R. (arrest­ed in Rennes, May 27) for van­dal­ism and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group. Sen­tenced to 8 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 1 month sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 5218 euros in dam­ages for the city of Nantes+ for­bid­den from Loire-Atlan­tique region for 2 years.
- Hear­ing for 5 peo­ple arrest­ed 2 days before by under­cov­er cops while dri­ving: ‑one per­son (a hitch-hik­er) accept­ed the imme­di­ate tri­al, con­vict­ed to pos­ses­sion of 1 gram of hash + refus­ing fin­ger­prints and DNA. No sen­tence 3 peo­ple refused imme­di­ate tri­als and are put under house arrest until their tri­al, July 18th 1 per­son refused an imme­di­ate tri­al and is in prison await­ing tri­al (July 18th)

“They were arrest­ed tues­day after a “ran­dom” iden­ti­ty con­trol by under­cov­er cops on the ring road in Nantes. Amoung them was R., who had a tri­al Thurs­day and was on their way to Nantes to see their lawyer with their friends. After 48 hours of police cus­tody, 4 of them were charged with “pos­ses­sion of stolen goods”, sus­pect­ed of hav­ing stolen… a head lamp. Also they refused to give fin­ger­prints and DNA. More seri­ous­ly, they are accused, based on some fly­ers in their car and a tool­box, of “asso­ci­a­tion of wrong-doers”, and “intent to com­mit an armed assem­bly in front of the cour­t­house in Nantes”. They risk up to 5 years in prison.”

June 20th: Hear­ing for S., who lives on the ZAD. He was arrest­ed 2 days before in Orvault, accused of hav­ing stolen 2 books. He had a war­rant out for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Feb­ru­ary 22nd demo. He is accused of theft (with pri­or con­vic­tions), refus­ing fin­ger­prints and DNA (with pri­or con­vic­tions), and par­tic­i­pat­ing with a weapon in an armed group, and vio­lence against the police. He refused an imme­di­ate tri­al and has been put in jail await­ing his tri­al on July 7th.

2 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly in pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion, await­ing tri­al.

Nantes, France: Call for a Demo and Decentralized Solidarity Actions Against Repression of the Anti-airport Movement

17-mai8th May 2014 On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, 2014, more than 50,000 peo­ple gath­ered in Nantes for the biggest anti-air­port demon­stra­tion ever.

17-mai8th May 2014 On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, 2014, more than 50,000 peo­ple gath­ered in Nantes for the biggest anti-air­port demon­stra­tion ever. As it was declared ille­gal by the pre­fec­ture, it quick­ly faced stun­ning repres­sion; hun­dreds of over-armed cops sur­round­ed the demo while a huge anti-riot wall blocked the cen­tral street of the city (le cours des 50 otages). It was the first time in Nantes’ social strug­gles his­to­ry that a demo couldn’t pass by there. Politi­cians and media talked about “loot­ings” and “dev­as­ta­tions”, deplor­ing the vio­lence after a group of demon­stra­tors attempt­ed to walk the orig­i­nal route.

How­ev­er, the Pow­er and its accom­plices failed to men­tion the extreme feroc­i­ty in the crack­down on this demon­stra­tion. On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, hun­dreds of peo­ple were hurt by police weapons. At least three of them lost an eye from rub­ber-bul­let shots. A lot of peo­ple breathed tear gas, were shak­en up from stun grenades, or wound­ed from dis­per­sion grenades, or repulsed by water can­nons.

 

A few weeks lat­er, on March 31st, media exul­tant­ly declared a first “drag­net” fol­low­ing a spe­cial police force’s inves­ti­ga­tion. Nine com­rades had their hous­es searched and were arrest­ed in the ear­ly morn­ing. Two of them were imme­di­ate­ly released, as one of them was not even in Nantes on the day of the demon­stra­tion. Four oth­ers couldn’t pre­pare their defense since they were sent to the court through the imme­di­ate arraign­ment pro­ce­dure. Sen­tences are as heavy as the records are emp­ty: indeed, the only real evi­dence the pros­e­cu­tion had were the con­fes­sions of the accused. Three of them have been con­demned to prison terms with­out remis­sion. Dur­ing this par­o­dy of a tri­al, judge Tchalian did not hes­i­tate to dou­ble the prosecutor’s req­ui­si­tions and put our com­rade Enguer­rand direct­ly in prison. One year in prison with­out remis­sion for some stones and smoke cans.

The pur­pose of the repres­sion from police and the jus­tice sys­tem that the anti-air­port move­ment is now fac­ing is only to ter­ror­ize those who revolt and start fight­ing against capitalism’s hold on our liv­ing spaces. It is to psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly touch a social move­ment, to muti­late and incar­cer­ate some of us to reach all the oth­ers. The sen­tences and muti­la­tions of the 22nd of Feb­ru­ary are not only an appli­ca­tion of laws or peace­keep­ing techniques—they are deeply polit­i­cal. This real state ter­ror­ism express­es clear­ly what must be expect­ed for those who resist.

Today, Enguer­rand, Quentin, Damien, Emmanuel, Philippe, J. and G. are its vic­tims. It could have been any one of us. Accord­ing to the State and its so-called jus­tice, tak­ing part in a demon­stra­tion is suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy the loss of an eye or a prison term.

We shouldn’t step back as we are fac­ing such vio­lent repres­sion. By doing so, we would only prove their case. The best sup­port we can give to our wound­ed and incar­cer­at­ed com­rades is to keep on fight­ing. Our strug­gle has nev­er been so pow­er­ful, and we have nev­er been so close to real­iz­ing a future with­out con­crete. More than ever, we must keep on fight­ing and not give any­thing up in the strug­gle against the air­port and the world that pro­duces it.

Against the assas­sin Pow­er that muti­lat­ed and incar­cer­at­ed, we have a weapon that it can­not take back. In a let­ter, on April 8th, Enguer­rand stat­ed: “The strength of activist sol­i­dar­i­ty can­not be defeat­ed,” and indeed, we agree. Actions in sup­port of those wound­ed and accused in the strug­gle have already been diverse and numer­ous, mod­eled on the diver­si­ty with­in the move­ment. Infi­nite are the poten­tial actions. Orga­nize a con­cert or a fundrais­er to finan­cial­ly sup­port the accused and their fam­i­lies. Call for a demon­stra­tion (“peace­ful­ly hel­met­ed”? —a ref­er­ence to the “Flash­balles” song) to express revolt against police crimes. Cov­er the walls with paint­ed slo­gans or posters to make sure that no one ignores what is hap­pen­ing…

Every ini­tia­tive is wel­come to bring reas­sur­ance to our com­rades and remind the Pow­er of our rage and deter­mi­na­tion. Against the con­niv­ing silence of the media spec­ta­cle, we can only rely on our­selves to make “jus­tice” a mean­ing­ful word again. We strong­ly encour­age every sol­i­dar­i­ty action against repres­sion of the anti-air­port move­ment, no mat­ter whether it hap­pens in Nantes or any­where else, today or any­time.

No jus­tice, no peace!
Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the wound­ed and the accused!
No to the air­port and its world!

DEMONSTRATION Sat­ur­day, May 17th, 2014 at 3pm – Nantes pre­fec­ture

To write to the sup­port com­mit­tee for Enguer­rand or to sign this call: soutien.enguerrand(at)riseup.net

BREAKING THE FRAME

A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

Tech­nol­o­gy can bring some ben­e­fits for ordi­nary peo­ple, but its devel­op­ment is almost entire­ly con­mtrolled by cor­po­rate, mil­i­tary and tech­no­crat­ic elites, so it usu­al­ly serves their inter­ests and rein­forces their pow­er.

The pol­i­tics of food, ener­gy, work, gen­der, peace, eco­nom­ics, health, etc are all shaped by choic­es about tech­nol­o­gy made by those elites. The whole way our soci­ety devel­ops is mas­sive­ly influ­enced by tech­nol­o­gy, yet ordi­nary peo­ple nev­er have a prop­er say in it.  We’re always left react­ing to the tech­nocrats’ lat­est plan, whether it’s drones, inter­net sur­veil­lance, GM food, frack­ing, design­er babies or nuclear pow­er.

We think all these issues are linked. So it’s time for a more joined up and more proac­tive approach, one which address­es the root caus­es of prob­lems and is not lim­it­ed by the dog­ma that tech­nol­o­gy equals progress.

  • We want to cre­ate a new pol­i­tics of tech­nol­o­gy based on bring­ing togeth­er the insights of dif­fer­ent move­ments and learn­ing from each oth­er.
  • We want a human-scale tech­nol­o­gy that serves real human needs, not cor­po­rate bot­tom lines.
  • We want demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol of tech­nol­o­gy.

An world fac­ing envi­ron­men­tal melt­down and mas­sive inequal­i­ty ‑both caused byb 200 years ofn indus­tri­al cap­i­tal­ism- needs bet­ter solu­tions than more dan­ger­ous tech­no-fix­es such as cli­mate engi­neer­ing.

Whether you’re a tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics cam­paign­er, trade union­ist, envi­ron­men­tal­ist. altech devel­op­er, artist or just plain con­cerned, BREAKING THE FRAME IS NOT TO BE MISSED.

YOU NEED TO BOOK

www.breakingtheframe.org.uk      

email: luddites200@yahoo.co.uk

(020) 7426 0005

Accom­mo­da­tion is either in the con­fer­ence cen­tre OR camp­ing (which is cheap­er).  The con­ces­sion­ary rate for camp­ing is £36, which includes all meals for 4 days (it’s a bank hol­i­day week­end).

BUT if £36 is more than you can man­age, we’re com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure nobody is left out for lack of mon­ey.  So get in touch now.  Rich peo­ple can make extra dona­tions, of course!

Police Attack 20,000 French Citizens Protesting Against Airport Notre-Dame-Des-Landes

4371803_3_a8d2_selon-la-prefecture-la-manifestation-a_fb63a9c22897e38e5bfc3f4b4776d41b

4371803_3_a8d2_selon-la-prefecture-la-manifestation-a_fb63a9c22897e38e5bfc3f4b4776d41b

Feb­ru­ary 22, 2014

The event attend­ed by ten’s of thou­sands of French cit­i­zens against the air­port Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des esca­lat­ed Sat­ur­day after­noon in the city cen­ter of Nantes when Police Block­ad­ed the pro­gres­sion of the march and attacked with charges to the peo­ple protest­ing. Many cit­i­zens were wound­ed by tear gas and rub­ber bul­lets. Par­tic­i­pants respond­ed with fired pro­jec­tiles – bot­tles, cans, steel balls, flares – towards the police who charged repeat­ed­ly.

About 20,000 people demonstrated in the city center of Nantes to protest against the construction of the new airport of Our Lady of Landes.Des violent clashes took place at the end of the event between violent groups and CRS | Franck Dubray

About 20,000 peo­ple demon­strat­ed in the city cen­ter of Nantes to protest against the con­struc­tion of the new air­port of Our Lady of Landes.Des vio­lent clash­es took place at the end of the event between vio­lent groups and CRS | Franck Dubray

4371804_3_ea2b_dans-le-defile-a-nantes-samedi-22-fevrier_273e5de25cb5fac4de98ec550578eec2

“This is tens of thou­sands,” assured Julien Durand, spokesman for the ACIPA, the main oppo­si­tion group to the air­port project, while refus­ing to give a pre­cise fig­ure.

Accord­ing to him, the par­tic­i­pa­tion is equiv­a­lent to the pre­vi­ous ral­lies, such as in Novem­ber 2012 which accord­ing to the orga­niz­ers had expect­ed 40,000 peo­ple (13,000 accord­ing to police).

In the late after­noon, the city cen­ter of Nantes showed scenes of dev­as­ta­tion. Peo­ple took out frus­tra­tion from being ignored for years and beat­en down when they speak out by ran­sack­ing a police sta­tion, an agency of Vin­ci (deal­er air­port project) group, but also broke sev­er­al store­fronts, any agency of Nantes trans­port or agency Nou­velles Fron­tières. At least two con­struc­tion equip­ment vehi­cles and a bar­ri­cade were also burned.

Objects were thrown at the SNCF cate­nary to block the move­ment of trains one source said. As for police, they made use of a large amount of tear gas, stun grenades and water can­nons.

Pro­test­ers moved away blind­ed by tear gas while sev­er­al hun­dred oth­ers con­tin­ued to face the police, refer­ring new pro­jec­tiles bot­tles, or even own grenades forces.

“No mat­ter what tell the pre­fec­ture, for all of you it is a great suc­cess,” pro­vid­ed at the end of the event Julien Durand.

via @Le Télégramme

via @Le Télé­gramme

le-centre-ville-de-nantes-devaste_1
“An unnec­es­sary and expen­sive project”
The demon­stra­tion had start­ed in a friend­ly atmos­phere. “No thank you Ayrault­port”, “No to Ayrault pork”, “Ayrault also emerges Vin­ci”, “Ni or air­port metrop­o­lis, the city is ours” we heard in the pro­ces­sion.

le-centre-ville-de-nantes-devaste_2“The mobi­liza­tion is great here. We are here to show our deter­mi­na­tion to aban­don this use­less and expen­sive at this time of short­age project,” said AFP Eva Joly MEP EELV.

Giv­en the anti-cap­i­tal­ist com­po­nent of the event and clash­es that have marked pre­vi­ous events, the pre­fec­ture on Fri­day adopt­ed a mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the route so that it avoids the down­town core.

The event is orga­nized two months after the pub­li­ca­tion of pre­fec­tur­al ordi­nances autho­riz­ing the start of pre-con­struc­tion of the air­port. Appeals were filed against these orders but do not have sus­pen­sive effect. How­ev­er, work has still not start­ed.

via @youranonnews

via @youranonnews

The inau­gu­ra­tion of the future Grand Ouest Air­port, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for 2017, is now con­sid­ered only “2019 or 2020″ by sup­port­ers of the trans­fer. Accord­ing to an Ifop poll pub­lished Sat­ur­day, a major­i­ty of French (56%) are opposed to the future air­port, 24% being pos­i­tive and 20% were unde­cid­ed.

This sur­vey was con­duct­ed on behalf of Act­ing for the envi­ron­ment, Attac and ACIPA, the lead­ing asso­ci­a­tion of oppo­nents to the project. The project of pub­lic util­i­ty in 2008, is jus­ti­fied by its sup­port­ers, PS as the UMP, includ­ing the risk of sat­u­ra­tion of the cur­rent air­port Nantes Atlan­tique.

One of several damaged buildings. via Franck Dubray

One of sev­er­al dam­aged build­ings. via Franck Dubray

4371784_3_30e7_des-participants-ont-de-leur-cote-tire-des_50fcca11781d5d65cec75cfac3d520184371782_3_64a4_la-police-et-les-gendarmes-mobiles-ont-fait_837cd27ae257218eb7fd601d0ed442d4

 

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

3449511

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

 

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

34497153449847Sources
http://t.co/RS8wSS9yRB” target=“_blank”>FranceTVinfo
Lemonde
7sur7

Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al. To sup­port this pub­li­ca­tion, pre­order your copy or donate today.

After sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al is ready to go to press. A group of front­line activists has assem­bled over 300 pages of dia­grams, descrip­tions of tech­niques and a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the role direct action plays in our cam­paigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundrais­ing cam­paign to ensure that this crit­i­cal book gets out to peo­ple who can use it. You can pre­order your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your ear­ly endorse­ment by donat­ing today. More impor­tant­ly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowl­edge. Every dona­tion over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the man­u­al to a cam­paign of your choice. The more you give, the more man­u­als we can put in the mail.

The man­u­al will be print­ed in the com­ing month with long­time Earth First! part­ner, The Gloo Fac­to­ry. This com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed, union print shop has sup­plied Earth First! and its affil­i­ates with stick­ers and mer­chan­dise for decades and remains com­mit­ted to using a high stan­dard for recy­cled and reclaimed mate­r­i­al, as well as sup­port­ive work­er con­di­tions.

The man­u­al was first print­ed near­ly two decades ago and has been out of print since its ini­tial dis­sem­i­na­tion. Though many of the con­sid­er­a­tions for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and inter­ven­tion have remained tried and true, new ele­ments have altered the ways we put these tac­tics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al will con­tin­ue the role of safe and effec­tive actions in stop­ping the destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Sup­port this effort today!

Reclaim the Power gathering 8–9 February

After an incred­i­ble day of idea gen­er­a­tion and vision­ing at the last gath­er­ing, it’s time for con­crete pro­pos­als and deci­sions about our next steps.


Loca­tion: Oxford
Time: Sat­ur­day 8th Feb­ru­ary 11am ­­– Sun­day 9th 4pm
Address: TBC
Crash Space/Social: Pro­vid­ed. Fur­ther details TBC.
Meals: Pro­vid­ed, dona­tion cost TBC
Trav­el Pool: Avail­able. Please book trav­el tick­ets in advance so that this can sup­port the most peo­ple.
Notes from Man­ches­ter Vision­ing Day are here: http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3

In ear­ly Decem­ber a large num­ber of peo­ple came togeth­er to dis­cuss the rad­i­cal visions they had for the future – visions that Reclaim the Pow­er, as a net­work, could help bring about.

It was a very open day of dis­cus­sion with a clear struc­ture, but with no pre-planned agen­da. Every­thing we talked about was gen­er­at­ed by par­tic­i­pants, and a huge num­ber of dif­fer­ent ideas were placed on the table.

So what next? Well, the idea is that all of that dis­cus­sion feeds into a month of cre­ative pro­pos­al mak­ing before the next gath­er­ing. This will be a space for short and medi­um-term deci­sion mak­ing where we work out what we’re doing in the next few months – and how this fits in with long term visions.

Rough pro­pos­al area groups formed at the Decem­ber gath­er­ing, includ­ing:

1. How to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er
2. Move­ment and diver­si­ty
3. Ener­gy and fos­sil fuels
4. Pos­i­tive solu­tions

If you would like to link up with these groups and input into pro­pos­als for next steps, just con­tact info@nodashforgas.org.uk and you will be put in touch with a group con­tact.

This said, all pro­pos­als are wel­come! If you’re work­ing on your own, out­side these groups, then great. The more ideas the bet­ter.

The pro­pos­al dead­line is the 31st Jan­u­ary 2014. Please try and fol­low this rough four point list when writ­ing them, as it is essen­tial that all the pro­pos­als be con­sid­ered on an equal foot­ing.

1. What is it?
2. How does it link to long-term strate­gic aims?
3. Time­line?
4. Resources need­ed? (inc, peo­ple, costs, skills)

Spe­cif­ic venue and agen­da details to fol­low soon. In the mean­while, please check http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3 to see the dis­cus­sions and out­comes of the last agen­da.

See you soon,

RTP Gath­er­ings Team

info@nodashforgas.org.uk

 

Earth First! Winter Moot 7–9 March 2014: programme up

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Evening Fri­day 7th — after­noon Sun­day 9th March 2014, Not­ting­ham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion.

It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat. Train to Not­ting­ham then tram to Bea­cons­field street– walk to the end turn right on to Glad­stone St — 245 Glad­stone St, Not­ting­ham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or ques­tions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30–17.30 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop
17.30–18.30 Film

18.30 Din­ner

20.00 Ben­e­fit Gig

Saturday

8.30–9.30 Break­fast
9.30–10.45 Intro go round of cam­paigns

10.45–11.00 Break

11.00–12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00–13.00 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop

13.00–14.00 Lunch

14.00–14.30 Lush/fundraising work­shop
14.30–18.15 Cam­paign Work­shops (tim­ings to be finalised to include Frack­ing, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15–18.30 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing han­dover

18.30 Din­ner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00–10.00 Break­fast fry up
10.00–10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30–11.30 Feed­back go round
11.30–12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30–14.00 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Plan­ning (and time of oth­er work­shops to run in par­al­lel)

14.00–15.00 Lunch
15.00 End

Anti-Highway Protester Faces Eight Year Sentence

Will Parrish in the wick drain stitcher. Jan­u­ary 22nd From June 20th to July 1st, local­ly well-known jour­nal­ist and activist Will Par­rish lived 50 feet above ground in a wick drain &l

Will Parrish in the wick drain stitcher. Jan­u­ary 22nd From June 20th to July 1st, local­ly well-known jour­nal­ist and activist Will Par­rish lived 50 feet above ground in a wick drain “stitch­er” in the north­ern Lit­tle Lake Val­ley (ie, Willits Val­ley) wet­lands, where the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (Cal­Trans) is build­ing an unnec­es­sary and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive free­way bypass.

By putting his body inside the frame­work of this destruc­tive equip­ment, which is in the process of installing rough­ly 55,000 80-foot drainage tubes into the Lit­tle Lake wet­lands, Will blocked it from oper­at­ing and brought nation­wide atten­tion to the harm Cal­Trans is caus­ing the Lit­tle Lake Val­ley water­shed.  This harm includes destroy­ing the largest North­ern Cal­i­for­nia wet­lands area of any project in over 50 years.

As pun­ish­ment for Will’s more than 11 day stand on behalf of the Valley’s land and peo­ple, Men­do­ci­no Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney David Eyster is charg­ing him with 16 mis­de­meanors (14 counts of “unlaw­ful entry” and two of “resist­ing arrest”), with a max­i­mum eight-year jail sen­tence.  He also wants Will to pay Cal­trans a mind-bog­gling $490,002 in resti­tu­tion. This is an unheard of move by a dis­trict attor­ney in Men­do­ci­no and Hum­boldt Coun­ties, which each have a rich tra­di­tion of strug­gle for social jus­tice and the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment.  If the DA and Cal­trans have their way, Will would spend the rest of his life pay­ing off these absurd penal­ties.

About The Case

When Men­do­ci­no Coun­ty DA David Eyster first filed a com­plaint against Will on July 2nd, the charges con­sist­ed of three infrac­tions cor­re­spond­ing to each of Will’s three non-vio­lent arrests protest­ing the Bypass.  This com­plaint includ­ed a require­ment to pay undis­closed resti­tu­tion fees.

Under an infrac­tion, the defendant’s case is presided over by a judge rather than a jury.  Will was unwill­ing to accept the uncapped resti­tu­tion stip­u­la­tion and was also adamant about his right to receive a jury tri­al, so his attor­ney (Omar Figueroa of Sebastopol) asked that Eyster re-file the charges as mis­de­meanors.  Will under­stood and accept­ed that the infrac­tions would become mis­de­meanors, and would include the pos­si­bil­i­ty of jail time, but was not pre­pared for Eyster’s arbi­trary deci­sion to add thir­teen addi­tion­al counts for mis­de­meanor vio­la­tions.

Notably, Will already endured a form of house arrest in the wick drain stitch­er and was deprived of food, water and med­ical atten­tion by the CHP (at the behest of Cal­Trans). The CHP even arrest­ed six peo­ple who attempt­ed to bring him sup­plies.  Will went for almost six days with no food, sur­vived par­tial­ly on rain water, and was bit­ter­ly cold after being drenched by more than two days of unsea­son­al rain.

Why Will Is Pur­su­ing a Jury Tri­al

This part of the case bears repeat­ing. There is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that Will is seek­ing a jury tri­al because he wants to lever­age his case for max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty.  This claim has been repeat­ed in numer­ous media accounts of the case.  But it is large­ly untrue.  While Will is indeed inter­est­ed in max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty for his case, he is exer­cis­ing his Con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a jury tri­al pri­mar­i­ly because of DA Eyster’s dra­con­ian insis­tence that he pay crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion to Cal­trans.

Will believes a jury tri­al pro­vides the best oppor­tu­ni­ty for him to oppose the crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion stip­u­la­tion.

Will adamant­ly oppos­es this harsh crim­i­nal­iza­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activism on prin­ci­pal, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the real crim­i­nals in this case are those who pre­side over Cal­trans’ Willits Bypass con­struc­tion.  Crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion has not been pur­sued against direct action pro­test­ers in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia in recent mem­o­ry.  Thus, the impo­si­tion of resti­tu­tion would also have a chill­ing effect against future activism.  Besides not want­i­ng to be in a posi­tion of pay­ing off Cal­trans for the rest of his life, Will is dead set against see­ing peo­ple who stand on their rights to defend the earth from ille­gal plun­der be per­se­cut­ed for it. He is will­ing to risk a jail sen­tence to oppose this dan­ger­ous prece­dent.

Bath — arson at car showroom

8th of Jan­u­ary — incen­di­ary device on delay left at Kia car show­room, Low­er Bris­tol Road, Bath. Dam­age to the build­ing facade. A brand new 4‑x-4 and three cars also con­sumed by the flames. A direct attack on exploita­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries who prof­it from chok­ing our world, who also make sta­tus sym­bols for our class ene­mies.

8th of Jan­u­ary — incen­di­ary device on delay left at Kia car show­room, Low­er Bris­tol Road, Bath. Dam­age to the build­ing facade. A brand new 4‑x-4 and three cars also con­sumed by the flames. A direct attack on exploita­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries who prof­it from chok­ing our world, who also make sta­tus sym­bols for our class ene­mies. This sec­tion of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion has them in our sights.

With the cops cleared of the exe­cu­tion of Mark Dug­gan that start­ed the riots of 2011, as good a time as ever to re-ignite the streets.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the ene­my, the 32 year old man arrest­ed for the action has no rela­tion to our group.

Active sol­i­dar­i­ty with:
- the stir­rings of new strug­gle against road build­ing pro­grams in the UK (traces of which we saw in Combe Haven), specif­i­cal­ly with the ones who won’t take the path of lib­er­als and paci­fists next time
- Swiss anar­chist Mar­co Camenish (who is on hunger strike and refus­ing work since the 30th of Decem­ber) and also infor­mal anar­chist pris­on­ers Alfre­do Cospi­to and Nico­la Gai in Italy
- Hen­ry Zegar­run­do (who we recog­nise as a kin­dred spir­it through his let­ters) tar­get­ed by the Boli­vian pros­e­cu­tors, those on the run, and the anar­chist and indige­nous peo­ples still fight­ing the high­way devel­op­ment

Peren­ni­al Resis­tance ELF-FAI

Bris­tol — Tolu­ca — Jakar­ta — Moscow — Buenos Aires — Mel­bourne — keep the fires burn­ing