Category: Action Reports

City Indians spread to Copenhagen: 4x4 drivers be warned

7th Novem­ber 2007

For sev­er­al months “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the spread of gas gus­sling jeeps in Swedish cities. Now they have moved to Copen­hagen.

Sev­er­al groups of mil­i­tant envi­ron­men­tal activists known as “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the wide spread use of so-called “city jeeps” in Swedish cities.

7th Novem­ber 2007

For sev­er­al months “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the spread of gas gus­sling jeeps in Swedish cities. Now they have moved to Copen­hagen.

Sev­er­al groups of mil­i­tant envi­ron­men­tal activists known as “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the wide spread use of so-called “city jeeps” in Swedish cities.

Their tac­tics are sim­ply to have groups of activists roam­ing the streets, let­ting the air out of the tires on the big, gas-gus­sling jeeps. Wher­ev­er they go they leave a note for the car own­ers, explain­ing the impact the cars and their exhausts are hav­ing on the envi­ron­ment and encour­ag­ing them to use pub­lic trans­porta­tion in stead.

The actions have result­ed in car own­ers organ­is­ing in vig­i­lante groups threat­en­ing to kill the activists caught.

Now this phe­nom­e­na has crossed to Den­mark, where a new group of Indi­ans have been on the prowl. The notes left behind are word­ed exact­ly like those in Swe­den and so far the tac­tics have been very sim­i­lar.

Climate Action in Dover

4.11.2007
In the ear­ly hours of sun­day morn­ing, cli­mate activists made a bold state­ment about glob­al warm­ing by drop­ping a ban­ner from a four-storey buld­ing.

Dover climate action 1Dover climate action 24.11.2007
In the ear­ly hours of sun­day morn­ing, cli­mate activists made a bold state­ment about glob­al warm­ing by drop­ping a ban­ner from a four-storey buld­ing.

“THE EARTH IS TOO HOT” was clear­ly vis­i­ble from the main through­way from the M20 to the busiest port in Britain.

Short­ly after­wards two road warn­ing signs were put up on the first round­about on the approach to Dover inform­ing dri­vers that there is “CLIMATE CHAOS AHEAD”.

Activist killed on GM action in Brazil — call to action for 8th November

Call for day of action on 8th Novem­ber in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Brazil­ian GM activists after shoot­ings on anti-GM land squat in Brazil

On Octo­ber 21 at 1:30 p.m., gun­men attacked a Via Campesina encamp­ment locat­ed at Syngenta’s 127-hectare farm used for field tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in San­ta Tereza do Oeste, in Paraná, Brazil. Dur­ing the attack, Valmir Mota de Oliveira, 42 years old (known as “Keno,”) activist and leader of the of the Movi­men­to Sem Ter­ra (the Brazil­ian Land­less Rur­al Work­ers Move­ment), was killed at point-blank range by two shots to the chest. Two oth­er MST lead­ers, Cel­so Bar­bosa and Célia Apare­ci­da Lourenço, were pur­sued by the gun­men but man­aged to escape. Work­ers Gen­til Couto Viera, Jonas Gomes de Queiroz, Domin­gos Bar­retos, Izabel Nasci­men­to de Souza, and Hud­son Cardin were seri­ous­ly injured.

Call for day of action on 8th Novem­ber in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Brazil­ian GM activists after shoot­ings on anti-GM land squat in Brazil

On Octo­ber 21 at 1:30 p.m., gun­men attacked a Via Campesina encamp­ment locat­ed at Syngenta’s 127-hectare farm used for field tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in San­ta Tereza do Oeste, in Paraná, Brazil. Dur­ing the attack, Valmir Mota de Oliveira, 42 years old (known as “Keno,”) activist and leader of the of the Movi­men­to Sem Ter­ra (the Brazil­ian Land­less Rur­al Work­ers Move­ment), was killed at point-blank range by two shots to the chest. Two oth­er MST lead­ers, Cel­so Bar­bosa and Célia Apare­ci­da Lourenço, were pur­sued by the gun­men but man­aged to escape. Work­ers Gen­til Couto Viera, Jonas Gomes de Queiroz, Domin­gos Bar­retos, Izabel Nasci­men­to de Souza, and Hud­son Cardin were seri­ous­ly injured.

To any­one who has been part of the fight against GM crops and cor­po­rate con­trol of our lives in the UK, from stick­ing “GM” labels on a pack­et of bean feast to sneak­ing through the fields at the dead of night to destroy the crops and sab­o­tage the test-sites: Keno and his com­pan­ions are us. It is an acci­dent of class pol­i­tics and geog­ra­phy we are not (yet) receiv­ing death threats.

Via Campesina had pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied the site in Brazil because of Syn­gen­ta’s ille­gal devel­op­ment of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) seeds. Syn­gen­ta is the world’s largest pro­duc­er of agro­chem­i­cals and the third largest com­mer­cial seed pro­duc­er. They pulled out of the GM in the UK after their last attempt at a field tri­al was destroyed.

At dawn on Octo­ber 21st, about 150 mem­bers of Via Campesina reoc­cu­pied Syn­gen­ta’s site, where they encoun­tered four armed secu­ri­ty guards, who were dis­armed and left the site. At about 1 in the after­noon, Via Campesina reports, “a bus stopped in front of the entry gate and about forty armed gun­men got out, fir­ing machine guns at the peo­ple that they saw in the encamp­ment. They broke down the gate, then shot [Mota].

Mota, Lourenço and Bar­bosa had been receiv­ing death threats and intim­i­da­tion since the begin­ning of the year. They still con­tin­ued to take action.

We need to act in sol­i­dar­i­ty, because this is the panora­ma, and it is only going to get worse. Sick though it is, respons­es from ‘con­cerned cit­i­zens’ in coun­tries like ours can help pro­tect activists like Keno and have an impact on com­pa­nies like Syn­gen­ta.

La Via Campesina are call­ing on all orga­ni­za­tions and move­ments to orga­nize protest actions at Syn­gen­ta offices on the 8th Novem­ber in the coun­tries where they are based, and to hand deliv­er let­ters to the Brazil­ian and Swiss embassies, with the fol­low­ing demands:

1. The pun­ish­ment of the mate­r­i­al per­pe­tra­tors and intel­lec­tu­al authors of this crime.
2. Expro­pri­a­tion of Syn­gen­ta lands, to be used for the pro­duc­tion of native seeds, and that these lands be admin­is­tered by rur­al peas­ants and farm work­ers.
3. The expul­sion of Syn­gen­ta from Brazil.
4. That the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment head­ed by Pres­i­dent Luis Igna­cio Lula da Sil­va adopt mea­sures to ensure the phys­i­cal integri­ty of the rur­al farm work­ers who are threat­ened by the armed men con­tract­ed by Syn­gen­ta.
5. That all organ­i­sa­tions back up the ini­tia­tives of Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al in their call to repu­di­ate and con­demn the actions of Syn­gen­ta.
6. That all organ­i­sa­tions of Via Campesina in all coun­tries orga­nize days of action and protest in the Swiss and Brazil­ian Embassies, as well as at the offices of Syn­gen­ta this Thurs­day 8th Novem­ber and on the 10th of Decem­ber con­demn­ing this crim­i­nal act.
7. To send let­ters of protest to the fol­low­ing address­es:

Gov­er­nador do Esta­do do Paraná
Exmo Gov­er­nador do Esta­do do Paraná
Sr. Rober­to Requião de Mel­lo e Sil­va
Palá­cio Iguaçu
Praça Nos­sa Sen­ho­ra de Salete, s/nº, 3º andar
Cen­tro Cívi­co 80.530–909
Curitiba/PR — Brasil
Fax: + 55 41 3350 2935
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Min­istro da Justiça
Exmo Min­istro da Justiça
Sr. Tar­so Gen­ro
Esplana­da dos Min­istérios, Blo­co “T”
70712–902 — Brasília/DF — Brasil
Fax: + 55 61 3322–6817
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Cópias para:
Sec­re­taria Espe­cial de Dire­itos Humanos
Exmo. Secretário Espe­cial
Sr. Paulo de Tar­so Van­nuchi
Esplana­da dos Min­istérios — Blo­co “T” — 4º andar
70.064–900 — Brasília/DF — Brasil
Fax: + 55 61 3226 7980
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Copia al MST Brasil y Via Campesina : mst­pr [NOSPAM] mst.org.br
via­cam­pesina [NOSPAM] viacampesina.org
Send us a short report and pho­tos of the actions orga­nized to:
via­cam­pesina [NOSPAM} viacampesina.org

SAMPLE LETTER –
Dear Sir:
I, [YOUR NAME / NAME OF ORGANIZATION] am writ­ing to express my grave con­cern with regard to the Octo­ber 21 mur­der of Valmir Mota de Oliveira, also known as Keno, of the Move­ment of Land­less Work­ers (MST) and Via Campesina, in the Brazil­ian state of Paraná, who was shot twice and killed by armed gun­men on an exper­i­men­tal GMO farm of Syn­gen­ta Seeds in San­ta Tereza do Oeste Paraná, Brazil. Keno’s death is a tremen­dous loss for his fam­i­ly, for those strug­gling for social jus­tice and human rights in Brazil, and for the inter­na­tion­al net­work of friends and allies who con­tin­ue to be shocked by the bru­tal­i­ty of agribusi­ness expan­sion in Brazil.
It has been doc­u­ment­ed that at 1:30 p.m. of the day of the attack, a bus stopped in front of the entrance gate to the farm and an armed mili­tia of approx­i­mate­ly 40 heav­i­ly armed gun­men got out, fir­ing at the peo­ple in the encamp­ment. They broke down the gate, pur­sued and killed activist Keno with two shots to the chest, attempt­ed to kill two oth­er lead­ers, shot five oth­er land­less work­ers, and severe­ly beat Isabel do Nasci­men­to de Souza, who remains in seri­ous con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal.
In addi­tion, it has been not­ed that Syn­gen­ta was using the ser­vices of an armed mili­tia which was act­ing through a front com­pa­ny, NF Secu­ri­ty, in con­junc­tion with the Rur­al Soci­ety of the West­ern Region (SRO) and the Move­ment of Rur­al Pro­duc­ers (MPR), which are tied to agribusi­ness.
While an inquiry has been opened in order to inves­ti­gate these denun­ci­a­tions against your com­pa­ny and NF Secu­ri­ty, we insist that you imme­di­ate­ly sus­pend all con­tract­ing of pri­vate mili­tias in Brazil to avoid any fur­ther vio­la­tions of human rights.
Please see to it that the indi­vid­u­als involved in this attack, who are inti­mate­ly linked to and paid by your com­pa­ny, are brought to jus­tice. Also, please ensure that your com­pa­ny avoids fur­ther alter­ca­tions with Brazil’s human rights and social jus­tice move­ments, and that the right of Brazil’s peo­ple to peace­ful­ly orga­nize be respect­ed by your Brazil-based employ­ees and func­tionar­ies.
Respect­ful­ly,
[YOUR NAME / NAME OF ORGANIZATION]
[LOCATION]

25,000 blockade world’s longest dam in India

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa, which will mean the death of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa, which will mean the death of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

25,000 farm­ers are to form a human chain around one of the worlds largest dams in protest against devel­op­ment by British min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta Resources PLC. Cen­tral to the con­flict are issues over water allo­ca­tion to the alu­mini­um indus­try and a baux­ite min­ing project whose effects Indi­a’s Supreme Court have been warned by its own inves­ti­ga­to­ry com­mit­tee would lead to “cul­tur­al geno­cide.” [1]

Farm­ers in Indi­a’s poor­est state, Oris­sa, have grad­u­al­ly been los­ing the right to water from the Hirakud dam since it began to irri­gate and pro­duce ener­gy for the region in 1947. Whilst they claim that today only 25% of their fields receive any irri­ga­tion, allo­ca­tion of water to heavy indus­try has increased by over 27 times with­in the past ten years. [2] The major bene­fac­tor of this is the alu­mini­um indus­try, Hin­dal­co and Vedan­ta, present in Oris­sa due to its rich baux­ite deposits [alu­mini­um ore] and the huge amount of water avail­able from the Hirakud dam. [3]

Vedan­ta is cur­rent­ly on the crux of win­ning a legal bat­tle grant­i­ng it the right to mine three mil­lion tonnes of baux­ite from the most bio­di­verse for­est region in Oris­sa, the Niyam­giri hills. The min­ing threat­ens many rare species of ani­mals and plants which inhab­it the region, as well as the exis­tence of an entire trib­al pop­u­la­tion, the Don­garia Kondhs.

Today is the lat­est con­fronta­tion between dif­fer­ent inter­est groups in a ‘water war’ which reflects grow­ing glob­al con­flicts over water short­ages in a dry­ing plan­et. Police have fired on and killed demon­stra­tors in pre­vi­ous mass protests in Oris­sa and it is like­ly that fol­low­ing the recent con­tentious pro-Vedan­ta deci­sions of Indi­a’s Supreme Court, con­flicts may well become more heat­ed.

Feel like ring­ing up Vedan­ta to tell them to screw them­selves? Good!

investorrelations@vedantaresources.com

Sumanth Cidambi
Asso­ciate Direc­tor Investor Rela­tions
Tele­phone: +91 22 6646 1444

Vedan­ta Resources plc
16 Berke­ley Street
Lon­don W1J 8DZ

Robin Walk­er & Faeth Birch

Fins­bury Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
52–58 Taber­na­cle Street
Lon­don
EC2A 4NJ

Tele­phone: +44 (0) 20 7251 3801

tak­en from http://www.vedantaresources.com/contactus.htm

Occupation Struggles Heat Up In Reading — Common Ground Community Garden

Press Release (For Imme­di­ate Release):
THREE ARRESTED @ COMMON GROUND!

At 11am on Mon­day 5th Novem­ber, three peo­ple were stopped by police in an unmarked police car whilst remov­ing board­ing from the entrance of the Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den in Kates­grove. Carl, one of the arrestees, explained that he told the police offi­cer he was “remov­ing the board­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty gar­den so that the com­mu­ni­ty could use the gar­den”. “The police offi­cer then called the coun­cil,” said carl, and “I over­heard that the coun­cil offi­cial want­ed the police to arrest us so that they could have a pho­to of our faces”. The three young men were arrest­ed for ‘attempt­ed bur­glary’ and ‘going equipped’, hand cuffed and tak­en to Read­ing police sta­tion where they were added to the ever grow­ing Police DNA data­base and then held in cus­tody cells for almost eight hours. One of them com­ment­ed that he could see his teach­ing career go down the drain as he sat in the cell.

Press Release (For Imme­di­ate Release):
THREE ARRESTED @ COMMON GROUND!

At 11am on Mon­day 5th Novem­ber, three peo­ple were stopped by police in an unmarked police car whilst remov­ing board­ing from the entrance of the Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den in Kates­grove. Carl, one of the arrestees, explained that he told the police offi­cer he was “remov­ing the board­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty gar­den so that the com­mu­ni­ty could use the gar­den”. “The police offi­cer then called the coun­cil,” said carl, and “I over­heard that the coun­cil offi­cial want­ed the police to arrest us so that they could have a pho­to of our faces”. The three young men were arrest­ed for ‘attempt­ed bur­glary’ and ‘going equipped’, hand cuffed and tak­en to Read­ing police sta­tion where they were added to the ever grow­ing Police DNA data­base and then held in cus­tody cells for almost eight hours. One of them com­ment­ed that he could see his teach­ing career go down the drain as he sat in the cell.

The Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Col­lec­tive had decid­ed to reopen the gar­den despite coun­cil oppo­si­tion. Since the coun­cil regained con­trol over the gar­den site it has returned to being van­dalised and crim­i­nal groups have been enter­ing the derelict hous­es to steal cop­per pip­ing and lead from the roofs. “We want this dam­age to stop” said local res­i­dent Stu. “Hav­ing the com­mu­ni­ty gar­den open here stopped 5 years of crime, van­dal­ism and decay. Two weeks of coun­cil con­trol threat­ened to reverse that. So on Sun­day we repaired the fences and bench­es, secured the build­ings and tidied the lit­ter up. Open­ing up the front entrance was the last thing we need­ed to do to reopen the gar­den for pub­lic use”.

After eight hours in cus­tody the young men were ques­tioned. “When the police final­ly under­stood that we were gain­ing access to the gar­den from the road, not one of the build­ings, they dropped the case and let us go”. One offi­cer said to Carl “we dont have a prob­lem with you doing good things for the com­mu­ni­ty”.

This is a prime exam­ple of how impor­tant it is for peo­ple to know their legal rights in the face of police offi­cers and oth­er author­i­ties who often do not know or care.

Com­mon Ground Col­lec­tive now have new plans to con­tin­ue our fight, to find out more or get involved or offer your help please email us at:

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk

Thanks!

http://www.myspace.co.uk/common_ground_garden

======

In Read­ing, as the entire town is flogged off to inter­na­tion­al mon­ey-men and and the needs of the peo­ple go ignored, its dif­fi­cult to make the pri­or­i­ties and forces run­ning our neigh­bour­hoods and our world, and the injus­tice that results, more obvi­ous. But two ongo­ing strug­gles in the Kates­grove area of the town do just that.

Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den was cre­at­ed ear­ly this year by local res­i­dents, squat­ters and activists on derelict coun­cil owned land. For five years the coun­cil had left three build­ings and the sur­round­ing land in Sil­ver Street as a junk­yard, filled with trash and nee­dles. When a cut in coun­cil fund­ing meant that the vol­un­tary ‘Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre’ next door also became derelict, squat­ters moved in, and quick­ly decid­ed to do some­thing about the site next to them. From Jan­u­ary to May, they worked direct­ly-demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly, using recy­cling and the gen­eros­i­ty of neigh­bours and fam­i­ly to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den.

Two days before the open­ing day on May 19th, Read­ing Coun­cil began to respond in the same way they planned to car­ry on: with crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion and threats. Of course, the col­lec­tive also set their tone: resis­tance! The coun­cil secured an injunc­tion ban­ning the open day and up to 200 local res­i­dents ignored it, enjoy­ing the gar­den, live music and a BBQ. The coun­cil then secured an injunc­tion ban­ning the dai­ly open­ing of the gar­den and the hold­ing of com­mu­ni­ty events. Yet every day for the next five months the gar­den was open to all, and has been enjoyed by many local res­i­dents of all ages and colours. Some even took the ini­tia­tive to reg­u­lar­ly work in the gar­den, weed­ing and cut­ting the grass. Mean­while more com­mu­ni­ty BBQ’s were held through­out the sum­mer. The coun­cil then obtained an evic­tion order to evict the squat­ters and close down the gar­den. Twice, in June and August, local res­i­dents and activist friends mobilised to defend the gar­den, and both times the coun­cil chick­ened out. Final­ly, on Octo­ber 18th coun­cil offi­cials and bail­lifs, backed up by cops, evict­ed the squat­ters and dragged one local res­i­dent (also an AFer) from the gar­den, before board­ing the site up.

How­ev­er, it aint over yet! Since that day, the build­ings have been repeat­ed­ly re-opened by squat­ters and re-sealed by builders, piss­ing the coun­cil off no end. Less-pos­i­tive­ly the gar­den began to return to the state of dis­re­pair it was in a year ago, as van­dal­ism and theft crept back in. So, this week, peo­ple involved in Com­mon Ground decid­ed to re-open the gar­den — an act which is not ille­gal. How­ev­er, since when has the law ever mat­tered to peo­ple in pow­er? Cops in an ummarked car arrest­ed the three gar­den­ers half way through their task. When they phoned the coun­cil to ask if they want­ed the gar­den­ers arrest­ed, the reply over­heard was “yes, so we can get a pho­to of their faces”. The three were nicked for ‘attempt­ed bur­glary and going equipped’ before being added to the DNA data­base and held in the cells for eight hours. Even­tu­al­ly, after explain­ing to the inter­view­ing cops that they wer­ent break­ing into a build­ing, but open­ing the gar­den (as they had orig­i­nal­ly explained to the arrest­ing offi­cers!), the three were released with­out charge.

The rea­sons for the coun­cils attacks on this won­de­ful com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive are obvi­ous: They want to pri­va­tise the site, dump­ing their respon­si­bil­i­ty to use land to ful­fill social needs and facil­i­tat­ing a devel­op­er mak­ing huge prof­its. The com­pa­ny in ques­tion is named Unite, and plan to build pri­vate stu­dent acco­mo­da­tion (renowned for rip­ping stu­dents off), despite the uni­ver­si­ty hold­ing two stu­dent halls build­ings emp­ty round the cor­ner so they can flog them for devel­op­ment into more unnaford­able flats — its all about prof­it over peo­ple. Despite this, Com­mon Ground aim to offer their ser­vices to the author­i­ties as ‘care­tak­ers’ for the site, while plan­ning a cam­paign against the devel­op­ment and for a direct­ly-demo­c­ra­t­ic process for the com­mu­ni­ty to decide what hap­pens to the site long-term. In addi­tion, they plan to re-open the gar­den next week­end for a one-day com­mu­ni­ty event.

Mean­while a lit­tle way down the road, sim­i­lar process­es are at work, as prof­i­teer­ing boss­es are seek­ing the evic­tion of up to 40 squat­ters. Townsend House is a 53 bed­room build­ing, in the same area as Com­mon Ground which was orig­i­nal­ly run by a char­i­ty as a shel­ter for vul­ner­a­ble women. How­ev­er, in what looks like a seri­ous­ly dodgy deal, the build­ing was ‘inter­nal­ly’ sold in 2006 to the char­i­ties par­ent com­pa­ny for less than £100,000 and the women were re-housed by the coun­cil! The prop­er­ty then stood emp­ty for a year before being squat­ted in June this year. Since then it has become home to a diverse com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple, includ­ing migrants, fam­i­lies with chil­dren, unem­ployed or retired work­ers and assort­ed young peo­ple. It is organ­ised through week­ly assem­blies, and though def­i­nite­ly not per­fect, it is an inter­est­ing exam­ple of a self-man­aged com­mu­ni­ty.

Of course, now the cor­po­ra­tion wants it back, iron­i­cal­ly claim­ing they want to ‘house vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple’! A recent court hear­ing gave the squat­ters a three week adjourn­ment, but no doubt the law will pro­tect the boss­es ‘prop­er­ty rights’ over the needs of the res­i­dents in the end. How­ev­er, it looks pos­si­ble that the res­i­dents could resist evic­tion through direct-action if legal means fail, and local activists could lend their sup­port.

For more info or to offer your sup­port and help to either of these projects please con­tact

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk
defendtownsendhousehotmail.co.uk

Tara — Transport minister has transport problems

Novem­ber 2nd 2007

Dig­gers dived and Dempsey done

“trans­port prob­lems for dept of trans­ports noel dempsey”

Con­ser­va­tion­ists angry at what they call,‘The des­e­cra­tion of Ire­land’s cul­tur­al her­itage’ laid siege to a Trim hotel (Fri­day 2nd nov) where trans­port min­is­ter Noel Dempsey cel­e­brat­ed anoth­er gov­ern­ment decen­tral­i­sa­tion project.

Novem­ber 2nd 2007

Dig­gers dived and Dempsey done

“trans­port prob­lems for dept of trans­ports noel dempsey”

Con­ser­va­tion­ists angry at what they call,‘The des­e­cra­tion of Ire­land’s cul­tur­al her­itage’ laid siege to a Trim hotel (Fri­day 2nd nov) where trans­port min­is­ter Noel Dempsey cel­e­brat­ed anoth­er gov­ern­ment decen­tral­i­sa­tion project.

Fol­low­ing a morn­ing of suc­ces­ful dig­ger div­ing by 2 crews at Col­lier­stown and sol­diers hill,where 1 activist was arrest­ed for not giv­ing his name,then released an hour lat­er.

Some of the 40 Tara M3 pro­tes­tors dodged secu­ri­ty to enter the rear of the Knights­brook Hotel and golf resort where the recep­tion was tak­ing place,

At one point cater­ing staff — some Pol­ish — were sent to con­front them.

Ear­li­er, 10 con­ser­va­tion­ists harangued the vet­er­an politi­cian as he left the con­struc­tion site for the new Office of Pub­lic Works, where he had turned the first sod.

His day was fur­ther spoiled when it was dis­cov­ered that two tyres of his min­is­te­r­i­al Mere­cedes had been let down.

A spokesman for Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il said: “The graves of the ancient Fian­na have been bull­dozed, the bones dug up and the remains are still await­ing re-inter­ment to their orig­i­nal rest­ing place.

“It is bla­tant grave rob­bery and Irish peo­ple should be dis­gust­ed,

“Imag­ine if Glas­nevin (Dublin) had a pro­posed motor­way going right through it in 2000 years time.

“The aim was not to scare Mr Dempsey but to have a chance to com­mu­ni­cate our con­cern at his lack of inter­est in an alter­na­tive, cheap­er M3 route avoid­ing the Tara Skyrne Val­ley where there is poten­tial for a rail line and for valu­able tourism for gen­er­a­tions to come.

“This pro­posed UNESCO World Her­itage Park will thus be an asset to the peo­ple of Ire­land.”

Resis­tance is grow­ing from Ross­port to Tara, and our actions are increas­ing in their effectiveness,as is evi­dent from the gov­ern­ment cen­sor­ing www.tarapixie.net on pub­lic access inter­net ter­mi­nals. This means we are win­ning some­where and have raised major con­cerns with­in the halls of pow­er. As song,poetry and music were once again heard in the halls of Tara over Samhain. We hope all Irish and inter­na­tion­al net­works will ral­ly to the sup­port of the Tara Valley.Activists urgent­ly need­ed now num­bers are low after the Samhain celebration.As activists dig in for the win­ter support,food,warm gear and peo­ple needed.Hear the call.

http://www.tarapixie.net

Autumn EF! Action Update out — and advance notice of the Winter Moot, 22–24 February (gathering of eco-activists), Nottingham

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here

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The EF! Win­ter Moot will hap­pen from 22nd — 24th Feb­ru­ary 2008, in Not­ting­ham — more details near­er the time, as this is just advance notice.

It’s a gath­er­ing for envi­ron­men­tal activists — in the past, it’s been a chance for peo­ple involved in all kinds of eco­log­i­cal direct action to get togeth­er for a week­end indoors to chat about where things are at in the UK, and so improve all aspects of how we work togeth­er, in order to take direct action in defence of the earth.

Con­tact 0845–0223 5254 for more info

Protest shackles Total Oil petrol station (& 7th November action call-out)

On 1st Novem­ber pro­tes­tors gath­ered at the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in cen­tral Lon­don. They were call­ing for Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma due to their fund­ing of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. The protest began at 5pm to coin­cide with rush hour.

London Total shackled protestOn 1st Novem­ber pro­tes­tors gath­ered at the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in cen­tral Lon­don. They were call­ing for Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma due to their fund­ing of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. The protest began at 5pm to coin­cide with rush hour.

The protest con­sist­ed of ban­ners, plac­ards, leaflets and a peti­tion. One pro­tes­tor wore shack­les to sig­ni­fy the oppres­sion of the Burmese peo­ple.

With­in 10 min­utes of the protest begin­ning staff closed the sta­tion, block­ing off the fore­court and switch­ing off the lights. Even the accom­pa­ny­ing shop was shut. When it became appar­ent that the protest was con­tin­u­ing the police were con­tact­ed. One offi­cer arrived and after con­sult­ing the staff told the demon­stra­tors that there were not allowed onto the fore­court and risked arrest if they “inter­fered” with the busi­ness’s trade by block­ing the entrance or lock­ing onto any of the pumps. (It should be not­ed that none of the pro­tes­tors had entered the fore­court or caused any “inter­fer­ence”.)

After an hour the sta­tion re-opened. The protest con­tin­ued until 7.00pm.

http://www.totaloutofburma.blogspot.com

A world­wide day of action against French oil giant Total’s invest­ment in Bur­ma has been called for Wednes­day 7th Novem­ber, the day the com­pa­ny’s quar­ter­ly results are pub­lished. Total’s con­tin­ued involve­ment in the oper­a­tion of the Yadana gas pipeline in the south of the coun­try, in part­ner­ship with Chevron-Tex­a­co, is opposed by the coun­try’s demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-elect­ed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest or deten­tion for 12 years. The pipeline earns the regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of pounds in rev­enue every year, with only a tiny frac­tion reach­ing the Burmese peo­ple. The main cus­tomer for the pipeline is Thai­land.

Critical Mass reports (October) — Sheffield, London

A pleas­ant ride across Sheffield with a num­ber of cycling enthu­si­asts on Fri­day 26 Octo­ber. Also accom­pa­nied by 2 police bike offi­cers and a patrol car.

Come along on the next one.. last Fri­day of the month, 5:30pm at the Uni­ver­si­ty Con­course

A pleas­ant ride across Sheffield with a num­ber of cycling enthu­si­asts on Fri­day 26 Octo­ber. Also accom­pa­nied by 2 police bike offi­cers and a patrol car.

Come along on the next one.. last Fri­day of the month, 5:30pm at the Uni­ver­si­ty Con­course

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FIT on bikes at Lon­don Crit­i­cal Mass

At least one offi­cer from the FIT (For­wards Intel­li­gence Team) were spot­ted on the crit­i­cal mass with­out their usu­al blue-shoul­der uni­forms on and on bikes!

Sergeant CW 36 seen here at Cli­mate Camp was seen on a bike with the reg­u­lar bike cops on the Crit­i­cal Mass. Have they decid­ed to give up their cli­mate killing cars and use ped­dle pow­er to con­tin­ue their agen­da of intim­i­da­tion? Have recent FIT­watch actions made them think twice about being so open? Is this just one cop decid­ing to be a bike cop for a change?

Either way peo­ple should be aware that just because they can’t see FIT it does­n’t mean that the cops they see about them aren’t also gath­er­ing intel­li­gence.

—–

A fair­ly smooth Hal­loween style ride with few if any police has­sles.

There were a good num­bers com­pared to the pre­vi­ous month. Sev­er­al sound sys­tems. No block­ing junc­tions this time. Some Lon­don land­marks are high­light­ed in the video.

Video: http://www.archive.org/details/cm26-10–07

http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk

Three arrested in GM crop protest

ABC News, Oct 23 2007

Three Green­peace activists have been arrest­ed dur­ing a protest at Mur­ray Goul­burn’s Mel­bourne head­quar­ters.

Pro­test­ers went into the build­ing demand­ing the co-oper­a­tive sup­port bans on genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered food crops.

ABC News, Oct 23 2007

Three Green­peace activists have been arrest­ed dur­ing a protest at Mur­ray Goul­burn’s Mel­bourne head­quar­ters.

Pro­test­ers went into the build­ing demand­ing the co-oper­a­tive sup­port bans on genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered food crops.

Police had to forcibly remove three cam­paign­ers from the premis­es, but sev­er­al pro­test­ers remain out­side.

Cam­paign­er, Louise Sales, says the dairy giant sup­ports the rein­tro­duc­tion of GE crops for use in stock feed.

‘Mur­ray Goul­burn play a piv­otal role in the dairy indus­try not only in Vic­to­ria but also in all of Aus­tralia,’ she said.

‘We think its impor­tant that they sup­port clean healthy food for con­sumers and stand up for farm­ers and pro­tect our GE free sta­tus,’ she said.

‘So I had a brief inter­change with the man­ag­ing direc­tor but he was fair­ly hos­tile and was­n’t real­ly ready to engage,’ Ms Sales said.

‘So we will con­tin­ue to pur­sue a meet­ing with Mur­ray Goul­burn to talk about their pol­i­cy,’ she said.

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/23/2067318.htm?section=justin

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Green­peace tar­gets dairy giant over GM

Green­peace activists are tar­get­ting a major milk proces­sor in Mel­bourne, try­ing to halt the dairy indus­try’s sup­port of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops.

Mur­ray Goul­burn, pro­duces milk, but­ter and cheese, and is one of the largest proces­sors in the coun­try.

Ear­li­er this year the dairy indus­try reversed its posi­tion on the intro­duc­tion of GM crops.

Louise Sales from Green­peace says today’s protest at Mur­ray Goul­burn’s head­quar­ters is an attempt to secure a meet­ing with man­age­ment.

‘We believe they should be rep­re­sent­ing con­sumers, and con­sumers have made it clear they don’t want to eat GE food,’ she says.

‘Opin­ion polls con­sis­tent­ly show that and Mur­ray Goul­burn should be respect­ing the wish­es of its con­sumers and keep­ing its Devon­dale prod­ucts GE free, and sup­port­ing the exten­sion of the food crop bans.’

No-one from Mur­ray Goul­burn has been avail­able for com­ment.

ABC Rur­al, 23/10/2007 http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/2007/s2067586.htm