Category: Nuclear

Call out for solidarity anti-nuke actions on 26th April (Chernobyl Day)

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion

Present-day Belarus is a post sovi­et coun­try, on which ter­ri­to­ry a regime, police state in form and neolib­er­al in essence, for­ti­fied its posi­tion. For already 14 years the coun­try is run by one and the same per­son Alexan­der Lukashenko, a pop­ulist at the begin­ning of his gov­ern­ing and open­ly pur­su­ing anti­so­cial reforms now. The free­dom of speech, free­dom of the press, free­dom of assem­bly is not about our coun­try. These basic val­ues as well as the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion are sup­pressed. Peace­ful gath­er­ings dis­per­sions, polit­i­cal tri­als, pre­ven­tive deten­tions all this has become a norm of polit­i­cal prac­tice in Belarus.

A few years ago the rul­ing top start­ed to con­sid­er anoth­er ven­ture­some project the con­struc­tion of a nuclear pow­er sta­tion (NPS). Lukashenko took a deci­sion regard­less of the pub­lic wish­es and com­mon sense. The deci­sion was made with the active sup­port of the inter­na­tion­al nuclear lob­by. The con­struc­tion is to be under­tak­en by a Russ­ian cor­po­ra­tion Rosatom. It is to be held in a seis­mi­cal­ly active zone, in a dozen kilo­me­ters away from Lake Naroch the largest lake in Belarus, which is eco­log­i­cal­ly unique for our coun­try and is a tourists and hol­i­day-mak­ers attrac­tion. On the con­struc­tion will be spent $4 bil­lion, which oth­er­wise could be out­laid for alter­na­tive ener­gy means devel­op­ment.

But the above-list­ed points pale before the fact that Belarus shared 70% of radioac­tive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion after Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent. But the gov­ern­ment and the pres­i­dent are absolute­ly not con­cerned about that. They want to cre­ate a delayed-action bomb in the coun­try, where one third of the ter­ri­to­ry is unfit for farm­ing and berries/mushrooms gath­er­ing.

We, Anti­nu­clear resis­tance, an anar­chy group, come out against nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing on the whole and against the NPS con­struc­tion specif­i­cal­ly in Belarus. A part of polit­i­cal forces in Belarus, includ­ing oppo­si­tion, sup­port­ed the NPS con­struc­tion. Unlike them we do not believe in NPS safe­ty irre­spec­tive of the polit­i­cal regime, with­in which it is func­tion­ing and being con­struct­ed. Our activ­i­ty is based upon non-author­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples, we do not coop­er­ate with any polit­i­cal par­ties on a reg­u­lar base, but with eco­log­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and grass­roots ini­tia­tives.

On 26 April, the anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent, an annu­al demon­stra­tion Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path) takes place in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the acci­dent and the peo­ple who fell the imme­di­ate and lin­ger­ing vic­tims of it. Start­ing with the year of 1996 anar­chists take part in the demo with eco­log­i­cal and anti­nu­clear slo­gans. But nowa­days the demon­stra­tion, instead of just mourn­ing and com­mem­o­ra­tive event, is
gain­ing a protest mood: in the coun­try, where dozens of thou­sands peo­ple have died as a result of the nuclear acci­dent after­maths and hun­dreds of thou­sands have acquired acci­dent-caused ill­ness­es or become hand­i­capped, a new NPS is to be con­struct­ed! And that is done accord­ing to the com­mon reg­u­la­tions of an author­i­tar­i­an police state not ask­ing the peo­ples opin­ion, but just con­fronting them with the fact.

On 26 April we will again take a most active part in the Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path), well try to pass along to every­one our clear anti­nu­clear posi­tion, will inform as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble of the approach­ing dan­ger. But now it is not enough! As an instru­ment of strug­gle against the state law­less­ness we rely on the inter­na­tion­al sup­port. We urge anar­chists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­ans of the world to car­ry out sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on 26 April 2009. We call for a decen­tral­ized day of action of any form, which could help peo­ple learn some­thing about our prob­lem and stop the impu­dent author­i­ty and their spon­sors from IAEA.

If you already take actions on 26 April on your local prob­lems con­cern­ing nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing, please put on your list the demand for abo­li­tion of the NSP con­struc­tion in Belarus. You are also wel­come to par­tic­i­pate in The Cher­nobyl Path in Min­sk and oth­er actions in Belarus.

Togeth­er we will be able to stand up for the right for life on a clean and eco­log­i­cal­ly safe plan­et!

If you have any inten­tion to make sol­i­dar­i­ty actions with the Belaruss­ian anti­nu­clear move­ment or par­tic­i­pate in the demon­stra­tion in Belarus please con­tact us:

antiatombel@riseup.net

Spread out the call out through any acces­si­ble for you infor­ma­tion chan­nels

belarus anar­chists
http://belarus.avtonom.org

Stop Incineration Now! SchNEWS Film and Roast Fundraiser !

Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now Film and Roast Fundrais­er -
Just released:SchNEWS Film:Wasters:The quirky & inspir­ing sto­ry of a group of cli­mate activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! & Cli­mate Camp, who occu­pied the site of pro­posed Newhaven Incin­er­a­tor last year, July 2008.
Also featured:The Sto­ry of Stuff.
Announce­ment of Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Incin­er­a­tion: 11 July 2009

Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now Film and Roast Fundrais­er -
Just released:SchNEWS Film:Wasters:The quirky & inspir­ing sto­ry of a group of cli­mate activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! & Cli­mate Camp, who occu­pied the site of pro­posed Newhaven Incin­er­a­tor last year, July 2008.
Also featured:The Sto­ry of Stuff.
Announce­ment of Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Incin­er­a­tion: 11 July 2009
and 2 day Car­a­van against Incineration:September 26 & 27 2009

Address: The Cow­ley Club, 12 Lon­don Road, Brighton BN1 4JA
Direc­tions: From frnt of Brighton Sta­tion, turn left down Trafal­gar St to end, then left ont o Lon­don Road, keep walk­ing till u come to Somer­fields, the Club is just a few steps fur­ther down the same road.
Near­est Pub­lic Trans­port: Bus­es on Lon­don Road, Brighton train Sta­tion
Post­code: BN1 4JA | View Map
Time: 2pm onwards
Price: Noth­ing to enter, £3.50 dona­tion for roast
Phone: 07505016362
Email: mkechnge7@wildmail.com
Web: http://stopincinerationnownetwork.wordpress.com

Arson attacks on luxury/railway cars, construction machines and airport fencing, Germany

26/01/09: Again cars torched

Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
26/01/09: Again cars torched
22/01/09: Arson attack on cars of the Ger­man Rail­way Ser­vice (Deutsche Bahn)
19/01/09: Exter­nal fence prop­er­ty of the police dam­aged
14/01/09: Three upper­class cars burned
10/01/09: Two cars and a moto burned down
09/01/09: Unknown per­sons set con­struc­tion machines in flames

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Again cars torched

Berlin, 25 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Again arsons attacks in Friedrichshain.
In the night to Sun­day, three cars got burned.
In the Elde­naer­str. a Porsche Cayenne got torched, togeth­er with a Golf parked next to it.
A few min­utes lat­er, a pass­er-by dis­cov­ered a burn­ing DHL vehi­cle in the Thaer­str.
The state secu­ri­ty took up the inves­ti­ga­tions.

Source: Berlin­er Zeitung

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Arson attack on cars of the Ger­man Rail­way Ser­vice (Deutsche Bahn)

Berlin, 22 of Jan­u­ary 2009

a claim we received:

„Attack the handy­men of the nuclear-lob­by

Before the Cas­tor’s trans­port 2008 took place, sev­er­al rail­ways line have been sab­o­taged through hook­claws in France and Ger­many. Short­ly after­wards, 9 com­rades have been arrest­ed in France, accused of mem­ber­ship with­in a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion and of being respon­si­ble of the sab­o­tages.
One of them is still in prison.

It is not a new thing, that in France one inprison activist upon antiter­ror laws. Already in Jan­u­ary 2008, it came to the impris­on­ment of five per­sons, described by cops and press as part of the „ultra­left­ists, anar­cho-autonomen“ move­ment, and they are wait­ing since then for their tri­al, in the dun­geons of the french jus­tice.

Such a way of pro­ceed­ing seems to be a strong trend with­in euro­pean author­i­ties respon­si­ble for the secu­ri­ty issues. Also the ger­man state secu­ri­ty works a lot on its ter­ror­ist-con­struc­tion, which new­ly land­ed in a tri­al against alleged mem­bers of the Mil­i­tant Group.
In Greece, 13 youths are sit­ting in prison since the begin­ning of the Decem­ber insur­rec­tion, also con­front­ed with the antiter­ror para­graph.

That is why on the 22 of Jan­u­ary we torched 5 cars of the Deutsche Bahn dur­ing the action week for the Tarnac 9.

As long as the Deutsche Bahn will keep on offer­ing its rail­ways for the nuclear trans­port, they will remain always a tar­get of our protest.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty means attack

a few „ultra-left­ists-anar­cho-autonome“.“

More pic­tures here: http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/foto/
_bin/index.php/Berliner+Zeitung/wieder_brannten_autos/2

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Exter­nal fence prop­er­ty of the police dam­aged

Frank­furt’s air­port, 19 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Mon­day the 19.1.09 one reck­oned that unknown per­sons dam­aged the exter­nal fence put by the police had been seri­ous­ly dam­aged, pre­cise­ly on its north­ern and west­ern side.

The amount of the dam­age is quite high.

Tues­day the 20.1.09, a group, which is clear­ly against the expan­sion of the air­port and calls itself „frank­furt’s gen­er­al sweep­ing blow“ (n.t.: wordgame in ger­man, the group name is almost the same as the one of the most impor­tant frank­furt’s news­pa­per), took respon­s­abil­i­ty for the attack by send­ing a claim.
Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the „frank­furt’s com­mon sweep­ing blow“!

Source: http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

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Three upper­class cars burned

Berlin, 14 of Jan­u­ary 2008

Three cars have been destroyed by arson on the ear­ly hours of wednes­day.
A pass­er byer notice a mer­cedes burn­ing in the Wiener­str. (Kreuzberg) around 2.20am and called the cops. The fire­bri­gade came to extin­guish the fire, the car got seri­ous­ly dam­aged though.

At Michaelkirch­platz, Mitte, a bmw burned around 3.15am.
Just 100m far­away, in Leuschn­er­damm, Kreuzberg, anoth­er bmw burned. The fire brigade extin­guished both fires. The cops sus­pect a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion behind the actions, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Tage­spiegel

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Two cars and a moto burned down

Berlin, 10 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Unknown per­son set last night a car and a moto on fire, in the Geth­se­manes­traße. The moto was a bmw, an opel car parked next got also dam­aged. Few min­ut­ed lat­er, cops reck­oned that an audi parked in the area was also in flames.

Since cops believe a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion behind the facts, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Tage­spiegel

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Unknown per­sons set con­struc­tion machines in flames

Berlin, 9 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Unknown per­sons set up sev­er­al con­struc­tion machines in flames, it hap­pened on a con­struc­tion site in Pankow.
Inhab­i­tants saw the flames on the spot, sit­ed in the Richard-Ermisch-straße and called the cops.
A dig­ger and two rad­lad­er got burned. State secur­tiy inves­ti­gates, since a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion is believed, there is no trace of the authors.

Source: ddp

infos about the con­struc­tion site: http://www.concepta-stadthaeuser.de/en/news/building-projects.html

Note for eng­lish speak­ing per­sons: sev­er­al lux­u­ri­ous hous­es are being build on this spot, close to an area where sev­er­al house­pro­jects are locat­ed.

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direct action news from greece
http://directactionde.blogspot.com

Castor anti-nuclear blockade finally broken & other actions

Edit­ed direct action high­lights from http://www.castor.de/ticker/index_en.html —

Tues­day, Novem­ber 11, 2008
20 hours lat­er than planned, after many con­vinc­ing, cre­ative block­ades, the CASTOR road trans­port reached the Gor­leben inter­im stor­age depot at 00:39 am on Tues­day 11 Novem­ber

Castor blockadeCastor water cannon at nightStop Castor brazierCastor tractor blockade
Burning barricades confront water cannon at night, in Castor protests
Edit­ed direct action high­lights from http://www.castor.de/ticker/index_en.html —

Tues­day, Novem­ber 11, 2008
20 hours lat­er than planned, after many con­vinc­ing, cre­ative block­ades, the CASTOR road trans­port reached the Gor­leben inter­im stor­age depot at 00:39 am on Tues­day 11 Novem­ber

===

Mon­day, Novem­ber 10, 2008
10:33 pm The water can­nons in Laase are to pre­vent peo­ple mov­ing into the 50m no-go zone and onto the road.
10:16 pm Sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple are on the trans­port route in Laase. Police are using water can­nons.
10:13 pm In Grip­pel the last activist was removed from the pyra­mid.
10:02 pm Colour­ful activ­i­ty by 100 peo­ple in Laase to the left and right of the route.
10:01 pm Grip­pel: The last per­son is still chained to the pyra­mid and there are still 150 peo­ple present. The mood is good and there’s good music.
9:53 pm Only one trac­tor still stand­ing in the way in Quick­born. It’s lost a wheel. Police are using heavy equip­ment. It’s esti­mat­ed on loca­tion that it will take 30 min­utes until the north­ern route (via Quick­born) is com­plete­ly free.
9:40 pm In Grip­pel only one pyra­mid with one per­son chained on is left on the road. In Quick­born two trac­tors are left on the road that seem to be caus­ing the police some prob­lems.
7:44 pm Dear peo­ple, we’ve man­aged to make this the longest CASTOR trans­port ever. Super!!!!! Stay cool, we have plen­ty to cel­e­brate.
6:07 pm Press release by the Lüchow-Dan­nen­berg Farm­ers’ Emer­gency Asso­ci­a­tion Against Nuclear Pow­er. The chained-on demon­stra­tors in Grip­pel demand nego­ti­a­tions. After 8 peo­ple chained them­selves to two con­crete blocks in Grip­pel on the CASTOR truck­ing route, the detach­ment of the pro­test­ers from the blocks is prov­ing very dif­fi­cult and time-con­sum­ing for the police. It’s esti­mat­ed that the pro­ce­dure could take sev­er­al hours. The chained peo­ple, mem­bers of the Lüchow-Dan­nen­berg Farm­ers’ Emer­gency Asso­ci­a­tion Against Nuclear Pow­er, want to nego­ti­ate with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Low­er Sax­ony state gov­ern­ment, say a state sec­re­tary.
5:45 pm In Grip­pel at the pyra­mid block­ade police have detached the first per­son from the pyra­mid. The top of this pyra­mid was not sawn off.
5:33 pm In Grip­pel the top has been sawn off the pyra­mid point­ing to Gar­tow. It didn’t pro­vide the police with any clues. Nor can the pyra­mids be moved because the chained-on arms would be bro­ken. A plan to lift them was giv­en up.
Around 5:11 pm all Robin Wood activists at the waste com­pound were tak­en out of the trees by police.
4:13 pm From the Robin Wood rope bridge 300 metres from the stor­age com­pound are sus­pend­ed not 2 but 6 activists.
4:08 pm Police have car­ried off all the sit­ters out­side the waste com­pound. But the trac­tor is still there with two peo­ple chained to it.
4:02 pm The work on the con­crete pyra­mids in Grip­pel is pro­gress­ing poor­ly. A sec­ond demo­li­tion team is brought in. The peo­ple are as good as pos­si­ble under the cir­cum­stances.
3:22 pm In the block­ade at the waste com­pound three peo­ple have chained them­selves to a trac­tor.
2:56 pm Grip­pel: The gen­er­a­tor is work­ing again and police are prepar­ing to illu­mi­nate the action. 350 peo­ple still there.
2:53 pm Quick­born: Still 25 trac­tors on the road, 100 peo­ple, increased police pres­ence. The climber is off the ele­vat­ing truck but it took the police a long time. Two new activists sus­pend­ed in trees.
2:50 pm Noth­ing mov­ing at the reload­ing crane. The car­ry­ing peo­ple out of the block­ade at the sor­age com­pound is pro­ceed­ing only slow­ly. The pyra­mids in Grip­pel with the peo­ple chained to them are still on the road.
2:41 pm The gen­er­a­tor of the police in Grip­pel has bro­ken down, leav­ing the drill stuck in the pyra­mid.
2:38 pm In Grip­pel police begin drilling open the con­crete pyra­mids.
2:06 pm In Grip­pel police built a roof for the farm­ers chained to the con­crete pyra­mid. Sit-down block­aders were not to stay there and were removed by police.
1:40 pm The climber on the ele­vat­ing truck has chained him­self on.
1:40 pm In Quick­born a climber has climbed from a trac­tor onto the ele­vat­ing truck of the police. The police have been busy with this activist for a con­sid­er­able time and now needs anoth­er crane to get him off the ele­vat­ing truck.
11:20 am Police have made the 3rd call to vacate the area at the stor­age com­pound.
11:17 am In Grip­pel stand two con­crete pyra­mids with four peo­ple chained to each. Cur­rent­ly there are 30 to 40 peo­ple there to sup­port them. Vis­i­tors should bring cof­fee and cake and per­haps an umbrel­la.
11:11 am In Grip­pel mem­bers of a farm­ers resis­tance group have chained them­selves to con­crete pyra­mids.
11:10 am In Laase 150 peo­ple are mov­ing in the direc­tion of the dike.
11:06 am At the block­ade of the stor­age com­pound police have made the sec­ond call to vacate the area.
7 am Now about 1,000 peo­ple sit­ting out­side the waste stor­age com­pound in Gor­leben.
Report in Eng­lish on block­ades on the tracks at Har­lin­gen http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231949.shtml.
Claims of extreme police bru­tal­i­ty in break­ing up block­ades under cov­er of dark­ness,
beat­ing peo­ple with trun­cheons with­out warn­ing and pur­su­ing them up to 150 metres into woods at http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231982.shtml.
00:03 am: The three CASTOR occu­piers were arrest­ed.

===

Sun­day, Novem­ber 09, 2008
11:52 pm Bru­tal dis­per­sal with gas at one of the Tol­len­dorf block­ades. First Aiders and lawyers are not being allowed through.
11:39 pm Three peo­ple are sit­ting on the first CASTOR cas­ket.
11:16 pm The peo­ple tak­en by police out of the demo in Tol­len­dorf were tak­en behind police bar­ri­cades into a cor­don. The mood is relaxed. In the cor­don the clowns are danc­ing. One can approach up to 50 metres out­side the cor­don.
10:21 pm In Dums­dorf 30 peo­ple are in a sit-down block­ade.
22:11 pm The Robin Wood activists were removed from the Old­en­dorf Bridge, they were not injured.
9:40 pm Robin Wood has two actions. The first is at Old­en­dorf Bridge. Police threat­en to cut down the two activists there. The oth­er is in Wendisch Evern , where par­al­lel to the track a large ban­ner was hung.
9:19 pm 500 peo­ple sit­ting down at rail km 188.
9:04 pm 50 clowns on the track in Grün­hagen.
8:57 pm Two activists are hang­ing from the Old­en­dorf Bridge, a third has just been led off by police.
8:52 pm Trac­tors are parked in Quick­born so that a car can still get through, but no CASTOR trucks.
8:12 pm Police have removed two peo­ple chained to the track near Eich­dorf and are tak­ing them to the pris­on­er col­lec­tion point.
6:54 pm Around 6:15 pm route B126 in Met­zin­gen at the snack stand was not pass­able. There was fire on the road.
6:18 pm The two activists in Lüneb­urg are still hang­ing in tra­vers­es next to the track. But police high res­cue spe­cial­ists are get­ting ready to remove them.
6:17 pm 60–70 peo­ple on the Old­en­dorf Bridge. In Met­zin­gen tires are burn­ing on the fed­er­al road. There is no more get­ting through there on fed­er­al route 216.
6:03 pm The block­ade in Gedelitz at the Free Repub­lic of Wend­land man­aged to force the Ham­burg police unit with its heavy gear such as water can­non to retreat all the way through the vil­lage.
5:33 pm At the dwarves par­ty of Wider­Set­zen are 400 peo­ple. The mood is good and no dis­per­sal is in sight.
5:27 pm Between Eich­dorf and Nahren­dorf 25 peo­ple are sit­ting on the rails. No police present. And at rail km 202 (i.e. fur­ther west) 70 peo­ple are on the tracks.
5:22 pm In Har­lin­gen between rail kms 187 and 188 a giant par­ty is going on with sev­er­al hun­dred dwarves.
5:15 pm “Wider­set­zen” is back on the rails in Har­lin­gen with about 150 peo­ple, this time at rail km 188.1.
4:53 pm 50 peo­ple at a chain-on action by two peo­ple at km 198.2 in Eich­dorf.
4:30 pm There is a sit-down block­ade between Old­en­dorf a.d. Göhrde and Eich­dorf with more than 100 peo­ple.
4:22 pm There are again two block­ades in Har­lin­gen. A new one is at rail km 188.5.
4:15 pm The block­ade at Har­lin­gen at km 187.8 has been com­plete­ly dis­persed.
4:13 pm Clar­i­fi­ca­tion: The dam­age to rails at Grün­hagen is in Coun­ty Lüchow-Dan­nen­berg, NOT in Grün­hagen on the ICE express route Uelzen – Lüneb­urg.
3:12 pm Near Tol­len­dorf at Km 188 about 100 peo­ple have made it on to the track.

—

Sun­day, Novem­ber 09, 2008 at 15:02:08 (CET)

PEOPLE HURT NEAR TOLLENDORF: A block­ade- action near Tol­len­dorf faced strong repres­sion by the police. Hun­dreds of peo­ple met in Tol­len­dorf today at 7.30 to con­tin­ue to the tracks, where the Cas­tor-trans­port is sup­posed to go through lat­er in the after­noon. We walked in a huge queue along the for­est-path, leav­ing behind us minor tree-blokades for the police-vans. After walk­ing about a 1km,there was a road in front of us .There, a lot of police was stand­ing already, about 20 metres apart. There was no oth­er choice than try to get run­ning thourough the lines. Lots of peo­ple in front of us made it, but we saw some peo­ple get­ting caught or being pushed back by the cops. The more we wait­ed, the hard­er it was to get through, because more police-vans were arriv­ing all the time. So, the cat and mouse ‑game start­ed. I saw a police reach­ing to a per­son in front of me and I ran across. There was noth­ing to be done for the peo­ple who could­nt get across. Some of them tried oth­er routes. So, we con­tin­ued towards the tracks, that were real­ly close to us already. But, the police was there wait­ing for us wear­ing full riot-gear and hav­ing water­tanks in the back­round. We got set­tled to the tracks as fast as we could, block­aders spread the huge plas­tic-mate­r­i­al to cov­er them­selves, and we began dig­ging the stones off the side of the tracks to get bet­ter resis­tance posi­tions… And after announc­ing three times the ille­gal­i­ty of our action, the cops attacked. They used vio­lent force and start­ed hit­ting peo­ple with batons. Many got some severe pain from pep­per-sprays, which was being done straight into indi­vid­u­als’ faces. Water tanks were being used con­stant­ly. We got back to the tracks a few times until it was impos­si­ble to stay, due to the seri­ous police-vio­lence. So hun­dreds of peo­ple retreat­ed and got scat­tered in the for­est; some ready to look for oth­er ways to get to tracks, some head­ing back to their camps to gain more pow­er for the oth­er block­ades of today. We havent giv­en up. The resis­tance con­tin­ues! (Tak­en from http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231840.shtml.)

—

12:50 pm The rail between Lüneb­urg and Dan­nen­berg has been bent up at km 190.4 (ner­ar Grün­hagen). Track work­ers are at the loca­tion and esti­mate that the repair could take quite some time.
12:15 pm The stor­age com­pound is block­ad­ed. Sheet­ing was erect­ed as roofs. About 250 peo­ple there. Also trac­tors. Mood is good. A cul­ture pro­gramme is being organ­ised. It is still easy to get through.
INJURIES FROM POLICE HORSE, BATONS, PEPPER SPRAY:
10:51H: The horse pro­ces­sion has start­ed, 25 hors­es and 25 cyclists tak­ing part. Many police present. Mood is good.
10:49h: The news con­fer­ence of the block­aders of Berg will be at 1.30 pm in the Kul­turhaus Mika­do in Karl­sruhe. At the assem­bly and vig­il in Gov­elin one per­son was injured when kicked by a police horse. The injured man suf­fered a cra­nial bruise and a tor­so injury. He is being tak­en to hos­pi­tal. Sev­er­al peo­ple were injured by police batons or pep­per spray.

—

Sun­day, Novem­ber 09, 2008 at 08:43:20 (CET)

08:26 H: The Robin Wood peo­ple hang­ing in trees out­side the waste com­pound are well. The Red Cross is keep­ing them sup­plied with hot drinks. Every­thing is peace­ful. The Robin Wood activists sus­pend­ed them­selves yes­ter­day evening while peo­ple gath­ered to sit down out­side the com­pound to block it. 500 peo­ple have arrived in Tol­len­dorf. It report­ed that the two men and a woman who had chained them­selves to the rail­way track have been arrest­ed by fed­er­al police. Before that they were med­ical­ly exam­ined. Police had pro­tect­ed them against the cold with foil. The woman was the last to be cut from the con­crete block after almost 11 ½ hours chained to it. A police spokesman quot­ed a doc­tor as say­ing her con­di­tion is prob­lem-free. Four oth­er demon­stra­tors who were also at the block­ade point at mid­day were first car­ried away by police and lat­er let go.

—

REPAIRS NEEDED: 00:53 am Before the CASTOR train can move on, the rails and the track bed have to be restored. It’s not known at this point how long that will take.
ALL THREE CUT FREE: 00:25 am The last of the three pro­test­ers who had chained them­selves to a con­crete block under the rail tracks at Berg has been cut free.
00:06 am A video of the block­ade of the Gor­leben stor­age com­pound is view­able at http://www.graswurzel.tv/index.php?mov_id=43&PHPSESSID=b83e29fde90c2638c12cd3d9b382bf4f
00:04 am CASTOR train still stopped at Berg because one per­son remains chained to a con­crete block under the rails.
00:03 am Still 600 peo­ple squat­ting out­side the stor­age com­pound, sur­round­ed by many trac­tors.

===

Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 10, 2008

THE LAST FEW HOURS OF SATURDAY as report­ed on the Ger­man Day X newswire:
11:34 Four Robin Wood activists sus­pend­ed over the road between Gor­leben and the stor­age com­pound about 7 metres from the ground.
10:29 pm Block­ade of the inter­im stor­age com­pound con­tin­ues. 500 peo­ple and 12 trac­tors there. Good mood. Lots of police but hold­ing back.
9:57 pm After nine hours no end in sight to block­ade of the CASTOR train at Wörth near the French bor­der. Fed­er­al police at 9:30 pm, almost nine hours after the block­ade began, man­aged to release the sec­ond of the three chained-on peo­ple from the mas­sive con­crete block, said to be as big as one cubic metre. The train with 11 CASTOR cas­kets was due in Wörth at 1:40 pm. It’s been stuck in Lauter­bourg across the bor­der in France since 1.15 pm. The NDR broad­cast­er has a pic­ture of the block­aders at
9:44 pm Sig­nalling cables of the rail­ways were set on fire in the morn­ing at Hofgeis­mar, near Kas­sel. Police sus­pect a con­nec­tion with the CASTOR trans­port. In Wies­baden-Schier­stein tires were set on fire near cable cab­i­nets. Train ser­vices were can­celled until the after­noon.
8:51 pm Still 500 peo­ple and 12 trac­tors blockad­ing the stor­age com­pound.
6:43 pm Police have cut the first of three chained pro­test­ers from the con­crete block in Berg.
5:56 pm 500 peo­ple at the sit-down block­ade of the stor­age com­pound, more com­ing.
5:55 pm A female pro­test­er hand­cuffed to a tree by police in Karl­sruhe was released by court order. The court ruled there was no rea­son to hold her. She and two oth­er peo­ple had demon­strat­ed at mid­day in Karl­sruhe-Mühlburg on a track near the rail­way line against atom­ic pow­er. The CASTOR train was due to pass there in the evening. +++++++ 5:52 pm 60 activists, includ­ing clowns of the Clowns Army, are with the chained-on peo­ple in Berg for sup­port.
5:50 pm The two men and a woman chained to the rail­way track at Berg had face masks put on them at 4:47 pm

—

Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 08, 2008 at 16:39:55 (CET)

Ger­man Rail reports delays in train traf­fic in north Ger­many caused by arson attacks on rail­way instal­la­tions in Bran­den­burg and dam­age done to sig­nalling equip­ment. Repairs would take until the late after­noon.

—

Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 08, 2008 at 16:11:42 (CET)

TRAIN STILL STOPPED: The three activists locked to a con­crete block are still stop­ping the CASTOR train from con­tin­u­ing its jour­ney. Police have not yet suc­ceed­ed to cut the demon­stra­tors out. They’re work­ing with elec­tric ham­mer drills to try to break open the con­crete. The train is still stopped in the French bor­der sta­tion Lauter­bourg, about four kilo­me­tres from the con­crete block.

French police arrest anarchists for train sabotage + web link for more info

11th Novem­ber 2008
French police raid­ed alleged anar­chist cells in three cities on Tues­day and arrest­ed at least 10 sus­pects fol­low­ing a series of sab­o­tage attacks on the coun­try’s high-speed rail net­work.

11th Novem­ber 2008
French police raid­ed alleged anar­chist cells in three cities on Tues­day and arrest­ed at least 10 sus­pects fol­low­ing a series of sab­o­tage attacks on the coun­try’s high-speed rail net­work.

Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Michele Alliot-Marie said police intel­li­gence offi­cers had been inves­ti­gat­ing an “ultra-left anar­chist move­ment” for sev­er­al months and had act­ed fol­low­ing the week­end’s dis­rup­tion of train ser­vices.

“We found that this ultra-left move­ment has links in five Euro­pean coun­tries and in oth­er non-Euro­pean coun­tries,” she said, alleg­ing that the French gang has con­tacts in Bel­gium, Ger­many, Italy and Greece.

None of those arrest­ed works for the SNCF state rail net­work, she added.

A source close to the inves­ti­ga­tion told AFP anti-ter­ror­ist offi­cers were exam­in­ing “pos­si­ble links between the sus­pects and the Ger­man hard-left, which has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for actions agains trains car­ry­ing nuclear waste”.

Pres­i­dent Nico­las Sarkozy con­grat­u­lat­ed police on the arrests and wel­comed “the rapid and promis­ing progress made in the con­text of the inquiry.”

Thou­sands of pas­sen­gers and more than 160 train ser­vices were delayed Sat­ur­day after a gang jammed steel rods across over­head pow­er cables on three high-speed lines between Paris and Lon­don, Brus­sels and the French regions.

The attack halt­ed trains and dam­aged sev­er­al sec­tions of 25,000-volt pow­er lines, but no one was hurt.

In a sep­a­rate inci­dent on Sun­day in the south­west of the coun­try, anoth­er high-speed train rammed a pair of con­crete blocks placed on a line. There were no injuries and it is not yet clear whether the inci­dent was relat­ed.

Alliot-Marie said 10 sus­pects were being held, but an inte­ri­or min­istry offi­cial said more than 20 had ini­tial­ly been detained in raids con­duct­ed in Paris, the cen­tral town of Tarnac and the north­ern city of Rouen.

Fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day’s inci­dent, which fol­lowed at least one sim­i­lar inci­dent involv­ing the use of rods designed to rein­force con­crete and a series of oth­er acts of van­dal­ism, offi­cials spoke of a “con­cert­ed cam­paign” of sab­o­tage.

Experts from the SNCF state rail com­pa­ny told reporters that the sophis­ti­ca­tion of the attacks showed the sabo­teurs were tech­ni­cal­ly very com­pe­tent, since neu­tral­is­ing the pow­er lines required expert knowl­edge.

The TGV high-speed rail net­work has been the tar­get of sev­er­al extrem­ist cam­paigns over recent years by crim­i­nals seek­ing to black­mail SNCF, Basque sep­a­ratist guer­ril­las and mil­i­tant trade union­ists.

Sat­ur­day’s attacks were among the best planned, tak­ing out trains on lines north, east and south of the cap­i­tal at almost the same moment and plung­ing the nation­al net­work into chaos.

In addi­tion to nation­al ser­vices, Eurostar trains to Brus­sels and Lon­don and Thalys jour­neys to the Nether­lands and north­ern Europe were halt­ed.

Despite the most intense protests by anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers for sev­er­al years, a French ship­ment of radioac­tive waste arrived in Ger­many ear­ly on Tues­day after a 20-hour delay.

Eleven lor­ries car­ry­ing 123 tonnes of nuclear waste arrived at the Gor­leben dump in north­ern Ger­many just after mid­night (2200 GMT), police said.

For most of the jour­ney from west­ern France the waste trav­elled by train and was halt­ed for half a day at the Ger­man bor­der by three activists who had jammed their arms into a con­crete block under the track.

Once in Ger­many, around 16,000 baton-wield­ing police were deployed as around 15,000 demon­stra­tors ral­lied along the route to try to hin­der progress using tac­tics such as set­ting bar­ri­cades on fire on the tracks.

The train even­tu­al­ly arrived at its final des­ti­na­tion on Mon­day, more than 14 and a half hours late and the car­go was then trans­ferred to lor­ries for the final 20 kilo­me­tres (12 miles) trip to Gor­leben.

Along the final leg some 1,000 activists had to be removed one-by-one by riot police before the lor­ries could pass. Trac­tors had been parked across the road and activists chained them­selves to tall cement pyra­mids.

For updat­ed info and back­ground arti­cles, see http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/about/

latest from Gorleben nuke transport protests (& they’ve not even really started!)

Novem­ber 08, 2008
CASTOR-BLOCKADE WITH CONCRETE BLOCK NEAR WÖRTH: A group of young peo­ple at about 12.45 pm Sat­ur­day made the rail­way line unpass­able for the Cas­tor train short­ly after it crossed into Ger­many, 500 metres north of Berg sta­tion. Three men and women fas­tened their arms in the mas­sive block placed under the track sleep­ers. The train has been stopped for now.

Castor Deutsche Bahn banner hangNovem­ber 08, 2008
CASTOR-BLOCKADE WITH CONCRETE BLOCK NEAR WÖRTH: A group of young peo­ple at about 12.45 pm Sat­ur­day made the rail­way line unpass­able for the Cas­tor train short­ly after it crossed into Ger­many, 500 metres north of Berg sta­tion. Three men and women fas­tened their arms in the mas­sive block placed under the track sleep­ers. The train has been stopped for now.

===

Novem­ber 06, 2008
BLOCKADES HAVE BEGUN: The rail­way line used to take nuclear waste into the Wend­land was sym­bol­i­cal­ly block­ad­ed at three over­pass­es on Thurs­day by abseil­ers. Police seized and held a promi­nent French woman climber in “pre­ven­tive deten­tion”, a law that has been ruled invalid by the high­est court. The envi­ron­ment organ­i­sa­tion Robin Wood sus­pend­ed three abseil­ers from three bridges between Lüneb­urg and Wendisch Evern, say­ing they would stay there until the waste train came or police removed them. The French activist is used to being under per­ma­nent police sur­veil­lance because of her fre­quent spec­tac­u­lar climb­ing actions. On Thurs­day evening dozens of sup­port­ers demon­strat­ed for her release out­side the Lüneb­urg police direc­torate.

====

Novem­ber 05, 2008
TRAIN STOPPED BY PROTEST: Three high school pupils stopped a train bring­ing the spe­cial trucks for the Cas­tor trans­port to Gor­leben for half an hour near Hitza­ck­er on Mon­day by sit­ting on the rails. They had to be car­ried away by police. About 100 demon­stra­tors were near the track. Police were report­ed to be con­fused at first until they asked for rein­force­ments, which took half an hour to arrive. The three were encir­cled by police and had their IDs tak­en down. Pic­tures at http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231196.shtml

–

GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS OCCUPY DUMP TOWER: 40 Green­peace activists occu­pied a wind­ing tow­er of the Asse II nuclear dump near Wolfen­büt­tel on Wednes­day morn­ing (pic­tures at http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231338.shtml), attach­ing a ban­ner that said nuclear waste must be removed from the for­mer potash mine, which is heav­i­ly tak­ing water. The action is to last sev­er­al days. Police have not demand­ed that the pro­test­ers leave the tow­er and so far every­thing has been peace­ful. From Jan­u­ary the mine, which was con­sid­ered a mod­el for Gor­leben, is to be con­trolled by a dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ment author­i­ty, the Fed­er­al Agency for Radi­a­tion Pro­tec­tion. Back­ground on Asse II at http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/nuclear-worries-increase-german-waste-dump-mine-floods and http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/german-nuclear-dump-was-illegal-start.

–

ATTACKS ON POWER COMPANY’S VEHICLES: The «Ham­burg­er Mor­gen­post» news­pa­per has pub­lished text pur­port­ing to claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for attacks on vehi­cles of the Vat­ten­fall pow­er com­pa­ny con­nect­ed with the Cas­tor trans­port. Win­dows of a car were dam­aged and both front tyres stabbed. Police say they have no claims of respon­si­bil­i­ty for two oth­er attacks. In one case a vehi­cle loaded with four gas bot­tles was set on fire, caus­ing an explo­sion that injured no one. But the pres­sure wave was said to have caused tens of thou­sands of euros worth of dam­age. Five vehi­cles were total­ly destroyed and a near­by build­ing dam­aged. Police were able to stop anoth­er arson attack on a Vat­ten­fall vehi­cle when a wit­ness called them after see­ing the attempt. Police assume all attacks were car­ried out by the same group of peo­ple.

–

POLICE IN GÖTTINGEN ROUGHED UP TWO ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVISTS who had hung a ban­ner about the com­ing Cas­tor trans­port over the entrance to the local rail­way sta­tion. One had his wrists painful­ly twist­ed, the oth­er was clapped in hand­cuffs imme­di­ate­ly. Police went to the home of one of them search­ing for the ban­ner. The activists com­ment that it’s inter­est­ing to see how ner­vous police can get about a ban­ner and how they fear pub­lic scruti­ny. Pic­tures at http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231320.shtml.

====
Lat­est action news & oth­er less direct action-focussed info at http://www.castor.de/ticker/index_en.html

More careers fair antics — Cambridge, Birmingham, Oxford — update: RBS & e.on no-shows

Update: RBS did­n’t turn up to a Cam­bridge careers fair and e.on have giv­en a few a miss now — keep on going folks, there’ll be lots of oth­er mur­der­ous com­pa­nies com­ing your way…

–

Career­ing Down­wards, cour­tesy of Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty!

Make a living not a killing bannersUpdate: RBS did­n’t turn up to a Cam­bridge careers fair and e.on have giv­en a few a miss now — keep on going folks, there’ll be lots of oth­er mur­der­ous com­pa­nies com­ing your way…

–

Career­ing Down­wards, cour­tesy of Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty!
5th Novem­ber 2008
Today and tomor­row, Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty are host­ing a Careers Fair, which seems to com­prise a mot­ley col­lec­tion of arms man­u­fac­tur­ers, plan­et wreck­ers and Vivi­sec­tion­ists.

To high­light just how dubi­ous many of the exhibitors at this event are, some activists decid­ed to go along today.

Despite the extreme­ly fluffy actions under­tak­en by activists, which were hand­ing out fly­ers to vis­i­tors (for a while inside the venue as well as on the road out­side), and dis­play­ing ban­ners, there was a high pres­ence not only of the expect­ed Proc­tors, but also many police, includ­ing a FIT team who made a point of pho­tograph­ing every­one while they were there, but seemed to be strange­ly cam­era shy them­selves.

Appar­ent­ly ear­li­er in the day there were at least two van loads of police in atten­dance, although by the time activists arrived in num­bers they had gone, with ‘just’ sev­er­al cars hav­ing a vis­i­ble pres­ence there all of the after­noon, includ­ing (I wit­nessed) the search­ing of some­one’s Gui­tar case at the door!

——-

Stu­dents Dying to Ditch Dirty Devel­op­ment

Last Fri­day (31st Octo­ber) stu­dents from Keele, BCU, Birm­ing­ham, War­wick and Aston Peo­ple and Plan­et groups staged a die-in at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s stall in the Grad­u­ate Recruit­ment Fair at the NEC in Birm­ing­ham. It was the lat­est in a series of actions as part of Peo­ple and Plan­et’s Ditch Dirty Devel­op­ment Cam­paign tar­get­ing RBS at careers’ fairs and pre­sen­ta­tions at uni­ver­si­ties around the coun­try.

Stu­dents grit­ted their teeth through the secu­ri­ty checks into the careers’ fair are­na, as well as resist­ing the temp­ta­tion to tar­get oth­er com­pa­nies in a who’s who of uneth­i­cal com­pa­nies (includ­ing defence con­trac­tors such as BAE Sys­tems, and the Arca­dia Group own­ers of noto­ri­ous sweat­shop high street brand Top­shop) before con­gre­gat­ing at the RBS stall. At an agreed time the stu­dents per­formed a mass die-in in and around the stall, dying on oil slicks to make the point about oil extrac­tion and cli­mate change already killing those in devel­op­ing coun­tries.

Secu­ri­ty arrived prompt­ly to remove pro­test­ers from the scene, pro­test­ers singing “Oil and Gas RBS” as they were removed from the fair. Some stu­dents were then ques­tioned by secu­ri­ty and the police, while oth­ers were tak­en out­side and told to protest in a spe­cial­ly pre­pared pen out­side the main entrance. Those being ques­tioned were then removed from the premise, one was even threat­ened with arrest by police offi­cers in order for them to obtain their name and address, and were informed that should they return they would be arrest­ed, on rather legal­ly dubi­ous grounds.

Those in the “protest pen” out­side were sub­ject­ed to snif­fer dog checks of bags for explo­sives, and also of per­sons for drugs in an attempt to try and pin more on the protest­ing stu­dents. Once this ordeal had been endured, with no short­age of cyn­i­cal humour and grit­ted teeth, the remain­ing stu­dents con­tin­ued to protest out­side, and, despite a secu­ri­ty pres­ence, attempts to stop stu­dents using a mega­phone, not being allowed to leave the pen with­out an escort, man­aged to engage mem­bers of the pass­ing pub­lic in the cam­paign. Spir­its were kept high with chants and songs before stu­dents decid­ed to end the protest and were escort­ed out of the area by secu­ri­ty.

While those who took part were sat­is­fied with the day’s protest­ing, police offi­cers ques­tion­ing and threat­en­ing par­tic­i­pants with arrest as well as the use of snif­fer dogs rep­re­sents was a wor­ry­ing devel­op­ment, espe­cial­ly in response to what was essen­tial­ly a very fluffy direct action protest. How­ev­er, protests against RBS at careers events will con­tin­ue no mat­ter how much they hide behind secu­ri­ty and police. The cam­paign con­tin­ues.…

Some of the exhibitors include…

Proc­tor & Gam­ble (vivi­sec­tion fun­ders)

Eon (Pro Nuclear and Coal pow­er)

Rolls Royce (Arms Man­u­fac­tur­ers, spon­sors of Uni­ver­si­ty Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment)

Shell (arche­typ­al oil green­wash­ers)

…And many more besides.

It would seem that despite pre­vi­ous years’ Careers Fairs also hav­ing activists in atten­dance, due to the moral bank­rupt­cy of the com­pa­nies being booked for said event, the Uni­ver­si­ty still has­n’t fig­ured out that it’s actu­al­ly bet­ter for their wider rep­u­ta­tion to dis­play some ethics in their book­ing choic­es for such an event.

You could always come along and see it for your­self, as it’s open again Thurs­day after­noon (Novem­ber 6th), by The Mill Pond at The Grad­u­ate Cen­tre, although if you’re not a Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dent, you may get ID’ed.

——-

E.ON Recruiters Tar­get­ed AGAIN — in Oxford

6.11.2008
Cli­mate-trash­ing ener­gy mon­sters E.ON con­tin­ued their nation­al recruit­ment tour with a stall at the Oxford Careers Fair today. They seemed mis­er­able but not sur­prised when a group of local activists turned up too…

This after­noon, Oxford Town Hall played host to a thrilling smor­gas­bord of uneth­i­cal cor­po­rate recruiters, at the “Sci­ence, Engi­neer­ing and IT Careers Fair”. BAe, AWE, npow­er, BP, Proc­tor & Gam­ble, and the Army were all in atten­dance, but it was coal-burn­ing cli­mate rene­gades E.ON who were in the spot­light today.

Over the last few weeks they’ve been tar­get­ed by activists at careers fairs across the land, and today was no excep­tion. A group of cam­paign­ers from Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action were in atten­dance, mak­ing sure that every­one at the fair had an anti-brain­wash­ing leaflet detail­ing what E.ON were real­ly up to (with more gen­er­al infor­ma­tion on the oth­er side about evil cor­po­rate recruiters, so the rest of them did­n’t feel neglect­ed). The recruiters wast­ed plen­ty of time talk­ing to under­cov­er activists, and every gen­uine stu­dent who vis­it­ed the stall got a friend­ly chat from a cam­paign­er as well.

Even­tu­al­ly, though, the shiny cor­po­rate dis­plays all got too much to bear, and some more action was required. E.ON were (loud­ly) pre­sent­ed with a fan­tas­tic prize for the most egre­gious piece of green­wash on dis­play (despite some stiff com­pe­ti­tion): their dis­play read “Tack­ling cli­mate change isn’t some­thing that’s tacked onto our agen­da. It’s at the heart of our busi­ness” (oh, for a bit of paint to remove the word “tack­ling”). Their prize? A fan­tas­tic bag of (char)coal, scat­tered all over their stall, and the sight of the pro­test­ers being firm­ly escort­ed from the build­ing, still loud­ly detail­ing E.ON’s activ­i­ties, much to the enter­tain­ment of the watch­ing crowd.

The activists then spent some time dish­ing out the rest of their leaflets out­side the fair — we’ll post the leaflet here in case any­one else wants to use it (we cribbed bits of it from the Not­ting­ham careers fair leaflet, so let’s keep shar­ing it all around!).

Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action
oxford@climatecamp.org.uk
http://tvca.atspace.com

German anti-nuclear waste sabotage & actions this coming weekend

Anti-nuclear activists in Ger­many are gear­ing up for anoth­er trans­port of high­ly active nuclear waste to run through France and Ger­many from 7 to 9 Novem­ber for dump­ing at the north Ger­man vil­lage of Gor­leben. About 20,000 police will be deployed to guard the con­sign­ment against thou­sands of demon­stra­tors.

Anti-nuclear activists in Ger­many are gear­ing up for anoth­er trans­port of high­ly active nuclear waste to run through France and Ger­many from 7 to 9 Novem­ber for dump­ing at the north Ger­man vil­lage of Gor­leben. About 20,000 police will be deployed to guard the con­sign­ment against thou­sands of demon­stra­tors. At http://www.castor.de/ticker/index_en.html is a newswire run by the protest move­ment.

CASTOR TRACK SABOTAGED: In the night from 30 to 31 Octo­ber the CASTOR rail­way track between Karl­sruhe and Mannheim was sab­o­taged near Stutensee. Rail traf­fic was brought to a stand­still with a bar­ri­cade. To stop any train run­ning into it with­out brak­ing, the first goods train using the track was stopped by an emer­gency sig­nal before it got to the spot.

Swedish Peace Activists Repeatedly Break Into Weapon Factories

23.10.2008

23.10.2008
Using ham­mers and bolt cut­ters, peace activists repeat­ed­ly broke into weapon plants and dam­aged weapons in Swe­den. Activists from the Swedish group OFOG/Avrusta admit­ted dam­ag­ing twen­ty high explo­sive grenade launch­ers as well as inter­nal parts to a How­itzer 77. Five peo­ple were arrest­ed. Two remain in jail. Two activists who were arrest­ed and released were re-arrest­ed after they returned to the weapons plant to do more dam­age. A fifth per­son was arrest­ed Sat­ur­day in anoth­er break in. All are fac­ing tri­al on charges from crim­i­nal dam­age to tres­pass at places of nation­al secu­ri­ty.

Mem­bers of the Swedish peace and dis­ar­ma­ment group OFOG/Avrusta say they have been prepar­ing for more than a year to car­ry out the actions. OFOG, which loose­ly trans­lates as the word mis­chief, is a net­work of activists work­ing for a nuclear free and demil­i­ta­rized world. Avrus­ta is Dis­arm in Eng­lish. The group released infor­ma­tion to the press announc­ing their actions and post­ed videos of their entry and dam­age on You Tube. See: http://www.ofog.org/avrusta_aktionsvideo

At about 2:30 a.m. Thurs­day morn­ing, activists approached the BAE Sys­tems weapons facil­i­ty in Karl­sko­ga, Swe­den, about 240 kilo­me­ters away from Stock­holm. Accord­ing to state­ments to the press, they used bolt cut­ters cut open a hole in the secu­ri­ty fence and entered. They left behind a ban­ner wel­com­ing oth­ers, which said “The door is open — you are free to start dis­arm­ing.” The activists used ham­mers to dam­age inter­nal parts like cool­ing aggre­gates and hydraulic cylin­ders for the How­itzer 77. A ful­ly oper­a­tional How­itzer 77 can fire 6 rounds every sec­ond for 20 min­utes and has a fir­ing range of 30 kilo­me­ters. Inside, media reports note that the duo man­aged to affix a poster to the door that said, “In this fac­to­ry are man­u­fac­tured weapons that are used to wage wars — Dis­ar­ma­ment is under­way.” Dis­ar­ma­ment activists, Cat­tis Las­ka, 24, and Pelle Strin­lund, 37, were arrest­ed and charged with tres­pass­ing and crim­i­nal dam­age. Las­ka is a youth leader and Strin­lund is a writer. Both remain in jail pend­ing a hear­ing.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, oth­er activists entered a weapons facil­i­ty run by Saab in Eskil­stu­na, Swe­den, about 135 kilo­me­ters away. Accord­ing to OFOG/Avrusta, they dam­aged twen­ty grenade launch­ers with ham­mers and then alert­ed guards to their pres­ence. Anna Ander­s­son, 26, and Mar­tin Smed­je­back, 35, were arrest­ed and charged with tres­pass, severe crim­i­nal dam­age, and enter­ing a pro­tect­ed nation­al secu­ri­ty area. Ander­s­son is a web devel­op­er. Smed­je­back is a train­er in non-vio­lence. Both were released from jail on Fri­day.

The weapons dam­aged in the Saab plant were described as Carl Gus­tav type grenade launch­ers. These are shoul­der mount­ed anti-tank weapons that can fire high explo­sive rounds. The weapons were report­ed­ly found in box­es labeled for deliv­ery to “US” and “New Del­hi.” BAE has a long term con­tract with the Indi­an gov­ern­ment for how­itzers and grenade launch­ers, accord­ing to reports in the Hin­du Times.

After being released from jail Fri­day, Ander­s­son indi­cat­ed she was glad to be going to tri­al. “I look for­ward to a chance to eth­i­cal­ly and legal­ly argue for our actions in court. I hope one day the arms man­u­fac­tur­ers will be charged for the crim­i­nal dam­age that Swedish arma­ments cause in wars and con­flicts around the world.”

In a sur­prise move ear­ly Sat­ur­day, Ander­s­son and Smed­je­back returned to the weapons plant where they were arrest­ed again. They now remain in jail.

Also ear­ly Sat­ur­day morn­ing, a fifth mem­ber of the group, Anni­ka Spalde, 39, cut her way through the fence around a weapons plant in Karl­sko­ga and hung a ban­ner encour­ag­ing more dis­ar­ma­ment actions. She was lat­er arrest­ed. She is charged with severe crim­i­nal dam­age and tres­pass in a place of nation­al secu­ri­ty. Spalde, who was lat­er released, is a dea­con in the Swedish church, an author and peace activist.

BAE Sys­tems, own­er of the Karl­sko­ga plant, describes itself on its web­site as “the pre­mier glob­al defense and aero­space com­pa­ny” with 100,000 employ­ees world­wide and annu­al sales of $31.4 bil­lion. BAE author­i­ties con­firmed the break in. Curi­ous­ly, BAE press peo­ple in the US report­ed “very minor” dam­age while the BAE secu­ri­ty man­ag­er in Swe­den told the press there that he esti­mat­ed dam­age at 50,000 euros and was not cer­tain whether the dam­age would cre­ate delays in sched­uled deliv­er­ies of the weapons or not.

Saab, own­er of the Eskil­stu­na plant, pro­claims it serves the glob­al mar­ket with prod­ucts, ser­vices and solu­tions rang­ing from mil­i­tary defense to civ­il secu­ri­ty. It says it has 13,700 employ­ees and world­wide sales of $2.5 bil­lion. Lasse Jon­s­son, spokesper­son for Saab, told the media, “They have scrapped a quan­ti­ty of weapons’ spare parts that await­ed export. Only after the police inves­ti­ga­tion has been com­plet­ed will we be able to cal­cu­late the exact extent of the dam­age caused.”

Maja Back­lund, spokesper­son for OFOG, was quot­ed in the Hin­du Times: “Civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and action are most vital parts of demo­c­ra­t­ic devel­op­ment. Our col­leagues who breached the Saab fac­to­ry man­aged to dam­age 25 grenade launch­ers of the Carl Gus­tav brand that are in exten­sive use in Kash­mir and oth­er war zones in India.” OFOG also claims that some of the weapons dam­aged were of the same type as used by the U.S. mil­i­tary in Iraq.

Mem­bers of OFOG claim Swedish weapons exports have risen 88 per­cent since the US inva­sion of Iraq. They fur­ther claim that the Swedish gov­ern­ment is vio­lat­ing its pol­i­cy of peace and neu­tral­i­ty by sup­ply­ing war­ring coun­tries with arms.

Dea­con Spalde insist­ed these actions were nec­es­sary. “When your gov­ern­ment sup­ports an ille­gal war and sells arms to dic­ta­tor­ships, it’s time for ordi­nary cit­i­zens like us to take action.”

OFOG/Avrusta said “This action is the first dis­ar­ma­ment cam­paign in the 21st cen­tu­ry in Swe­den.” At this point, the cam­paign says it con­sists of activists will­ing to risk arrest and anoth­er fifty sup­port peo­ple.

“Our activists have pre­pared them­selves for more than a year for this cam­paign,” said a group mem­ber who asked to remain anony­mous. “They are ready to serve time in prison if Swedish soci­ety should fail to see that non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to sus­pend the dis­as­trous Swedish arms exports to wars and dic­ta­tor­ships is less of a breach of law than these amoral arms exports.”

More dis­ar­ma­ment actions, OFOG/Avrusta promis­es, will be forth­com­ing.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/10/swedish-peace-activists-repeatedly-break-into-weapon-factories/

http://ofog.org/about-campaign-avrusta

Students Target Unethical Career Corporatism

On Mon­day 20th Octo­ber the annu­al AISEC Careers fair com­menced at Not­ting­ham Uni­ver­si­ty, fea­tur­ing many organ­i­sa­tions with despi­ca­ble or at least dubi­ous eth­i­cal cre­den­tials and social-respon­si­bil­i­ty records, inclu

BAE systems sickleE.on grim reaperOn Mon­day 20th Octo­ber the annu­al AISEC Careers fair com­menced at Not­ting­ham Uni­ver­si­ty, fea­tur­ing many organ­i­sa­tions with despi­ca­ble or at least dubi­ous eth­i­cal cre­den­tials and social-respon­si­bil­i­ty records, includ­ing BAE Sys­tems, Rolls-Royce, Qine­tiq, E.On, BP, RBS, MoD and the army. The fair also fea­tured some stu­dent activists and Grim Reapers who had made an appear­ance in order to remind fel­low stu­dents of the dead­ly con­se­quences of work­ing in the arms trade or cli­mate change indus­try.

AISEC claim to be ‘the inter­na­tion­al plat­form for young peo­ple to dis­cov­er and devel­op their poten­tial so as to have a pos­i­tive impact on soci­ety.’ The organ­i­sa­tion also claims to envi­sion “Peace and ful­fill­ment of humankind’s poten­tial.” Despite this, at Not­ting­ham, the organ­i­sa­tions’ main endeav­or appears to be to give a plat­form to arms deal­ers! For more see: http://www.aiesec.org/

Con­cerned about the pres­ence of such uneth­i­cal cor­po­rate enti­ties and the glar­ing hypocrisy of AISEC, a group of stu­dents came togeth­er with the aim of rais­ing aware­ness of the uneth­i­cal nature of many of the com­pa­nies at the fair and oppose the gen­er­al pres­ence of mech­a­nisms of the cap­i­tal­ist death machine.
BAE systems leafletCareers fair ethics - your choice leafletRolls Royce leaflet
The morn­ing began with flier­ing at var­i­ous stalls, col­lect­ing of shiny cor­po­rate merch, and using up the rep­re­sen­ta­tives time. Not­ting­ham Uni­ver­si­ty Secu­ri­ty were being their usu­al oppres­sive selves and tried to pre­vent the stu­dents from flier­ing near the glossy cor­po­rate stalls. Threats of call­ing the police were also issued. The stu­dents also had a per­ma­nent stall next to the army (cour­tesy of One World Week) from which alter­na­tive infor­ma­tion about com­pa­nies, per­son­al dis­cus­sion and careers guides could be dis­sem­i­nat­ed. When the army rep left his stall, a cou­ple of stu­dents kind­ly stepped in to fill his role and invite stu­dents to ‘join the impe­r­i­al death machine’.

In the after­noon four Grim Reapers appeared and went to pay a vis­it to the stalls of BAE and Rolls-Royce, much to the amuse­ment of passers-by and bewil­der­ment of cor­po­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, a rather unam­bigu­ous ban­ner was dropped in the main access stair­well of the build­ing read­ing ‘BAE KILL’. The four reapers loi­tered at BAE and Rolls-Royces stalls for an hour or so hand­ing our fliers and chat­ting to stu­dents and reps, before doing a mini-tour of oth­er dubi­ous cor­po­rate out­fits in Port­land Build­ing (E.On, BP, Qine­tiq). Uni­ver­si­ty Secu­ri­ty react­ed ini­tial­ly with ‘you lot have to leave or we’ll call the police’, one BAE rep inter­vened to assure secu­ri­ty “it’s cool, they’re Ok”. Secu­ri­ty lat­er changed their line to ‘please take off your masks it’s caus­ing intim­i­da­tion’, and final­ly, meek­ly asked ‘can you please stop film­ing’, before even­tu­al­ly leav­ing the stu­dents to do their thing. A com­bi­na­tion of knowl­edge about basic rights and the fact that they were armed with a video cam­era suc­cess­ful­ly pro­tect­ed the pro­test­ers from any sil­ly games that secu­ri­ty may have wished to play. Thank­ful­ly, this time, free­dom of expres­sion and the right to protest pre­vailed.

Some inter­est­ing dis­cus­sions were had with some of the rep­re­sen­ta­tives. One BAE rep was heard to pro­claim ‘Free Pales­tine’, despite work­ing for a com­pa­ny that has pro­vid­ed parts for Israeli mil­i­tary equip­ment (notably elec­tron­ics for the F‑16 fight­er air­craft) and also sub­con­tract­ed work to Israel. The same rep also con­fessed feel­ing slight­ly guilty about work­ing for BAE, despite being at the Careers fair pre­cise­ly with the pur­pose of try­ing to con­vince oth­ers to do the same thing! A Qine­tiq rep­re­sen­ta­tive admit­ted that he felt the stu­dent pro­test­ers were doing a good thing, and was ulti­mate­ly some­what envi­ous of the pas­sion they clear­ly had for this issue. He also sug­gest­ed that the stu­dent s should be tar­get­ing Air­bus and the MoD addi­tion­al­ly.

An event­ful time was had by all, espe­cial­ly BAE’s reps! E.ON were the only com­pa­ny to active­ly com­plain about the stu­dent protests (as far as we know), the moody gits! Clear­ly var­i­ous ted­dies were thrown out of var­i­ous pow­er-sta­tions. On Tues­day, the sec­ond day of the fair, the vast major­i­ty of the REALLY immoral com­pa­nies were not present.

For an awe­some video of the action see: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VfJ8geHkaRk