Category: Action Reports

Countering the GM come back summer camp

Bring your stove and tent for an anti-GM week­end. Fri 22nd pm: Camp­ing avail­able. Sat 23rd: Deliv­er­ing a trail­er load of organ­ic spuds to the doors of the John Innes Cen­tre in protest at GM pota­to tri­als there. Sun 24th: a day-long plan­ning ses­sion: GM is com­ing back – we’ll be ready. See below for more infor­ma­tion.

Bring your stove and tent for an anti-GM week­end. Fri 22nd pm: Camp­ing avail­able. Sat 23rd: Deliv­er­ing a trail­er load of organ­ic spuds to the doors of the John Innes Cen­tre in protest at GM pota­to tri­als there. Sun 24th: a day-long plan­ning ses­sion: GM is com­ing back – we’ll be ready. See below for more infor­ma­tion.

The Spuds Don’t Work ral­ly, Sat­ur­day 23rd July

British tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied blight resis­tant spuds have been fail­ing for the last ten years. But a con­ven­tion­al­ly bred vari­ety of blight resis­tant pota­to has been avail­able for 3 years. So why are we still pay­ing for this dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment?

Come ride with us on the back of a trail­er load of safe effec­tive spuds as we go to deliv­er them to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry out­side Nor­wich. It’s one of only two pos­si­ble open air tri­als for GM crops in Britain this year. Yet despite being pub­licly fund­ed, it’s so secre­tive no one will even say if it’s been plant­ed. Join us for tunes, chips and good cheer as we go and show them that we have already got the answers they say they’re look­ing for.

Prac­ti­cal details

Meet at the Forum in Nor­wich City Cen­tre at 12 noon for free chips and fun. We will set off from there to the John Innes Research Cen­tre by bike, trac­tor and coach at 1pm. Bring water­proofs and umbrel­las! If you would like to trav­el from town to the John Innes Cen­tre by coach or if you want help find­ing accom­mo­da­tion (camp­ing or oth­er­wise) get in touch as soon as you can, and by Fri­day 15th July at the lat­est. Con­tact info@stopgm.org.uk

Camp­ing

Camp­ing is avail­able at the Nor­folk Show­ground on the 22nd and 23rd July. Camp­ing will be in the Red Car Park (note the Coun­try Music Fes­ti­val is tak­ing part in the main show­ground). There will be access to toi­lets and drink­ing water. Arrive after 4pm on Fri­day 22nd. Red car park is to the east of the Park and Ride.
Bus: you can catch the Costessey Park and Ride to the Park and Ride itself (Mon-Fri). This ser­vice takes 20 mins and runs approx. every 20 mins from the bus sta­tion run­ning via the uni­ver­si­ty. Alter­na­tive­ly catch Kon­nect bus 4 from the bus sta­tion and ask for the Show­ground. This ser­vice runs approx. every 25 min­utes. Bus­es run reg­u­lar­ly between the train and bus sta­tion in Nor­wich.

Coun­ter­ing the GM come back sum­mer camp
Sun­day 24th July, 2011

A day long camp to get pro­duc­tive and plan the next stages of the cam­paign. Camp­ing spaces avail­able from Fri­day after­noon. Come equipped with a stove and food for self-cater­ing. The site is five min­utes from a reg­u­lar bus route to the city cen­tre. Con­tact info@stopgm.org.uk as soon as pos­si­ble and by Fri­day 15th July at the lat­est to let us know you want camp­ing spaces reserved for you.

What we need…
…for both events…

You, and the peo­ple you know, and any­one you think might be inter­est­ed.

This project is being worked on by Stop GM in con­junc­tion with the Genet­ic Engi­neer­ing Net­work. Sev­er­al expe­ri­enced grass­roots cam­paign­ers will be work­ing on the project from now until the event, but we need help get­ting the word out. If you think you could help by dis­trib­ut­ing email infor­ma­tion about the event, drop­ping it about in any social media you may be involved in, let­ting your local grow­ing projects or social jus­tice groups know, dis­trib­ut­ing our ‘Lit­tle Red Trac­tor and the Quest of the GM-free Spuds’ leaflet or even orga­niz­ing a coach to attend from your area, we’d love to hear from you.

For more infor­ma­tion phone 07595 506673 or email info@stopgm.org.uk. Vis­it www.stopgm.org.uk for more back­ground infor­ma­tion on GM and cam­paign­ing against it in gen­er­al.

A tale of two spuds…
For the last 10 years, researchers at the Sains­bury lab­o­ra­to­ry at the John Innes Cen­tre in Nor­wich have spent 1.7 mil­lion pounds of pub­lic mon­ey fail­ing to devel­op a genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­to resis­tant to the fun­gal dis­ease blight. This project is so secre­tive and unac­count­able that the lab­o­ra­to­ry has refused to even con­firm if a tri­al has been plant­ed this sea­son, or if they’ve been forced to aban­don any hopes of mak­ing the tech­nol­o­gy work. Pub­lic rejec­tion of the risks asso­ci­at­ed with eat­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food means that even if the engi­neer­ing involved was suc­cess­ful, there would be no mar­ket for the crop.

Mean­while, 3 years ago a small Welsh research char­i­ty ded­i­cat­ed to con­ven­tion­al breed­ing tech­niques devel­oped a spud that is spec­tac­u­lar­ly resis­tant to blight. Not only does the crop pose no threat to health, the envi­ron­ment, or neigh­bour­ing farm­ers; it works. Over 6 dif­fer­ent vari­eties are now avail­able, and being grown on a com­mer­cial scale.

The ratio­nale

The cam­paign against GM crops ten years ago was so suc­cess­ful that GM almost com­plete­ly van­ished from our fields and super­mar­kets, and many peo­ple have for­got­ten the issues asso­ci­at­ed with the tech­nol­o­gy. But in many oth­er parts of the world peas­ant farm­ers have been des­per­ate­ly fight­ing its spread, and laws are chang­ing in Europe that would make it much eas­i­er for GM to be grown in Britain. Despite pre-elec­tion promis­es to the con­trary the coali­tion claims it intends to be ‘the most pro GM this coun­try has ever seen’.

Let’s call time on an out­mod­ed tech­nol­o­gy that con­tin­ues to waste mon­ey in fail­ing projects, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly threat­en­ing the very sci­ence that’s actu­al­ly pro­duc­ing work­ing alter­na­tives quick­ly and cheap­ly. For too long the biotech com­pa­nies have gone unchal­lenged in their claims that GM can
cre­ate gen­uine­ly use­ful crops when in fact all the sig­nif­i­cant advance­ments in the last decade have come through con­ven­tion­al breed­ing.

With the renewed threat of GM on the hori­zon cam­paign­ers need to get togeth­er again to show the rest of the coun­try (and each oth­er) that we’re still here, and we’ve got an even bet­ter case than ever. This is a chance to take the ini­tia­tive with the media, to tell a sto­ry which explains clear­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly why the pro GM lob­by is wrong. That it’s us, and not the cor­po­ra­tions that have the answers to the food cri­sis.

For more infor­ma­tion please check this brief­ing writ­ten to help peo­ple object to the pro­posed field tri­al of GM http://www.gmfreeze.org/publications/briefings/99/ and how to get hold of the solu­tion www.sarvari-trust.org.

Stop GM
info@stopgm.org.uk
www.stopgm.org.uk

Activists temporarily halt work at Huntington Lane

On Tues­day 5th July activists from the Telford no new coal (aka Defend Hunt­ing­ton Lane) protest site halt­ed ear­ly morn­ing oper­a­tions by storm­ing the open cast mine. Two pro­test­ers dead locked on to heavy plant machin­ery, dis­rupt­ing the destruc­tion caused by them. Activists have been on the site for 15 months and are await­ing evic­tion papers.

On Tues­day 5th July activists from the Telford no new coal (aka Defend Hunt­ing­ton Lane) protest site halt­ed ear­ly morn­ing oper­a­tions by storm­ing the open cast mine. Two pro­test­ers dead locked on to heavy plant machin­ery, dis­rupt­ing the destruc­tion caused by them. Activists have been on the site for 15 months and are await­ing evic­tion papers. The camp is sit­u­at­ed in what would be the road between the cur­rent mine site to anoth­er, and in an area of nat­ur­al beau­ty

https://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/activists-temporarily-halt-work/

More environment protests in Inner Mongolia

Chi­nese Mon­go­lians protest again, herders beat­en-rights group

BEIJING, June 30 (Reuters) – Chi­nese police beat up and detained eth­nic Mon­go­lian herders who protest­ed over the week­end against pol­lu­tion caused by a lead mine, an over­seas rights group said on Thurs­day, in the lat­est unrest to strike China’s remote Inner Mon­go­lia.

Chi­nese Mon­go­lians protest again, herders beat­en-rights group

BEIJING, June 30 (Reuters) – Chi­nese police beat up and detained eth­nic Mon­go­lian herders who protest­ed over the week­end against pol­lu­tion caused by a lead mine, an over­seas rights group said on Thurs­day, in the lat­est unrest to strike China’s remote Inner Mon­go­lia.

The New York-based South­ern Mon­go­lian Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre said the protest was sparked this month in Inner Mongolia’s Bayan­nu­ur after a lead mine expand­ed onto a piece of graz­ing land.

“After repeat­ed­ly peti­tion­ing the (local) gov­ern­ments express­ing their con­cerns regard­ing the dan­ger to their envi­ron­ment and health with no sat­is­fac­to­ry response, on June 24 … frus­trat­ed herders marched to the area of the mine and shut down the mine’s water pump,” the group said in an emailed state­ment.

“On June 25, the (local) gov­ern­ment mobi­lized more than 50 riot police and attacked the pro­test­ers. Many herders were beat­en severe­ly and tak­en away by police. Their health con­di­tion and sta­tus are unknown as of the date of this report,” it added.

An offi­cial reached by tele­phone at the Bayan­nu­ur gov­ern­ment said he had not heard of any protests, and declined fur­ther com­ment. Calls to the lead mine went unan­swered.

Bayan­nu­ur, more than 400 km (300 miles) north­east of Bei­jing, has been home to a lead mine since 1978, accord­ing to the Inner Mon­go­lia gov­ern­ment.

The vast north­ern region of Inner Mon­go­lia was rocked by protests last month sparked by the death of an eth­nic Mon­go­lian herder who was hit and killed by a truck after tak­ing part in protests against pol­lu­tion caused by a coal mine.

Angry eth­nic Mon­go­lians took to the streets across Inner Mon­go­lia demand­ing bet­ter pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment as well as their rights and tra­di­tions.

This month, a court in Inner Mon­go­lia ordered the exe­cu­tion of a man for mur­der­ing the herder.

Bei­jing, ever wor­ried by threats to sta­bil­i­ty, is try­ing to address some of the pro­test­ers’ broad­er con­cerns about the dam­age done by coal min­ing to tra­di­tion­al graz­ing lands.

The author­i­ties have launched a month-long over­haul of the lucra­tive coal min­ing indus­try, vow­ing to clean up or close pol­luters.

Eth­nic Mon­go­lians, who make up less than 20 per­cent of the rough­ly 24 mil­lion pop­u­la­tion of Inner Mon­go­lia, have com­plained that their tra­di­tion­al graz­ing lands have been ruined by min­ing and deser­ti­fi­ca­tion, and that the gov­ern­ment has tried to force them to set­tle in per­ma­nent hous­es.

http://signalfire.org/?p=11963

ITALY : Repression against NO TAV movement & No TAV press conference

4 july 2011

4 july 2011
After a crowd­ed torch­light march on the night between June 26th and 27th, the Free Repub­lic of the Mad­dale­na in Pied­mont was bru­tal­ly assault­ed by a full-scale mil­i­tary oper­a­tion per­formed by around 2000 forces that turned the place into a bat­tle site : tear­gas thrown at eye lev­el, bull­doz­ers and heavy vehi­cles used to evict the camp, water jets against pro­test­ers, beat­ings, tents and equip­ment smashed up. In the near­by town of Venar­ia, a riot police vehi­cle on its way to the site ran over and killed “by mis­take” an elder­ly woman. Demon­stra­tions, pick­ets and sev­er­al oth­er ini­tia­tives were organ­ised all over Italy to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the NO TAV move­ment that for years has been fight­ing against the con­struc­tion of a high speed train line between Turin and Lyon in France. A nation­al demo was called out for today 3rd July, and it’s still going on as I’m writ­ing this. It’s about 8.40pm and it’s dif­fi­cult to have a clear idea of what’s been hap­pen­ing at the Mad­dale­na today, but what is clear is that there have been hun­dreds of peo­ple injured on both sides (but it’s only one side that I care about). Police have been using rub­ber bul­lets and at least one young man is seri­ous­ly injured after being shot in the face. Pro­test­ers have com­pared the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion to the repres­sion in Palestine…check out some of the videos to make your mind up : video 1, video 2,video 3 (and more on the same web­site).

The Val di Susa (Susa Val­ley) has been one of the most impor­tant polit­i­cal cam­paigns of the last few years, organ­is­ing resis­tance and fight­ing to pro­tect the local ter­ri­to­ry and the locals’ health, that gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies would like to sac­ri­fice once more in the name of prof­it. The TAV project (where TAV stands for High Speed Train) is basi­cal­ly a trans­fer of pub­lic mon­ey to a group of pri­vate com­pa­nies unit­ed under the name Impregi­lo – mul­ti­mil­lion­aire com­pa­nies such as FIAT, Benet­ton and oth­ers. After con­struc­tion, these com­pa­nies would be allowed to set up and run their own pri­vate rail ser­vice in com­pe­ti­tion with the State Rail­ways (just in case they didn’t make enough mon­ey already). Despite not being fin­ished yet, the busi­ness enter­prise has already earned its con­trac­tors (all of which are mil­lion­aire busi­ness­men) a very high income.

Sources for this arti­cle : Indy­media Pied­mont and the new Italy Indy­media site. Cool post­card images also found on Indy­media sites – thank you unknown artists !

https://madrid.indymedia.org/node/17884

http://italycalling.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/brief-history-of-the-no-tav-movement/

————–
NO TAV press con­fer­ence – “This is the people’s resis­tance”

In the midst of the riot porn that can be found on the inter­net about the NO TAV protests of Sun­day 3 July – and that I’m not going to post here because a) you can find it any­where and b) you can have too much of it – I’ve found a sto­ry that I think is much more impor­tant. On the Mon­day after the protests, the NO TAV net­work held a press con­fer­ence in Chiomonte. So what?, you might ask. Well, it could’ve been a dis­as­ter. In 2001, after the fero­cious state vio­lence of the G8 sum­mit in Genoa, the Genoa Social Forum made the big mis­take of retreat­ing: instead of stay­ing unit­ed, some groups left the alliance, oth­ers stayed but dis­tanced them­selves from the “bad pro­test­ers” (name­ly the Black Block) and blamed them for the vio­lent reac­tion of the police. The State, the police and the media had won their war: they had want­ed to tear the move­ment apart and they suc­ceed­ed. So, you can imag­ine what a joy it was for me to read the NO TAV net­work state­ments:

“It wasn’t the Black Block, it was just peo­ple, and the major­i­ty of them locals. We came pre­pared with hel­mets and masks after what hap­pened on the 27th June (see my pre­vi­ous arti­cle), but we came with bare hands. After the police start­ed attack­ing us with tear­gas, stones and water jets, we defend­ed our­selves in any way we could. We couldn’t do any­thing else”, declared Mau­r­izio Pic­cione, who opened the con­fer­ence. Anoth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive said “Pop­u­lar resis­tance is our way of doing things. The only accu­sa­tion we will agree with is that we resist­ed against a sit­u­a­tion that wasn’t cre­at­ed by us. The Black Block is being used as a scape­goat, because peo­ple can’t accept the fact that a whole val­ley wants to resist. We must thank the Val­susa res­i­dents for resist­ing, and we’re proud of this”.

The peo­ple’s Resis­tance in the Susa Val­ley

Despite it being a press con­fer­ence, the mar­quee was crowd­ed with about 50 peo­ple, not just rep­re­sen­ta­tives and del­e­gates of the dif­fer­ent groups, but also peo­ple who want­ed to tell their ver­sion of the sto­ry. When a jour­nal­ist of the right wing paper Sec­o­lo XIX asked about the Black Block, a per­son just replied “I was there and I’m not the Black Block”. The jour­nal­ist was chal­lenged and final­ly left the con­fer­ence. Oth­er jour­nal­ists left “in sol­i­dar­i­ty” with their col­league. Gone for­ev­er are those times when jour­nal­ists in Italy (or any oth­er coun­try) would lit­er­al­ly risk their lives to speak The Truth. Now they just mouth the words of those who stuff their mouths with gold.

The Catholic groups in the No TAV alliance crit­i­cised Susa’s local bish­op for clos­ing down the cathe­dral and obey­ing the prefect’s order of keep­ing the priests under him qui­et. A local wine farmer described his by-now dai­ly expe­ri­ence of hav­ing to trav­el into the mil­i­tarised ter­ri­to­ry to get to his vines. Every­one was unit­ed in their rage and out­rage at the lies per­pe­trat­ed by the media, and expressed sol­i­dar­i­ty and sym­pa­thy with the pro­test­ers injured and arrest­ed. At the moment there are 4 peo­ple still in prison – they were going to know today if their arrests would be con­firmed or not, but the meet­ing has been post­poned, so they’re still in. To send them cards and let­ters:

Mar­ta Bifani / Rober­to Nadali­ni / Sal­va­tore Soru / Gian­car­lo Fer­rari
Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale Lorus­so Cutug­no
Via Pianez­za 300
10151 Tori­no
Italy

Looks like there’ll be a protest camp at the end of July and an inter­na­tion­al one in August, so…stay tuned!

Arti­cle based on this text - if you under­stand Ital­ian you can watch some videos of the press con­fer­ence. This is a good web­site in gen­er­al, and it’s got a page with Eng­lish trans­la­tions, so take a look!

Translated by Italy Calling

Stop New Nuclear newsletter no 1, July 2011

Wel­come to Stop New Nuclear’s first newslet­ter. You receive this newslet­ter because you have signed one of the pledges, or you signed up to the newslet­ter. Thank you for this.

We plan to send a newslet­ter to all pledgers and newslet­ter sub­scribers about once a month, and pos­si­bly more fre­quent­ly in the weeks before the block­ade. Feel free to share and dis­trib­ute this newslet­ter.

Wel­come to Stop New Nuclear’s first newslet­ter. You receive this newslet­ter because you have signed one of the pledges, or you signed up to the newslet­ter. Thank you for this.

We plan to send a newslet­ter to all pledgers and newslet­ter sub­scribers about once a month, and pos­si­bly more fre­quent­ly in the weeks before the block­ade. Feel free to share and dis­trib­ute this newslet­ter.

Stop New Nuclear, an alliance of eight anti-nuclear groups com­mit­ted to pre­vent­ing the fur­ther expan­sion of the nuclear pow­er indus­try in the UK was formed in May 2011. The plan for our first action, the blockad­ing of Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion on 3 Octo­ber is pro­gress­ing well, and we already have a site for a camp (not far from Hink­ley Point), and peo­ple work­ing on trans­port and local accom­mo­da­tion for peo­ple who are unable or unwill­ing to camp. There is still a lot to do, but there is also a com­mit­ted team in place around Hink­ley Point work­ing on it.

Since the pub­li­ca­tion of our call-out in late May, we have received about 100 pledges in total, of which more than 30 are blockad­ing pledges. This is a good start, but we need many more. We need to grow. Our vision is to block­ade Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tions with hun­dreds of peo­ple, and we think we can achieve this, if we all work togeth­er. We still have three months.

Please con­tact as many of your friends and rel­a­tives as pos­si­ble and invite them to take part.

News about Hink­ley Point
EDF (Elec­tric­i­ty de France), the own­ers of Hink­ley Point, did put in an appli­ca­tion for pre­lim­i­nary works for its new nuclear pow­er sta­tion in late Novem­ber 2010,involving pre-con­struc­tion activ­i­ty across an area of more than 420 acres stretch­ing from the Sev­ern Estu­ary to the vil­lage of Shur­ton, fill­ing in a beau­ti­ful val­ley and even start­ing exca­va­tion of the pow­er sta­tion foun­da­tions down to a depth of up to 11 metres. It is still pos­si­ble to object to this plan­ning appli­ca­tion. The dead­line for objec­tions has been extend­ed to 28 July 2011. For more infor­ma­tion, go to Stop Hink­ley’s web­site at http://stophinkley.org/Temporary/31Jan2011.htm.

After the gov­ern­ment pub­lished the set of Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments on Ener­gy, includ­ing the one on nuclear pow­er gen­er­a­tion (see http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/consents_planning/nps_en_infra/nps_en_infra.aspx), it is now up to par­lia­ment to approve them. It did not come as a sur­prise that the gov­ern­ment approved eight exist­ing nuclear sites for nuclear new build: Bradwell,Essex; Hartle­pool; Heysham, Lan­cashire; Hink­ley Point, Som­er­set; Old­bury, South Glouces­ter­shire; Sel­l­afield, Cum­bria; Sizewell, Suf­folk; and Wyl­fa in Angle­sey.

EDF announced that it aims to put in an appli­ca­tion for the nuclear pow­er sta­tion at Hink­ley Point to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion in Octo­ber. This shows how impor­tant it is that our block­ade on 3 Octo­ber is big enough to pro­vide a strong sig­nal to gov­ern­ment and EDF that we will not rest until they give up their plans for nuclear new build in this coun­try (and else­where).

Mobil­i­sa­tion
We need your help with the mobil­i­sa­tion for the block­ade. We have already dis­trib­uted near­ly 5,000 copies of the call-out (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10). We have just ordered a sec­ond print-run of 10,000 copies, and we need your help to get them out. Please let us know if you can help dis­trib­ute some, or go to a fes­ti­val this sum­mer where this might be appro­pri­ate, and we will send you as many as you need. If you can con­tribute to the expens­es for postage, that would be great, but more impor­tant is your help in get­ting the mes­sage out.

You can also help us by talk­ing to your local Friends of the Earth, Green­peace, Tran­si­tion Town, Peo­ple & Plan­et or any oth­er group that you think might be open to sup­port the block­ade. Asks them to sign the organ­i­sa­tion­al pledge (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/pledges), or maybe even to organ­ise a group or minibus to go to par­tic­i­pate in the block­ade.

Train­ing
We have teamed up with Seeds for Change and Turn­ing the Tide to pro­vide train­ing for the block­ade. We are in the process of organ­is­ing train­ing days/afternoons/evenings in Bris­tol, York­shire, Wales, Lon­don, and Som­er­set, but this list is open-end­ed. You can help us by organ­is­ing a group and a venue for a train­ing in your area. If you have any ques­tions regard­ing train­ing, please get in touch.

Train­ing dates will be announced on the web­site. So please check back reg­u­lar­ly for updates.

What you can do
The cam­paign and the block­ade become pow­er­ful through your par­tic­i­pa­tion. You can help us by organ­is­ing an affin­i­ty group to take part in the block­ade (or to give sup­port), by mobil­is­ing in your com­mu­ni­ty, by organ­is­ing a train­ing, but also by reach­ing out to your local media about the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er and our cam­paign to stop new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in Britain.

On the week­end before and the day of the block­ade, we will need a lot of prac­ti­cal sup­port. Some of you have already kind­ly indi­cat­ed when you signed the pledge that you can help in var­i­ous ways. Thank you. When you arrive at the week­end camp or at the block­ade your sup­port will be invalu­able. If any­one else wants to help by wav­ing a plac­ard, help­ing with legal sup­port, help­ing out at the tea stall or by pro­vid­ing prac­ti­cal help with camp logis­tics, then just let us know.

Stop New Nuclear in the news
On 15 June, we sent out our first press release (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/24). Since then, we have received more news cov­er­age than expect­ed, thanks part­ly to the gov­ern­men­t’s pub­li­ca­tion of the Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments on Ener­gy, and eight sites for nuclear new build. Stop New Nuclear was men­tioned on the BBC News web­site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13887579), and in local media around Hink­ley Point
(see http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/2011/hinkley-selected-22–06-11.php, http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/somerset_news/9105147.Protesters_plan_Hinkley_Point_blockade/, http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Nuclear-plants-ahead-day-West-changed-forever/story-12826052-detail/story.html).
We also did a few inter­views for local radio. This is an encour­ag­ing start, more than three months before the action. You can check news cov­er­age about Stop New Nuclear at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/inthepress. Let us know if we missed any­thing.

Dona­tions!
We need them. We expect the cam­paign to cost about £10,000, of which we have been able to raise £2,000 until now. This means we need your help to raise the funds need­ed for this cam­paign — to cov­er for the fli­er, the camp logis­tics, trans­port, etc… Every dona­tion is wel­come — no mat­ter how small. Please send your dona­tion to:

Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Cale­don­ian Road
Lon­don N1 9DX

Or donate online at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate

Latest Action Update

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Blockad­ing coal in Bangladesh, cop­per min­ing in Peru, Ital­ian eco­tage against incin­er­a­tion, Greek fire­bombs oppos­ing land­fill, pro-rick­shaw car-smash­ing in India, actions and camp­ing to pro­tect the Tas­man­ian forests, and anti-min­ing trash­ing of many things in Indonesia…just a taste from around the world of how peo­ple cam­paign to stop the destruc­tion of the earth and it’s inhab­i­tants.

More news from the front lines: trav­ellers dig­ging in, mobile phone mast torch­ing, a first time hunt sabber’s diary, the lat­est from the GM ‘anti-lob­by’, and track­ing new devel­op­ments — UK frack­ing, FFS!

Plus with the lat­est advice from AUn­tie Miffy, con­tacts and dates to get you in the mood for Cap­tain Swing, down­load, dis­trib­ute, sub­scribe and get out there, and stuck in.

earthfirst.org.uk/efau
[- to sub­scribe & get the EF!AU as soon as it’s pro­duced, rather than when we put it up here!]

Brutal dawn attack on anti-TAV protest camp, Italy

27/06/2011
At 5am this morn­ing, 2,000 police stormed the protest camps in Val di Susa, north­ern Italy, to try to start work on the High Veloc­i­ty Rail­way (TAV).

27/06/2011
At 5am this morn­ing, 2,000 police stormed the protest camps in Val di Susa, north­ern Italy, to try to start work on the High Veloc­i­ty Rail­way (TAV).

They went in using force and vast amounts of tear gas. Some of the ’No TAV’ pro­test­ers have been injured and their vehi­cles and camp­ing gear smashed up.

The peo­ple in the area have surged onto the roads and the motor­ways are blocked with lor­ries. Work­ers have been com­ing out of their fac­to­ries to join the pro­test­ers and defend them against the police attack. The met­al-mechan­ics’ union, Fiom, has declared an imme­di­ate 8 hour strike in the area in protest and sol­i­dar­i­ty.

…

Near­ly 30 peo­ple were injured on Mon­day when police clashed with demon­stra­tors protest­ing against a planned high-speed rail line run­ning through a scenic val­ley in north­ern Italy, police said.

The clash­es occurred as con­struc­tion work­ers pre­pared to begin work on bor­ing a tun­nel for the line in the Susa Val­ley near Turin.

Police in Turin said 25 offi­cers were injured includ­ing four who were hos­pi­talised, while the four injured demon­stra­tors were treat­ed on site.

Around 2,000 demon­stra­tors took part in the torch­lit pro­ces­sion through the val­ley on Sun­day night.

“A group of oppo­nents began attack­ing the police in a pret­ty vio­lent way around 7:00 am, and the police respond­ed by charg­ing them,” said Mario Vira­no, the gov­ern­ment offi­cial in charge of con­struc­tion of the Lyon-Turin train line.

He described the sit­u­a­tion on the ground as “dif­fi­cult”.

Oppo­nents of the line had already placed obsta­cles on the roads lead­ing to the site and set up sev­er­al camps with the aim of block­ing work on the project, said Vira­no.

Police fired tear­gas to dis­perse the demon­stra­tors and demol­ished the bar­ri­cades with heavy mech­a­nised shov­els, accord­ing to demon­stra­tors and tele­vi­sion footage.

Leader of the demon­stra­tors Alber­to Peri­no said gov­ern­ment gained the upper hand fol­low­ing Mon­day’s scuf­fle.

“We have lost a bat­tle but we haven’t lost the war,” he said.

Work has to start before the end of June if the project is to ben­e­fit from a tranche of Euro­pean sub­ven­tions for the rail link.

Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Rober­to Maroni pledged Sun­day that work on the project would go ahead “before June 30”.

“The project will hap­pen. If that was­n’t the case, we would be say­ing good­bye to hun­dreds of mil­lions in Euro­pean sub­ven­tions, but par­tic­u­lar­ly to con­nec­tions with Europe, and also we would be say­ing good­bye to the future,” he warned.

France and Italy signed a deal in 2001 on build­ing a high-speed line to slash trav­el time between Milan and Paris from sev­en hours to four, and form a strate­gic link in the Euro­pean net­work.

The cost has been esti­mat­ed at 15 bil­lion euros (21 bil­lion dol­lars). But res­i­dents of the Susa Val­ley have fierce­ly opposed the plan, say­ing the con­struc­tion of tun­nels would dam­age the envi­ron­ment.

.…

Back­ground — http://www.ambientevalsusa.it/main_english.htm

Five killed in Peru’s anti-mining clashes

25.6.11
At least five peo­ple have died and more than 30 were injured in clash­es between police and anti-min­ing demon­stra­tors in south­ern Peru, hos­pi­tal offi­cials say.

Vio­lence in the Puno region start­ed when about 1,000 peo­ple were pre­vent­ed from breach­ing a secu­ri­ty fence around the inter­na­tion­al air­port in Juli­a­ca.

25.6.11
At least five peo­ple have died and more than 30 were injured in clash­es between police and anti-min­ing demon­stra­tors in south­ern Peru, hos­pi­tal offi­cials say.

Vio­lence in the Puno region start­ed when about 1,000 peo­ple were pre­vent­ed from breach­ing a secu­ri­ty fence around the inter­na­tion­al air­port in Juli­a­ca.

The protest was part of a two-day strike over a sil­ver-min­ing con­tract giv­en to a Cana­di­an cor­po­ra­tion.

The gov­ern­ment can­celled the project as the protests were going on.

Demon­stra­tors feared that it would increase pol­lu­tion, while bring­ing few ben­e­fits to the local pop­u­la­tion.
Locals v multi­na­tion­als

Flights were can­celled dur­ing the protest, strand­ing hun­dreds of tourists who had been vis­it­ing the town on the shores of the world’s high­est nav­i­ga­ble lake, Lake Tit­i­ca­ca.

The pro­test­ers attempt­ed to storm Juli­a­ca air­port twice.

They lat­er attacked a police sta­tion in the near­by town of Azan­garo, Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Miguel Hidal­go said, adding that police there were in a “dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion”.

The BBC’s Dan Col­lyns in Lima says the Puno region on the bor­der with Bolivia has been in the grip of a gen­er­alised protest against all min­ing activ­i­ty for more than a month.

In May, indige­nous Aymara pro­test­ers blocked roads between the two coun­tries for three weeks.

The dis­putes over nat­ur­al resources pit poor locals against multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies, our cor­re­spon­dent says.

The social con­flicts have come to char­ac­terise the out­go­ing gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia, with crit­ics say­ing he often took the side of the large com­pa­nies, he adds.

Incom­ing Pres­i­dent Ollan­ta Humala also has promised to bring an end to such dis­putes.

Four officials taken hostage by Indian anti-hydro-project villagers

June 22, 2011
Four gov­ern­ment func­tionar­ies asso­ci­at­ed with a mega hydropow­er project in Himachal Pradesh’s Kin­naur dis­trict [India] were tak­en hostage by vil­lagers protest­ing over envi­ron­men­tal issues and released after a day in cap­tiv­i­ty Wednes­day, offi­cials said.

June 22, 2011
Four gov­ern­ment func­tionar­ies asso­ci­at­ed with a mega hydropow­er project in Himachal Pradesh’s Kin­naur dis­trict [India] were tak­en hostage by vil­lagers protest­ing over envi­ron­men­tal issues and released after a day in cap­tiv­i­ty Wednes­day, offi­cials said.

The pro­test­ers were demand­ing accep­tance of their demands by state-run Himachal Pradesh Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­it­ed (HPPCL) exe­cut­ing a mega run-of-the-riv­er hydropow­er project on a Satluj trib­u­tary.

“All the four gov­ern­ment func­tionar­ies, includ­ing three senior offi­cials of the HPPCL who were kept under house arrest by vil­lagers since Tues­day, were released on the HPPCL’s assur­ance that most of their demands would be accept­ed,” Sub-Divi­sion­al Mag­is­trate Naresh Thakur told IANS over phone.

He said the vil­lagers demands includ­ed grant of con­struc­tion con­tracts to locals and steps to pre­vent dete­ri­o­ra­tion of envi­ron­ment.

The project of 130 MW is called Kashang hydropow­er project. It is being made on Kashang rivulet, some 275 km from state cap­i­tal Shim­la, and is being fund­ed by the Asian Devel­op­ment Bank.

HPPCL Gen­er­al Man­ag­er S.P. Gup­ta said the released hostages includ­ed project’s Exec­u­tive Engi­neer C.L. Dhi­man along with a senior research fel­low of the Himachal Pradesh Uni­ver­si­ty. They had been kept in cap­tiv­i­ty at the ‘pan­chay­at ghar’ in Pan­gi vil­lage, the sec­ond largest in the dis­trict with a pop­u­la­tion of over 2,500 peo­ple.

The min­istry of envi­ron­ment and forests has already grant­ed an envi­ron­men­tal clear­ance to the project.

Bilston Glen Protest Site 9th Birthday Party

25 June at 12:00 — 26 June at 23:30
Loca­tion: Bil­ston glen woods, Mid­loth­i­an

25 June at 12:00 — 26 June at 23:30
Loca­tion: Bil­ston glen woods, Mid­loth­i­an

More info
To cel­e­brate the 9th year of resis­tance to the destruc­tive and unnec­es­sary A701 bypass, we at bil­ston glen protest site invite you to 2 days of work­shops and enter­tain­ment, on sat­ur­day 25th and sun­day 26th june there will be work­shops and food through the day and music and mad­ness by night, with punk, acoustic, folk and elec­tro per­form­ers . if you plan on spend­ing the week­end please remem­ber to bring a tent and all your nice friends!

Bands (more t.b.a)

OI Pol­loi
Total Bloody Chaos
T34
X And The Apes
Dad­dy No
Pud­dock Stew
Malakan­dra
Mali­cious Mis­chief
Buff
Over­spill
Per­ma­nent French
Fre­sa’s Mag­ic Per­form­ing Hat 😉
Chris Hay­worth

Any bands wish­ing to per­form please mes­sage us, but please be aware that this event is to try to raise some funds for site so we can­not pay for fuel etc. for bands.

HOW TO FIND US!!!
By bike — from city cen­tre, go down the bridges / nichol­son street towards cameron toll. turn right at cameron toll and take the A701 towards Pen­nicuik & you´ll get to Bil­ston. There is a met­al gate on your left, oppo­site the VW garage and right next to the first bus stop in bil­ston…

by bus — take the 37, 47 or X47 from Edin­burgh (bridges/clerk st/nicholson st) towards Penicuik, get off at the 1st bus stop in Bil­ston oppo­site a VW garage, the met­al gate is right next to the bus stop.…..go through the wee met­al gate & down the path till you come to the bridge & you’ll see us!

by car- Bil­ston is locat­ed on the A701, abot 6 miles south of Edin­burgh city cen­tre, the best place to park is on the bil­ston glen indus­tri­al estate, to get into the ind. est once on the A701 turn onto the A768 towards Loan­head then onto dry­den road, the bil­ston glen indus­r­i­al estate is quite well sign post­ed so it should be easy enough to find

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=168497236548464