Category: Action Reports

Hundreds of Brazilian Indians set up protest camp in capital

14 May 2011
Over 700 Brazil­ian Indi­ans from more than 230 tribes set up camp last week in the country’s cap­i­tal city, Brasília, to urge the gov­ern­ment to respect their rights.

14 May 2011
Over 700 Brazil­ian Indi­ans from more than 230 tribes set up camp last week in the country’s cap­i­tal city, Brasília, to urge the gov­ern­ment to respect their rights.

Out­raged by the advance of large scale infra­struc­ture projects which threat­en to dev­as­tate their land, the Indi­ans marched, chant­ed and debat­ed in the streets, call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to act fast to pre­vent this destruc­tion.

The Madeira dams, cur­rent­ly being built in the Ama­zon, are putting immense pres­sure on uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans’ lands as migrants are arriv­ing in the area and defor­esta­tion is increas­ing. The uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans rely on their for­est to sur­vive and any form of con­tact with out­siders could be fatal for them.

The Belo Monte dam planned for the Xin­gu riv­er in the Ama­zon threat­ens the liveli­hoods of thou­sands of trib­al peo­ple, who have not giv­en their con­sent for the dam to be built.

The pro­tes­tors stat­ed in an open let­ter, ‘We will not allow our Moth­er Earth, which we have been pre­serv­ing for mil­len­nia and which con­tributes to the social and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our coun­try and of the world, to be torn away from us yet again, or destroyed irra­tional­ly’.

Last month, the Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights called on the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to sus­pend the Belo Monte project, but Brazil’s Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff has refused to do so, and ordered an imme­di­ate break in the country’s rela­tion­ship with the Com­mis­sion.

Guarani Indi­ans at the camp warned that the gov­ern­ment is pro­ceed­ing extreme­ly slow­ly with its pro­gram to map out the tribe’s ances­tral land, and that mean­while, thou­sands of Guarani are liv­ing in over­crowd­ed reserves or on the sides of main roads.

The cur­rent boom in sug­ar­cane and ethanol pro­duc­tion is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to the Guarani, some of whom have seen their lands tak­en over by sug­ar­cane plan­ta­tions.

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing on ener­gy giant Shell and its joint ven­ture part­ner in Brazil, Cosan, to stop using sug­ar­cane plant­ed on the Guarani’s ances­tral land to pro­duce ethanol.

Patagonian Hydroelectric Project Approval Spurs Protests in Chile

10 May 2011
Chile approved a hydro­elec­tric project that would flood Patag­on­ian val­leys and become the coun­try’s biggest pow­er gen­er­a­tor, spark­ing vio­lent protests and more than a hun­dred arrests.

10 May 2011
Chile approved a hydro­elec­tric project that would flood Patag­on­ian val­leys and become the coun­try’s biggest pow­er gen­er­a­tor, spark­ing vio­lent protests and more than a hun­dred arrests.

Police fired water can­nons and tear gas at demon­stra­tors out­side the build­ing in the city of Coy­haique where 11 of the 12 mem­bers of an envi­ron­ment com­mis­sion vot­ed in favor of the HidroAy­sen project that San­ti­a­go-based Empre­sa Nacional de Elec­t­ri­ci­dad SA and Col­bun SA (COLBUN) want to build.

HidroAy­sen’s five dams would flood near­ly 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) of land and require a 1,900 kilo­me­ter (1,180 mile) trans­mis­sion line to feed the cen­tral grid that sup­plies San­ti­a­go and sur­round­ing cities as well as cop­per mines owned by Codel­co and Anglo Amer­i­can Plc. The gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Sebas­t­ian Pin­era says Chile needs more hydro­elec­tric and coal- fired plants to meet demand that will dou­ble in the next decade and reduce pow­er costs that are the high­est in the region.

“We have to get that ener­gy some­where, inde­pen­dent of what the project is, because ener­gy today is twice as expen­sive as in oth­er Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries,” Ena Von Baer, the gov­ern­men­t’s spokes­woman, told reporters yes­ter­day in San­ti­a­go. “We want to be a devel­oped coun­try and to do that we need ener­gy, espe­cial­ly cheap ener­gy for the poor.”

Street March

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers blocked the entrance to the room where the gov­ern­men­t’s region­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pilar Cuevas and oth­er offi­cials sat after yes­ter­day’s meet­ing in Coy­haique. A police offi­cer and at least one oth­er per­son were injured by stones thrown by demon­stra­tors, while more than 20 peo­ple were arrest­ed dur­ing clash­es with police involv­ing tear gas and water can­nons, region­al gov­er­nor Nestor Mera told reporters yes­ter­day.

More than 120 were arrest­ed last night in protests around the coun­try, news­pa­per La Ter­cera report­ed. About 1,500 peo­ple gath­ered in a plaza in cen­tral San­ti­a­go before march­ing to the pres­i­den­tial palace, the news­pa­per report­ed. Police dis­persed pro­test­ers who tried to block traf­fic in the down­town area.

—–

The results of the vote give the go-ahead to HidroAysén, a dam project run by the Ital­ian group Ende­sa and its minor­i­ty hold­ing group the Chilean cor­po­ra­tion Col­bún, which holds a 49% stake in the project. The pro­posed series of dams would affect the Bak­er riv­er, the most most volu­mi­nous in Chile, which attracts eco­tourists, rafters and fish­er­men, and is an impor­tant eco­log­i­cal fea­ture of the region. Project oppo­nents say the project will bad­ly impact 6 nation­al parks, 11 nation­al reserves, 12 impor­tant con­ser­va­tion sites, 16 wet­lands and 32 pri­vate­ly-held pro­tect­ed areas. Mean­while, pro­po­nents of the project project con­struc­tion jobs and elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion of 2.750 megawatts.

The orga­ni­za­tion Patag­o­nia Sin Repre­sas (Patag­o­nia With­out Dams) planned a peace­ful protest in the wake of the approval, to take place at Plaza Italia, Santiago’s ground zero for demon­stra­tions at 7:00 PM tonight. Thou­sands of peo­ple joined togeth­er, chant­i­ng (among oth­er slo­gans), Piñera, entiende, Patag­o­nia no se vende (Piñera (pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic), under­stand, Patag­o­nia is not for sale). Pro­test­ers held signs with mes­sages oppos­ing the project, includ­ing one writ­ten in Eng­lish, shown below par­tial­ly sup­port­ed with a kayak pad­dle. When asked why their sign was in Eng­lish, the pro­test­ers said it was for the inter­na­tion­al media.

The police then drove four bus­es along the curve of the street to block the pro­test­ers and their signs from view by the com­mut­ing pub­lic dri­ving and walk­ing east up Aveni­da Prov­i­den­cia, the street on which thou­sands of com­muters trav­el home each week­day night.

At approx­i­mate­ly 7:30 PM, the pro­test­ers attempt­ed to cross the street from Plaza Italia and take over one direc­tion of the Alame­da (the main street which leads down towards the city cen­tre), at which point the police shot water from water can­nons at the pro­test­ers and began to release tear gas into the crowd. Many pro­test­ers scat­tered, and sev­er­al off­shoot groups tried to make their way down to the Mon­e­da (the pres­i­den­tial palace) where ten­sions increased between the pro­test­ers and the police, and local news report­ed that 600 pro­test­ers arrived and lat­er set sev­er­al bar­ri­cades aflame. As of approx­i­mate­ly 10:00 PM a heli­copter with a search beam could be seen over­fly­ing the Mon­e­da and near­by streets.

Sim­i­lar protests were planned in oth­er cities through­out the length of Chile.

2010 protest

Sarawak: Bidayuh villagers set fire to logging camps, machinery

May 9, 2011
Res­i­dents from 10 Bidayuh vil­lagers this week set fire to five log­ging camps and thir­teen heavy machines in a stark protest against log­ging activ­i­ties on their land, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

May 9, 2011
Res­i­dents from 10 Bidayuh vil­lagers this week set fire to five log­ging camps and thir­teen heavy machines in a stark protest against log­ging activ­i­ties on their land, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

As report­ed by Free Malaysia Today, the Bidayuh vil­lagers took mat­ters into their own hands because of the gov­ern­ments refusal to address their com­plaints about log­ging activ­i­ties with­in their Native Cus­tom­ary Rights (NCR) land.

One vil­lage leader, who did not wish to be iden­ti­fied, explained to reporters that, “We have made sev­er­al reports to the author­i­ties and yet the log­ging activ­i­ties still continue[d],” adding that crops, fruit trees and land had already been destroyed by the activ­i­ties.

He also said that they warned the work­ers to stop what they were doing, but the work­ers ignored them, much like the gov­ern­ment. “We gave them ample time, and when they failed to adhere to our warn­ing, we have to take action,” he said.

Short­ly after the fire, an unnamed vil­lager was quot­ed as say­ing, “They have test­ed our patience and we just can­not take it any­more. We have lodged sev­er­al reports and com­plaints to the author­i­ties, but the log­ging activ­i­ties con­tin­ued. We are fed up. Our rights have been encroached, our crops destroyed.”

Dr. Christo­pher Kiyui of the Peo­ple’s Jus­tice Par­ty (PKR), who lost to Manyin in Sarawak’s recent elec­tion, told Radio Free Sarawak that 500 vil­lagers had “burnt 13 Cater­pil­lar and trac­tor machines and some lor­ries, around 10 in the morn­ing [of May 9th, 2011]. About 50 peo­ple came from each vil­lage.”

For­tu­nate­ly, no one was injured dur­ing the agi­ta­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, no arrests have been made; how­ev­er the police did step in sev­er­al hours after the fires began. They just could­n’t do any­thing because they were so out­num­bered.

Lead­ing up to May 9th, the Bidayuh were already busy block­ing the access road used by the work­ers to defend their land. Local assem­bly rep­re­sen­ta­tive and state Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Michael Manyin Jawong had also incensed the Bidayuh when he claimed that the pro­test­ers were mere­ly a group of “trou­ble mak­ers” who were “caus­ing a ruckus” to get some mon­ey from the log­ging com­pa­ny.

A spokesper­son for the com­mu­ni­ties said that Manyin was lying. The vil­lagers reject­ed the com­pa­ny’s intru­sion, he said, because “our NCR land and our jun­gle… are our ances­tral prop­er­ties.” Prop­er­ties that the Bidayuh clear­ly want to pro­tect.

Agi­ta­tions such as these are few and far in between, but have occurred in oth­er parts of the world. In 2009, for instance, the Maya report­ed­ly burned equip­ment at a gold mine in Guatemala; and the Lep­cha took action against the Panan hydel pow­er project in Sikkim, India. Sim­i­lar­ly, in 2008, the Enawene Nawe com­plete­ly lev­elled a hydro dam con­struc­tion site in Brazil.

Gov­ern­ments and Indus­try spokesper­sons tried to dis­miss these actions as mere van­dal­ism, as if Indige­nous Peo­ples have noth­ing bet­ter to do than trash pri­vate prop­er­ty. But the fact is, with more than 5,000 indus­tri­al projects tak­ing place on Indige­nous lands around the world, it’s no won­der it does­n’t hap­pen more often.

Espe­cial­ly since the stakes are so high. Com­pa­nies may offer a few short term jobs and maybe even free bub­ble gum for the kids, but Indige­nous peo­ple face the deple­tion of their water sup­ply, the destruc­tion of their food sources, the loss of their cul­tur­al prop­er­ty and the over­all dev­as­ta­tion of their home­lands.

The bur­den is sim­ply too great for any­one to car­ry.

In the spirit of Gerrard Winstanley; a shout out for help from a neighbouring allotment group. Are you free on Saturday?

On St. George’s Day, Sat­ur­day 23rd April, 2011 we start­ed a Green rev­o­lu­tion in Ash­ton-under-lyne, Tame­side, in the tra­di­tion of Eng­lish rad­i­cal group The dig­gers who dur­ing the peri­od of the Eng­lish Com­mon­wealth, in 1649 reclaimed the com­mon land of St. George’s Hill from the Lords of the Manor by dig­ging and cul­ti­vat­ing it.

On St. George’s Day, Sat­ur­day 23rd April, 2011 we start­ed a Green rev­o­lu­tion in Ash­ton-under-lyne, Tame­side, in the tra­di­tion of Eng­lish rad­i­cal group The dig­gers who dur­ing the peri­od of the Eng­lish Com­mon­wealth, in 1649 reclaimed the com­mon land of St. George’s Hill from the Lords of the Manor by dig­ging and cul­ti­vat­ing it.

After years of delay by Tame­side Coun­cil prospec­tive allot­ment hold­ers in Ash­ton have now organ­ised our­selves to take over con­trol of the land on Ash­ton Moss that had been allo­cat­ed for the replace­ment allot­ments, sup­port­ed by sym­pa­thet­ic
vol­un­teers we came togeth­er in a day of action to reclaim the allot­ments from Cord­ing­leys who have neglect­ed and mis­man­aged the land.

Back­ground

In 1996 at the time of the devel­op­ment of the M60 Motor­way, Ash­ton Moss allot­ment sites were tak­en out of use and the land was giv­en by Tame­side Coun­cil to local estate Agents, Cord­ing­leys, to devel­op for busi­ness and leisure use, the con­tract includ­ed pro­vid­ing alter­na­tive allot­ment sites

Peo­ple on the Coun­cil’s allot­ment wait­ing list who were promised plots on the site are still wait­ing, although the allot­ment site was
devel­oped by Cord­ing­leys over 7 years ago, we have now been told that the site is not due to be hand­ed over in the near future.

Ash­ton Allot­ment Action now intend to take direct action to start
cul­ti­vat­ing the allot­ments as a mat­ter of urgency. Because the land has not been cul­ti­vat­ed, since it was devel­oped it has now become over­run with weeds, prin­ci­pal­ly Soft Rush which needs to be cleared before we can start grow­ing fruit and veg­eta­bles. We intend to clear the weeds from a part of the site and to the plant seeds or seedlings.

Reg­u­lar Sat­ur­day Action days

We invit­ing every­one to come along to our action days and help us, every Sat­ur­day from 10.00 am

Please come along and sup­port our action days, come when you want and stay as long as you want, please bring your own hand tools, food and drink

The allot­ments are locat­ed on Moss Lane, which is a rough track
run­ning from a junc­tion of Lord Shel­don Way, left turn from
Droylsden/Manchester, right turn from Ash­ton.

If you are com­ing by car, it could be advis­able to park at the leisure park and walk over the round­about and motor­way bridge, where you will find a foot­path lead­ing to the allot­ments

Ash­ton Moss Allot­ment site co-ordi­nates
OS X (East­ings) 392221
OS Y (Nor­things) 399178
Near­est Post Code OL7 9LA
Lat (WGS84) N53:29:21 (53.489254)
Long (WGS84) W2:07:07 (-2.118708)

Please view our video of the 23/04/11 Action day http://you.tube/8X0qjO_UxkQ

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and direc­tions con­tact Nigel 07709056079

For his­to­ry buffs, the Dig­gers’ pam­phlet online:
http://www.bilderberg.org/land/poor.htm

http://ashtonallotmentaction.wordpress.com/

Indigenous People and Supporters Occupy Sacred Land at Glen Cove

On April 15, 2011, approx­i­mate­ly 150 Indige­nous Peo­ple and sup­port­ers occu­pied the ancient bur­ial site at Glen Cove, Valle­jo, Cal­i­for­nia, block­ing the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict (

On April 15, 2011, approx­i­mate­ly 150 Indige­nous Peo­ple and sup­port­ers occu­pied the ancient bur­ial site at Glen Cove, Valle­jo, Cal­i­for­nia, block­ing the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict (GVRD) from gain­ing entry to the site with bull­doz­ers to begin work on their new pub­lic park. The GVRD’s plans, which involves grad­ing a hill and build­ing toi­lets and a park­ing lot in the area, would deface the land­scape and des­e­crate the sacred site.

Indige­nous Peo­ple at the protest, includ­ing Mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment (AIM), have said they will remain at the site until the GVRD and the City of Valle­jo agree to not car­ry out their plans.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has report­ed­ly stepped in to medi­ate talks between the Indige­nous Peo­ple and the park dis­trict.

See Below for a Press Release from Sacred Site Pro­tec­tion & Rights of Indige­nous Tribes (SSP&RIT).

Media Con­tacts: Mark Anquoe (415) 680 0110; Morn­ing Star Gali (510) 827 6719; Nor­man “Wound­ed Knee” Deo­cam­po 707–373-7195; Cor­ri­na Gould 510–575-8408.

Please Urge the GRVD and the City of Valle­jo to respect the Ohlone Peo­ples wish­es of pre­serv­ing Sogorea Te. They do not have to des­e­crate the site. They are choos­ing to des­e­crate it.

Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict
707–648-4600
Shane McAf­fee, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er
395 Amador St.
Valle­jo, CA 94590
E‑mail: smcaffee@gvrd.org

Osby Davis, City of Valle­jo May­or
707–648-4377
555 San­ta Clara St

Valle­jo, CA 94590
E‑mail: mayor@ci.vallejo.ca.us

Cur­rent requests from the group: shade struc­tures, tents, paper tow­els, banner/sign mak­ing sup­plies, rope, moist hand wipes, Bron­ners soap, hon­ey, and most of all, more peo­ple to stand with us. We do not need any more bot­tled water!

An Emer­gency Defense Fund has also been set up to sus­tain the ongo­ing effort.

To send a mes­sage to the group, just leave a com­ment on any of the arti­cles at http://protectglencove.org.

Direc­tions: If you’re in the Bay Area, you are invit­ed to stop by for a few hours, or a few days. Direc­tions to Glen Cove can be found here.

April 15th: Occupation underway, demonstrations at City Hall and GVRD Headquarters

Native Amer­i­cans and sup­port­ers have suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied the ancient bur­ial site at Glen Cove, Valle­jo, pre­vent­ing the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict from begin­ning work that would des­e­crate the sacred site. Begin­ning with an ear­ly morn­ing spir­i­tu­al cer­e­mo­ny attend­ed by over 100 peo­ple, pro­test­ers vowed to block bull­doz­ers and pre­vent any work that would des­e­crate the site from tak­ing place. The occu­pa­tion will con­tin­ue until there is an agree­ment to pro­tect the bur­ial site. Dozens will camp at the site tonight.

At 11:30 am today the pro­test­ers held a peace­ful ral­ly and cer­e­mo­ny at Valle­jo City Hall and then marched to the offices of the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict.

Last night the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Jus­tice sent a senior con­cil­i­a­tion spe­cial­ist to Glen Cove to meet with Native Amer­i­can lead­ers. The Native Amer­i­cans asked the DOJ to help facil­i­tate a meet­ing with the GVRD to try to reach an agree­ment to pro­tect the sacred bur­ial site. It is pos­si­ble a meet­ing between the sides, medi­at­ed by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, may occur Mon­day. The State Attor­ney General’s office has also become involved after the orga­ni­za­tion SSP&RIT filed an admin­is­tra­tive civ­il rights com­plaint against the City and GVRD on Wednes­day.

Native Amer­i­can activists and sup­port­ers have begun the occu­pa­tion of Glen Cove as an esca­la­tion of their strug­gle that has been going on for over a decade, since the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict (GVRD) first pro­posed plans for a “ful­ly fea­tured pub­lic park” includ­ing con­struc­tion of a paved park­ing lot, paved hik­ing trails, 1000 pound pic­nic tables and a pub­lic restroom on top of the 3500 year old bur­ial site.

On Wednes­day, April 13th, Sacred Site Pro­tec­tion and Rights of Indige­nous Tribes (SSP&RIT), a Valle­jo-based com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tion, filed an admin­is­tra­tive civ­il rights com­plaint to the State of Cal­i­for­nia alleg­ing that the City and GVRD are dis­crim­i­nat­ing on the basis of race in threat­en­ing to destroy and des­e­crate sig­nif­i­cant parts of the Glen Cove Shell­mound and bur­ial site, for harm­ing Native Amer­i­cans’ reli­gious and spir­i­tu­al well-being, and effec­tive­ly exclud­ing Native Amer­i­cans from their right to full par­tic­i­pa­tion in deci­sion-mak­ing regard­ing the site.

The his­to­ry and cul­tur­al val­ue of the site has nev­er been dis­put­ed. Human remains have been con­sis­tent­ly unearthed as the area around the site has been devel­oped. Native Amer­i­cans con­tin­ue to hold cer­e­monies at Sogorea Te just as they have for thou­sands of years. The Glen Cove Shell Mound spans fif­teen acres along the Car­quinez Strait. It is the final rest­ing place of many Indige­nous Peo­ple dat­ing back more than 3,500 years, and has served as a tra­di­tion­al meet­ing place for dozens of Cal­i­for­nia Indi­an tribes. The site con­tin­ues to be spir­i­tu­al­ly impor­tant to Cal­i­for­nia tribes. The Glen Cove site is acknowl­edged by GVRD and the City to have many buri­als and to be an impor­tant cul­tur­al site, yet they are mov­ing for­ward as ear­ly as Fri­day with plans to build a toi­let and park­ing lot on this sacred site and to grade a hill that like­ly con­tains human remains and impor­tant cul­tur­al arti­facts.

SSP&RIT have asked GVRD to recon­sid­er their plans to grade the hill and build toi­lets and a park­ing lot at the site.

Video of trip there

anti-GM action at Tesco Belfast

Gath­er­ing Momen­tum for the fight against biotech in our food chain

Tesco Metro, on Belfast?s Roy­al Avenue, had its labelling improved by anti-GM pro­tes­tors on Sat­ur­day morn­ing (23rd April). The addi­tion­al labels warned con­sumers about the poten­tial Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied con­tent of meat and dairy prod­ucts in store.

Gath­er­ing Momen­tum for the fight against biotech in our food chain

Tesco Metro, on Belfast?s Roy­al Avenue, had its labelling improved by anti-GM pro­tes­tors on Sat­ur­day morn­ing (23rd April). The addi­tion­al labels warned con­sumers about the poten­tial Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied con­tent of meat and dairy prod­ucts in store.

GM pro­duce has been thor­ough­ly reject­ed by the gen­er­al pub­lic — how­ev­er, it is still enter­ing our food chain and being sold in shops across the UK. Dairy and meat prod­ucts on our shelves today have been pro­duced using GM ani­mal feeds. There are no mea­sures in place to trace these prod­ucts, there is no labelling to warn con­sumers — none!

The pro­tes­tors sur­rep­ti­tious­ly stick­ered dozens of meat and dairy
prod­ucts, then (less sur­rep­ti­tious­ly) donned white bio-haz­ard suits, hand­ed out leaflets and talked to shop­pers in the aisles. This riled the some­what irk­some secu­ri­ty guard, who helped the pro­tes­tors safe­ly find their way to the exits. (Per­haps he was a lit­tle tetchy fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful fire-bomb­ing of a Tesco Metro in Bris­tol on Thurs­day night??).

This sim­ple and easy protest action reminds us that the GM issue has not gone away. Mon­san­to and oth­er agri-busi­ness cor­po­ra­tions want to own our stom­achs. We need to be aware of which food prod­ucts are made using Genet­ic Mod­i­fi­ca­tion so that we can avoid them ? with no leg­is­la­tion to warn of GM ani­mal feeds, we are vul­ner­a­ble to con­sum­ing food that is poten­tial­ly (seri­ous­ly) harm­ful.

See also http://www.stopgm.org.uk

Tesco anti-GM action

16.4.11
We had a suc­cess­ful Anti-GM action this past week­end (the first in Lon­don in a long time).

16.4.11
We had a suc­cess­ful Anti-GM action this past week­end (the first in Lon­don in a long time).

Regard­ing GM ani­mal feed Tesco has said (2010) “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, because of the vast amount of prod­ucts we sell, and the turn around on them, we do not have a spe­cif­ic list of prod­ucts that come from ani­mals that have not been fed on GM feed.” So basi­cal­ly, any stuff that’s not organ­ic could be GM. Let’s go and tell the cus­tomers!

We went into a TESCO in Hack­ney and put stick­ers on all the meat and dairy. The stick­ers said said “Tesco can­not guar­an­tee you that this meat or dairy prod­uct is GM free.

For more infor­ma­tion on genet­ic mod­i­fi­ca­tion in ani­mal feed see www.stopgm.org.uk”. We then got dressed in white suits in the store that said “bio­haz­ard” and passed out infor­ma­tion to cus­tomers about ani­mal feed. We also went after GM oil (KTC brand) with stick­ers. Big jugs of it are sold for chip­pies and small restau­rants. We wan­dered around the store dressed like out­er space hand­ing out leaflets for a half an hour before the secu­ri­ty final­ly asked us to leave. We then set up a table out­side and con­tin­ued to pass out infor­ma­tion.

It was all sur­pris­ing­ly easy. If any­one wants a copy of the stick­ers we can send them on to you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/geneticmodification/8393880/Shoppers-kept-in-dark-over-GM-ingredients.html

More pho­tos and video at http://ungm.posterous.com/

MACHINERY SABOTAGED TO PROTECT WILD LAND, ITALY

anony­mous report, from finoallafine.info (trans­la­tion):

anony­mous report, from finoallafine.info (trans­la­tion):

“Tired of see­ing the Earth destroyed, we decid­ed to act. In the night between April 6 and 7 we entered one of the many con­struc­tion sites in Rome, a city raped by the cement and spec­u­la­tive build­ing that the big man­u­fac­tur­ers, with the com­plic­i­ty of the lit­tle fas­cist may­or Ale­man­no, that are destroy­ing any space that is still wild to con­struct depart­ment stores, malls and park­ing lots. In this case the work involves the destruc­tion of a very large thick­et, with the result­ing dev­as­ta­tion of the habi­tat of many ani­mals, birds, insects and mam­mals. We approached the sev­en machines (bull­doz­ers and oth­ers) that were present; with wire cut­ters we cut oil tubes, cables and wires, and then we poured grav­el and sug­ar in the tanks and we dis­ap­peared leav­ing a writ­ten claim.

This action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all who every­where and at all times strug­gle against speciesism, anthro­pocen­trism and exploita­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the defend­ers of the Russ­ian forests of Khim­ki and Bitcevs­ki.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty also with all ani­mal-eco­log­i­cal pris­on­ers, begin­ning with Wal­ter Bond. For ani­mal lib­er­a­tion, for the lib­er­a­tion of the Earth!”

BP and Culture – time to break it off!

A week of action to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces
14–20 April 2011

A week of action to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces
14–20 April 2011

In the week between BP’s AGM and the one-year anniver­sary of the Gulf of Mex­i­co oil spill, we are call­ing for actions and cre­ative inter­ven­tions to show the true nature of BP’s dam­ag­ing activ­i­ties around the world, and to per­suade our most pres­ti­gious gal­leries and cul­tur­al spaces to lib­er­ate them­selves from BP’s dirty mon­ey.

Spon­sor­ship of gal­leries, muse­ums and oth­er cul­tur­al spaces is one of the most impor­tant ways BP tries to pro­tect its rep­u­ta­tion and buy our accep­tance. By break­ing off BP’s rela­tion­ship with our most pres­ti­gious cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, we strike a blow to BP’s pre­cious brand, top­ple BP’s pow­er­ful posi­tion in our soci­ety, and reclaim our pub­lic spaces. On the anniver­sary of the Gulf spill, let’s reveal the sticky black stuff behind BP’s shiny green logo, and pile on the pres­sure to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces for good.

Cre­ative inter­ven­tions will be pop­ping up at spon­sored gal­leries and insti­tu­tions through­out the week, so watch this space, or bet­ter yet plan your own!

This week of action is called by Art Not Oil, Cli­mate Camp Lon­don, Cli­mate Rush, Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lon­don Ris­ing Tide and UK Tar Sands Net­work

More info includ­ing events list, tar­gets and resources:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction
Face­book event: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198819640150485

INCLUDING…
The Great BP-spon­sored sleep-in

Sun­day 17 April 2011, 2PM at Tate Mod­ern, Bank­side, Lon­don, SE1 9TG

To mark the one year anniver­sary of the BP Gulf of Mex­i­co oil spill, join us for ‘The great BP-spon­sored sleep-in’, a 4‑minute flash­mob art instal­la­tion inside Tate Mod­ern. Imag­ine the tur­bine hall of this for­mer pow­er sta­tion filled with BP-brand­ed sleep­ing fig­ures, who will soon wake from their BP-spon­sored coma to sound the cli­mate alarm.

BP’s green­wash is sleep­walk­ing us into the cli­mate cri­sis. BP spon­sors gal­leries like Tate to try and clean up its tar­nished image, and dis­tract us from its dev­as­tat­ing activ­i­ties around the world. Every pound of dirty oil mon­ey accept­ed by Tate helps legit­imise a long lega­cy of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and human rights abus­es. It’s time to take off the blind­fold, rub the spon­sor­ship sleep from our eyes, and give Tate and BP a wake-up call.

This fam­i­ly friend­ly event will high­light BP’s spon­sor­ship to the pub­lic, and show that we are not pre­pared to stand by as the Tate helps BP green­wash its image… and allow us all a few min­utes to dream of a future free from oil spills and oil spon­sor­ship of the arts.

SIX STEPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SPONSORED SLEEP-IN
1. Syn­chro­nise your watch using this web­site:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=136
2. Enter the build­ing before 2PM
3. Choose your sleep-in spot – café, cor­ri­dor, lift, gift shop, and of course exhibits are all fair game, but please pick some­where on Lev­els 1 (tur­bine hall lev­el), 2 or 3 (this is where our cam­era crews will be to film the fun).
4. At exact­ly 2.15PM, unpack your BP brand­ed sheet, pil­low, pyja­mas, sleep mask, ted­dy bear, alarm clock or any oth­er sleep relat­ed props (see here for ideas and down­load­able props:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction/resources) and start the sleep-in!
5. Exact­ly 4 min­utes lat­er, the flash mob will be over as alarm clocks sound the wake-up call through­out the gallery. Take off your spon­sored blind­folds and bed­ding, leave them behind if you wish, and head out­side to…
6. Post-slum­ber par­ty on the South Bank. Lis­ten to speak­ers from BP-affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties from the Gulf of Mex­i­co and the Cana­di­an Tar Sands, help engage gallery-goers with leaflets and vox pop video mes­sages, and enjoy live music and a ped­al-pow­ered sound sys­tem.

So join us on April 17th, and show the Tate that we won’t take oil spon­sor­ship of the arts lying down!

More info: http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction/flashmob
Face­book event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137704989634221

Cut the crap — GM in Germany

1/4/2011

KWS has again plant­ed genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied sug­ar beet H7‑1 in a field, despite vocif­er­ous protests. Today, Fri­day at noon, we unloaded about 16 tonnes of manure in front of the head­quar­ters in Ein­beck, under the slo­gan: “KWS — keep your GM crap.”

1/4/2011

KWS has again plant­ed genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied sug­ar beet H7‑1 in a field, despite vocif­er­ous protests. Today, Fri­day at noon, we unloaded about 16 tonnes of manure in front of the head­quar­ters in Ein­beck, under the slo­gan: “KWS — keep your GM crap.”

Images of the action here!
Video here!
Our press release: here!