Category: Action Reports

Activists disrupt work at site of opencast coal mine

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.
All remained until the police arrived, which was a con­sid­er­able time lat­er. How­ev­er, the spon­ta­neous action clear­ly delayed their work, as the site fore­man spent much time talk­ing to the police etc.

Con­cerned of Smal­l­ey
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/leaveitintheground/

London, Brighton & Manchester Critical Masses commemorate dead cyclists

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

Fol­low­ing the killing of Marie Vesco on the A23 her friends, ram­pART and Food Not Bombs asked peo­ple to ride to Brix­ton, where she served free food every Sun­day after­noon with Brix­ton Food Not Bombs.

Approx­i­mate­ly 600 cyclists left Water­loo going South via Lam­beth North, then Elephant& Cas­tle, going round a few times stop­ping the traf­fic. Via the Oval we went to Brix­ton, where we stopped at Win­drush Square. By now there were maybe 300–400 cyclists left (there was a bit of North-Lon­don snob­bery). Dif­fer­ent peo­ple spoke about Marie and how they missed her. How she died and why she worked with Brix­ton Food­Not­Bombs and how giv­ing out free food was so impor­tant to her. There was a min­ute’s silence for her.

Then we cycled North again, police stopped us halfway up towards Stock­well. They had tried to dic­tate the tem­po pre­vi­ous­ly, but rogue cyclists broke through, stopped the traf­fic ahead of the police line and in that way forced the police to let the Mass go (Health and Safe­ty and all…).

They man­aged to block Stock­well Road and we did­n’t quite get the momen­tum of break­ing through. To the cop­pers’ sur­prise the tip of the Mass turned around, cycling back on them­selves and turn­ing off the main road fur­ther down (Sid­ney Road I think). We made our way to the Oval, cycling past the Crick­et knobs, some of which were using bad lan­guage, when we came in sight. Oth­ers were sup­port­ive.

Vaux­hall Bridge end­ed up being a bit of a split­ter were we lost a few peo­ple. Going across the bridge, past Par­lia­ment we hit the square, encir­cling it a cou­ple of times, until some­thing hap­pened with the sound sys­tem (as always) not quite sure what. music stopped. Rais­ing bikes, block­ing road, we then went to see the queen. The whole ride took about two hours and a bit. Nice atmos­phere, good mix of peo­ple and bikes and so good to have some music on the way (three sound sys­tems).

What hap­pened with the sound sys­tem on the North side of Par­lia­ment Square was that the police stopped it play­ing and rid­ers strong­ly object­ed to this ban which caused a long traf­fic holdup.

The cycle police keep on tar­get­ing Crit­i­cal Mass sound sys­tems in the SOCPA zone around Par­lia­ment while doing noth­ing to stop sound sys­tems in cars, bus­es and lor­ries. Also the SOCPA leg­is­la­tion is cur­rent­ly under review and oth­er police are tend­ing not to enforce it.

video of ride.

More videos:

cycling down brix­ton road

through brix­ton high street

out­side the ritzy, enjoy­ing some tunes, before a min­utes silence in mem­o­ry of Marie Vesco

rid­ing up the mall

bring­ing the mass & some music to the queen
============

Yes­ter­day the Brighton Crit­i­cal Mass month­ly bicy­cle ride was done in the mem­o­ry Marie Vesco — the young French woman who had been killed on her way from Lon­don to the Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade, that was held on the 4th of June. We, at Crit­i­cal Mass decid­ed to com­plete her jour­ney to EDO MBM (ITT) bomb fac­to­ry that she could not make.

The usu­al meet­ing place The Lev­el, 6 p.m. saw police wait­ing for some sort of a demo. There were: 2 police vans full of cop­pers, 1 CCTV UNIT van, 6 motor­bikes, and none of the police on bicy­cles.

The ride had com­menced as have rode onto Lewes Road escort­ed by police motor­bikes. For a while it felt as if we were prime min­is­ters escort­ed to some impor­tant meet­ing.

When we had reached the bot­tom of the Home Farm Road there were few police wait­ing for us. We then went to the fac­to­ry to be aston­ished by the police pres­ence at the fac­to­ry. There were at least 40 offi­cers with dogs wait­ing for some sort of a riot.

We have held one minute silence for Marie and went back to town where after a half an hour police had left us alone.

Over­all a suc­cess.

video of ride.

============

This month Man­ches­ter crit­i­cal mass had a one minute silence to hon­our two pas­sion­ate cyclists that were killed this month by motorists, and to remem­ber all our cycling com­rades that have been killed on the roads.

NORMAN FAY
Nor­man Fay died on Fri­day, June 20. He was cycling to the York cycle ral­ly when a motorist col­lid­ed with him.

“He was just 72 so it’s come as a real shock.

Nor­man had a well deserved rep­u­ta­tion for fine crafts­man­ship and engi­neer­ing, and had an infec­tious love of all things cycling. His bikes have been many peo­ple’s intro­duc­tion to cycling and his exper­i­men­ta­tion with dif­fer­ent cycle forms appealed to hard core enthu­si­asts and occa­sion­al rid­ers alike. I’ve been the lucky own­er of a cou­ple of his bikes, one of which I bought when I was 18 and I still have but is sad­ly gath­er­ing dust in the hut.

Both Nor­man and his late wife Mar­i­on were both found­ing mem­bers of South Tyne­side Friends of the Earth.

Whilst he died rel­a­tive­ly young in mod­ern terms, his con­tin­ued cycling proved that you’re nev­er to old to get on your bike. Maybe it’s time I dust­ed off mine.

A true local hero.”

MARIE VESCO

Marie Vesco was killed by a car on Wednes­day 4th June while cycling to Brighton. Active in var­i­ous Lon­don social cen­tres, Whitechapel and Brix­ton Food Not Bombs, she now had plans to open a new social cen­tre.

Marie was part of a group of twelve cyclists who left Brix­ton in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing to join the Smash EDO demo. They were on the A23 by Burgess Hill when an impa­tient gas guz­zling imbe­cile swerved across two lanes straight into Marie, then anoth­er car hit her. She died instant­ly, there was noth­ing her friends could have done. The dri­ver of the sec­ond car got straight on his phone as soon as he came to a halt — not for an ambu­lance but to call his lawyer. He then start­ed push­ing Marie’s mates around. One dri­ver has been arrest­ed.

On the arson of Sprider store (Athens, 28/6/2008)

“After put­ing off the fire, fire­men found gas can­is­ters inside the store, a fact lead­ing invsti­ga­tions to an arson case, and police takes over…”

Sprider shop burnt“After put­ing off the fire, fire­men found gas can­is­ters inside the store, a fact lead­ing invsti­ga­tions to an arson case, and police takes over…”

Com­mu­nique sent via e‑mail to directactiongr@yahoo.gr:

On June 28, 2008 we chose to strike one of the well-known Sprid­er chain stores, at Lykovris­si. This choise was­n’t ran­dom at all.

We live an every day life turned into an are­na of com­pe­ti­tion as well as accu­mu­la­tion and demon­stra­tion of life­less objects. The expen­sive car, the classy out­fit, the new mobile phone and fast inter­net are the mod­ern val­ues of your world. The con­sumer crowds grum­bles over cost­li­ness while they buy off at their shop­ping ther­a­py a piece of “joy” and a ster­ile image of suc­cess and show-off. In our days, humans seek for an iden­ti­ty at the new acces­sories of their mobile phones, their cars’ cov­ers and fash­ion trends. And every­thing seems cool.

It is enough for one to choose, of Sat­ur­day night’s dilem­ma between Kolon­a­ki or Psyrri area, the right dress, the appro­pri­ate mobile phone and most of all that fake smile, to impress every­body around.

When it comes to every­day life, the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, lone­li­ness, the slow sui­cide of alien­ation, the servi­tude to a job, the cops’ orders, the reporter’s truth, the boss­es’ exploita­tion… Who cares about all that? Besides, they’re not even a life-style trend to be adver­tised and fol­lowed faith­ful­ly.

Thus, all of you faith­ful con­sumers, titled with mis­ery and pro­pri­etors of the lie can keep dress­ing up your fan­cy noth­ing­ness tis­sued with all the shades of com­pro­mise and indif­fer­ence. We instead have cho­sen for our­selves the col­ors of war: As long as our life suf­fo­cates in the tis­sue of com­mer­cial adver­tise, use­less objects, styl­ish orders and all the sym­bols of a con­sumer par­adise, our rage with con­sious­ness will keep search­ing for break-outs.

We had writ­ten in our com­mu­nique con­cern­ing our pre­vi­ous strike against the Aiga­leo Police Sta­tion, that we do not need an inci­dent or a con­cur­rence to get to action. Now though, we come with an event. On July 11, 2008 the com­rades Mar­ios Tsoura­pas and Chris­sos­to­mos Kon­tore­vithakis face a jury, for their arson­ist attempt against a munic­i­pal police car, an action they have claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for, and stand up to it.

All we have to say on that, is that the mate­r­i­al dam­ages and the total destruc­tion of this lux­u­ri­ous store are illus­tra­tive of our wil­ful­ness, in case of our com­rades impris­on­ment con­tin­ues.

Gangs of Con­science

Note: You can read the pre­vi­ous claim of the Gangs of Con­science (Sym­mories Syni­di­sis) on their attack against Aiga­leo Police Sta­tion here:
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/2008/05/attack-against-police-station-plus.html

Arrests As International Whaling Commission Fails To Protect Whales

Fif­teen peo­ple were arrest­ed by police at a meet­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC), held this year in San­ti­a­go, Chile.

IWC protest

Fif­teen peo­ple were arrest­ed by police at a meet­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC), held this year in San­ti­a­go, Chile. The pro­test­ers were sup­pos­ed­ly try­ing to ‘storm’ the meet­ing but oth­er reports state that the mere pres­ence of peo­ple in front of the meet­ing’s venue was seen as a ‘secu­ri­ty threat’.

The IWC meets annu­al­ly to reg­u­late the whal­ing indus­try and make deci­sions on con­ser­va­tion of whale pop­u­la­tions. So far the meet­ing has­n’t reached any agree­ments and the com­mis­sion con­tin­ues to be strong­ly dev­id­ed between the pro- and anti-whal­ing nations. Skye Bor­toli, an activist from Teens Against Whal­ing described the meet­ing this year as ‘pathet­ic’, say­ing “this body will be known in the future as a small group of eco­log­i­cal­ly arro­gant peo­ple who are con­demn­ing the world’s whales to agony and obliv­ion for pet­ty pol­i­tics and a few lousy bucks.”

Relat­ed Audio: Sea Shep­herd Cap­tain Paul Wat­son Talks in Lon­don | Inter­view With Not­ting­ham Activist On Return From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion

Relat­ed Newswire: Ice­land Defies Mora­to­ri­um On Com­mer­cial Whal­ing — Whale Hunt Start­ed | Nor­way Starts Whale Hunt­ing Sea­son

Pre­vi­ous Fea­tures: Armed Cana­di­an Coast Guard Storms Con­ser­va­tion Ves­sel | Not­ting­ham Activist Returns From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion In Antar­ti­ca | Injured Among Sea Shep­herd Crew As Japan­ese Mil­i­tary Open Fire | Activists Held Hostage By Japan­ese Whalers In South­ern Ocean

Links: IWC offi­cial web­site | Wikipedia on IWC | Teens Against Whal­ing | Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety | Green­peace | San­ti­a­go Indy­media | Indy­media Ocean Defence

This year, like many a year before, the IWC fails to make progress in their pro­tec­tion of whales. Japan and oth­er pro-whal­ing nations push for a par­tial lift­ing of the ban on com­mer­cial whal­ing. Also, the US (which has been involved with Japan’s whal­ing indus­try) has been push­ing for the reg­u­la­tion of ‘sci­en­tif­ic whal­ing’, some­thing which con­ser­va­tions argue would only legit­imize an already ille­gal activ­i­ty. Japan uses the ‘sci­en­tif­ic research’ as a smoke­screen for their ille­gal com­mer­cial whal­ing prac­tices.

There has been a debate about whether Green­land should be allowed a big­ger quo­ta of whales for their hunt and dis­cus­sions are ongo­ing about Japan’s hunt in the South­ern Ocean. It has been report­ed that the ear­li­est the IWC might come to some kind of agree­ment is by next year’s meet­ing, which is to be held in Madeira, Por­tu­gal. The com­mis­sion con­tin­ues to be strong­ly divid­ed between pro-whal­ing (Japan, Den­mark, Nor­way, Ice­land) and anti-whal­ing (Aus­tralia, Unit­ed King­dom, New Zealand, South Africa) nations.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, from the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, did man­age to get into the hotel this year. He nor­mal­ly nev­er makes it inside as the Sea Shep­herd is the only organ­i­sa­tion offi­cial­ly banned from attend­ing IWC meet­ings. Paul, like Skye Bor­toli, isn’t impressed with the state of affairs at this year’s meet­ing: “There were many things that could come out of this meet­ing. Japan could with­draw from the IWC and become a rene­gade whal­ing nation along with their part­ners in con­ser­va­tion crime Nor­way and Ice­land. Or a com­pro­mise may be bro­kered that will allow the Japan­ese to with­draw from the South­ern Ocean with­out los­ing face or third­ly, and most like­ly, noth­ing will come out of this meet­ing at all. From the way things are going so far it looks like Sea Shep­herd will be return­ing to the South­ern Ocean to once again enforce the reg­u­la­tions that the IWC and the nations of the world refuse to uphold. Oh well, I come to these meet­ings with no expec­ta­tions hop­ing to be pleas­ant­ly sur­prised. After more than three decades I am still wait­ing.”

Green­peace was also present in Chile, with a dom­i­nant pres­ence among the var­i­ous anti-whal­ing NGO’s and con­ser­va­tion­ists. Dave writes on the Green­peace blog: “We hope some­thing good comes out of these meet­ings, and that the com­mis­sion trans­forms itself into a body that pro­tects the whales and not the whalers. While com­mis­sion­ers sit in rooms talk­ing, whales are still dying in the South­ern Ocean and around the world from com­mer­cial whal­ing, ship strikes, sonar-relat­ed deaths, net­ting and pol­lu­tion, amongst oth­er human-induced haz­ards.”

On a pos­i­tive note, Chile, the host of this year’s meet­ing has declared a per­ma­nent ban on whal­ing in its waters. Speak­ing at a for­mer whale pro­cess­ing plant that Chile closed in 1967, Pres­i­dent Michelle Bachelet said she sent a bill to Con­gress propos­ing a whale sanc­tu­ary along Chile’s coast­line and declared the whale a nation­al mon­u­ment.

imc-uk-fea­tures

9th August: Day of Mass Action at the Camp for Climate Action!

JOIN WITH THOUSANDS IN MASS ACTION TO SHUT DOWN KINGSNORTH POWER STATION

CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE – LAND, SEA OR AIR

CCA pen-knifeJOIN WITH THOUSANDS IN MASS ACTION TO SHUT DOWN KINGSNORTH POWER STATION

CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE – LAND, SEA OR AIR

This sum­mer the Camp for Cli­mate Action will be locat­ed in Kent near Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion, where 10 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide are pumped into the atmos­phere every year. On Sat­ur­day August 9th, the camp will cul­mi­nate in a spec­tac­u­lar mass action to shut down the pow­er sta­tion. Why Kingsnorth? While the pow­er sta­tion is sched­uled for demo­li­tion, its own­ers E.ON are plan­ning to build a brand new coal-fired plant in the same place – a ludi­crous response to the cli­mate cri­sis threat­en­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of lives around the world. The Camp for Cli­mate Action has oth­er ideas. Begin­ning on August 9th, we intend to shut down Kingsnorth – per­ma­nent­ly!

Those at the camp will be joined by thou­sands more from across the UK to con­verge on the pow­er sta­tion via land, sea and air. We are organ­is­ing our­selves into four dif­fer­ent groups, each using dif­fer­ent tac­tics. There’s some­thing for every­one (includ­ing a group acces­si­ble to par­ents and chil­dren).

The ‘Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta’ (GRRR) will be launch­ing an arma­da of rafts of every shape and size. From pirate ships to Viking boats, a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ent themed rafts are being con­struct­ed out of recy­cled mate­ri­als and every bit of scrap imag­in­able (mate­ri­als will be avail­able at the camp for you to build your own rebel raft – for more info see www.thegrrr.net). Once on the riv­er, rafts will swarm towards Kingsnorth like a giant shoal of dis­obe­di­ent fish, all with a sin­gle aim – shut down the cli­mate crim­i­nal. Safe­ty is obvi­ous­ly of para­mount impor­tance and full safe­ty brief­in­gs and equip­ment will be pro­vid­ed.

If you’re a land­lub­ber, not to wor­ry, you can join the ‘Orange Pod’, who will be putting on their danc­ing shoes and head­ing straight for the main entrance in a colour­ful, musi­cal spec­ta­cle. And if you’re more of a fan of wild under­growth than end­less eco­nom­ic growth then the ‘Green Guer­ril­las’ will be approach­ing through the sur­round­ing fields and woods, look­ing for weak points in the perime­ter fence – up, under or through.. As for the aer­i­al approach – these plans are strict­ly under wraps, find out more at the camp!

If you can’t make it to the camp, join us just for the day. Trains run from cen­tral Lon­don to a pick up point near Kingsnorth every few min­utes and take less than an hour. If you have more time, come to the camp the night before, or for the full week (August 4th – 10th) where you can take part in over a hun­dred work­shops and expe­ri­ence sus­tain­able liv­ing in action, like 1,500 peo­ple did last year.

Times, trans­porta­tion infor­ma­tion and more details about the groups and their meet­ing points will be avail­able at www.climatecamp.org.uk/massaction

Get involved today! Join our email list to get mass action updates:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/climatecamp

For more infor­ma­tion about the camp, vis­it www.climatecamp.org.uk

Be there on August 9th. Shut­ting down this pow­er sta­tion promis­es to be a defin­ing moment in the glob­al strug­gle against cli­mate change!

Anniversary of the first week at Shipley Bodge (& upcoming protest dates)

It has been a week already since cli­mate chaos activists took occu­pa­tion of a farm house on the site of the UK’s newest open cast site. Here is an update. The pos­ses­sion court case was chucked out of court for the moment — more here. Don’t for­get the 14th July noise demo (link to left).

UK Coal have start­ed some prepara­to­ry works at the Ship­ley open cast site. Many Tonnes of con­crete has been cast to rein­force the pub­lic access road near the squat­ted site. This is allow 200 tonne machines to trav­el back and forth with­out doing dam­age to the pub­lic right of way. (I’ll pause here while you un-flab­ber­gast your­self………)

Bodge graffitti 2Bodge flowers 3It has been a week already since cli­mate chaos activists took occu­pa­tion of a farm house on the site of the UK’s newest open cast site. Here is an update. The pos­ses­sion court case was chucked out of court for the moment — more here. Don’t for­get the 14th July noise demo (link to left).

UK Coal have start­ed some prepara­to­ry works at the Ship­ley open cast site. Many Tonnes of con­crete has been cast to rein­force the pub­lic access road near the squat­ted site. This is allow 200 tonne machines to trav­el back and forth with­out doing dam­age to the pub­lic right of way. (I’ll pause here while you un-flab­ber­gast your­self………)

Mean­while, fur­ther along Bell Lane, tele­com engi­neers were busy with their under­ground cable detec­tors. I don’t know why they couldn’t just phone BT and ask where they put them!

Clear­ly the angry own­er of White­house Farm gate­house (map ref SK41619 44026) is grad­u­al­ly get­ting knack­ered from hav­ing to keep open­ing the gate for vehi­cles on UK Coal busi­ness, as he was hav­ing fan­cy new hinges fit­ted to the gateposts.

The route is still pass­able on foot or horse, which is just as well. We have con­firmed with Der­byshire Coun­ty Coun­cil that the path from Smal­l­ey to the gate at White­house Farm is a des­ig­nat­ed foot­path and from there to Ship­ley Park it is a pub­lic bri­dle­way. The Rights of Way Offi­cers at DCC are very keen to hear of any prob­lems mem­bers of the pub­lic expe­ri­ence when try­ing to exer­cise their right to trav­el freely along this path.

There is no prob­lem with vehi­cle access from the Ship­ley Park end, although the gate may be locked on Sun­days (please con­firm before you trav­el)

Mean­while, back at Ship­ley Bodge…

The new res­i­dents have con­tin­ued to mod­ernise the old farm­house so it now boasts a loft apart­ment, new flags and exte­ri­or décor. The gar­den has not been over­looked with nice new fenc­ing, and sev­er­al tree-hous­es under con­struc­tion.

The pro­test­ers are in good spir­its and well stocked but please keep the sup­plies com­ing. Peo­ple are also need­ed, for an hour, a day or prefer­ably longer.

Please bring water, tim­ber and food etc.

See http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20918 for ini­tial occu­pa­tion report, and con­tact, map, wish list, access to the site, court papers & a protest.
See http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20943 for a report of some­one’s vis­it there.

http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

Bodge graffitti 1
Bodge flag
Bodge flowers 1
Bodge flowers 2
Bodge flowers 4

Road resistance round-up from the Midwest US

Indi­ana June 24- Resis­tance to I‑69 has been rapid­ly heat­ing up in the past month. While the first protest camp set up was qui­et­ly evict­ed in ear­ly May, a tree-sit and occu­pa­tion cre­at­ed in the path of a pro­posed onramp lat­er that month last­ed five weeks.

B-rad Camp - against I-69Indi­ana June 24- Resis­tance to I‑69 has been rapid­ly heat­ing up in the past month. While the first protest camp set up was qui­et­ly evict­ed in ear­ly May, a tree-sit and occu­pa­tion cre­at­ed in the path of a pro­posed onramp lat­er that month last­ed five weeks.

Dur­ing that time, par­tic­i­pants also built an elab­o­rate ground camp, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly car­ry­ing on inten­sive orga­niz­ing with local fam­i­lies threat­ed by the road, cul­mi­nat­ing in a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic in Oak­land City attend­ed joint­ly by landown­ers and eco-activists. Excit­ing demon­stra­tions and sol­i­dar­i­ty actions hap­pened through­out the month — in Bloom­ing­ton, Louisville, Mary­land, and beyond.

Dubbed B‑Rad Camp (after Brad Will, an Earth First!er and Indy­media jour­nal­ist mur­dered by the Mex­i­can state), the occu­pa­tion was evict­ed last Fri­day, June 20. Five peo­ple were arrest­ed around the camp, with the two treesit­ters being exposed to extreme dan­ger and bru­tal­i­ty by the state climbers. Three addi­tion­al pro­test­ers were arrest­ed at a police check­point on their way to sup­port those fac­ing evic­tion.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions were launched almost imme­di­ate­ly, and one per­son was arrest­ed that after­noon at an I‑69 plan­ning office in Bloom­ing­ton. Since then, demos have been called across Indi­ana, at offices belong­ing to the Indi­ana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion, con­trac­tors, and the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources, who were respon­si­ble for lend­ing climbers to INDOT. Near­ly 100 peo­ple joined a torch march in Bloom­ing­ton the fol­low­ing night, lead­ing police to scram­ble to pro­tect the down­town plan­ning office while peo­ple chant­ed, drummed and shot off fire­works.

A few chants from this demo and oth­ers: “They wreck dreams — we wreck roads” “I‑69 Shut it down, dri­ve INDOT out of town” “No more roads, no more jails” and “Sol­i­dar­i­ty means attack — against the road we will fight back” and at the end of the torch march “We will win!”

Since then, local orga­niz­ers have worked to put togeth­er legal sup­port for those now fac­ing charges (none extreme­ly seri­ous), while oth­ers have con­tin­ued to act in response to the evic­tion. A mil­i­tant office inva­sion against Bernardin Lochmueller and Asso­ciates (a deeply com­plic­it con­trac­tor) in Evans­ville today end­ed in con­fronta­tions with man­agers and bro­ken win­dows.

This account is only a brief sum­ma­ry of some of the more vis­i­ble actions that have occurred in the past weeks against I‑69. Mean­while, many peo­ple have con­tin­ued with oth­er kinds of excit­ing oppo­si­tion efforts, includ­ing the Road­block Report (avail­able on the web­site), the I‑69 Lis­ten­ing Project (a push to cre­ate more space to dia­logue and share sto­ries across the spec­trum of farm­ers and oth­ers resist­ing), and gar­den­ing with landown­ers along the route, among oth­er exper­i­ments to spread and deep­en the strug­gle.

More details and pic­tures can be found at
www.stopi69.wordpress.com . Pic­tures at http://stopi69.wordpress.com/photos/

BAA’s par­ent com­pa­ny, Fer­rovial, is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing much of the fund­ing being used to cur­rent­ly build I‑69, through its pur­chase of the Indi­ana Toll Road.

Anti-Sprawl Direct Action in Montana

Flat­head Val­ley, Mon­tana, U.S. — A group call­ing itself Amer­i­cans Stop­ping Sprawl­ing Devel­op­ment (ASSD) has tak­en cred­it for a rash of inci­dents involv­ing the removal of sur­vey­or stakes and graf­fi­ti that is esti­mat­ed to have cost devel­op­ers as much as $20,000 so far.

Stop Sprawl!Flat­head Val­ley, Mon­tana, U.S. — A group call­ing itself Amer­i­cans Stop­ping Sprawl­ing Devel­op­ment (ASSD) has tak­en cred­it for a rash of inci­dents involv­ing the removal of sur­vey­or stakes and graf­fi­ti that is esti­mat­ed to have cost devel­op­ers as much as $20,000 so far.

A three page anti-cap­i­tal­ist man­i­festo was left behind by the van­dals after the first inci­dent which took place on May 17th. The doc­u­ment call urban sprawl “one of the great­est issues fac­ing our soci­ety” and promised more actions against it.

The non-prof­it envi­ron­men­tal group Cit­i­zens for a Bet­ter Flat­head has joined devel­op­ers and their allies and offered a cash reward for infor­ma­tion lead­ing to the arrest and con­vic­tion of indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for a cam­paign anti-sprawl van­dal­ism.

Cit­i­zens for a Bet­ter Flat­head pledged $100 towards the reward fund. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Sier­ra Club’s Mis­soula office also dis­avowed the action.

News from the battles for free space in Copenhagen

Strug­gles around free space and squats con­tin­ue abounds in Copen­hagen, Den­mark. Not only are there still week­ly demos still for the cam­paign to have a new Youth­house (Ung­domshuset) but a new exten­sion to the famous squat­ted Chris­tia­nia has been occu­pied with great suc­cess.

Strug­gles around free space and squats con­tin­ue abounds in Copen­hagen, Den­mark. Not only are there still week­ly demos still for the cam­paign to have a new Youth­house (Ung­domshuset) but a new exten­sion to the famous squat­ted Chris­tia­nia has been occu­pied with great suc­cess. It also looks like the coun­cil has giv­en in to pres­sure from the squat­ters move­ment and agreed a new Youth House for the kids!!

69 WEEKS for UNGDOMSHUSET:
69 weeks. At least 1 demo every week. Thurs­day demo num­ber 69 was obvi­ous­ly sym­bol­ic (It was the street num­ber of the Youth­house) and the demo crew had announced it was going to last 24 hours, going through most parts of Copen­hagen with dif­fer­ent sorts of activ­i­ties planned through­out — four meals dur­ing the 24 hours, open air cin­e­ma, pirate par­ty, block­ing traf­fic, speech­es, con­certs and hap­pen­ings.
Ini­tial­ly there was some scep­tis­cism from both activists and police, but it soon became appar­ent that peo­ple were going to stick it out all 24 hours. The demo moved around Copen­hagen, stop­ping in dif­fer­ent loca­tions to give speech­es or show polit­i­cal films. At many points there were dis­agree­ments with the police fol­low­ing the demo, but the demo always got its way in the end, often stop­ping for long stretch­es in main roads block­ing traf­fic. After 21 hours — on Fri­day around 2 pm — the police had final­ly had enough of the demo act­ing autonomous­ly and con­fined the demo to a square in Vester­bro. This result­ed in a big pub­lic man­i­fes­ta­tion on the square with both bands and DJs com­ing from oth­er parts of the city to play.
After 24 hrs the demo end­ed in a count down and a big greet­ing to the activists and the city which had both been upside down for 24 hrs through sun and rain, light and dark­ness.
PICTURES: http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/180

A NEW YOUTH HOUSE COMES SLOWLY INTO BEING:
On Wed June 11th, the last city coun­cil meet­ing before sum­mer, the politi­cians of the coun­cil vot­ed in favor of the agree­ment on a new Ung­domshus in the build­ings of Dortheavej 61. The votes were 38 pro and 13 against. The votes were giv­en after 2 hours of dis­cus­sion. Activists has promised mil­i­tant activ­i­ty in the streets again if this meet­ing was unable to come to a deci­sion on a YES vote for a new place and an address.
The new house will be in what is now a local cul­ture cen­tre under the coun­cil. It will be in two con­nect­ed build­ings, one of which will be split in half. The cul­ture cen­tre will remain in the oth­er half of the build­ing and the city coun­cil has agreed to build a new add on to com­pen­sate for the space lost to the new Ung­domshus.
The first part of the take over (the small­er build­ing com­pris­ing 600 m²) will hap­pen on July 1st. After that the main build­ing will be avail­able for take over on Jan­u­ary 1st next year.
There has been very pos­i­tive con­tact between the left rad­i­cal scene and the lead­ers of the cul­ture cen­tre, who are wel­com­ing the new house.
PICTURE: http://english.indymedia.dk/system/photo/file/111/616161.jpg

CHRISTIANIA EXPANDING!!
The area on Ref­shalevej right next to Chris­tia­nia that was squat­ted on the 31st of May is stil grow­ing and the dif­fer­ent hous­es and con­struc­tions are tak­en shape. Nei­ther the City coun­cil or the state approves of the sit­u­a­tion but can’t fig­ure out who has the author­i­ty to act on the squat since half the road is state prop­er­ty and the oth­er half belongs to the city.
Nei­ther the City coun­cil nor the state approves of the sit­u­a­tion but can’t fig­ure out who has the author­i­ty to act on the squat since half the road is state prop­er­ty and the oth­er half belongs to the city. Appar­ent­ly ‘the con­struc­tors’ on Ref­shalevej for once are ben­e­fit­ing from the bureau­cra­cy, since noth­ing will be done to clear the street until the two admin­is­tra­tions agrees on who’s doing what,
Mean­while small hous­es are being built both on water and on the ground as well as road­blocks to slow down car traf­fic has been estab­lished. Around 28 dif­fer­ent projects are cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion and ‘the con­struc­tors’ invit­ed more peo­ple to join in!

PICTURES OF NEW SQUATTED REFSHALEEVEJ:
http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/175
http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/178

BUT EVICTION NOTICE NOW SERVED
The new area squat­ted near Chris­tia­nia — Ref­shalevej — has been giv­en notice. The evic­tion date is not finalised but will be up soon.
For some weeks activists have been build­ing in the new­ly squat­ted ground just out­side Chris­tia­nia called Ref­shalevej. Now the builders have been giv­en notice by the city coun­cil and the state who have joint own­er­ship over the area. An evic­tion is said to be pend­ing although no date has yet been offi­cial­ly giv­en.
The activists have stat­ed that they intend to resist the evic­tion non vio­lent­ly, and that they intend to resquat the area immideaite­ly fol­low­ing the evic­tion.

COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR UNGDOMSHUSET
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungdomshuset

EVICTION AND RIOTS CHRONOLOGY + PICTURES/VIDEOS
http://www.emoware.org/ungdomshuset.asp
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/363973.html

COMPLETE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANIA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

Manchester & London Critical Masses this Friday + South London

OH MY!
It’s CRITICAL MASS this Friday.…how ace is that?

Fri­day 27th June 6pm
Cen­tral Library Man­ches­ter

After­wards we’ll have a BBQ and hang out a park, so bring BBQ’s, food, music, drinks etc. (veg­an BBQs pre­ferred as then it can be acces­si­ble to every­one!)

OH MY!
It’s CRITICAL MASS this Friday.…how ace is that?

Fri­day 27th June 6pm
Cen­tral Library Man­ches­ter

Manchester Critical MassAfter­wards we’ll have a BBQ and hang out a park, so bring BBQ’s, food, music, drinks etc. (veg­an BBQs pre­ferred as then it can be acces­si­ble to every­one!)

A total­ly ace bike ride around our city to meet oth­er cyclists and ride on our roads…For a few hours once a month we can show how beau­ti­ful our city can be when bicy­cles, instead of cars, dom­i­nate the roads.

it’s such a nice and socia­ble and fun way to spend a Fri­day evening on a bicycle..wow. so ace. and now we’re get­ting big­ger and bigger..someone said they count­ed at least 150 peo­ple on the one last month, how ace is that?!!. come and be part of our love­ly friend­ly cruise around..to col­lec­tive­ly enjoy the beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence that is rid­ing a bike.

—-

Peo­ple’s com­ments about Man­ches­ter Crit­i­cal Mass

“…it’s bril­liant. Usu­al­ly I’m charg­ing around on my bike, get­ting where i need to go as fast as i can. Crit­i­cal mass is dif­fer­ent. It’s about enjoy­ing rid­ing. It’s the most relaxed ride around the city I’ve ever had. Where all my wor­ries and fears float away. And I’ve met some love­ly peo­ple too”

“I was scared it would be some angry bike mil­i­tants but every­one is so friend­ly and the ride is fun no aggro at all. See you next month!”

“it’s quite some­thing to have that many peeps rid­ing round at once.”

“Crit­i­cal Mass some­times has a rep­u­ta­tion for being an angry rab­ble of cyclists that want to string up any car dri­vers they see. This is not true of Man­ches­ter Crit­i­cal Mass, it is a fluffy mass of peo­ple that like to have fun on bikes, there are often have chil­dren with us and a bicy­cle sound sys­tem to add to the par­ty fun atmos­phere. As well as being fun and
a social event it is also to show how great a car free city will be. This is achieved every month by show­ing motorists an alter­na­tive, yet crit­i­cal mass Man­ches­ter does­n’t aim to annoy dri­vers we want them to join us..”

“I spend all month, every month, rid­ing around behind exhaust pipes and swerv­ing out of the way from angry, dis­re­spect­ful dri­vers, I live in a world that is dying from cli­mate change..only the oth­er day it was announced the white rhi­no is extinct, it tears me up inside. Rid­ing a bike isn’t going to change all of that instant­ly but I believe that not only does it mean less cars on the roads but rid­ing a bike also gives a feel­ing of con­nec­tion with one’s sur­round­ings and oth­er peo­ple and through this we can start to act in oth­er ways that can cre­ate social change”

“Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t a place to vent the anger that comes from hav­ing to deal with cars (I don’t think), because it’s nice to, instead, spend that time enjoy­ing rid­ing my bike. Some­times it can feel so alien­at­ing rid­ing a bike sur­round­ed by so many motorists. Crit­i­cal Mass shows that we are not alone and that we are grow­ing. It’s the most fan­tas­tic piece of direct action I’ve ever done- I want there to be less cars on the roads and by
being one less car there is!!!”

(tak­en from emails we’ve received)

============

Crit­i­cal Mass in Lon­don for Marie this Fri­day

Assem­ble under Water­loo Bridge 6pm on Fri­day

The Crit­i­cal Mass in Lon­don will attempt to go all the way to Brix­ton to cel­e­brate the life of Marie, who was killed by 2 cars on her way to the demon­stra­tion against the arms trade in Brighon, see:

https://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2008/06/400604.html

Assem­ble under Water­loo Bridge 6pm on Fri­day

============

South Lon­don crit­i­cal mass?!

The first ever south Lon­don Crit­i­cal Mass is hap­pen­ing on Fri­day 4th of July, and every first Fri­day of the month there after.

It will take place @ 6.30, start­ing from Peck­ham library.

Help cam­paign for safer roads for cyclists. All oth­er human pow­ered trans­port wel­come too!
Mas­sive rolling sound sys­tem pro­vid­ed by rawkus rick­shaws.