Category: Action Reports

Rossport Solidarity Camp Face Threat of Eviction

Court Report.
23/07/07

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp tem­porar­i­ly thwart­ed Mayo Co. Council’s attempt to secure a per­ma­nent injunc­tion at Castle­bar Cir­cuit Court today. Judge Har­vey Ken­ny adjourned the case to next Tues­day 31st of July to give mem­bers of the camp time to seek legal advice. Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil was refused an inter­locu­to­ry injunc­tion against the camp but an inter­im order was upheld. The coun­cil has under­tak­en to not to act on this order while the case is adjourned.

Court Report.
23/07/07

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp tem­porar­i­ly thwart­ed Mayo Co. Council’s attempt to secure a per­ma­nent injunc­tion at Castle­bar Cir­cuit Court today. Judge Har­vey Ken­ny adjourned the case to next Tues­day 31st of July to give mem­bers of the camp time to seek legal advice. Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil was refused an inter­locu­to­ry injunc­tion against the camp but an inter­im order was upheld. The coun­cil has under­tak­en to not to act on this order while the case is adjourned.

Ear­li­er this morn­ing mem­bers of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and sev­er­al local sup­port­ers arrived at Castle­bar Cir­cuit Court on foot of a Court Order issued by Judge Don­agh McDon­agh last Fri­day 20th of July. This order cit­ed Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was an unau­tho­rised devel­op­ment in a Can­di­date Area of Spe­cial Con­ser­va­tion.

Eoin O’Leidhin was the only one of the three peo­ple named on the court order present at the hear­ing. Mayo Co. Coun­cil was grant­ed an appli­ca­tion to have Niall Har­nett added as an extra respondent/defendant to the injunc­tion when he sub­mit­ted a state­ment rep­re­sent­ing the camp’s posi­tion. Judge Har­vey Ken­ny put the case back to the after­noon so that mem­bers of the camp could con­sult with the Co. Coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives and their solic­i­tor Michael Browne.

When the court recon­vened, John Kiely JC, out­line the coun­cils case. Mr Kiely stat­ed that the camp has caused “irrepara­ble dam­age” at the site and that the camp was “an unau­tho­rised devel­op­ment” con­trary to the Plan­ning Act of 2000 sec­tion 160. He informed the court that the council’s deci­sion to act was due to a report from Karen Gaynor of the Nation­al Parks & Wildlife Ser­vice (NPWS) and not because of “greater and bet­ter” issues regard­ing the camps par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Shell to Sea Cam­paign.

Mr Kiely coun­tered Niall Harnett’s argu­ment that the coun­cil failed to give warn­ing [of the coun­cils inten­tion to seek evic­tion] stat­ing that “this is a nul­li­ty under sec­tion 3” of the Plan­ning act.

Speak­ing about the res­i­dents of the camp Mr Kiely stat­ed that they were “gen­uine pro­test­ers and con­sci­en­tious objec­tors to progress”. He acknowl­edged the many pre­cau­tions tak­en by the camp to min­imise the foot­print of the camp but argued that had “Joe Blogs been in front of the court he would be treat­ed the same way. He point­ed out that the coun­cil had an oblig­a­tion to enforce the plan­ning laws and that the court “with a heavy heart” had to deal with many trav­ellers in the same sit­u­a­tion.

In response, Niall Har­nett, who rep­re­sent­ed the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, dis­put­ed the council’s claims of irrepara­ble dam­age and that autho­ri­sa­tion of the site was “implic­it in the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and co-oper­a­tion between the camp and the NPWS”. Niall told the court that the camp had car­ried out the rec­om­men­da­tions set out by the ser­vice. Niall referred to an inde­pen­dent impact state­ment that was includ­ed in a state­ment that he had ear­li­er hand­ed up to the Judge. This report by, Bob Wil­son, a direc­tor of Celt – Cen­tre for Envi­ron­ment Liv­ing & Train­ing and the Clare Bio­di­ver­si­ty group stat­ed that he is con­fi­dent that the veg­e­ta­tion would soon take hold again.

Tak­ing issue with the urgency of the council’s action Niall told the court that the camp had just received the papers on Fri­day and that the camp had not time to seek legal advice. He point­ed out that the coun­cil stat­ed that they had expect­ed large num­bers to attend the camp at the week­end but num­bers were rel­a­tive­ly small at the camp over the week­end.

In his argu­ment Niall told the court that the camp had not been con­sult­ed or warned about the coun­cils intent to seek a court order. Niall said, “that although Agen­da 21 had not been rat­i­fied in law… it is coun­cil pol­i­cy” and that con­sul­ta­tion is a prin­ci­ple of Agen­da 21. Niall also stat­ed that the council’s solic­i­tor Michael Browne had accept­ed that short notice was giv­en. Niall then told the court that the order was inap­pro­pri­ate.

Niall request­ed to read his state­ment in to evi­dence for the court but the judge told him that the impor­tant points were made and that it may take some time to read.

Niall accept­ed that the site did not have plan­ning per­mis­sion but told the court “it is a gen­uine claim that we didn’t know” that the camp “was not an autho­rised devel­op­ment”.

Judge Ken­ny sug­gest­ed that there was no get­ting over the plan­ning per­mis­sion bar­ri­er. In an act of good­will Niall invit­ed Judge Ken­ny to vis­it the camp.

John Kiely JC assumed that Niall was mak­ing an appli­ca­tion to adjourn the case and said that he could see the court giv­ing “lib­er­al time” to seek legal advice. He went on to ques­tion the cre­den­tials of Bob Wil­son and reit­er­at­ed the council’s posi­tion that the camp was an unau­tho­rised devel­op­ment.

Niall Har­nett con­clud­ed that the “bal­ance of harm was a test for any injunc­tion” and that the harm to those liv­ing on the camp and would be greater.

Judge Ken­ny agreed that short notice was giv­en. Judge Ken­ny stat­ed, “that they were enti­tled to some breath­ing space” but would not con­cede to Niall’s request to putting the case back to after the courts sum­mer break. Before he rose Judge Ken­ny ensured that the coun­cil under­took not to act on the inter­im court order before the next court sit­ting. Judge Ken­ny adjourned the case to next Tues­day 31st of July 2007 when he will make his rul­ing on the mat­ter.

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Dutch/Belgian Earth First! gathering 24–26 August 2007

Join the Dutch EF! gath­er­ing and get involved in DIY and ion­for­ma­tive work­shops on the three most exten­sive threats to this plan­et: cli­mate change, one third decrease in bio­di­ver­si­ty and the increas­ing abuse of nat­ur­al resources. We can’t wait any longer: NOW is the time to shrink or we’ll drown!

Join the Dutch EF! gath­er­ing and get involved in DIY and ion­for­ma­tive work­shops on the three most exten­sive threats to this plan­et: cli­mate change, one third decrease in bio­di­ver­si­ty and the increas­ing abuse of nat­ur­al resources. We can’t wait any longer: NOW is the time to shrink or we’ll drown!

From Fri­day evening the 24th until Sun­day evening the 26th of August there will be work­shops, dis­cus­sions, brain­storms and pre­sen­ta­tions about eg the five coal-fired pow­er sta­tions planned to be built in the Nether­lands, cur­rent cam­paigns, cli­mate neu­tral squat­ting, DIY wind­mills, eco­nom­ic shrink and much more!

For more info vis­it www.groenfront.nl or send an email to 2007@groenfront.nl Don’t hes­i­tate to sub­mit your own work­shop sug­ges­tions.

Chil­dren’s facil­i­ties avail­able. Don’t bring dogs or jour­nal­ists.

Come and give a workshop, talk or presentation at the Gatwick No Border Camp!

Invi­ta­tion to con­tribute work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the No Bor­der Camp, near Gatwick, UK, 19th-24th Sep­tem­ber 2007.

Con­tin­u­ing the tra­di­tion of No Bor­der camps this will be a space to share infor­ma­tion, skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ences, and to plan actions togeth­er against the sys­tem of bor­der con­trols.

Invi­ta­tion to con­tribute work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the No Bor­der Camp, near Gatwick, UK, 19th-24th Sep­tem­ber 2007.

Con­tin­u­ing the tra­di­tion of No Bor­der camps this will be a space to share infor­ma­tion, skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ences, and to plan actions togeth­er against the sys­tem of bor­der con­trols.

The first No Bor­der Camp in UK will be a place for actions and demos, but also a space for dis­cus­sion around all aspects of migra­tion, a space to learn about new ini­tia­tives against the sys­tem of con­trols, deten­tion and depor­ta­tions, and a place to exchange ideas on how fight with sup­port migrants. We want to look at the whole struc­ture of migra­tion con­trols.

To achieve this we need your con­tri­bu­tion: would you like to deliv­er a work­shops, dis­cus­sion, forum or pre­sen­ta­tion?

Every day, from the 20th to the 24th of Sep­tem­ber we are organ­is­ing spaces for dis­cus­sions or ple­nary forums. The time-slots have been organ­ised so not to clash with actions or demos.

The camp events work­ing group has so far agreed on hav­ing workshops/talks on Thurs­day the 20th from 1 to 4 pm, and on Fri­day the 21st from 3 to 6 pm.

On Sat­ur­day the 22nd from 5pm there will be a ple­nary forum for groups to present them­selves and net­work with oth­ers.

On Sun­day in the late morn­ing we are plan­ning a ple­nary dis­cus­sion where to exchange ideas on the future of the strug­gle for the free­dom of move­ment for all and an end to migra­tion con­trols. No bor­ders — which way for­ward? And also pro­pos­al for inter­na­tion­al actions.

The camp events work­ing group has come up with the fol­low­ing themes for work­shops, but oth­er ideas are of course very wel­come:

* Migra­tion con­trols and glob­al apartheid
* Euro­pean sys­tem of migra­tion con­trols, includ­ing bio­met­ric ID, com­pa­nies involved, Euro­da­ta, SIRENE/Schengen Infor­ma­tion Sys­tem, sur­veil­lance and what’s hap­pen­ing in the South­ern bor­ders (Mal­ta, Italy, Spain, Moroc­co etc…)
* The role of insti­tu­tions and transna­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions in migra­tion con­trol
* Deten­tion & depor­ta­tion
* Con­nec­tions between racism and migra­tion and antifas­cism
* Cli­mate change and migra­tion, migrant labour
* more prac­ti­cal ‘how to run/start a cam­paign’ work­shops

Lets us know if you would like to con­tribute to the camp in Gatwick, UK, with a work­shop, talk or dis­cus­sion, by email­ing us at g‑anbc2007 [at] riseup.net

Please note the only time-slots avail­able for work­shops are on Thurs­day the 20th and Fri­day the 21st Sep­tem­ber.

thanks
the camp events work­ing group

g‑anbc2007@riseup.net
http://www.noborders.org.uk

Camberwell squat centre dances on

Still no word on the evic­tion. No word from the alleged own­ers.

So… We decid­ed to press ahead with events… if we get evict­ed then yah boo. These are what we came up with… There is room for more events… if you have any ideas get in touch. Seri­ous­ly. There’s no point just con­sum­ing this space, make it hap­pen. Every mini-gig or par­ty, meet­ing or work­shop that hap­pens is a dance of defi­ance to the prof­i­teer­ing scum that boss this world.

Still no word on the evic­tion. No word from the alleged own­ers.

So… We decid­ed to press ahead with events… if we get evict­ed then yah boo. These are what we came up with… There is room for more events… if you have any ideas get in touch. Seri­ous­ly. There’s no point just con­sum­ing this space, make it hap­pen. Every mini-gig or par­ty, meet­ing or work­shop that hap­pens is a dance of defi­ance to the prof­i­teer­ing scum that boss this world.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Weds 25th: Film night… Film being arranged. 7.30pm

Fri­day 27th: Café/bar… 7.30 – 1.

Tues­day 31 July: Span­ish and Pol­ish Lessons, 7.30 and 8pm respec­tive­ly.
Begin­ners and slight­ly more expe­ri­enced wel­come. Bring pens and paper.
Home­work.

Weds 1 August: Film night. Film being arranged. 7.30pm

Thurs 2 August: Dis­cus­sion night: “Squat or Social Cen­tre”, idea is to dis­cuss squat­ted and social cen­tres in this coun­try and the world, issues around the dif­fer­ences between them, exam­ples of what peo­ple round the world are doing, we will also will try to get an exhi­bi­tion togeth­er of squat cen­tres etc. Maybe some slides. Hope­ful­ly a com­rade from Madrid will be here, to talk about La Alar­ma Squat and the Fac­ul­tad Oku­pa Auto­ges­tion­a­da squat­ted uni­ver­si­ty they recent­ly got togeth­er there.

Fri­day 3rd: Bar/café, hope­ful­ly a par­ty, with DJs… 7.30 – 1am.

Sun­day 5th: Ubun­tu install fest: Help and hints as to installing free user based soft­ware like lin­ux etc. 2pm. Lap­tops or hard dri­ves obvi­ous­ly would help if you want this stuff!

Tues­day 7: Span­ish and Pol­ish Les­son, 7.30 and 8pm respec­tive­ly.

Weds 8 August: Film night.

Thurs 9th: His­tor­i­cal talk on “Under­ground Lam­beth”, all the stuff hid­den beneath the streets and hous­es of South London’s finest bor­ough (ooh)… 7.30pm.

Fri 10th: Café/bar. 7.30 – 1am.

Sat 11th: Mini book­fair! We agreed to get 4 or 5 stall in, 56a, ele­phant edi­tions, past tense, last hours, maybe a cou­ple more, and do a big pub­lic­i­ty blitz. Mad or what? Could be great! Any ideas for stalls? Past Tense and Ele­phant con­firmed.

Fur­ther ahead: There are plans for a Span­ish par­ty, and also a jam ses­sion, in 3 weeks maybe. If we still here.

Also there will hope­ful­ly be a work­shop on how to build bike wheels, we’re wait­ing for some a deliv­ery of stuff before con­firm­ing.

We’re not fuck­ing dead yet!

CAMBERWELL VERSUS DEATH? WE’RE WINNING!

Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre, 192 Warham Street, Lon­don, SE5,

Tube: Oval

Bus­es: P5, 36, 185, 436.

Boat: Dinghy to Ken­ning­ton Park, which will be flood­ed by the time you read this.

For more info check the web­site: www.56a.org.uk/warham.html

Iceland actions — Scotland & Iceland

Sav­ing Ice­land Block­ades Cen­tu­ry Smelter at Grun­dar­tan­gi
19.07.2007

News of Sav­ing Ice­land’s lat­est action as part of the Sum­mer of Resis­tance to the alu­mini­um indus­try in Ice­land.

Iceland smelter blockadeSav­ing Ice­land Block­ades Cen­tu­ry Smelter at Grun­dar­tan­gi
19.07.2007

News of Sav­ing Ice­land’s lat­est action as part of the Sum­mer of Resis­tance to the alu­mini­um indus­try in Ice­land.

GRUNDARTANGI – Sav­ing Ice­land has this after­noon closed the sin­gle sup­ply road from High­way 1 to the Century/Nordural smelter on Hvalfjor­dur and the steel fac­to­ry Elkem – Ice­landic Alloys. Sav­ing Ice­land oppos­es the planned new Cen­tu­ry smelter at Hel­gu­vik and the expan­sion of the Ice­landic Alloys fac­to­ry. Activists have used lock-ons (met­al arm tubes) to form a human block­ade on the road and have occu­pied a con­struc­tion site crane.

Cen­tu­ry Alu­minum, a part of the recent­ly formed Russ­ian-Swiss RUSAL/Glencore/SUAL con­glo­morate, want to build a sec­ond smelter in Ice­land in Hel­gu­vik with a pro­ject­ed capac­i­ty of at least 250.000 met­ric tons per annum. The planned site is designed to accom­mo­date fur­ther expan­sion. Grun­dar­tan­gi has this year been extend­ed to 260.000 mtpa.

Cur­rent­ly, an envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment (1) is under review for the Hel­gu­vik smelter, pro­duced by the con­struc­tion con­sul­tants HRV (Honnun/Rafhonnun/VST).

“It is absurd that an engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny with a vest­ed inter­est in the smelter con­struc­tion could be con­sid­ered to pro­duce an objec­tive impact assess­ment. The doc­u­ment makes absurd claims, such as that pol­lu­tion is real­ly not a prob­lem because Hel­gu­vik is such a windy place that the pol­lu­tion will just blow away,” says Sav­ing Iceland’s Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son.”

“This smelter will demand new geot­her­mal pow­er plants at Seltún, Sand­fell, Aus­tureng­jar and Tröl­la­dyn­gju. In addi­tion to the Hengill area which has already been seri­ous­ly dam­aged by Reyk­javik Ener­gy. The impact assess­ment does not take these into account, nor the impact of the huge amount of
pow­er lines and pylons required. The plants will ruin the nat­ur­al and scenic val­ue of the whole penin­su­la. Also, the rec­quired capac­i­ty, 400 MW, exceeds the nat­ur­al capacti­ty of the geot­her­mal spots, and they will cool down in three to four decades (2). And Cen­tu­ry admits it wants the site to expand fur­ther in the next decades. So it is obvi­ous that this smelter will not just ruin Reyk­janes but also need
addi­tion­al hydropow­er.”

The impact pro­ce­dure seems to be com­plete­ly irrel­e­vant any­way, since the com­pa­ny has com­plet­ed an equi­ty offer­ing worth $360 mil­lion to be deployed for part­ly financ­ing the con­struc­tion of the Hel­gu­vik smelter project (3). This indi­cates that Cen­tu­ry already has high lev­el assur­ances that the project is to con­tin­ue no mat­ter what.

This com­plete­ly con­tra­dicts the claims the new gov­ern­ment of
Ice­land, and par­tic­u­lar­ly it’s envi­ron­ment min­is­ter Þórunn
Svein­b­jarnardót­tir, is opposed to new smelter projects.

Ice­landic Alloys wants to expand its facil­i­ty for pro­duc­ing
fer­rosil­i­con for the steel indus­try. It is in fact one of Iceland’s largest con­trib­u­tors to green­house gas­es and oth­er pol­lu­tants (4).

“Expan­sion of Ice­landic Alloys and Cen­tu­ry con­sid­er­ably con­tribute to Iceland’s green­house emis­sions. If there are no fur­ther expan­sions of heavy indus­try beyond Grun­dar­tan­gi and ALCOA Fjar­daal, Ice­land will emit 38% more green­house gas­es than in 1990. If oth­er expan­sion plans con­tin­ue, lev­els would rise to an incred­i­ble 63% above 1990 lev­els. (5). That is com­plete­ly irre­spon­si­ble.

This shows that all the talk about ‘green ener­gy’ from hydro and geot­her­mal is, in real­i­ty, a lie. Ice­landers have to rise up against these for­eign cor­po­ra­tions,” says Úlfhildar­son.

More infor­ma­tion:
http://www.savingiceland.org

Notes and ref­er­ences:
1. Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Ass­es­ment, HRV, may 2007, http://www.hrv.is/media/files/Frummatsskýrsla_2007-05–02_low%20res.pdf
2. Land­vernd, Let­ter to nation­al plan­ning agency, 28th June 2007, http://www.landvernd.is/myndir/Umsogn_Helguvik.pdf
3. Cred­it Suisse, June 12th 2007, http://www.newratings.com/
analyst_news/article_1548857.html
4. Ice­landic Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment, March 2006, http://
unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/islnc4.pdf
5. Idem.

=================================
Ice­landic Embassy Tar­get­ed by Activists
Iceland Scottish consulate
On the morn­ing of 20th July, the Ice­landic embassy on Queen St, Edin­burgh was tar­get­ed by mem­bers of Sav­ing Iceland(1). Paint was thrown on the build­ing, the lock was glued and a mes­sage was affixed to the exte­ri­or read­ing “The Whole World is Watch­ing”. “Ice­land Bleeds” was also paint­ed on the steps. The action served as response to recent acts of police bru­tal­i­ty against Sav­ing Ice­land activists in Reyk­javik who con­tin­ue to oppose the assault on the Ice­landic wilder­ness by heavy indus­try.

Ice­landic Police attacked a non-vio­lent Reclaim the Streets protest in the cen­tre of Reyk­javik, on July 14th. Video evidence(2) shows Ice­landic police vio­lent­ly throw­ing pro­test­ers to the ground while oth­ers were punched and kicked. Five peace­ful pro­test­ers were held in police cells, one with a bro­ken rib after the police attack. The Reclaim the Streets demon­stra­tion was part of a con­tin­u­ing action camp held near Reyk­javik this sum­mer, involv­ing activists from across the globe, includ­ing Scot­land.

The recent expan­sion of large-scale alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion in Ice­land has involved a bare­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic process and a com­pre­hen­sive dev­as­ta­tion of vast nat­ur­al areas on a scale unprece­dent­ed in Europe today.

The Sav­ing Ice­land activists respon­si­ble for the action against the Ice­landic Embassy state:
“We are send­ing a clear mes­sage to the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment that the destruc­tion of unique ecosys­tems has envi­ron­men­tal impli­ca­tions for us all. The repres­sion of those who are oppos­ing these destruc­tive mega–projects is unac­cept­able. In the con­text of the cur­rent cli­mate cri­sis we must all take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the destruc­tion of our plan­et by crim­i­nal cor­po­ra­tions such as Alcoa. The whole world is watch­ing”.

The action in Edin­burgh was an expres­sion of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the activists and Ice­landic peo­ple who are attempt­ing to stand up to the unjust rule of the alu­mini­um indus­try over democ­ra­cy. Sav­ing Ice­land activists state: “We will not stop until the cor­po­rate inva­sion of the Ice­landic wilder­ness has ceased. The world is not dying, it is being mur­dered. And those who are doing it need to be held account­able.”

(1) Sav­ing Ice­land is an Ice­landic based direct action group opposed to con­tin­ued expan­sion of heavy indus­try in Ice­land. It involves par­tic­i­pants from all over the world in col­lec­tive resis­tance to the Ice­landic state’s “Mas­ter­plan” which includes the damming of every major glacial riv­er in Ice­land by 2020 sole­ly for the pur­pose of alu­minum smelt­ing. Sav­ing Ice­land has organ­ised three sum­mers of inter­na­tion­al protest to halt this vast destruc­tion. It will not cease it’s oppo­si­tion until all alu­minum pro­duc­tion leaves Ice­land. For more info vis­it www.savingiceland.org

(2) Video doc­u­men­ta­tion of the police vio­lence on Sat­ur­day 14th in Reyk­javik can be found at the fol­low­ing link. Note the use of pres­sure points applied for an extend­ed peri­od to the man on the ground and the accom­pa­ny­ing and pro­longed scream­ing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NenbTc0cQs4&mode=user&search

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

The Clown Army and Sav­ing Ice­land invade Reyk­javik Ener­gy build­ing
20.07.2007

Clowns redec­o­rate Reyk­javik Ener­gy O.R.s inte­ri­or with ban­ner. Straw­ber­ries were offered by the cor­po­rate scum, but the clowns were not swayed from their action.

Today 25 pro­tes­tors from Sav­ing Ice­land went into Orku­veitu Reyk­javíkur (Reyk­javik Ener­gy, O.R.) and hung up a ban­ner inside stat­ing: ‘Vop­navei­ta Reyk­javíkur?’ (‘Reyk­javik Arms-deal­ers?’). The ban­ner was not hung out­side as planned ear­li­er because of weath­er con­di­tions. Pro­tes­tors stayed in the build­ing from 15.15 until 16.00 hrs.

Páll Erland speak­ing on behalf of O.R. states that they offered straw­ber­ries to pro­tes­tors and wel­comed Sav­ing Ice­land to put up the ban­ner. While Erland might be hap­py to dis­cuss straw­ber­ries with their vis­i­tors, they cer­tain­ly did not give per­mis­sion to hang up a ban­ner indi­cat­ing that they sell ener­gy to com­pa­nies known to be involved in arms pro­duc­tion and seri­ous human rights vio­la­tions (as doc­u­ment­ed in our ear­li­er press release). Sav­ing Ice­land has now con­tact­ed O.R., request­ing they put up the ban­ner and dis­cuss pub­licly with us the ethics of sell­ing ener­gy to cor­po­rate crim­i­nals such as Cen­tu­ry-RUSAL and Alcan-RioT­in­to.

Policing stepped up at Menwith Hill

The Cam­paign for the Account­abil­i­ty of Amer­i­can Bases’ (CAAB) annu­al Inde­pen­dence From Amer­i­ca demon­stra­tion at NSA Men­with Hill was the first where pro­tes­tors were not allowed to cir­cum­nav­i­gate the base due to a Sec­tion 12 order. There were two arrests, one for wear­ing a shirt with the word “fuck” on it and the sec­ond for argu­ing against the arrest. The ral­ly at the start was addressed by Alan Ben­nett and Mark Steel and the marchers from Foot­prints for Peace [ 1 | 2 ]. A Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence was read out, “we… do solemn­ly demand the return of the land, once with­in the bound­aries of the ancient town­ships of Birst­with, Fel­liscliffe, Nor­wood and Men­with, now occu­pied by the Unit­ed States Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency and their mil­i­tary forces.”. There was a heavy police pres­ence, food was pro­vid­ed by Veg­gies and York­shire CND had a stall.

The Cam­paign for the Account­abil­i­ty of Amer­i­can Bases’ (CAAB) annu­al Inde­pen­dence From Amer­i­ca demon­stra­tion at NSA Men­with Hill was the first where pro­tes­tors were not allowed to cir­cum­nav­i­gate the base due to a Sec­tion 12 order. There were two arrests, one for wear­ing a shirt with the word “fuck” on it and the sec­ond for argu­ing against the arrest. The ral­ly at the start was addressed by Alan Ben­nett and Mark Steel and the marchers from Foot­prints for Peace [ 1 | 2 ]. A Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence was read out, “we… do solemn­ly demand the return of the land, once with­in the bound­aries of the ancient town­ships of Birst­with, Fel­liscliffe, Nor­wood and Men­with, now occu­pied by the Unit­ed States Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency and their mil­i­tary forces.”. There was a heavy police pres­ence, food was pro­vid­ed by Veg­gies and York­shire CND had a stall.

Siberian protest camp attacked by neo-nazis

In the ear­ly morn­ing of 21st July, neo-nazi skin­heads launched a vicious and unpro­voked attack on an anti-nuclear protest camp in Angarsk, Siberia, Rus­sia. The nazis vio­lent­ly attacked activists in their sleep­ing bags and tents with iron rods, knives and air pres­sure guns. 21 year old Ilya Boro­daenko from Nachod­ka suf­fered a head-frac­ture dur­ing the attack and lat­er died in hos­pi­tal from his injuries. At least nine oth­ers have been report­ed to be seri­ous­ly injured, one of which has had both their legs bro­ken. Tents were set on fire and sev­er­al belong­ings were stolen.

bloody antinuke T-shirtIn the ear­ly morn­ing of 21st July, neo-nazi skin­heads launched a vicious and unpro­voked attack on an anti-nuclear protest camp in Angarsk, Siberia, Rus­sia. The nazis vio­lent­ly attacked activists in their sleep­ing bags and tents with iron rods, knives and air pres­sure guns. 21 year old Ilya Boro­daenko from Nachod­ka suf­fered a head-frac­ture dur­ing the attack and lat­er died in hos­pi­tal from his injuries. At least nine oth­ers have been report­ed to be seri­ous­ly injured, one of which has had both their legs bro­ken. Tents were set on fire and sev­er­al belong­ings were stolen.
The camp start­ed last week and is aimed at protest­ing against a planned cen­tre of ura­ni­um enrich­ment in Angarsk. Ever since the arrival of the activists, the police have tried to intim­i­date them and have entered the camp in an attempt to gath­er infor­ma­tion about planned actions. The organ­i­sa­tion who planned the camp, the ‘Eco­log­i­cal Wave of Baikal’, had planned var­i­ous ral­lies in the sur­rond­ing area to inform locals about the plans and drum up sup­port for the cam­paign.
Finan­cial help and oth­er forms of sol­i­dar­i­ty are urgent­ly need­ed. Con­tact xmaki­max (at) gmail.com or ogo­po­gos (at) gmail.com if you are able to offer sup­port

NATO Defeated by EarthFirst! in the Netherlands

For two years Groen­Front! — Dutch & Bel­gian Earth­First! — have been fight­ing with the local com­mu­ni­ty in Schin­veld, in the south­east of the coun­try, to pre­serve a for­est that would be destroyed for the sake of the NATO air­force base across the Ger­man bor­der. A direct action camp was evict­ed in Jan­u­ary, and 15 acres were destroyed, but 35 acres saved. Groen­Front! was prepar­ing to reoc­cu­py the woods awat­ing the final out­come of a legal bat­tle between the local coun­cil and nation­al gov­ern­ment, but now to great sur­prise, the pro­tes­tors have been vin­di­cat­ed and the forests are def­i­nite­ly saved from NATO’s bloody claws. On July 18th the Dutch high­est admin­is­tra­tive court ruled that the log­ging of Schiveld for­est is ille­gal. This means the min­istry of defence can­not con­tin­ue the log­ging of the for­est as request­ed by NATO, it also means the log­ging of the first six hectares in Jan­u­ary 2006 was ille­gal. The for­est would need to be destroyed to allow AWACS radar planes to lift off with more fuel in order to fly direct­ly to Afghanistan and Iraq.

For two years Groen­Front! — Dutch & Bel­gian Earth­First! — have been fight­ing with the local com­mu­ni­ty in Schin­veld, in the south­east of the coun­try, to pre­serve a for­est that would be destroyed for the sake of the NATO air­force base across the Ger­man bor­der. A direct action camp was evict­ed in Jan­u­ary, and 15 acres were destroyed, but 35 acres saved. Groen­Front! was prepar­ing to reoc­cu­py the woods awat­ing the final out­come of a legal bat­tle between the local coun­cil and nation­al gov­ern­ment, but now to great sur­prise, the pro­tes­tors have been vin­di­cat­ed and the forests are def­i­nite­ly saved from NATO’s bloody claws. On July 18th the Dutch high­est admin­is­tra­tive court ruled that the log­ging of Schiveld for­est is ille­gal. This means the min­istry of defence can­not con­tin­ue the log­ging of the for­est as request­ed by NATO, it also means the log­ging of the first six hectares in Jan­u­ary 2006 was ille­gal. The for­est would need to be destroyed to allow AWACS radar planes to lift off with more fuel in order to fly direct­ly to Afghanistan and Iraq.

For almost 30 years local pro­tes­tors in Schin­veld have fought against NATO, first to stop the reopen­ing of the base, then to reduce the nui­sance caused by the out­dat­ed AWACS radar planes, and, since the evic­tion of the action camp and the log­ging in 2006, rad­i­calised by GroenFront!‘s for­est camp, to close down the base.

When NATO want­ed 20 hectares of the for­est cut and it looked as if the local coun­cil would be over­ruled by the min­istries of defence (own­er of the for­est) and infra­struc­ture, they con­tact­ed Groen­Front! and start­ed a cam­paign where Schin­veld was high­light­ed in the New York Times.

Groen­Front! and the local com­mu­ni­ty protest group Stop Awacs start­ed a series of small­er actions. After thethe spring of 2005, the num­ber of actions increased when the min­is­ter of infra­struc­ture gave out a log­ging per­mit on August 3rd 2005, after a Nim­by-leg­is­la­tion pro­ce­dure (not in my back yard).
The local coun­cil and Stop Awacs tried to stop the log­ging until the final rul­ing (the one that came today) would have been made, but the court decid­ed against that on the 2nd of Decem­ber 2005. On Sun­day Decem­ber 4th 2005, Groen­Front! occu­pied the for­est and start­ed an inten­sive inter­na­tion­al cam­paign.

The camp was evict­ed on Jan­u­ary 9th 2006, the after­noon before about 2000 locals walked their demo in sup­port of the activist into the for­est, in spite of a restric­tion order, and cheered at the inter­na­tion­al group of more than 100 activist occu­py­ing the trees at that moment. Before the police could start evict­ing the trees, they had to remove sev­er­al hun­dred locals who stayed in the woods after the demon­stra­tion, try­ing to avoid police block­ades and com­mit­ting oth­er forms of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as the may­or used emer­gency leg­is­la­tion against his own peo­ple.

Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh under threat

We have 12 days to sub­mit objec­tions to the plan­ning depart­ment.
please cir­cu­late wide­ly and respond asap.

The Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh is under threat as the land­lord has put in a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to turn the space into a flat. ACE is now the only social cen­tre left in scot­land.

We have recent­ly reopened after exten­sive ren­o­va­tions and con­tin­ue to be a valu­able resource

www.autonomous.org.uk for more infor­ma­tion on our cur­rent activ­i­ties

We have 12 days to sub­mit objec­tions to the plan­ning depart­ment.
please cir­cu­late wide­ly and respond asap.

The Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh is under threat as the land­lord has put in a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to turn the space into a flat. ACE is now the only social cen­tre left in scot­land.

We have recent­ly reopened after exten­sive ren­o­va­tions and con­tin­ue to be a valu­able resource

www.autonomous.org.uk for more infor­ma­tion on our cur­rent activ­i­ties

We need as many folk as pos­si­ble to write to the fol­low­ing address as soon as pos­si­ble — we have about 12 days left to object.

you can use the tem­plate let­ter below but it car­ries more weight if it is a per­son­al let­ter. please also include your name,address and the date:

kirsty.hope@edinburgh.gov.uk
Plan­ning and Strat­e­gy Depart­ment
for the atten­tion of Kirsty Hope
Waver­ley Court
Lev­el G2
4 East Mar­ket St
Edin­burgh EH8 8BG

with this sub­ject stat­ed:

Re Plan­ning Appli­ca­tion 07/02348/FUL

17 West Mont­gomery Place, Edin­burgh EH7 5HA

in sol­i­dar­i­ty
on behalf of ace
——————–

below attached let­ter

To the Head of Plan­ning and Strat­e­gy, City Devel­op­ment Depart­ment, City of Edin­burgh Coun­cil, 1 Cock­burn Street, Edin­burgh EH1 1ZJ

Re Plan­ning Appli­ca­tion 07/02348/FUL

17 West Mont­gomery Place, Edin­burgh EH7 5HA

Dear Sir/ Madam

I wish to object to the appli­ca­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion to con­vert the above prop­er­ty into a flat. This would result in the loss of the valu­able com­mu­ni­ty facil­i­ty cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ed in these premis­es.

I con­sid­er that the ACE char­i­ty oper­at­ing in 17 West Mont­gomery Place pro­vides a very use­ful resource in this neigh­bour­hood, and serves a real local need.

I under­stand that the Council’s devel­op­ment pol­i­cy is to pro­tect local shops, com­mu­ni­ty halls and meet­ing rooms – I would urge that this pol­i­cy be adhered to, and that this plan­ning appli­ca­tion be refused.

Yours sin­cere­ly

SIGNATURE

Any addi­tion­al com­ment :

ace@autonomous.org.uk
http://www.autonomous.org.uk

If you could also send a copy of your mes­sage to the local coun­cil­lors for the Lei­th Walk ward, that would be great.
Here are their details.

Coun­cil­lor Angela Black­lock (Labour)
angela.blacklock@edinburgh.gov.uk

Coun­cil­lor Dei­dre Brock (Scot­tish Nation­al Par­ty)
deidre.brock@edinburgh.gov.uk

Coun­cil­lor Mag­gie Chap­man (Green Par­ty)
maggie.chapman@edinburgh.gov.uk
as she is on hol­i­day, please also send to
Coun­cil­lor Ali­son John­stone (Green Par­ty)
alison.johnstone@edinburgh.gov.uk

Coun­cil­lor Louise Lang (Lib­er­al Democ­rats)
louise.lang@edinburgh.gov.uk

European activist gatherings (Ecotopia, Portugal 4–19 Aug & ASEED international activist camp, Bulgaria, 26–29 July)

You are invit­ed to Eco­topia 2007 — Migra­tions

This year Eco­topia will take place between 4 — 19 August in Aljezur in the south of Por­tu­gal.

Eco­topia is a two-week activist camp and an open event for every­one inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice issues.

You are invit­ed to Eco­topia 2007 — Migra­tions

This year Eco­topia will take place between 4 — 19 August in Aljezur in the south of Por­tu­gal.

Eco­topia is a two-week activist camp and an open event for every­one inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice issues.

More info at http://www.ecotopiagathering.org/

Inter­na­tion­al Activist Camp — Bul­gar­ia 2007 July 26th — 29th

In the skirts of Pirin moun­tain, south-west Bul­gar­ia, about 2.5 kilo­me­ters away from an old vil­lage, peo­ple from Bul­gar­ia, Mace­do­nia, Roma­nia, the Nether­lands and else­where in Europe will get togeth­er to share ideas and strate­gies for cam­paign­ing on envi­ron­men­tal and social issues and get inspired by each oth­ers’ activ­i­ties and work.

More info at http://www.aseed.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=381&Itemid=1