Category: Action Reports

Attacks against cars & luxury developments in Germany

Unknown per­sons set on fire two lux­u­ry cars
Berlin, Decem­ber 19th 2008

Burning carBurnt carUnknown per­sons set on fire two lux­u­ry cars
Berlin, Decem­ber 19th 2008

In the night to Fri­day two upper­class cars were put on fire in Berlin. About 1.20 a.m. two peo­ple walk­ing by Elde­naer Strasse saw fire com­ing out of the engine com­part­ment of a mer­cedes. It was severe­ly dam­aged by the flames.

About 20 min­utes lat­er an inhab­i­tant of Horn­strasse reaslized a Chrysler burn­ing. A Golf stand­ing next to was also dam­aged by the heat. In both cas­es the Berlin Fire Brigades extin­guished the flames.

The polit­i­cal police Staatss­chutz took over inves­ti­ga­tions, as a polit­i­cal motive for the arsons can not be exclud­ed. This year already more than 60 cars had been burned in the cap­i­tal, pre­sum­ably for polit­i­cal rea­sons.

—————

Lux­u­ry Con­do-project attacked

Berlin, Decem­ber 19th 2008

In the night to Fri­day a lux­u­ry con­do­mini­um project was attacks with stones and colour bags in Kreuzberg. Some win­dows were smashed, the attack­ers got away unrec­og­nized.

About 20 per­son dressed in dark clothes attacked a lux­u­ry con­do build­ing under con­struc­tion in Kreuzberg withn stones and colour bags in the night to Fri­day. Accord­ing to the police 12 win­dows were bro­ken in the build­ing in Lieg­nitzer Strasse. Then the unknown per­sons ran away to Gör­l­itzer Park. The polit­i­cal police took over inves­ti­ga­tions.

In the Paul-Linke-Yards socalled Carlofts are being build, said the own­er. This means that the flats have their park­ing lot right in front of their door. The cars will be brought to the respec­tive floor by a lift. The con­dos in the scene dis­trict will cost up to 1.6 mil­lion Euro. A demon­stra­tion against increas­ing rents was banned from walk­ing past the object by the police.

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A car and a Dig­ger set on fire
Berlin 16 Dezem­ber 2008

Unknown per­sons have under­tak­en two arson attacks in the ear­ly morn­ing of Tues­day in the dis­trict of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. A taxi dri­ver noticed a car, a lux­u­ri­ous mer­cedes, burn­ing in the Wiener­strasse and called the cops.

Mean­while a Dig­ger got torched in the Kreutziger­strasse in Friedrichshain.

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“Land Rover” set on fire
Berlin 14 Decem­ber 2008

Unknown indi­vid­u­als put a „Land Rover“ on fire today ear­ly in the morn­ing in the dis­trict of Mitte. A taxi dri­ver noticed the car burn­ing on the cor­ner Choriner strassae/Fehrberliner strasse and called the cops. The State secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

—————

„Hum­mer“ burned down

Berlin 8 of Decem­ber

A car got burned ear­ly in the morn­ing in Friedrichshain. Around 0.45 a police patrol noticed the burning“Hummer“ in the Frank­furter Allee.

Since a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion can not be exclud­ed, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

More burn­ing of lux­u­ry cars through­out this autumn in Ger­many, at http://directactionde.blogspot.com/search/label/English, plus anti-mil­i­tarist, anti-fas­cist and Greek sol­i­dar­i­ty actions

Sea Shepherd Clashes With Whaling Fleet in Australian Waters

Decem­ber 26th, 2008
The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ship Steve Irwin closed in on one of the ves­sels of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet at 0730 Hours GMT (1930 Hours Syd­ney Time) on Decem­ber 26th off the coast of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry north of the Maw­son Penin­su­la.

Steve Irwin clashes with Kaiko MaruDecem­ber 26th, 2008
The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ship Steve Irwin closed in on one of the ves­sels of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet at 0730 Hours GMT (1930 Hours Syd­ney Time) on Decem­ber 26th off the coast of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry north of the Maw­son Penin­su­la.

The Kaiko Maru emerged from dense fog in front of the Steve Irwin. The Sea Shep­herd crew pur­sued and deliv­ered 10 bot­tles of rot­ten but­ter and 15 bot­tles of a methyl cel­lu­lose and indeli­ble dye mix­ture.

“That is one stinky slip­pery ship,” said Sea Shep­herd 2nd Offi­cer Peter Ham­marst­edt of Swe­den.

The Japan­ese ship was ordered out of the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of Aus­tralia by Aus­tralian cit­i­zen Jeff Hansen from Perth, West­ern Aus­tralia. The mes­sage was deliv­ered in Japan­ese.

As the Steve Irwin came along­side the star­board side of the Kaiko Maru, the whaler steered hard to star­board and struck the Steve Irwin light­ly crush­ing part of the aft port heli­copter deck guard rails on the Sea Shep­herd ship. There was no seri­ous dam­age to either ship.

The Sea Shep­herd crew’s objec­tive was to intim­i­date the Japan­ese fleet and to keep them mov­ing East­ward out of Aus­tralian Ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. The Sea Shep­herd crew have been pur­su­ing the fleet east­ward for a week. There is only 90 miles left before the fleet enters the New Zealand Zone.

“Our objec­tive now is to chase them out of Aus­trali­a’s Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I have a chart here and it clear­ly states that these waters are Aus­tralian EEZ. There is an Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court Order specif­i­cal­ly pro­hibit­ing these ships from whal­ing in these waters. We have informed the whalers they are in con­tempt of this Court rul­ing.”

There is no doubt that Japan­ese whal­ing in Aus­tralian waters has been severe­ly dis­rupt­ed. Since Sat­ur­day, the Sea Shep­herd crew have chased the Japan­ese fleet for 400 miles through heavy fog, dense ice and nasty weath­er. Dur­ing that time they have not been able to kill any whales.

“We still have them on the run and we intend to keep them on the run for as long as our fuel resources allow,” said Cap­tain Wat­son.

Fight Speciesism! #7 — Out Now

Jan­u­ary issue of the lat­est anti-speciesist, anti-cap­i­tal­ist, abo­li­tion­ist direct action news is out now. Anti­speciesist Action is a col­lec­tive of mil­i­tant anti­speciesists and ani­mal rights activists com­mit­ted to con­fronting ani­mal abuse, suf­fer­ing and exploita­tion of non-human beings through the use of direct action.

Fight Speciesism! #7 - Out Now Jan­u­ary issue of the lat­est anti-speciesist, anti-cap­i­tal­ist, abo­li­tion­ist direct action news is out now. Anti­speciesist Action is a col­lec­tive of mil­i­tant anti­speciesists and ani­mal rights activists com­mit­ted to con­fronting ani­mal abuse, suf­fer­ing and exploita­tion of non-human beings through the use of direct action.

We believe in the ‘No Com­pro­mise’ phi­los­o­phy, veg­an­ism and active­ly sup­port the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front (ALF) and ani­mal rights pris­on­ers.

We are opposed to cap­i­tal­ism and the state, under­stand­ing that with­out both enti­ties, the uni­ver­sal exploita­tion of ani­mals would not be pos­si­ble.

Until Every Cage Is Emp­ty!

Arti­cles:

- In Mem­o­ry of Bar­ry Horne
— NYSE:LSR Under Attack
— Hunt Sab­bing News
— Mink Released
— Insur­rec­tion in Mex­i­co
— Let­ter from Sean Kirt­ley
— Whalers On The Run
— Glob­al Roundup
— Telmex Cam­paign
— Upris­ing in Greece

FS! #7 — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/12/416034.html

Civilian Uprising against Barrick Gold in Tanzania

Mine secu­ri­ty shoots young man, vil­lagers respond by destroy­ing $7 mil­lion in equip­ment

Decem­ber 24th, 2008

Mine secu­ri­ty shoots young man, vil­lagers respond by destroy­ing $7 mil­lion in equip­ment

Decem­ber 24th, 2008

Last week, reports sur­faced in the main­stream press that thou­sands of vil­lagers had raid­ed a gold mine in North­ern Tan­za­nia, set­ting fire to $7 mil­lion* worth of mine equip­ment. Most reports blamed prob­lems with crime in the area, call­ing the intrud­ers “gold-seek­ers.”

While the spokesman for Bar­rick Gold** Tan­za­nia, Teweli Teweli, describes these vil­lagers as “well-orga­nized groups” who attacked the pit fol­low­ing the blast­ing of high-grade ore, oth­ers paint Bar­rick as the aggres­sor in this event, cit­ing imme­di­ate and his­toric caus­es that have been large­ly ignored by the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Accord­ing to sev­er­al wit­ness­es, the imme­di­ate cause of the civil­ian upris­ing was the killing of a young man named Mang’weina Mwi­ta Mang’weina. Human rights lawyer Tun­du Lis­su, who rep­re­sents many of the vil­lagers, explains that Mang’weina and some friends were engaged in an argu­ment with Bar­rick secu­ri­ty when one of the guards shot Mang’weina, who was unarmed at the time. This inci­dent caused an uproar with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, which imme­di­ate­ly took up stones, over­pow­ered mine secu­ri­ty (who then fled), and attacked the mine, set­ting fire to mil­lions worth of equip­ment.

Mang’weina him­self is a part of the lega­cy of the North Mara mine. He was one of the thou­sands of unem­ployed locals in the area, angry over the mine’s recent his­to­ry of forced dis­place­ment, loss of liveli­hoods, human rights abus­es and ongo­ing repres­sion. He is the sev­enth per­son killed at the hands of mine secu­ri­ty since July 2005, when the killing of a local boy sparked a sim­i­lar upris­ing that result­ed in the destruc­tion of mine equip­ment and the sub­se­quent deten­tion of over 200 vil­lagers.***

Eye­wit­ness­es to the 2005 killing told The Guardian (Tan­za­nia) that “the boy who was shot dead was walk­ing past the com­pa­ny premis­es when com­pa­ny secu­ri­ty guards, sus­pect­ing him of steal­ing oil, stopped him. When the boy failed to heed the order, the guards called the police who, before even ques­tion­ing him, shot him in the chest.”

Not one year lat­er, secu­ri­ty guards employed by Bar­rick Gold alleged­ly shot – five times in the back – anoth­er vil­lager who was alleged to have ille­gal­ly entered the mine com­plex, bring­ing the death toll to six.

Accord­ing to Lis­su in a let­ter writ­ten in June 2006:

The killings rep­re­sent a major shift in Bar­rick­’s strat­e­gy for deal­ing
with the trou­ble­some locals who have always opposed the Mine. In the
peri­od after the forced evic­tions of the vil­lagers in August 2001,
hun­dreds of vil­lagers, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and promi­nent
locals were tar­get­ed for ille­gal arrests, crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions and
long term impris­on­ment. Numer­ous local lead­ers includ­ing the area’s
[late] Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Chacha Zakayo Wang­we and elect­ed Mem­ber of
the Tarime Dis­trict Coun­cil Augusti­no Nesto­ry Sasi were harassed this
way, with the lat­ter being sen­tenced to 30 year jail before we got him
out on appeal to the High Court of Tan­za­nia in Decem­ber 2004.

Cal­cu­lat­ing from media reports, Lis­su esti­mates that over 10,000 arti­sanal min­ers, peas­ant farm­ers and their fam­i­lies were kicked out of the area to make way for the North Mara mine in 2001. Since that time, there has been ongo­ing ten­sion between the mine and the local com­mu­ni­ties.

Accord­ing to Allan Cedil­lo Liss­ner, a Toron­to-based pho­to­jour­nal­ist who recent­ly inter­viewed fam­i­lies sur­round­ing the North Mara mine, “Ongo­ing con­flict between the mine and local com­mu­ni­ties have cre­at­ed a cli­mate of fear for those who live near­by.” Since the mine opened in 2002, one fam­i­ly told Liss­ner that they live in a state of con­stant anx­i­ety because they are repeat­ed­ly harassed and intim­i­dat­ed by the mine’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty forces and by gov­ern­ment police. “There have been sev­er­al dead­ly con­fronta­tions in the area and every time there are prob­lems at the mine, the Mwi­ta fam­i­ly say their com­pound is the first place the police come look­ing. Dur­ing police oper­a­tions the fam­i­ly scat­ters in fear to hide in the bush, ‘like fugi­tives,’ for weeks at a time wait­ing for the sit­u­a­tion to calm down,” Liss­ner explains.

The Mwi­ta fam­i­ly explained that they used to farm and raise live­stock, telling Liss­ner that “now there are no pas­tures because the mine has almost tak­en the whole land … we have no sources of income and we are liv­ing only through God’s wish­es. … We had nev­er expe­ri­enced pover­ty before the mine came here.” They also told Liss­ner that they would like to be relo­cat­ed, but the appli­ca­tion process has been com­pli­cat­ed, and they feel the amount of com­pen­sa­tion offered was mere­ly “can­dy.”

Accord­ing to Tan­zan­ian jour­nal­ist and com­mu­ni­ty advo­cate Evans Rubara, this lat­est upris­ing “is a sign to both the gov­ern­ment of Tan­za­nia and the Inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty (espe­cial­ly Cana­da) that poor and mar­gin­al­ized peo­ple also get tired of oppres­sion.” He hopes that the recent con­flict will inspire Bar­rick “to start anoth­er strat­e­gy that will bring a good and con­struc­tive rela­tion­ship with the local com­mu­ni­ties by imple­ment­ing pro­grams that do not enhance more loot­ing and belit­tle Tan­za­nia, leav­ing thou­sands in des­ti­tu­tion.”

Since this most recent upris­ing, dozens of vil­lagers have been arrest­ed. Accord­ing to Lis­su, who plans to rep­re­sent those arrest­ed, “They have arrest­ed dozens of peo­ple; [Bar­rick is] on a war path; these peo­ple have been denied bail, they are tar­get­ing the youth and repres­sion is on.”

Lis­su also spoke about reports of weapons mak­ing their way into the North Mara area. “Two days ago, we got infor­ma­tion that [Bar­rick is] import­ing weapons: a ton and a half of tear gas, and hand grenades were trans­port­ed to the mine on Thurs­day. The hand grenades were seized by cus­toms on the way to the North Mara Gold Mine, but have since been let through,” he told ProtestBarrick.net on the phone from Tan­za­nia.

Saku­ra Saun­ders is an edi­tor for protestbarrick.net, an all-vol­un­teer news site that net­works orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ty groups orga­nized against Bar­rick Gold around the world.

* On Decem­ber 17, 2008 Bar­rick Gold said it had revised down the dam­age to its North Mara Mine in Tan­za­nia dur­ing an attack last week to about $7 mil­lion from an ear­li­er esti­mate of $15 mil­lion.

** In Jan­u­ary 2006, Bar­rick Gold merged with Plac­er Dome, who pre­vi­ous­ly owned the North Mara mine.

*** By mid 2006 all of the vil­lagers detained after the 2005 upris­ing had been released by the courts after the author­i­ties failed to pros­e­cute them.

Actions in India and the Philippines

I’m not sure whether the fol­low­ing reports are ‘ide­o­log­i­cal­ly accept­able’ but over the last year there has been a rash of direct action attacks against cor­po­ra­tions and in defence of the envi­ron­ment and the indige­nous peo­ples that live there, under­tak­en by Maoist forces in both India and the Philip­pines.

I’m not sure whether the fol­low­ing reports are ‘ide­o­log­i­cal­ly accept­able’ but over the last year there has been a rash of direct action attacks against cor­po­ra­tions and in defence of the envi­ron­ment and the indige­nous peo­ples that live there, under­tak­en by Maoist forces in both India and the Philip­pines. The fol­low­ing reports and com­mu­niques are tak­en from a vari­ety of web-sites (sup­port­ive and hos­tile).

India

1. Nax­als attack in Gad­chi­roli [Decem­ber 2007]

CHANDRAPUR: Nax­alites set ablaze three vehi­cles — two tip­pers and a truck — of a con­trac­tor on Wednes­day evening. The inci­dent took place near Hald­wahi Tola vil­lage in Chamor­shi tehsil of Gad­chi­roli dis­trict, said the police.

Accord­ing to sources, the Nax­als came to the vil­lage and after iden­ti­fy­ing the vehi­cles of the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny — Sainath Con­struc­tions — set those ablaze. The Nax­alites then dis­ap­peared into the jun­gle.

San­jay Latkar, SDPO of Chamor­shi divi­sion, said, “The Nax­als have burnt the three vehi­cles owned by Raju Biyani, direc­tor of Sainath Con­struc­tions on Wednes­day evening.”

(http://maoistresistance.blogspot.com/2007/12/naxals-attack-in-gadchiroli.html)

2. Maoists attack Essar Steel plant in Chhat­tis­garh

Raipur, Apr 25 [2008]: About 300 heav­i­ly armed Maoists on Fri­day attacked an iron ore ben­e­fi­ci­a­tion plant of Essar Steel in Chhat­tis­garh, and set 53 trucks and three heavy machines on fire, a senior police offi­cer said.
The attack was car­ried out near Kiran­dul in the state’s Dan­te­wa­da Dis­trict where the insur­gents have been run­ning a de-fac­to admin­is­tra­tion for years.
“Armed rebels attacked Essar Steel’s iron ore facil­i­ty and cre­at­ed hav­oc for hours, by set­ting at least 53 trucks and three heavy machines on fire, in a raid that end­ed in the ear­ly hours of Fri­day,” R. K. Vij, Inspec­tor Gen­er­al of Police of Bas­tar range, told media.
The plant sup­plies high qual­i­ty iron ore from its 8 mil­lion tonne per annum (MTPA) unit to the pel­let plant at Visakha­p­at­nam in Andhra Pradesh.
Accord­ing to police, rebels over­pow­ered a few employ­ees work­ing in the plant dur­ing night shift and then sprayed diesel on vehi­cles and set them on fire.
The rebels lat­er slipped into the near­by for­est. The rebels left pam­phlets at the attack site say­ing their act was to protest trans­porta­tion of local rare nat­ur­al resource iron ore to out­side the state and the coun­try.
Con­gress Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Rahul Gand­hi is on a four-day vis­it to trib­al pock­ets in Mad­hya Pradesh and Chhat­tis­garh.

(http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/business/maoists-attack-essar-steel-plant-in-chhattisgarh-2_10042081.html)

3. In Sep­tem­ber 2008 a pho­to essay about the anti-Maoist mili­tia the Sal­wa Judum appeared on the Inter­net. Part of the essay read as fol­lows:

The con­flict sits on top of one of the most valu­able iron mines in Asia [in Bache­li, Chhat­tis­garh]….. Some peo­ple allege that Sal­wa Judum only exists to free up land for min­ing con­tracts, and is not real­ly a fight against com­mu­nism.

[A] mas­sive steam shov­el was attacked by Nax­als a month before I arrived. Nax­als tar­get min­ing infra­struc­ture because they say local peo­ple don’t reap any ben­e­fit from the mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar indus­try. (Unfor­tu­nate­ly the dam­age was tem­po­rary and the machine has been repaired)

Christo­pher Kin­do is the Deputy Direc­tor of Min­ing in Chhat­tis­garh. he says that he does­n’t under­stand why Nax­als keep attack­ing his equip­ment. (Aaah­hh .… the inno­cence drip­ping from his face could melt any­one’s heart)

The min­ing machin­ery in Chhat­tis­garh comes from an Amer­i­can com­pa­ny and sells for half a mil­lion dol­lars per truck. [A] mas­sive load puller can hold sev­er­al tons of top grade iron which even­tu­al­ly ends up in build­ing projects across India and Japan. The mines are a cen­tral tar­get of Nax­al mil­i­tants.

(http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2008/09/salwa-judum-photo-essay.html)

4. Nax­alites set eight vehi­cles on fire

Sun­day Novem­ber 30 2008

Raipur (PTI): Eight vehi­cles were set on fire in two sep­a­rate inci­dents by sus­pect­ed Nax­alites in Dan­te­wa­da and Bijapur dis­trict, police said today.

Nax­alites stopped the road con­struc­tion work between Kamalur and Kun­deli in Dan­te­wa­da dis­trict and set three tip­pers, two doz­ers, a poke­lene machine and a trail­er on fire late last night, police said.

In anoth­er inci­dent, about three dozen Nax­alites led by Ursa Bodhra, a hard­core Nax­alite, set a vehi­cle on fire for alleged­ly car­ry­ing sup­plies meant for secu­ri­ty forces at Gan­galur region of Bijapur last night….

http://naxalwatch.blogspot.com/2008/11/naxalites-set-eight-vehicles-on-fire.html
Philip­pines

5. com­mu­nique pub­lished by the New Peo­ples Army, repub­lished on the web­site of the Negros Chron­i­cle

….Sep­tem­ber 15, 2008
The NPA Mt. Tal­i­n­is Front Com­mand based in south­east Negros island imple­ment­ed last Sep­tem­ber 9 a direc­tive from the Pro­vi­sion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Gov­ern­ment to pun­ish the Tam­lang Val­ley Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (TVADC) for pro­mot­ing and plant­i­ng jathropa and cas­sa­va in the said area.
Accord­ing to Ka Dom Pan­ta­le­on, spokesper­son of the NPA Mt. Tal­i­n­is Front Com­mand, Red fight­ers seized and imme­di­ate­ly burned three trac­tors owned by the TVADC late Tues­day night in Sitio Cuadra, Barangay Man­tik­il, Sia­ton town in Ori­en­tal Negros.
The puni­tive action was imple­ment­ed after it was proven that the year-old TVADC project has grave­ly dis­lo­cat­ed the plant­i­ng of the tra­di­tion­al corn, rice and oth­er food crops in Tam­lang Val­ley, he said.
Lands pre­vi­ous­ly used by farm­ers for own-con­sump­tion food pro­duc­tion were now forcibly used for bio-fuel pur­pos­es, and a suc­ces­sion of Army bat­tal­ions were employed to active­ly harass and dupe farm­ers to plant jathropa and cas­sa­va, he added……

(http://www.negroschronicle.com/?p=379)

6. Red Army’s anti-bio­fu­els cam­paign con­tin­ues
Octo­ber 28, 2008

The NPA will imple­ment more pre­ven­tive mea­sure against pri­vate agri-busi­ness cor­po­ra­tions like the Tam­lang Val­ley Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (TVADC) for wors­en­ing the food sup­ply prob­lem and caus­ing numer­ous mil­i­tary abus­es in south­east Negros.
Thus said Ka Dom Pan­ta­le­on, spokesper­son of the NPA Pulang Mt. Tal­i­n­is Front Com­mand, as he announced yet anoth­er puni­tive action against the TVADC bio­fu­els com­pa­ny main­ly based in barangay Casalaan, Sia­ton, Ori­en­tal Negros.
In a press release, Pan­ta­le­on said the coun­try­side-based people’s demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment ordered an NPA team last Octo­ber 3 to con­fis­cate and burn two TVADC-owned trac­tors in sityo Tam­lang, barangay Talalak, in Sta. Catali­na town. No one was harmed in the inci­dent, he added.
It was the sec­ond such oper­a­tion in as many months by the Red army to pro­tect upland peas­ants from the intru­sive and harm­ful bio­fu­els com­pa­ny co-owned by the fam­i­ly of ex-Con­gress­man Her­minio Teves and their Kore­an busi­ness part­ners….
Pan­ta­le­on revealed that the NPA will con­tin­ue imple­ment­ing sim­i­lar orders for puni­tive actions from the coun­try­side-based people’s demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment that are meant to block the wide­spread grow­ing of jathropa and cas­sa­va in and around the vast Sta. Catali­na-Sia­ton-Valen­cia-Pam­plona bor­der barangays of Ori­en­tal Negros known as Tam­lang Val­ley.
More impor­tant­ly, it will impose armed puni­tive actions against the 302nd Brigade for pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tion and even col­lud­ing with TVADC in forc­ing ordi­nary farm­ers to plant jatrhopa and cas­sa­va, instead of their tra­di­tion­al food crops like upland rice and corn, he added.
The NPA spokesper­son said the mer­ce­nary AFP has become the bio­fu­els campaign’s most vis­i­ble “errand boys” for the agri-busi­ness com­pa­ny and the Teves fam­i­ly in south­east Negros.
This has result­ed to numer­ous human rights abus­es, includ­ing the enforced dis­ap­pear­ances of ordi­nary farm­ers Fla­viano Arante and Reynold Yanoc – both res­i­dents of barangay Talalak, Sta. Catali­na town – who have been miss­ing and feared sal­vaged since ear­ly this year, he added…..

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/cgi-bin/statements/statements.pl?author=npasn;date=081028;language=eng

7. Decem­ber 23, 2008

[extract]…..The NPA also burned six (6) mul­ti-mil­lion heavy equip­ments of SRMI as pun­ish­ment for their con­sid­er­able trans­gres­sions against the envi­ron­ment, indige­nous Fil­ipinos, work­ers and peo­ple affect­ed by their min­ing oper­a­tions.
SRMI is owned by the Amante polit­i­cal fam­i­ly and has wrought envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion to the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Tubay, paid low wages and unjust­ly treats its work­ers, dis­re­spects the rights of the indige­nous Fil­ipinos to their ances­tral lands and deprives them of their ”roy­al­ty share”. SMRI’s unquench­able greed is forcibly put over and above the inter­ests of the indige­nous Fil­ipinos, small min­ers and the mass­es through the hir­ing of Ret. Col De Lara and estab­lish­ing a big secu­ri­ty force whose mem­bers include abu­sive crim­i­nals.

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/cgi-bin/statements/statements.pl?author=ndfnm;date=081223;language=eng

ALF & ELF Continue Telmex Sabotage

“On Decem­ber 11 the Frente de Lib­era­cion Ani­mal in Mex­i­co sab­o­taged 25 tele­phones of the dis­gust­ing com­pa­ny Telmex in an act of direct sup­port for our fight­ing com­rades in Colom­bia, we are glad to know that the attacks that are bad­ly need­ed in Latin Amer­i­ca have this con­ti­nu­ity, we hope that the flame will not go out in Colom­bia and that they con­tin­ue on!

“On Decem­ber 11 the Frente de Lib­era­cion Ani­mal in Mex­i­co sab­o­taged 25 tele­phones of the dis­gust­ing com­pa­ny Telmex in an act of direct sup­port for our fight­ing com­rades in Colom­bia, we are glad to know that the attacks that are bad­ly need­ed in Latin Amer­i­ca have this con­ti­nu­ity, we hope that the flame will not go out in Colom­bia and that they con­tin­ue on!

Con­tin­u­ous, well-planned sab­o­tage is the worst night­mare of the exploiters.

A fight­ing embrace!

For ani­mal, human and earth lib­er­a­tion!

FLA Mex­i­co”

———–

“On Decem­ber 18 we sab­o­taged 20 phones of the destroy­er of the plan­et, the Telmex com­pa­ny, in the same man­ner as before (with bolt cut­ters and oth­er tools).

We will not stop …

FLT Méx­i­co”

———–

Pre­vi­ous actions

ELF sab­o­tage phone booths in Colum­bia & Mex­i­co
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21875

Telmex phone booths sab­o­taged in Mex­i­co City
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21813

Source http://www.directaction.info

Invitation to the Northern Climate Rush — January 12th

On Mon­day 12th Jan­u­ary 2009 at 7pm the North­ern Cli­mate Rush will hit Man­ches­ter Air­port Ter­mi­nal 3 (Domes­tic Depar­tures).

Climate suffragette small groupOn Mon­day 12th Jan­u­ary 2009 at 7pm the North­ern Cli­mate Rush will hit Man­ches­ter Air­port Ter­mi­nal 3 (Domes­tic Depar­tures).

Every­one is wel­come to join us. Come in Edwar­dian dress if you can (think long skirts, coats and tails, and sil­ly hats, all hid­den under a big coat!) with ham­pers of food to have our ‘Din­ner at Domes­tic Depar­tures’, to the strains of our very own string quar­tet! It will take place on the day that the MPs return from their win­ter hol­i­day, and at exact­ly the same time as the main Cli­mate Rush, at Heathrow.

Our protest will be against air­port expan­sion and domes­tic flights. In a time of reces­sion and cli­mate cri­sis, gov­ern­ment mon­ey should be spent on improve­ments to rail, trams, and bus­es, not on sub­si­dies and infra­struc­ture for the avi­a­tion indus­try.

For an acces­si­ble report on the lat­est cli­mate sci­ence, check out http://climatesafety.org/

We have wait­ed too long and been mis­led too many times. It is time for us to take con­trol and to lead social change.

northernclimaterush@googlemail.com

Radley Lakes saved

Fol­low­ing years of cam­paign­ing through legal chan­nels, and the squat­ting of a build­ing by the side of Thrupp Lake at the begin­ning of 2007, the Save Radley Lakes cam­paign is vic­to­ri­ous — hoorah! Use the search above for old sto­ries and pho­tos from the cam­paign — sto­ries about the recent vic­to­ry and future plans are below.

Thrupp Lake at sunsetFol­low­ing years of cam­paign­ing through legal chan­nels, and the squat­ting of a build­ing by the side of Thrupp Lake at the begin­ning of 2007, the Save Radley Lakes cam­paign is vic­to­ri­ous — hoorah! Use the search above for old sto­ries and pho­tos from the cam­paign — sto­ries about the recent vic­to­ry and future plans are below.

End of an Era

Yes­ter­day’s (17.12.08) announce­ment by RWE Npow­er brought to an end a 41 month cam­paign to save the last remain­ing Radley Lakes, Thrupp and Bull­field Lakes, from destruc­tion by being filled with waste pul­verised fuel ash (PFA) from the Did­cot A Pow­er Sta­tion.

It also brings to an end 23 years of fill­ing of old grav­el pits in Radley with pow­er sta­tion ash, which began in 1985, when the Pow­er Sta­tion was run by the nation­alised Cen­tral Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­at­ing Board and when the envi­ron­ment fig­ured less high­ly in pop­u­lar con­cerns. The choice back then was between land­fill with gen­er­al waste, com­mer­cial exploita­tion, or ash. Local peo­ple vot­ed for the ash, which is prob­a­bly what they would have got any­way.

The ash had been pumped into the grav­el pits as a slur­ry via an under­ground pipeline. Many grav­el pits were filled in this way over the inter­ven­ing years and peo­ple did not seem to mind, though eye­brows were being increas­ing­ly raised, and there were objec­tions to the fill­ing of Lakes H and I, which had become a spec­tac­u­lar haven for wild­fowl. In 2005, RWE npow­er sought per­mis­sion to fill the the two remain­ing grav­el pits. These were the old­est exca­va­tions, which had, over the half cen­tu­ry or so of their exis­tence, become restored into beau­ti­ful lakes and had been giv­en names by local peo­ple.

How the Lakes Were Saved (in a nut­shell)

The small­er Bull­field Lake was res­cued from this fate fol­low­ing protests back in 2005, but the much larg­er and more impor­tant Thrupp Lake has remained under threat ever since, as plan­ning, legal and oth­er bat­tles raged around it. As a last resort, local peo­ple even applied to have the area turned into a Town Green. This too failed, but it remains the sub­ject of a Judi­cial Review, which was due to be heard in the High Court in Feb­ru­ary 2009. In Feb­ru­ary 2007, hav­ing got all nec­es­sary plan­ning per­mis­sions and removed the pro­tes­tors who’d occu­pied the lake­side build­ing, npow­er went ahead with clear­ance work on the site, and many trees were destroyed. Work then had to stop until the Autumn, because of nest­ing birds. After car­ry­ing out some pre­lim­i­nary work in Octo­ber 2007, npow­er sud­den­ly ceased their activ­i­ties on the site.

Then, in Feb­ru­ary 2008, events took an unex­pect­ed turn: npow­er announced an inter­im reprieve for Thrupp Lake. A lit­tle lat­er, Waste Recy­cling Group (WRG) open­ly came for­ward with a pro­pos­al that would save Thrupp Lake for ever. It has tak­en until now to bring this to fruition. Plan­ning per­mis­sion was need­ed, tech­ni­cal prob­lems had to be resolved, a com­mer­cial agree­ment had to be reached; then there was the ques­tion of what to do with Thrupp Lake. Many del­i­cate nego­ti­a­tions, it seemed, were going on in the back­ground, cul­mi­nat­ing in yes­ter­day’s momen­tous announce­ment.

Tri­umph at Last!

To mark the occa­sion, the Pow­er Sta­tion oper­a­tors invit­ed press and pub­lic into the grounds of San­dles, the house on the shore Thrupp Lake. There, Mr John Rain­ford, the Pow­er Sta­tion man­ag­er, announced that, because the pow­er sta­tion had found bet­ter and more sus­tain­able ways of dis­pos­ing of its ash, there would be no need to destroy Thrupp Lake, not now, not ever. He made it clear that RWE npow­er was offer­ing The Lake to the local com­mu­ni­ty as a nature con­ser­va­tion area and that dis­cus­sions were under­way with the North­moor Trust to pro­vide for its man­age­ment. It was hoped that the house could be con­vert­ed into an edu­ca­tion­al cen­tre.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the com­mu­ni­ty, Jen­ny Standen, chair­man of Radley Parish Coun­cil, and Basil Crow­ley, chair­man of Save Radley Lakes, expressed their sat­is­fac­tion and delight, thank­ing npow­er for their mag­na­nim­i­ty and look­ing for­ward to work­ing with them in restor­ing the area to cre­ate some­thing to be real­ly proud of. Both expressed grat­i­tude to all the peo­ple who had sup­port­ed the cam­paign and whose sup­port and tire­less efforts had helped bring this about.

With the late Decem­ber after­noon sun­shine cast­ing long shad­ows across the ves­tiges of San­dles’ lawn, a jubi­lant par­ty atmos­phere pre­vailed. Cham­pagne flowed, hands were shak­en, cam­eras clicked and, in a touch of sur­re­al­i­ty, a man in a frog suit played a solo trom­bone fan­fare at the lake­side to her­ald the lake’s sal­va­tion.Radley Lakes saved trombone fanfare

Where the Ash Will Go

The ash that was to have gone into Thrupp Lake will now go to Waste Recy­cling Group’s Sut­ton Courte­nay land­fill site next to the pow­er sta­tion where it will be used for engi­neer­ing, cap­ping and land­scap­ing of the land­fill oper­a­tions. Sur­plus ash will be stock­piled in a planned new stor­age facil­i­ty, which received plan­ning per­mis­sion back in July, and will main­tain WRG’s essen­tial sup­ply of ash after 2015 when the pow­er sta­tion will have closed. Because the pow­er sta­tion and the waste site are imme­di­ate­ly adja­cent, the ash can be trans­port­ed direct­ly across the fence and put into the stock­pile, which is not far from the pow­er sta­tion bound­ary. At no time will this ash be trans­port­ed on pub­lic roads, which means there will be no adverse impact on the res­i­dents of Sut­ton Courte­nay. Indeed, it will remove the need to import over half a mil­lion tonnes of sub­sti­tute mate­ri­als after 2015, which would have had an impact!

http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk/
http://www.radleyvillage.org.uk/news/News0009.htm

Japanese Whaling Fleet Is On the Run

Fri­day, Decem­ber 19, 2008
The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ship Steve Irwin now has the entire Japan­ese whal­ing fleet on the run.

At 2345 G.M.T. the Steve Irwin inter­cept­ed the Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel Yushin Maru #2 inside the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone at 64°26 South and 132° 40′ East.

Sea Shepherd give chaseFri­day, Decem­ber 19, 2008
The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ship Steve Irwin now has the entire Japan­ese whal­ing fleet on the run.

At 2345 G.M.T. the Steve Irwin inter­cept­ed the Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel Yushin Maru #2 inside the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone at 64°26 South and 132° 40′ East.

The encounter took place in dense fog and in dan­ger­ous ice con­di­tions. The Steve Irwin launched a Delta boat with a crew to attack the Yushin Maru #2 with rot­ten but­ter bombs. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the wind increased to fifty knots with bliz­zard con­di­tions. Cap­tain Paul Wat­son called the small boat crew back for safe­ty rea­sons when they were halfway to their tar­get some three miles away.

The Yushin Maru #2 then head­ed due North to lead the Steve Irwin away from the whal­ing fleet. The decoy did not work. The Steve Irwin is now in pur­suit of the whal­ing fleet.

They have ceased whal­ing oper­a­tions and they are now run­ning from the Sea Shep­herd crew.

The Yushin Maru #2 was the same ves­sel that the Steve Irwin crew board­ed in Jan­u­ary 2007. This year the crew observed that the Yushin Maru #2 has set up large net­ting to be run along the side of the ship to pre­vent board­ing par­ties from going over the side. When the whalers real­ized that the Steve Irwin was onto them, they imme­di­ate­ly ran on deck to deploy the net­ting.

“It looks like Whale Wars, sea­son #2 is offi­cial­ly under­way,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “We’ve got them on the run. They are not in the Ross Sea where they said they would be. They are in Aus­tralian waters. The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety is offi­cial­ly call­ing on Aus­tralian Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Peter Gar­rett and For­eign Min­is­ter Stephen Smith to order the Japan­ese fleet to com­ply with the orders of the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court and to cease and desist from killing to whales in Aus­tralian waters.”

COAL CARAVAN — route & dates update

The fab­u­lous cli­mate car­a­van lives on.

This time we will be the COAL CARAVAN, walk­ing and cycling between the sites for pro­posed open cast mines and new pow­er sta­tions in the Mid­lands, York­shire and North East.

The fab­u­lous cli­mate car­a­van lives on.

This time we will be the COAL CARAVAN, walk­ing and cycling between the sites for pro­posed open cast mines and new pow­er sta­tions in the Mid­lands, York­shire and North East.

On our route we’ll be talk­ing to local peo­ple, organ­is­ing bicy­cled pow­er films and events, hold­ing pub­lic dis­cus­sions and dis­plays, and link­ing groups from dif­fer­ent areas to help strength­en iso­lat­ed cam­paigns.

24 April 2009 Co2al Car­a­van launch par­ty, Sumac Cen­tre Not­ting­ham
25 April – set off to Ship­ley Glen
27/28 April – cycle to York­shire
29 April – Fair­bairn Ings
30 April — 2 May – cycle to North East
3 May – Anti-open­cast work­shops
4 May (Bank Hol­i­day Mon­day) – Grand Finale

The car­a­van itself will not involve direct action (although we may offer train­ing, if local groups so request). It will be open­ly organ­ised and if you would like to go on the list please email caravan@climatecamp.org.uk.