Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

TAMPAKAN MASSACRE: International solidarity requested against SMI-Xstrata corporation (Philippines, Switzerland)

SMI-Xstra­ta is a Swiss cor­po­ra­tion which has a min­ing appli­ca­tion in south Cota­ba­to, Min­danao. despite the resis­tance of the com­mu­ni­ty the Philip­pine gov­ern­ment is back­ing-up the said appli­ca­tion.

SMI-Xstra­ta is a Swiss cor­po­ra­tion which has a min­ing appli­ca­tion in south Cota­ba­to, Min­danao. despite the resis­tance of the com­mu­ni­ty the Philip­pine gov­ern­ment is back­ing-up the said appli­ca­tion.

In order to silence the resis­tance the gov­ern­ment use the mil­i­tary. 13 peo­ple were killed includ­ing an 8 years old boy and 3 months preg­nant woman. The cul­prit is based in Switzer­land. We are ask­ing for your sup­port to put pres­sure on the cor­po­ra­tion to stop the destruc­tion of nat­ur­al resources and to seek jus­tice for the vic­tims.

At 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 18, in Datal Aliong, Kiblawan, Davao del Sur, Juvy, 27, wife of B’laan leader Daguil Capi­on, was shot in cold blood togeth­er with her two sons, Jor­dan, 13, and John, 8 by ele­ments of the 27th Infantry Bat­tal­ion, led by 1st Lt. Dante Jimenez. The youngest daugh­ter Vicky, 4, escaped but was wound­ed.

When a rel­a­tive of the vic­tims said that it was bet­ter if the chil­dren were not harmed, a sol­dier replied “mas maayo nga tiwa­son  ang  mga bata para wala’y wit­ness” (bet­ter to fin­ish off the chil­dren, so there are no wit­ness­es). Before Juvy was shot, the rel­a­tive heard Juvy say, “tama na ayaw namo sige ug pab­u­to kay nai­go nako” (please stop fir­ing your guns,  as I am already wound­ed). But the sol­diers kept fir­ing their guns.

Imme­di­ate­ly after the inci­dent, Colonel Alex­is Bra­vo, com­man­der of the 27th Infantry Batal­lion, con­duct­ed press con­fer­ences for radio and print, claim­ing the inci­dent was an ‘encounter’ with the NPA. Evi­dence how­ev­er showed there was will­ful intent to kill inno­cent chil­dren and their moth­er. They even talked to the unarmed moth­er before killing her. How can that be an encounter? Juvy, the moth­er, togeth­er with her hus­band Daguil, are active lead­ers in oppos­ing the min­ing project. Col. Bra­vo, Lt. Jimenez and sev­en oth­er sol­diers were relieved of duty imme­di­ate­ly after the mas­sacre.

Kiblawan May­or Mariv­ic Dia­mante, who is an active sup­port­er of Xstra­ta-SMI and receives mil­lions in ‘devel­op­ment’ funds from them, and who is often a guest speak­er in min­ing con­fer­ences in Mani­la, attempt­ed to take pos­ses­sion of two chil­dren who were vital wit­ness­es, say­ing they would be brought to the hos­pi­tal. The moth­er of Daguil refused, trig­ger­ing a tug of war, paci­fied by Atty. Haw­tay of the Com­mis­sion on Human Rights (CHR). The chil­dren are now safe­ly in the hands of the Social Action Cen­ter of Mar­bel. (Sources – Task Force Detainee of the Philip­pines, Social Action Cen­ter Mar­bel, rappler.com, LILAK).

The mil­i­tary wants to con­vince every­one it is a counter-insur­gency war. They do not see it as a people’s war against the multi­na­tion­al they pro­tect. They talk of sus­pect­ed com­mu­nist rebels. That is the way they jus­ti­fy their pres­ence. They say they are there because the rebels are there. They say they want to pro­tect the peo­ple from the rebels. But they kill instead the peo­ple they say they pro­tect. In truth, from their actions, they are there to sup­port and pro­tect the min­ing project. Before the multi­na­tion­als came, there was peace in Tam­pakan. Now the domain of the B’laans has been muti­lat­ed.

For more details (WARNING: Con­tains graph­ic pho­to’s of masacre) http://onsiteinfoshopphilippines.wordpress.com/newsupdate/

Campaigners prevent carbon emissions in longest-ever power station occupation

Government’s dash for gas brand­ed ‘inde­fen­si­ble’ in wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy

Government’s dash for gas brand­ed ‘inde­fen­si­ble’ in wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy

EDF has con­firmed that the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion will remain shut down after more than thir­ty No Dash for Gas cli­mate change cam­paign­ers evad­ed secu­ri­ty and entered the site on Mon­day morn­ing. Six­teen of them are spend­ing their third day at the top of two 300 ft smoke­stacks at the West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire, and last night built new bar­ri­cades out of scaf­fold­ing, lad­ders and wood. They have abseiled down inside one of the chim­neys to set up camp in tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. [1] As long as they hold their posi­tion above the fur­nace the plant is unable to oper­ate.

Because the plant was not yet ful­ly oper­a­tional and not con­nect­ed to the grid, the cam­paign­ers claim they have pre­vent­ed 2371 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions a day by shut­ting down the one work­ing chim­ney. This is equiv­a­lent to the ener­gy that an aver­age home uses for 182 years, or tak­ing 465 cars off the road for a year. [2] As the human and eco­nom­ic costs of Hur­ri­cane Sandy become clear­er, the need to take action on cli­mate change and avoid many more instances of such extreme weath­er-relat­ed dis­as­ters has nev­er been more press­ing.

Anneka Kel­ly is one of the activists occu­py­ing one of the chim­neys. Speak­ing on a mobile phone she said:

“Ener­gy bills are going through the roof, the East Coast of the US has been dev­as­tat­ed by Hur­ri­cane Sandy, we’re see­ing droughts and floods across the world and glob­al tem­per­a­tures are ris­ing. Yet the gov­ern­ment, at the behest of the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies, wants to build 20 new gas pow­er sta­tions. This is inde­fen­si­ble. Gas is expen­sive, high­ly pol­lut­ing and we don’t need it. We should be invest­ing in clean high-tech renew­ables that slash pol­lu­tion and in the long run will cost a lot less.”

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire has been tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. [3] The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants – a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills. This deci­sion is like­ly to be con­firmed when the delayed Ener­gy Bill is pub­lished towards the end of Novem­ber. But the activists echo many sci­en­tists and the government’s own advis­ers in call­ing for an end to plans for a new dash for gas and invest­ment in a high-tech car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem instead. [4]

Con­trary to claims by min­is­ters and the indus­try, gas is a dirty fuel that pos­es an unac­cept­able threat to the envi­ron­ment. It’s also expen­sive — offi­cial fig­ures from Ofgem show that the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose £150 last year, with £100 of that due to ris­ing whole­sale gas prices.[5] Only last week EDF raised their prices, fol­low­ing most of the oth­er major com­pa­nies and plung­ing even more peo­ple into fuel pover­ty. Mean­while high-tech renew­able sys­tems are rapid­ly com­ing down in price, mean­ing that soon they will be cheap­er, while com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try are turn­ing their back on the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies in favour of coop­er­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy schemes.

The activists have not yet decid­ed when they are going to come down, but have pledged to give the police sev­er­al hours warn­ing, and hand them­selves in. Nev­er­the­less, the police have crit­i­cised them for wast­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey on an expen­sive police oper­a­tion.

Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the activists occu­py­ing one of the chim­neys, said : ‘It’s EDF who are wast­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. There is no need for such a heavy police pres­ence on the ground and heli­copters in the sky. It’s not like we’re try­ing to escape! We have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the police from the start and assured them this is a respon­si­ble protest, with safe­ty at its heart. We will give them plen­ty of warn­ing when we intend to come down, and will hand our­selves over.’

Find out more at www.nodashforgas.org.uk
Fol­low us on Twit­ter: @nodashforgas
Like us on Face­book: No Dash for Gas

ENDS

Notes to edi­tors:

  1. The night-time incur­sion was launched at 2am when the raiders got through the secu­ri­ty fence. Under cov­er of dark­ness fif­teen of them crossed the expanse to the chim­neys then split into two groups and began the 300ft climb to the top. They are now build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions. They have enough sup­plies with them to last at least a week and say they’re in it for the long haul. The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. A fur­ther team remained on the ground to liaise with the plant’s man­agers. Before launch­ing the protest they engaged in exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with an expert engi­neer and each under­went inten­sive safe­ty train­ing.
  2. Accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine plants like this emit 353g of CO2 per kilo­watt hour: http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/policy-legislation/emr/2179-eps-impact-assessment-emr-wp.pdf . This plant had been gen­er­at­ing 280 megawatts:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/30/no-dash-for-gas-occupy . 353g per hour for a day is 8.47 kg a day (353 x 24 = 8470g) and 8.47 x 280,000 is 2371 tonnes a day. That’s the same as ener­gy that an aver­age home uses for 182 years, or tak­ing 465 cars off the road for a year. A dri­ver would have to dri­ve their car non-stop, night and day, for ten and a half years to emit that much…
    http://www.yousustain.com/footprint/howmuchco2?co2=2371+tons
  3. West Bur­ton gas pow­er sta­tion is a 1,300MW Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine (CCGT) plant, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion in Not­ting­hamshire. It is com­prised of three tur­bine hous­es and chim­neys, labelled Units 1, 2 and 3. Unit 2 is com­plete and is oper­at­ing at almost full capac­i­ty. Units 1 and 3 are fur­ther behind, with Unit 1 clos­er to com­ple­tion than 3. When com­plete, the new CCGT plant will emit approx­i­mate­ly 4.5 mil­lion tonnes CO2 per year when oper­at­ing at full capac­i­ty. This is more than the annu­al emis­sions of Paraguay. [i]
  4. The Gov­ern­men­t’s inde­pen­dent cli­mate advis­ers, the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, have called for our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem to be almost entire­ly car­bon free by 2030.[ii] They have defined this as mean­ing that our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem should pro­duce no more than 50g of CO2 for every kilo­watt hour of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed, by 2030. The Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, John Gum­mer, recent­ly wrote to the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, to warn that George Osborne’s plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of gas pow­er could be ille­gal: “exten­sive use of unabat­ed gas-fired capac­i­ty… in 2030 and beyond would be incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing leg­is­lat­ed car­bon bud­gets.” [iii]
  5. Fig­ures from Ofgem show that in 2011 the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose by £150, with £100 of this due to the ris­ing cost of gas. [iv]

Facts and fig­ures on the dash for gas:

· Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, has called for 20GW of gas pow­er sta­tions to be built by 2030, approx­i­mate­ly 20 new pow­er sta­tions. [v]

· He has also guar­an­teed that gas pow­er sta­tions that already have plan­ning con­sent can, if built, con­tin­ue emit­ting CO2 unabat­ed until 2045, i.e. their full life-span, by exempt­ing them from emis­sions reg­u­la­tions. [vi] There is cur­rent­ly 13GW of gas that has either recent­ly been com­plet­ed, is in con­struc­tion, or has been grant­ed plan­ning con­sent. [vii]

· Lord Turn­er, in his for­mer role as Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, wrote to the Ener­gy Sec­re­tary to warn this would lead to “the risk that there will be too much gas-fired gen­er­a­tion instead of low car­bon invest­ment” and that the pol­i­cy could take emis­sions “beyond the lim­its implied by car­bon bud­gets.”[viii]

· Last week, EDF hiked their ener­gy prices by 10.8%, the high­est of any of the big six ener­gy com­pa­nies so far this win­ter.

· Recent polling by YouGov found that 55% of peo­ple want more wind­farms, com­pared to just 17% who want more gas pow­er sta­tions. [ix]

· An ICM poll found that more than two-thirds of peo­ple would rather have a wind tur­bine than a shale gas well near their home. [x]

· The Off­shore Wind Val­u­a­tion Group found that har­ness­ing just 29% of the prac­ti­cal off­shore renew­able resource by 2050 would gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty equiv­a­lent of 1 bil­lion bar­rels of oil annu­al­ly, match­ing North Sea oil and gas pro­duc­tion and mak­ing Britain a net elec­tric­i­ty exporter. [xi]

[xi] http://offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_valuation_full.pdf

No Dash for Gas 40 hours and counting: Update & Photos

Yes­ter­day more than 20 cli­mate change activists evad­ed secu­ri­ty to shut down the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. 16 of them have remained in the pow­er sta­tion occu­py­ing two of its chim­neys to pre­vent it from being turned on again. They climbed two smoke­stacks at EDF Energy’s West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire and abseiled down the insides of the chim­neys. The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. They’ve now been up there for over 40 hours, they intend to stay there until it is no longer pos­si­ble to remain. They have set up camp with tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. They have also instal­let­ed solar pan­els and are build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions.

The group have come togeth­er under the ban­ner ‘No Dash For Gas’, from across the coun­try to take action against the new wave of invest­ment in gas. Prof­it-hun­gry cor­po­ra­tions have been suc­cess­ful in lob­by­ing politi­cians to replace coal with gas as the new back­bone to our high­ly-pol­lut­ing and inse­cure ener­gy infra­struc­ture, whilst doing noth­ing to tack­le cli­mate change or ris­ing ener­gy bills.

For as long as we have an eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ven by prof­it, our ener­gy sys­tem will con­tin­ue to dri­ve us towards cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change. We’re here to fight back against an eco­log­i­cal­ly irre­versible deci­sion to con­tin­ue with a fos­sil-fuel pow­ered ener­gy sys­tem despite the fact that renew­able tech­nolo­gies are capa­ble of pow­er­ing a sus­tain­able future. The effects of anthro­pogenic cli­mate change have been more wide­spread and more severe this year than any so far on record – the arc­tic melt smashed through all pre­vi­ous records, the drought in the USA has sparked the begin­ning of a world­wide food cri­sis and there has been a marked increase in extreme weath­er events across the globe.

This action is one of many that have tak­en place this year as part of a renewed effort by activists across the UK to take action against cli­mate change and the eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ving it. Dur­ing our time up the chim­ney we want to con­nect with groups and organ­i­sa­tions who share our belief that the time to take rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change is now; and rad­i­cal action stretch­es from find­ing ways for com­mu­ni­ties to adapt and be resilient to cli­mate change, to stand­ing up to the vest­ed eco­nom­ic inter­ests that are pre­vent­ing the tran­si­tion to an eco­log­i­cal­ly viable and more humane soci­ety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire is being tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants—a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills.

Keep in touch with lat­est devel­op­ments by fol­low­ing us on twit­ter: @nodashforgas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protest camp on top of chim­ney

 

 

 

(France) La ZAD prepares for another week of eviction NON A LA AEROPORT

In La ZAD, a zone occu­pied to stop the con­struc­tion of a new air­port for Nantes, the evic­tion looks set to con­tin­ue from tomor­row. La Saulce is now evictable and it is pos­si­ble the police will also tar­get some of the places that require spe­cial forces to evict tree­hous­es and such. Call­out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against VINCI, the com­pa­ny who will be con­struct­ing. Call­out for peo­ple here to help. All means to increase aware­ness.

The police have been evict­ing la ZAD for two weeks now, only stop­ping for lunch­break and the week­ends. and the nights.
We are still expect­ing them to return tomor­row to con­tin­ue. Theyve been pass­ing by with the heli­copter today, hav­ing a look around. Since Sat­ur­day night la saulce has become legal­ly evictable. La secherie won an appeal in court, and is now not evictable till decem­ber, and la rosier also is not evictable til the mid­dle of novem­ber.
But it seems like­ly they will come next week for the places they can already evict, and havent already, most­ly la saulce, sabot, and the oth­er cab­ins that dont have a real ‘house’ on the prop­er­ty.
There is a lot more info on the web­site  http://www.zad.nadir.org if you dont read french you can change the langue to eng­lish.
get in con­tact if you want to come over, or just arrive
or do some­thing in your place, the com­pa­ny which build the aero­port is called VINCI (  http://stopvinci.noblogs.org/ ) and they have many things every­where. They are also respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the khim­ki for­est (  http://www.khimkiforest.org/ ) in rus­sia for the con­struc­tion of a high­way and the evic­tion of the protest camp there. There has already been a lot of stuff done to humil­i­ate them in the last weeks it is very cheer­ing.
Let every­one know.
The resis­tance wont end with evic­tion.
Need peo­ple to help with reoc­cu­pa­tion.
Peace and love.

(Belgium) Brussels – Top executive ExxonMobil Nicholas Mockford shot dead

15/10/2012: BRUSSELS – Sun­day night a top exec­u­tive of the petro-chem­i­cal com­pa­ny Exxon­Mo­bil was shot dead in the street in Ned­er-over-Heem­beek, near Brus­sels. Nicholas Mock­ford was shot in the head twice, when he and his wife were leav­ing an Ital­ian restau­rant around 22h. Wit­ness­es saw two men run­ning away car­ry­ing a motor­cy­cle hel­met.

The man died on the way to the hos­pi­tal. His wife Mary was beat­en and cov­ered in blood. Police and DA’s office are say­ing that at this point they aren’t exclud­ing any pos­si­bil­i­ties, from a hit to a car­jack­ing gone wrong. Although the vio­lence used appears to be dis­pro­por­tion­ate for a car­jack­ing, espe­cial­ly know­ing that the killers left the Lexus ATV behind.
Inves­ti­ga­tors are doing every­thing they can to locate the per­pe­tra­tors. They are going through his work at his firm in the hope of find­ing a clue. Exxon­Mo­bil is the com­pa­ny that owns Esso, Mobil and Exxon gas sta­tions.

La ZAD- Largest Protest Zone in Europe Being Evicted

Europes largest protest zone is going through mul­ti­ple evic­tions — all through much media silence! Over the past four days La ZAD, an anti-air­port protest zone, com­pos­ing of over 20 occu­pied sites has been putting up the bar­ri­cades, oppos­ing and protest­ing against the harass­ment and the evic­tions by a troop of police over a 1000 strong.

Largest Protest Zone in Europe Being Evict­ed

La ZAD (La Zone A Défendre)

Europes largest protest zone is going through mul­ti­ple evic­tions (because there are numer­ous sites) — all through much media silence! Over the past four days La ZAD, an anti-air­port protest zone, com­pos­ing of over 20 occu­pied sites has been putting up the bar­ri­cades, oppos­ing and protest­ing against the harass­ment and the evic­tions by a troop of police over a 1000 strong. La ZAD is in the area of Notre Dame de Lande, just north of the city of Nantes, in the north-west of France.

Video of one of the ear­li­er Police mobil­i­sa­tions:

Resis­tance aux expul­sions from Résis­tances nddl on Vimeo.

 

Sit down protest in Bel Air:  http://zebuzzeo.blogspot.fr/2012/10/a‑notre-dames-des-landes-l-etat-ps.html

Good series of pic­tures of bar­ri­cades and resis­tance:  https://picasaweb.google.com/113382718807039752437/Expulsions#slideshow/5799932948346626882

Good info in Eng­lish: http://en.squat.net/tag/zad/

Tear gas has been used against the bar­ri­cades and the mil­i­tary have been mobilised to sup­port the evic­tions.

Below are sum­maries and trans­la­tions of their FLASH INFO / UPDATES (please excuse the bad eng­lish).

 

THEIR MESSAGE: And most impor­tant­ly: there is plen­ty of places occu­pied (land and three hous­es with evic­tion dead­line until Octo­ber 27), and the the occu­pant-es are always on site, with lots of oth­er peo­ple com­ing to defend the area, and full of mes­sages and actions of sol­i­dar­i­ty every­where! It is not their police pres­sure which make our protests impo­tent acts of resis­tance will con­tin­ue until the project will not be removed.

Octo­ber 16th

[Places evict­ed : la Bel­lich’, Bel Air, la Gaité, les Planchettes, le Tertre, le Pré Fail­li, la Pré Fail­lite et St Jean du Tertre.]

11h18 : // in his speech, the pre­fect declared that the oper­a­tion is fin­ished for today, that all went fine, with­out arresta­tions and that the mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion will con­tin­ue for sev­er­al days to secure the destruc­tion of the hous­es

13h15 : charge et tirs de lacry­mo vers le Sabot ; arrivée de nom­breux four­gons de CRS // Tear gas bee­ing shot around the Sabot, arrival of numer­ous riot cop cars

15:10 : les gens dans le Sabot se font gaz­er, dépan­neuse et trac­topelle en vue, 3 camions de CRS et 10 de gen­darmes se diri­gent vers le Sabot // peo­ple at the Sabot get­ting tear­gased, break­down lor­ry and dig­gers been seen, 3 cop vans of riot cops and 10 mil­i­tary vans head­ing towards Sabot

15h20 : // bar­ri­cade burn­ing at the Sabot. It’s seems to get­ting hot for them

15h40 : // fol­low­ing a exterieur infor­ma­tion, the Mil­i­tary are being mobi­lized for more 48h to pre­vent new occu­pa­tions

 18h15 : // a dig­ger is arriv­ing at the way to the Sabot to enter in the gar­den by the side, 40 peo­ple are still at the Sabot

Octo­ber 17th

[Places evict­ed: les Planchettes, le Tertre.]

8h20 : // a con­voy with a rub­bish truck, dig­ger and a road semi-trail­er are arriv­ing at the Planchettes, under a big escort, big spots light­ing on the Planchettes

10:05 : // there is the propo­si­tion to meet up in the Sabot to dis­cuss, bring water and food, 10 cop vans seen dri­ving to the north direc­tion Fos­se noires/ Planchettes, medias say­ing that the destruc­tion of the hous­es start­ed 🙁 , there is demo in Paris in front of the min­is­tery of envi­ron­ment

11h12 : // there are 30 cop vans in the region around the Tertre where they actu­al­ly destroy the house :(, there are posi­tioned at the end of the Chemin de sueze and at Chênes de Per­rières, the destruc­tion of the Planchettes got con­firmed by the medias :(, at the Sabot it seems qui­et but the heli­copter is turn­ing over the Phare Ouest

12h20 : la destruc­tion de Planchettes dans les medias 🙁 sad­ness and rage…

14h48 : // there are cops arriv­ing in front of the Phare Ouest vers the Chêvrerie
14h58 : // the cops stopped to go for­ward, peo­ple are behind the bar­ri­cades
15h17 : // peo­ple juste got charged by cops vers the Planchettes

15h45 : // some 20 cop vans are in front of the Sabot, the cops came out run­ning

15h50 : // call­out for sup­port at Phare Ouest, the cops tak­ing off the tree block­ing the road

16h15 : // the con­voy which cut the tree is leav­ing, anoth­er one seems to arriv­ing quick­ly from direc­tion Ardil­lières

18h55 : // the cops broke down the bar­ri­cade of the Sabot, they entered but they don’t charge yet

19h11 : pigs got charged by the peo­ple south of Sabot, defend­ing their home, brave friends of us, keep on rock­ing against this ter­ror­istes…

20h04 : // the mil­i­tarys start back shoot­ing tear­gas

20h22 : // It seems the fuck­ers are win­ning some ter­rain on the field on the south, there are also hid­ing behind the chick­ens, fuck­ing lame

MESSAGE TO THE PORCS : if you hurt the chick­ens, we’ll call the ani­mal pro­tec­tion !!!

21h35 : // the Man­i­tou ’ some destruc­tion machine ) is head­ing in the direc­tion of Phare Ouest, the Sabot still keeps resisit­ing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we love you.……

22h07 : // 10 riot cop vans part vers les Ardil­lières, around the Sabot, they gas a lot, lot, lot..BUT THE SABOT IS STILL RESISTING !!! fuck you cops, fuck you ayrault, you dont get your air­port !!

22h06 : // the work­ing machine left with the con­voi. We got con­firmed that the cries we heard are not at all cries of fear but of rage and deter­mi­na­tion!

23h00 : // cops came back to the entry of the Sabot, they get stoned and leave…

Octo­ber 18th

[Places evict­ed: la Pointe, la cabane col­lec­tive de la forêt de Rohanne.]

9:05 : // the cops go into the Saulce, riot cops come clos­er to the bar­ri­cade of the Sabot

9h12 : // cops con­tin­ue to det­stroy the bar­ri­cade of the Saulce. 3 cop vans going towards the chemin de suez from the Saulce bar­ri­cade

[The rest done with inter­net trans­late]

9h37 : it is report­ed to the police that there are peo­ple in the tree-tops of la Saulce. Cloud of tear gas.

10h25 : begin­ning of the expul­sion of the great for­est (Foret Rohanne) they are destroy­ing the house col­lec­tive. peo­ple in the trees/ cab­ins.

10h32 : they emp­ty the house of the col­lec­tive for­est. They have a team of climb­ing.

11h22 : WE CALL ON ALL AND ALL TO MANIFEST THEIR SOLIDARITY WITH WHAT HAPPENS HERE AND SPREAD THE NEWS MOST WIDELY AVAILABLE Local­ly: 19h call to ral­ly out­side the pre­fec­ture of Nantes tonight / at 18.30 in front of the town hall of Rennes Fri­day evening.

12h00 : Rohanne in the for­est: the exca­va­tor work­ing and almost fin­ished destroy­ing the com­mu­nal house, the per­son in the tree where the climbers are mount­ed refus­es to go down, it is cov­ered by a rub­ber bul­lets.

12h14 : From the online press, the pre­fec­ture announced the evac­u­a­tion of the place called Point and Heath Rohanne, and men­tions three arrests. To be con­firmed.

13h10 : there are still many peo­ple in the trees in the for­est. The cops are not climb­ing. There would be three arrest­ed alleged­ly released. We hear again the heli­copter.

16h01 : the GIGN has left the for­est, they could not evict peo­ple still in the trees.

17h 34 : Lande de Rohanne: since this morn­ing, destroy­ing the col­lec­tive hut sur­round­ed by a hand­ful of Gen­darmes Mobiles. Some peo­ple in trees, oth­ers ground sup­port. 4 peo­ple were descend­ed from the trees GIPN. The remains of the hut were tak­en by a marabout. 17h cops to head fur­ther north to a sec­ond cab­in floor, releas­ing those who were on their way, but regard­less of at least 3 com­rades still in the trees.

20h08 : We have infor­ma­tion that a per­son is detained in police cus­tody in La Chapelle sur Erdre from 4:20 p.m. for refus­ing to give his name. She was arrest­ed on the road near Ardil­lères.

23h23 : The per­son arrest­ed was released this morn­ing, she has a meet­ing for Jan­u­ary 22 at St Nazaire 14h (It is not the per­son arrest­ed at 16.20, who is still in GAV.)

We learn that 500 peo­ple gath­ered at Nantes tonight in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Zad. Peo­ple’s will!

19th Octo­ber

8h53 : Noth­ing to report except a few patrols run­ning on the Zad, Fil­ter and road­blocks at cer­tain points, this morn­ing. The cops have mas­sive­ly left the area last night. We remain vig­i­lant but it could be that it is the end of the first “wave” of oper­a­tion here. It may resume in the com­ing days, and last …

10h30 : the oper­a­tion is per­haps not fin­ished for this phase … they expelled L’Iso­lette, and cur­rent­ly runs around the Fos­s­es Noires.

10h35 : evac­u­a­tion of the pile of rub­ble that became Le Tertre.

10h40 : Evic­tion of Coin en Cours under­way, thir­ty peo­ple are around.

14h12 : We hope that our friends in the for­est are doing well. The area is expelled and destroyed. Thank you Le Coin, we will miss you!

Received by mail: For tonight ral­ly out­side the pre­fec­ture of Nantes in 19h! It is pro­posed that we find in red and black! It brings songs, then bring your vocal cords! Song for all print here:  http://www.deljehier.levillage.org/ … Oth­er­wise, it also offers a meet­ing point for you to car­pool mor­bi­han­nais … Vis­it the Rond-Point du Petit Molac Questem­bert at 17:30. Will print some of the world! El pueblo unido, Lalalalalala .……

15h43 : dif­fi­cult time to live with­out news of our friends in places man­age­ment, we are still try­ing to get out, but our com­mu­ni­ca­tion is dif­fi­cult KLAXON!

 

 

 

(France) Communique from the ZAD

We live here, we’ll stay here!

We live here, we’ll stay here!

After two days of resis­tance and sol­i­dar­i­ty, only sev­en hous­es and one plot were evict­ed at the ZAD, a threat­ened area meant to make place to an air­port in Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des. Every­where police forces met deter­mi­nat­ed oppo­nents, inhab­i­tants refus­ing to leave their hous­es, their roofs. Demon­stra­tions. direct actions took place around sev­er­al loca­tions, roads we bar­ri­cad­ed, activists keep­ing join­ing the ZAD area, etc…

Since hours, oppo­nents are defend­ing sev­er­al plots, the Far West, the Sabot, a cul­tivable land back in use since May 2011. Right now, the Sabot in drowned under a cloud of tear gas, with a drum­ming sam­ba band. Out­side the ZAD, many sol­i­dar­i­ty actions took place, such a demon­stra­tion in front of the main state build­ing in Nantes tonight.

Con­trary to what was announced by the high­est state rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the region tues­day morn­ing, the area is far from being emp­ty. Around 20 hous­es remain occu­pied, this is even not includ­ing house own­ers, renters and farm­ers still liv­ing in the area. The pres­sure and acts from the police, such as the destruc­tion by fire from one wood hut, with­out check­ing if it was still occu­pied, won’t silent dis­sent.

With­out try­ing to com­pete with the mil­i­tary arse­nal deployed by a state to pro­tect its projects of “pub­lic util­i­ty”, acts of resis­tance will go on as long as the project isn’t aban­doned.

Not only here, but from Aten­co to Val de Susa, to Chéfresne, every­where peo­ple are strug­gling. We’ll refuse to con­form to what is forced on us!

Com­ing on the agen­da :

- Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 20th, mid­day, meet­ing point at la Pointe (le Tem­ple de Bre­tagne): gath­er­ing with oppo­nents to the air­port project.

- in the com­ing months, demon­stra­tion to re-occu­py the ZAD, date to be announced on the ZAD web­site.

More Infor­ma­tion: http://zad.nadir.org

Video: Canadian Minister and Shell embarrassed over tar sands at climate conference

Watch the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter and Shel­l’s UK Chair­man hav­ing their Lon­don con­fer­ence speech­es hijacked by our anti-tar sands stage invaders.

Watch the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter and Shel­l’s UK Chair­man hav­ing their Lon­don con­fer­ence speech­es hijacked by our anti-tar sands stage invaders. See con­fer­ence del­e­gates laugh­ing as the min­is­ter is called “an agent from a rogue petro-state”, and Shel­l’s speech referred to as “world-class green­wash”.

(USA) Tar Sands day of action — Over 50 Enter Tree Blockade in Defiance of Police Repression to Defend Tree-Sitters

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012 – Fol­low­ing a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing in North Texas by Tar Sands Block­ade, many dozens of pro­test­ers and sup­port­ers are ral­ly­ing today at the site of the largest and longest tree sit in Texas his­to­ry to stage the largest walk-on site protest and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence in the his­to­ry of Key­stone XL pipeline con­struc­tion. Sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als are defend­ing the tree sit­ters and the trees by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment being used in prox­im­i­ty to the for­est block­ade. Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are also tak­ing place in Wash­ing­ton DC, Boston, Austin and New York City.

Alto­geth­er more than 50 block­aders are risk­ing arrest to stop Key­stone XL con­struc­tion and bring atten­tion to TransCanada’s repres­sion of jour­nal­ists attempt­ing to cov­er the block­aders’ side of the sto­ry. They are joined by dozens of sup­port­ers who are ral­ly­ing on pub­lic prop­er­ty with col­or­ful ban­ners and signs along­side the easement’s clos­est high­way cross­ing. A mas­sive media team is in tow to doc­u­ment the day of action and any pos­si­ble police repres­sion.

As the Winns­boro tree block­ade enters its fourth week, the block­aders are resup­ply­ing their friends in the trees with fresh food, water, and cam­eras to fur­ther doc­u­ment their protest despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment. Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree sit­ters have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. That the defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest yet attempt­ed in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that the block­aders will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it their civ­il lib­er­ties.

“Three weeks is a long time to be sit­ting in a tree. The train­ing I got this week­end has me ready to rise up and join the sit­ters in defend­ing Texas homes from the tox­ic tar sands,” shared Glenn Hob­bit, 28. “They’re say­ing we might get sued or worse, but stop­ping this pipeline is too impor­tant.”

Last week, the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion opened a civ­il suit in which it named 19 indi­vid­ual defen­dants, 3 orga­ni­za­tions, and 6 anony­mous tree sit­ters for a total of 28 defen­dants seek­ing an injunc­tion, declara­to­ry relief, and dam­ages. All the named defen­dants are for­mer arrestees of Tar Sands Block­ade actions with the excep­tion of media spokesper­son Ron Seifert, who has yet been arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with a protest, and area landown­er Eleanor Fairchild, who act­ed inde­pen­dent­ly with activist and actor Daryl Han­nah. Han­nah was not named in the suit.

Tar Sands Block­ade is a coali­tion of Texas and Okla­homa landown­ers and cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­ers using peace­ful and sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

“In real­i­ty, Tar Sands Block­ade is not tres­pass­ing on TransCanada’s prop­er­ty. Many of TransCanada’s ease­ment con­tracts were bro­kered through fraud and intim­i­da­tion, and their entire legal foun­da­tion is being chal­lenged in the courts for those rea­sons,” explained Ron Seifert, Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son. “If any­thing Tran­sCana­da is tres­pass­ing on the prop­er­ty of landown­ers who nev­er want­ed any­thing to do with their dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline.”

UPDATE 8:15AM - Sup­port­ers ral­ly near­by to stop the pipeline.

UPDATE 8:20PM- A beau­ti­ful morn­ing in what remains of our East Texas for­est. Tran­sCana­da has clear-cut out­side of their des­ig­nat­ed path­way and around the west side of the tree block­ade leav­ing a mud­dy path of destruc­tion in their wake.

UPDATE 8:35PM-  Over 50 block­aders march through the woods toward the tree block­ade

UPDATE 9:00AM - One block­ad­er arrest­ed after sit­ting down in the path of Key­stone XL and refus­ing to leave.

UPDATE 9:06AM- Three block­aders have been arrest­ed. We out­num­ber TransCanada’s police 3 to 1. Two block­aders have locked down to exca­va­tor equip­ment pro­tect­ing the tree block­ade.

UPDATE 9:20AM- Livestream­er @uneditedcamera (Loren­zo) has been detained and hand­cuffed, but they’re STILL STREAMING! Police are try­ing to flank groups of pro­tes­tors. Watch the stream live NOW!

UPDATE 9:45AM– Small group of ground block­aders break through police line and enter tree block­ade!

UPDATE 10:00AM- 4 arrests so far. Free­lance journalist/livestreamer Loren­zo Ser­na has been released. The ral­ly at the ease­ment near the high­way is going strong with chant­i­ng, singing and lots of col­or­ful ban­ners. Tran­sCana­da is bark­ing orders at the police. We should have video and pic­tures soon.

UPDATE 11:00AM- Today’s first sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Wash­ing­ton DC is begin­ning now out­side the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute!

UPDATE 11:10AM- 6 block­aders have been arrest­ed at the Tree Block­ade.

UPDATE 11:35AM- Pic­ture from the DC sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly. Over six­ty peo­ple turned out over their lunch hour to stand with the Texas block­ade and stop Key­stone XL.

 

UPDATE 12:50PM-We have now con­firmed that a 70-year-old woman par­tic­i­pat­ing in the block­ade was thrown to the ground and tack­led by TransCanada’s hired thugs. Video will be com­ing soon.

UPDATE 1:55PM – At least eight peo­ple have been arrest­ed after walk­ing onto the Key­stone XL clear cut in defi­ance of recent repres­sion. Two block­aders are still locked to huge exca­va­tor in the path of tox­ic pipeline.

UPDATE 3:20PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Den­ton, TX has begun!

UPDATE 3:45PM- In case you missed it, Tar Sands Block­ade was on Democ­ra­cy Now! this morn­ing. Our spokesper­son Ron Seifert was joined by landown­er Susan Scott and actress Daryl Han­nah to dis­cuss the block­ade, TransCanada’s bul­ly­ing and the SLAPP law­suit against 21 peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with stop­ping tar sands.

UPDATE 3:50 PM — Two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery have been arrest­ed. A crowd of sup­port­ers stood by and cheered for as they were tak­en into police cus­tody to the cheers. These two most recent arrests make eight total for the day.

UPDATE 4:00PM – Our first arrestee has been released with­out charges. He was arrest­ed ear­ly this morn­ing when he sat down in the Key­stone XL’s path­way and refused to move. His defi­ant action helped delay police offi­cers and allowed oth­er block­aders to breach the police line and enter the tree block­ade. After he was arrest­ed he was made to lie face-down in the mud for sev­er­al hours. He con­tin­ued to refuse com­pli­ance with the police and sit­ing health con­cerns had to even­tu­al­ly be removed on a stretch­er. He was lat­er released from the hos­pi­tal with­out charges.

UPDATE 4:15PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty pho­to in front of the Tran­sCana­da offices in West­bor­ough, Mass­a­chu­settes.

UPDATE 4:30PM ‑We’re get­ting sued!

As the Winns­boro, Texas tree block­ade enters its fourth week, over 50 block­aders pub­licly demon­strat­ed on the Key­stone XL ease­ment despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment.

Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree block­aders have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. Today’s defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that we will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it our civ­il lib­er­ties.

Appar­ent­ly we’ve been caus­ing some seri­ous delays of Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

UPDATE 6:00PM- Six of the eight arrest­ed today have been released from jail on charges of crim­i­nal tres­pass which is a class B mis­de­meanor. The bail was $1,500 each, a total of $9,000. The two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery will see a judge in the morn­ing.

UPDATE 8:00PM- Today was our biggest day of action yet! More video and sto­ries will be trick­ling out over the next cou­ple of days as we try and wrap our heads around every­thing that hap­pened today. In the mean­time we have a ton of bril­liant and beau­ti­ful pho­tos that begin to tell the sto­ry. Check them out.

UPDATE 6:00AM – Read the excel­lent cov­er­age about the block­ade in today’s Wash­ing­ton Post.

On Mon­day, after a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing, sup­port­ers of the Tar Sands Block­ade ral­lied in Winns­boro, Tex., where pro­test­ers were hold­ing a “sit-in” 70 feet off the ground in a swath of trees. The trees stand in the mid­dle of a cor­ri­dor already cleared for the pipeline. The tree-climb­ing pipeline foes unfurled a ban­ner that reads: “Rise Up and Defend Your Homes.”

“The only option afford­ed to pow­er­less indi­vid­u­als who have been abused by the sys­tem is this tac­tic of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence,” said Seifert, the Tar Sands Block­ade spokesman. “Every­thing has been done to peti­tion for jus­tice at every lev­el. And the insti­tu­tions failed. This is a clear case of injus­tice, and it’s up to peo­ple to rise up and defend them­selves.”  Read the full sto­ry here.

UPDATE Oct 16th, 7:00AM - Watch our intense action video!

For fur­ther updates vis­it http://tarsandsblockade.org

(USA) Lummi and Allies Unite Against Coal Exports

Lum­mi trib­al lead­ers burned a mock cheque from coal com­pa­nies dur­ing a protest at Cher­ry Point, Wa., Oct 2012 (Pho­to by: Alan Bern­er / The Seat­tle Times)

Lum­mi trib­al lead­ers burned a mock cheque from coal com­pa­nies dur­ing a protest at Cher­ry Point, Wa., Oct 2012 (Pho­to by: Alan Bern­er / The Seat­tle Times)

LUMMI INDIAN RESERVATION, BELLINGHAM, Wash.—A fleet of boats pilot­ed by Native and non-Native fish­ers gath­ered today in the waters off Xwe’chi’eXen (Cher­ry Point, Wash.) to stand with the Lum­mi Nation in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed Gate­way Pacif­ic coal ter­mi­nal at Xwe’chi’eXen.

“We have to say ‘no’ to the coal ter­mi­nal project,” said Cliff Cul­tee, Chair­man of the Lum­mi Nation. “It is our Xw’ xalh Xech­ng­ing (sacred duty) to pre­serve and pro­tect all of Xwe’chi’eXen.”

A cer­e­mo­ny of thank­ful­ness, remem­brance and uni­ty was held on the beach dur­ing the event. Lum­mi Indi­ans main­tain the largest Native fish­ing fleet in the Unit­ed States, and Lum­mi fish­ers have worked in the Cher­ry Point fish­ery for thou­sands of years.

If con­struct­ed, the ter­mi­nal would be the largest coal ter­mi­nal on the West Coast of North Amer­i­ca. It would sig­nif­i­cant­ly degrade an already frag­ile and vul­ner­a­ble crab, her­ring and salmon fish­ery, deal­ing a dev­as­tat­ing blow to the econ­o­my of the fish­er com­mu­ni­ty.

“This is not about jobs ver­sus the envi­ron­ment,” said Jew­ell James of the Lum­mi Nation’s Sov­er­eign­ty and Treaty Pro­tec­tion Office. “It is about what type of jobs are best for the peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.”

Anoth­er gath­er­ing of Lum­mi Indi­ans and non-Indi­an res­i­dents from the local and region­al com­mu­ni­ty was held at Xwe’chi’eXen on Sept. 21 to call for the pro­tec­tion and preser­va­tion of Xwe’chi’eXen, which is the loca­tion of a 3,500 year old vil­lage site, and a land­scape that is eli­gi­ble for reg­istry on the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places.

A Lum­mi Nation Busi­ness Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion declared Lum­mi “will con­tin­ue to safe­guard our ances­tral and his­tor­i­cal areas” and the abil­i­ty of its mem­bers to “exer­cise treaty, inher­ent and inher­it­ed rights.”

The Lum­mi Nation is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a broad inter­trib­al coali­tion to defeat the project and to ensure that the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al lega­cy of Xwe’chi’eXen is pro­tect­ed in per­pe­tu­ity.

This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly appeared on Ter­ri Hansen’s web­site, Moth­er Earth Jour­nal