Category: Action Reports

International Day of Direct Action Against Climate Change and the G8 — UK events: Haringey… (& Jeff Luers solidarity callout)

Fri­day 8th June 2007
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice – Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

G8 2007 climate day flierFri­day 8th June 2007
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice – Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

We have a ten-year win­dow to act. As the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac G8 lead­ers meet in Ger­many, masked behind a bar­ri­er of fences and sol­diers, intent on lead­ing us fur­ther towards cat­a­stroph­ic and irre­versible cli­mate chaos, we must shout, scream and roar ‘no more’. Now is the time to take direct action and shut them down, them and their cli­mate crim­i­nal indus­try friends!

The 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Cli­mate Change and the G8 has been called by the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide Net­work. This is a call for autonomous, decen­tral­ized actions appro­pri­ate for your town, city, or local area. Use this inter­na­tion­al day of action to sup­port local strug­gles against oil refiner­ies, gas pipelines, strip mines and coal-fired pow­er plants. Dis­rupt the finan­cial back­ers of the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Organ­ise work­shops to spread sus­tain­able post-petro­le­um liv­ing skills. Find a weak point in the infra­struc­ture of resource exploita­tion and throw a lit­er­al or sym­bol­ic wrench in the works. It’s time to vis­it your local pol­luters and give ’em hell!

We already know of actions planned across the UK, North Amer­i­ca, Ger­many, Cana­da and Aus­tralia and that’s just the start! By 8th June actions will be planned around the world. Pass this call out on to all envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, cli­mate action, rad­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and relat­ed move­ments in all the G8 coun­tries and the Glob­al South.

Ris­ing Tide will cre­ate a col­lec­tion of out­reach and agit-prop mate­ri­als (includ­ing this call out in five dif­fer­ent lan­guages) that can be used by groups around the world to organ­ise local­ly. These mate­ri­als will be down­load­able from www.risingtide.org.uk and http://risingtidenorthamerica.org.
Direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are the ratio­nal response in this time of cri­sis. Sup­port the 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action against Cli­mate Change and the G8! Tell us about planned actions for cli­mate jus­tice being planned in your com­mu­ni­ty. Con­tact us — info@risingtide.org.uk and contact@risingtidenorthamerica.org

In June 2007 the G8 will under­stand the mean­ing of rebel­lion, revolt and rev­o­lu­tion. Their recipe for cat­a­stro­phe will be met with our world­wide resis­tance!

*G8 Day of Action Resources — Down­load­able G8 day of Action fly­ers and posters.
*Organ­ise a Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride on the 8th of June — here are some leaflet ideas to help you.

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You could link your event in with Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Jef­frey Free Luers, June 9, 2007:

June marks the sev­enth year that our friend and com­rade, Jef­frey “Free” Luers has been impris­oned and held cap­tive by the state. Sen­tenced to an out­ra­geous 22 years and 8 months for burn­ing three Sport Util­i­ty Vehi­cles (SUVs) at Roma­nia Chevro­let in Eugene, Jeff has con­tin­ued to be active in prison and fight back with his words and inspi­ra­tion. Although Jeff recent­ly won his appeal and is expect­ing a reduced sen­tence, this case is not over:

“I have spo­ken with my attor­ney and there are still many bat­tles ahead. Hard choic­es will have to be made. I am by no means close to walk­ing out of prison, just one step clos­er. This is a vic­to­ry, and while my own per­son­al strug­gle is mak­ing head­way oth­ers are just begin­ning.”

We encour­age peo­ple to orga­nize events for Jeff and oth­er polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, unit­ing strug­gles for human, earth, and ani­mal lib­er­a­tion. In Jef­f’s own words:

“This June, show your sol­i­dar­i­ty with me, and all those who have strug­gled, past and present, to make this world a bet­ter place. Strug­gle with us. Hold demon­stra­tions or gath­er­ings at fed­er­al build­ings or US embassies and demand change. It doesn’t mat­ter what cause or issue you fight for — we are all con­nect­ed. What does mat­ter is that we stand unit­ed and make our voic­es heard.”

More at http://freefreenow.org/june2007.html

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>ANNOUNCED UK EVENTS»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>

HARINGEY CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE 2007

Can’t make it to Ger­many? Sick of the all those cars get­ting in your way on the auto­bahn! Don’t despair…join us on Sat­ur­day 9th of June for the 2007 Haringey Crit­i­cal Mass. A leisure­ly ride down the Green Lanes to reclaim our streets and send a breath of fresh air to those meet­ing in Ger­many.

Sat­ur­day 9th June • Assem­ble 12 Noon @ Manor House
• Fin­ish­ing at Chest­nuts Park for a pic­nic •

All Wel­come: espe­cial­ly cycles, scoot­ers, wheel­chairs, skate­boards, rollerblades, pedes­tri­ans…
Sup­port­ed by Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group www.haringey.org.uk

FOR CLEAN AIR AND A GREEN G8

WHY HAVE A CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE IN HARINGEY?
We are join­ing togeth­er on a Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride through Haringey as a colour­ful and fun way of high­light­ing envi­ron­men­tal and trans­port issues in the bor­ough. In the week when the G8 are gath­er­ing in Ger­many and the day
after the Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action Against Cli­mate Change we should also be focus­ing on the glob­al cri­sis of cli­mate change and the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of oil depen­den­cy.

• It’s time we reclaimed our streets from the traf­fic and con­ges­tion that caus­es tox­ic lev­els of pol­lu­tion and injury and death.
• We want cycle lanes on Green Lanes and all over Haringey to make cycling a safer, more viable form of trans­port.
• We want mea­sures in place to reduce traf­fic speeds on all roads in Haringey, where dan­ger­ous dri­ving reg­u­lar­ly puts cyclists, chil­dren and pedes­tri­ans at risk.

WHAT’S THE G8 GOT TO DO WITH THIS?

• The G8 (Group of eight, most indus­tri­al­ized nations) Sum­mits are host­ed, on rota­tion, by the group’s mem­ber states. In 2007 the sum­mit is to be held on 6–8 June in Ros­tock, Ger­many.
• While it seems to be in the news a lot, Cli­mate Change is per­haps the issue that has received least atten­tion com­pared to the scale of destruc­tion that life on earth is fac­ing. It is the most seri­ous prob­lem fac­ing the world, more seri­ous than inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism, accord­ing to the UK Government’s chief sci­en­tif­ic advi­sor.
• Cli­mate change needs to be high­er on the G8 agen­da. How­ev­er, we can­not leave it just to the sci­en­tists and politi­cians to dis­man­tle the car­bon machine.
• This bike ride aims to high­light this issue through action and the pro­mo­tion of cycling.

Let’s cel­e­brate the free­dom and plea­sure of trav­el­ling by bike – it’s much more fun and much health­i­er than being stuck in a car in a traf­fic jam. This will be a fun day out for every­one in a safe, sup­port­ive, pos­i­tive atmos­phere, show­ing how much safer and more pleas­ant our streets can be.

COME AND JOIN US!

If you feel it’s time to pro­mote cycling and encour­age a more sus­tain­able Haringey, or if you would like to get involved, vis­it the Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group web­site: www.haringey.org.uk

CRITICAL MASS — friday, London — may be the biggest ever? Plus Bristol & Glasgow call-outs

police have won a high court appeal. it means that ‘organ­is­ers’ of the crit­i­cal mass bike ride have to inform the police ahead of time and nego­ti­ate a fixed route. since there are real­ly no organ­is­ers, the mass will have dif­fi­cul­ty com­ply­ing. it is sim­ply a get-togeth­er of cyclists to go for an unor­gan­ised but syn­chro­nis­tic ride. a large turn-out will com­pli­cate the enforce­ment of this repres­sive deci­sion.

police have won a high court appeal. it means that ‘organ­is­ers’ of the crit­i­cal mass bike ride have to inform the police ahead of time and nego­ti­ate a fixed route. since there are real­ly no organ­is­ers, the mass will have dif­fi­cul­ty com­ply­ing. it is sim­ply a get-togeth­er of cyclists to go for an unor­gan­ised but syn­chro­nis­tic ride. a large turn-out will com­pli­cate the enforce­ment of this repres­sive deci­sion.

back in octo­ber 2005, after the intro­duc­tion of SOCPA (seri­ous organ­ised crime and police act) sec­tion 132, con­trol­ling protest around par­lia­ment, police hand­ed out their leaflets warn­ing the mass may be con­trolled.

in response, around 1500 cyclists took to the streets in novem­ber, bring­ing cen­tral lon­don to a stand­still, and mak­ing it impos­si­ble for the police to enforce their crazy repres­sion.

you don’t have a lot of time to organ­ise, but if you want to build a sim­i­lar event, it’s up to every­one to spread this news far and wide — leaflet, poster and recruit your local cycle shop, write to your local news­pa­per (“local per­son intends to defy police ban by cycling on fri­day”), swamp your mail­ing lists, and so on and so on.

remem­ber, the crit­i­cal mass is not an ‘organ­ised’ event, and so can­not noti­fy the police in advance of its route. since it’s not organ­ised by any one per­son, it means every­one who wants a mass needs to do some­thing this week to make it hap­pen large! no-one will do it for you.

so start act­ing, and think pos­i­tive and huge — if 1500 can come out on a cold novem­ber night over this issue, think how many might turn up on a pleas­ant may evening?

——

“One of the three appeal judges hear­ing today’s case did rule in favour of the cyclists. Lord Jus­tice Wall said a rul­ing that the event fell with­in the Pub­lic Order Act was “poten­tial­ly oppres­sive”. “The police, in my judg­ment, know what the cyclists are going to do. They are going to ride around the Greater Lon­don area. “That is a per­fect­ly law­ful activ­i­ty, and if, for any rea­son, it ceas­es to be so, the police have ample pow­ers to intervene.The judge said it was a valid argu­ment that not only is the Crit­i­cal Mass ral­ly a part of Lon­don life, but that none of the bod­ies respon­si­ble for pub­lic trans­port in Lon­don had ever felt it nec­es­sary to ask the police to con­sid­er using the Pub­lic Order Act against it.”

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Bristol CM headerThis Fri­day — 25th of May — Crit­i­cal Mass

THIS FRIDAY — 25th of May — Crit­i­cal Mass from the Foun­tains @ 5:30pm

Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t BLOCKING traf­fic — We ARE Traf­fic.

Crit­i­cal Mass is a month­ly bicy­cle ride to cel­e­brate cycling and to assert cyclists’ right to the road, hap­pen­ing on the last Fri­day of
every month in hun­dreds of cities and towns around the world. We meet at 5.30pm out­side the Foun­tains near the Water­front to set off by 6pm.

We take a leisure­ly ride through the city of Bris­tol for 30 mins to an hour allow­ing us to make our point and com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly with oth­er road users and author­i­ties.

By get­ting cars to slow down for cyclists we hope to raise aware­ness for:

the ben­e­fits of cycling
the need for more bus­es
the need for more cycle lanes
cut down your dri­ving
car dri­vers need to chill out
cycling is fun and there are lots of like mind­ed peo­ple will­ing to do
some­thing fun to help the envi­ron­ment.

Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t BLOCKING traf­fic — We ARE Traf­fic.

for more info see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass_%28bicycle%29
http://www.scorcher.org/cmhistory/howto.html
http://bristolcm.pbwiki.com/

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Glasgow CM May 07 flierBIG BIKE BLESSING — A Mass for Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass

Come all, come many …see you there with hol­ly oil.

www.glasgowcriticalmass.org.uk

May 25th, 5:30pm, George Sq, !!Bring your Bike to be Blessed!!

Who do you turn to when you no longer can cycle safe­ly in the city?
The police? The Coun­cil? The Prime Min­is­ter?
No … we need some­thing big­ger. We need the most pow­er­ful force to pro­tect our bikes on our jour­ney through the city on the next Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride. This is why we will be call­ing upon the All Mighty Lord to bless all of our self-pro­pelled vehi­cles. Amen! A Divine Inter­ven­tion will ensure our safe­ty so we will be bless­ing the bikes with our hol­ly waters, chant­i­ng hol­ly hymns from the hol­ly Bike Bible. Hal­lelu­jah! For it is the bikes that have been sent down from the heav­ens to save us and our burn­ing plan­et. Amen!

Come all, bring your chil­dren and your par­ents, join the mer­ry sounds of the Crit­i­cal Mass.

Why?

There is a grow­ing cycling cul­ture in Glas­gow that is not being addressed by the Glas­gow city coun­cil. Although the bike is by far the quick­est, most effi­cient and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly means of get­ting around in the city, there are hard­ly any bike facil­i­ty, bike lanes are paired up taxis and bus­es and the list goes on.

Although the city coun­cil claims that there are up to “375km of iden­ti­fied cycle route” (www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/GettingAround/Cycling/) the major­i­ty of them are no longer than a cou­ple of hun­dred meters before they get cut by a road, a build­ing, or a park­ing lot.

Who?

Crit­i­cal Mass, Urban Play­ground, Glas­gow Kiss, The Weird Bike Show, and more

What to expect?

Well you should expect a safe and peace­ful bike ride with oth­er jol­ly cyclists, spon­ta­neous inter­ven­tions and a safe look into expe­ri­enc­ing the city on a self pro­pelled vehi­cle. As well a, a Giant Priest, a sound sys­tem on wheels, some weird bikes, a rick­shaw, and much much more.

The What?

There is also a fan­cy dress par­ty orga­nized by Bed­lam Boudoir and their incred­i­ble cos­tumes. We will have the bicy­cle stamp on the ride which will allow you a spe­cial dis­count for the par­ty lat­er on. Spe­cial points for com­ing as a reli­gious fig­ure to bless bike and dance at par­ty.

www.critical-mass.org
www.urban_discomfort.com
www.the-swarm.co.uk
www.glasgowkiss.org.uk

http://www.glasgowcriticalmass.org.uk

Virgin spoil-sports — TAA exhibition obstructed

19.05.2007
The Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art event tak­ing place in a squat­ted venue once used by Reuters was today obstruct­ed by a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm appar­entl­ty employed by the Vir­gin Media Group who alleged­ly own the build­ing which has been left emp­ty for sev­er­al years until occu­pied by the TAA ear­li­er in the week.

TAA exhibition London 1TAA exhibition London 219.05.2007
The Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art event tak­ing place in a squat­ted venue once used by Reuters was today obstruct­ed by a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm appar­entl­ty employed by the Vir­gin Media Group who alleged­ly own the build­ing which has been left emp­ty for sev­er­al years until occu­pied by the TAA ear­li­er in the week.

Today was the last day of the exhi­bi­tion which opened on the 16th May and involves the work of over a dozen artists from around the coun­try. The secu­ri­ty were assault­ing peo­ple attempt­ing to enter the site and the police were called. Over the course of sev­er­al hours the police attempt­ed to fig­ure out where the law stood on hav­ing secu­ri­ty guards obstruct­ing the pub­lic foot­path in order to pre­vent peo­ple from enter­ing a build­ing which was law­ful­ly occu­pied by some­one oth­er than the own­er instruct­ing the secu­ri­ty firm.

While the first police to turn up instruct­ed that it was a civ­il mater until the point of assault or obstruc­tion, the secu­ri­ty con­tin­ued as before as soon as the police left. The sec­ond set of police to arrive took a more prag­mat­ic approach. They said they’d do noth­ing until giv­en advice from high­er up and while they were there the secu­ri­ty were forced to step back from pulling peo­ple off the fences when they climbed over.

Mean­while, inside, kids played on a boun­cy cas­tle in the sun­shine and peo­ple wan­dered around look­ing at the wide vari­ety of art dec­o­rat­ing the large com­mer­cial build­ing. Work­shops were also tak­ing place around the build­ing and there was a sched­ule of films and exper­i­men­tal per­for­mances.

Short­ly before I left, high­er rank­ing police had arrived and were express­ing con­cern that they would be an unli­censed rave tak­ing place in the build­ing that evening as that’s what they were being told by the secu­ri­ty firm. The police asked if they could have a look around but after a peri­od of dis­cus­sion those inside said no.

As I left at around 6pm, the sit­u­a­tion remained that peo­ple want­i­ng to enter the prop­er­ty had to climb over a lad­der tied to the fence and could do so with­out obstruc­tion from either secu­ri­ty or police. It was not clear what would hap­pen next but the exhi­bi­tion is well worth a vis­it.

See also http://www.taaexhibitions.org/ and http://www.randomartists.org/

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update:
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Sat­ur­day 19th May 9pm

Has Lon­don gone anti-arts and cul­ture?
The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police have today launched a major oper­a­tion, which includes the cor­don­ing of two pub­lic roads and involv­ing the use of a con­sid­er­able num­ber of police offi­cers and vehi­cles. Result­ing in a stand off last­ing over 12 hours so far, (at 8pm), the police oper­a­tion has man­aged to pre­vent any­one enter­ing on the last day of a high­ly suc­cess­ful and inspi­ra­tional art exhi­bi­tion.

Yes, read that again … an Art Exhi­bi­tion …

Launched on Wednes­day the Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art exhi­bi­tion has attract­ed a large num­ber of tal­ent­ed artists from all over Britain and Europe to pro­duce one of the most excit­ing and inno­v­a­tive exhi­bi­tions that Lon­don has seen, achiev­ing almost unan­i­mous acclaim from every­one who has vis­it­ed.

Run­ning for four days from mid­day to mid­night one would have thought that such a qual­i­ty mul­ti­cul­tur­al event would be cel­e­brat­ed by the author­i­ties, but no, they insist that the place is going to turn in to some kind of rave and used it as an excuse to pre­vent the law­ful access to local pub­lic high­ways and the build­ing itself.

The build­ing is full of high qual­i­ty art, pro­duced by ded­i­cat­ed artists and the very con­cept of a rave is enough to hor­ri­fy any­one involved. The very thought of hun­dreds of works of art trashed in an ille­gal rave in incom­pre­hen­si­ble, so the ques­tion must arise as to why?

Has the Met lost it’s sens­es? On a Sat­ur­day night when the under­staffed, over­stretched police force is hav­ing it’s busiest night of the week they are sent out in force to pre­vent an art exhi­bi­tion!

Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art is (was) being held at 15–25 New North Road, Lon­don (Nr Old St) and is appar­ent­ly the most dan­ger­ous event in town

more info 07722044788

Earth First! summer gathering — Wednesday 18th July until Sunday 22nd July 2007 — location & programme announced

What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

EF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

Explor­ing alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of greed, lies & exploita­tion -

The Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is the place where peo­ple involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action — or those who want to be involved — get togeth­er for five days of time and space to talk, walk, share skills, learn, play, rant, find out what’s going on, find out what’s next, live out­side, strate­gise, hang out, incite, laugh and con­spire.

The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of non-hier­ar­chi­cal low-impact liv­ing in action.

We are a diverse com­mu­ni­ty with a wide range of approach­es to our action, so there should be plen­ty to inter­est and inspire every­one whether you have been active for years or are com­plete­ly new to it all.

More info at earthfirstgathering.org.uk

Climate Activist Glues Herself To The Front Door Of Leeds Bradford Airport

18th May: A woman cli­mate activist blocked the entrance to Leeds/Bradford Air­port today, by super­glu­ing her­self in front of the revolv­ing door. The protest was against gov­ern­men­t’s fail­ure to curb the growth in air trav­el, in spite of the fact that it is the fastest grow­ing source of CO2 emis­sions from the Unit­ed King­dom.

18th May: A woman cli­mate activist blocked the entrance to Leeds/Bradford Air­port today, by super­glu­ing her­self in front of the revolv­ing door. The protest was against gov­ern­men­t’s fail­ure to curb the growth in air trav­el, in spite of the fact that it is the fastest grow­ing source of CO2 emis­sions from the Unit­ed King­dom.

The activist hand­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment to mem­bers of the pub­lic and air­port staff:-

“This is a peace­ful act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. It is my inten­tion to dis­rupt the nor­mal work­ing of this air­port because it is an envi­ron­men­tal haz­ard. In so doing, I am stand­ing up for the poor­est of the world’s peo­ple, and for future gen­er­a­tions, who will bear the brunt of cli­mate chaos, caused by the afflu­ent lifestyles and fos­sil fuel addic­tion of the rich.

The planned three­fold increase in air flights is envi­ron­men­tal luna­cy. If run­away cli­mate change is to be avert­ed, glob­al car­bon emis­sions need to peak this decade, and decline rapid­ly there­after. There is no way that this can be achieved with­out halt­ing the explo­sion in air trav­el. Leeds/Bradford Air­port is plan­ning to expand to 8million flights a year, and if the pub­lic author­i­ties refuse to curb this envi­ron­men­tal men­ace, then respon­si­ble local cit­i­zens must act.

I AM SUPERGLUED IN POSITION PLEASE DO NOT HURT ME BY ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE ME!

I am not a ter­ror­ist. The real ter­ror­ists are the peo­ple who are destroy­ing the plan­et for prof­it.”

The activist was in posi­tion for about an hour, giv­ing her plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty to edu­cate those going in and out of the air­port. The police again showed a remark­able tol­er­ance for the crimes of Leeds Brad­ford air­port by arrest­ing the activist and stop­ping her from per­form­ng this vital pub­lic ser­vice. What are they like?

www.climatecamp.org.uk

Eviction & Injuction Against Squatted Garden? Reading Resists!

17.05.2007
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den is due to open to the pub­lic for the first time this Sat­ur­day 19th May, with a BBQ, children’s dance exhi­bi­tion and live acoustic music. Through four months of hard vol­un­tary work, some local res­i­dents and activists have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful green space from land left as a derelict junk­yard by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil. We’ve cleared rub­bish, secured the area, laid lawn, grown plants and built tables and bench­es. We have recy­cled and re-used and cre­at­ed some­thing pos­i­tive for oth­ers and our­selves. Through­out this time we have been occu­py­ing the for­mer Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, left emp­ty after the coun­cil cut their fund­ing.

17.05.2007
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den is due to open to the pub­lic for the first time this Sat­ur­day 19th May, with a BBQ, children’s dance exhi­bi­tion and live acoustic music. Through four months of hard vol­un­tary work, some local res­i­dents and activists have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful green space from land left as a derelict junk­yard by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil. We’ve cleared rub­bish, secured the area, laid lawn, grown plants and built tables and bench­es. We have recy­cled and re-used and cre­at­ed some­thing pos­i­tive for oth­ers and our­selves. Through­out this time we have been occu­py­ing the for­mer Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, left emp­ty after the coun­cil cut their fund­ing.

Today, we have found out that derelict land and build­ings are not left to rot by the coun­cil through sheer lazi­ness, but that they actu­al­ly pre­fer them this way. A coun­cil offi­cial has informed us this morn­ing that they are apply­ing to the court for our evic­tion and the evic­tion of the new Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den. Refus­ing to allow this pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty project to flower (excuse the pun!) or allow­ing Kates­grove res­i­dents a chance to decide the future of this area, the coun­cil is seek­ing an injunc­tion to pre­vent the planned open day and cel­e­bra­tion events this Sat­ur­day from tak­ing place.

We intend to car­ry on regard­less. This project is a source of pride for us, and we hope it can be the same thing for all our neigh­bours. We believe it to be a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the area and we sin­cere­ly hope you will feel the same. With this in mind we would like to extend an invi­ta­tion to all our friends, neigh­bours and those who sup­port us to vis­it the gar­den at any­time from now onwards. We also restate our invi­ta­tion to join in our cel­e­bra­tion of the open­ing day, this Sat­ur­day 19th May.

The entrance to the gar­den is through the alley­way next to the Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre at the bot­tom of Sil­ver Street, Kates­grove, Read­ing.

Against their injuc­tion and evic­tion is our stub­born deter­mi­na­tion — resist!

Love n Rage,
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Col­lec­tive
rgacollective(AT)hotmail.co.uk

Christiania under attack and Copenhagen-Update

15.05.2007
The police entered chris­tia­nia yes­ter­day to evict and demol­ish a house, that part­ly burned down a cou­ple of years ago. The evic­tion lead to a night of street fight­ing in the area. Time­line is trans­lat­ed from modkraft.dk

Christiania May 07 house eviction 115.05.2007
The police entered chris­tia­nia yes­ter­day to evict and demol­ish a house, that part­ly burned down a cou­ple of years ago. The evic­tion lead to a night of street fight­ing in the area. Time­line is trans­lat­ed from modkraft.dk

Yes­ter­day’s attack on chris­tia­nia has to be seen in con­nec­tion with the attack on Ung­domshuset the 1st of march which lead to a week of riots all over Copen­hagen. Again the police is now attack­ing a free space in Copen­hagen that has been under attack from both police and gov­ern­ment sev­er­al times the last cou­ple of years

The rea­son was offi­cial­ly that there had been made new con­struc­tions on the house which against the new admin­is­tra­tion “rules” for chris­tia­nia that for­bids any con­struc­tion at all, which also lead to anoth­er major police raid in sep­tem­ber 2006. Unof­fi­cial­ly it is said that the evic­tion might be a test from the police to see the reac­tion to evic­tions on chris­tia­nia, pri­or to the promised evic­tion of all “ille­gal­ly” build hous­es in the area..

From sev­er­al politi­cians and the opin­ion in gen­er­al among left rad­i­cals the offi­cial rea­son for the attack has been critized as being point­less. The house was offi­cial­ly asked to be removed by Chris­tia­nia them­selves back in 2006 and there has­n’t been any rea­son stat­ed why it had to be removed just now a month and a half after Ung­domshuset and a week before the court decides whether or not 3 hous­es on Chris­tia­nia should also be evict­ed.

To many it seems like the police is train­ing for these evic­tions of hous­es that are still in func­tion and also this might be an attempt to shift the pub­lic opin­ion AGAINST Chris­tia­nia by cre­at­ing and pro­vok­ing sev­er­al riots in the area week after week.

How­ev­er, the riots and fight­ing yes­ter­day also shows that the police isn’t always the strongest force. Peo­ple were caught by sur­prise this morn­ing when they attacked Chris­tia­nia but by evening the demon­stra­tors proved to be a much more pre­pared and stronger force than the police seem to have been pre­pared for.

Even though Copen­hagen might have seemed to dis­ap­pear again in the inter­na­tion­al news the city has been the cen­ter for huge polit­i­cal mobi­liza­tions time after time and there has been more and more focus on police bru­tal­i­ty in the dan­ish news.
At the same time sen­tences has been decid­ed by the city court against some of those peo­ple arrest­ed around 1st of march. Most of them have been con­fes­sion tri­als and might there­for not give any hint about future tri­als but in one or two tri­als peo­ple have been sen­tenced for long jail pun­ish­ments even though there was more civ­il wit­ness­es sup­port­ing them than police wit­ness­es against them.

——-
From modkraft.dk:

Kl. 01.51

The police has bloked Prins­essegade (main road to chris­tia­nia) and has parked a big amount of vans and offi­cers on the main square in the area Chris­tian­shavns Torv

The sit­u­a­tion seems unchanged.

Modkraft.dk is end­ing tonights reportage

Kl. 01.39

A police attack has­n’t begun any­way. Four police vans are parked across Prins­essegade with a num­ber of offi­cers in gas masks in front of and behind the vans.

Fur­ther up the street clos­er to Chris­tia­nia molo­tov cock­tails and tear­gas granats are thrown in each oth­ers direc­tion but with­out any real move­ment.

The police has all equip­ment ready but noth­ing is hap­pen­ing

Kl. 01.28

A wit­ness reports that the police has tak­en on gas­masks and is stand­ing next to their vans by the church half way between the square Chris­tian­shavns Torv and the entrance to Chris­tia­nia

The wit­ness thinks it looks like the prepa­ra­tion for a final attack on the demon­stra­tors.

Kl. 01.24

There has just been new clash­es between demon­stra­tors and police around Prins­essegade and Båd­mandsstræde.

The police moved for­ward in vans and had rocks thrown after them. The police then retreat­ed and fired tear­gas at the demon­stra­tors.

In return the demon­stra­tors threw at least 3 molo­tov­cock­tails at the police

It seems as if the clash­es does­n’t lead to any changes in posi­tion. The police has again retreat­ed.

Kl. 01.05

The fight­ing between demon­stra­tors and police seems to stop just as slow­ly. There aren’t as many demon­stra­tors on the street as ear­li­er in the evening.

There is still a lot of clash­es with the police where paint­bombs and molo­tovs are thrown at the police

A wit­ness has esti­mat­ed the num­ber of demon­stra­tors to be around 100 but there is more inside chris­tia­nia.

Kl. 00.55

After demon­stra­tors have been retreat­ed to chris­tia­nia they have now start­ed run­ning out in dif­fer­ent loca­tions in the area. There is fight­ing in a street next to Prins­essegade. The police is slow­ly retreat­ing.

There are still huge amounts of gas in the streets but the wind keeps spread­ing it out.

Kl. 00.41

There is still fight­ing between police and demon­stra­tors in Prins­essegade. Also there is still a lot of gas in the streets but the demon­stra­tors are just mov­ing accord­ing to the amount of gas, retreat­ing when there is too much. Molo­tovs are fre­quent­ly being thrown at the police

The demon­stra­tors are pour­ing water on the tear­gas bul­lets (?), mov­ing from one to anoth­er with water bot­tles.

The area is cov­ered with a huge police­force.

Kl. 00.24

The police has fired extreme­ly much tear­gas in the streets. A wit­ness says taht the demon­stra­tors are cry­ing and vom­it­ting. But peo­ple still havent giv­en up but are instead very aggres­sive. A lot is retreat­ing from the gas but sev­er­al demon­stra­tors are stay­ing.

Water and lemons are hand­ed out among the demon­stra­tors.

The wind in the area is con­tin­u­ing and the demon­stra­tors are moing towards the police as soon as the gas is gone.

Tear­gas has just been fired into chris­tia­nia over the musik­place Lop­pen (www.loppen.dk)

Kl. 00.18

There are burn­ing bar­ri­cades sev­er­al places in the area. In a par­al­lel street to Prins­essegade a larg­er bar­ri­cade is on fire

Kl. 00.13

Every­thing is qui­et on Sankt Hans Torv where a demon­stra­tion was sup­pose to start at mid­night. 15–20 demon­stra­tors are hang­ing out there and there isn’t any sign of dis­tur­bance.

Kl. 00.11

A clash is being pre­pared in Prins­essegade. The police has fired huge amounts of gas in the street but a wind is spread­ing it out. That makes the demon­stra­tors move for­ward as soon as the worst amount of gas is gone

The police seems to be hes­i­tat­ing, accord­ing to a source

Kl. 23.59

The police moved towards the demon­stra­tors a moment ago. They were met with rocks and the like.

One van was set on fire which is out again by now

A minute after the attack the police retreat­ed again and regrouped.
They fired gas at the demon­stra­tors

The demon­stra­tors have retreat­ed a bit but are very dis­ci­plined. They are yelling “Hold the line” to each oth­er. A wit­ness calls them “ready for bat­tle”

Kl. 23.55

The sit­u­a­tion is tense. Bar­ri­cades are build in Prins­essegade

By Båd­mandsstræde a small­er clash is hap­pen­ing. Oppo­site ear­li­er the police is hes­i­tat­ing a bit. At oth­er attacks the police has answered to demon­stra­tors’ attacks with pow­er­ful attack on them.

It is the demon­stra­tors that are offen­sive now.. They are yelling out paroles against police bru­tal­i­ty

The house the police evict­ed this morn­ing has been rebuild.

Kl. 23.47

SMS-mes­sages has called for a demon­stra­tion at Nør­re­bro at mid­night. As the demon­stra­tions on chris­tia­nia and in the area ear­li­er it is to protest the evic­tion of a house on chris­tia­nia ear­li­er today

Kl. 23. 42

There are two large burn­ing bar­ri­cades in Prins­essegade. One of them was attacked by a police 15 min­utes ago.

A new fire is being made between the two bar­ri­cades. The mood is tense & bat­tle-pre­pared.

The area has been blocked by police. No one can enter or leave the neigh­bour­hood. Even the metro has been stopped.

Wit­ness­es describe the sit­u­a­tion as silence before the storm

Kl. 23.33

Police has just start­ed a mas­sive and vio­lent attack on the entrance to Chris­tia­nia. This is after demon­stra­tors again has made attacks on the police. A sin­gle demon­stra­tor did­n’t make it away and has been arrest­ed and car­ried away

Kl. 23.23:

The police attacked the entrance to chris­tia­nia five min­utes ago. The demon­stra­tors replied with molo­tovs, rocks and bot­tles.

The police has retreat­ed again and a new attack is expect­ed.

There are sev­er­al burn­ing bar­ri­cades in the area

The riots start­ed short­ly after 22 o’clock where a demon­stra­tion on the main square in the area start­ed by sms’s start­ed a larg­er fire and build bar­ri­cades. The police attacked the demon­stra­tion after about 10 min­utes and at least 25 peo­ple were arrest­ed.

The demon­stra­tors spread out in the area after­wards and start­ed build­ing burn­ing bar­ri­cades around the entrances to chris­tia­nia.

Politiken.dk writes that at least 42 per­sons had been arrest­ed at 22.30

——-
Pic­tures & video: http://indymedia.dk/article/1153
http://politiken.dk/poltv/?ExtID=1646
http://politiken.dk/poltv/?ExtID=1646

More video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImOBGgLEBHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpse1ohja4g
playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D96F3A4AD2D6B746

Activists Occupy Downtown West Palm Beach Billboard protesting Florida Power and Light

West Palm Beach, May 14 — This morn­ing local activists from Project Aware­ness and Ever­glades Earth First! hung ban­ners and locked them­selves to a down­town rooftop bill­board to call for a sus­tain­able future for west­ern Palm Beach Coun­ty. They oppose FPL’s pro­posed West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter, cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing, Ever­glades pol­lu­tion, and overde­vel­op­ment; and the Callery-Judge “Town Devel­op­ment,” which would jump­start urban sprawl in the Lox­a­hatch­ee area. Their mes­sages high­light the enor­mous water con­sump­tion cllowances already approved for each project, and pro­mote pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in two forums ñ tomorrow’s 2pm coun­ty com­mis­sion meet­ing and the FPL’s Share­hold­ers meet­ing to take place at FPL’s Juno Beach head­quar­ters on May 25.

West Palm billboard actionWest Palm Beach, May 14 — This morn­ing local activists from Project Aware­ness and Ever­glades Earth First! hung ban­ners and locked them­selves to a down­town rooftop bill­board to call for a sus­tain­able future for west­ern Palm Beach Coun­ty. They oppose FPL’s pro­posed West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter, cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing, Ever­glades pol­lu­tion, and overde­vel­op­ment; and the Callery-Judge “Town Devel­op­ment,” which would jump­start urban sprawl in the Lox­a­hatch­ee area. Their mes­sages high­light the enor­mous water con­sump­tion cllowances already approved for each project, and pro­mote pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in two forums ñ tomorrow’s 2pm coun­ty com­mis­sion meet­ing and the FPL’s Share­hold­ers meet­ing to take place at FPL’s Juno Beach head­quar­ters on May 25.

Their col­or­ful ban­ners showed an alli­ga­tor chomp­ing a pow­er plant and read:

“Got Water? They would: FPL’s West Coun­ty Plant ->18 mil­lion gal­lons a Day;

“Callery-Judge Town -> 5 mil­lion gal­lons a day. Keep it Rur­al, Keep it Wild. No new FPL Plant”

For over a year envi­ron­men­tal groups have been fight­ing the West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter (WCEC), a nat­ur­al gas plant that FPL hopes to con­struct 1000 feet away from the Arthur R. Mar­shall Nation­al Wildlife Refuge in Lox­a­hatch­ee. As the alter­na­tive to fos­sil fuel plans, activists are pro­mot­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy & renew­able ener­gy, which FPL claims is imprac­ti­cal, despite the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for Ener­gy Efficiency’s recent report on the poten­tial for effi­cien­cy and renew­able sources to meet Florida’s ener­gy demands.

“When it comes to renew­able ener­gy, the sci­ence has been there for years,” says local activist & physi­cist Lynne Purvis. “Why does FPL con­tin­ue to use old, dirty tech­nolo­gies? The answer can only be greed.”

The cur­rent drought and water short­ages spawn fur­ther con­cerns about FPL’s pro­posed WCEC water require­ments of 18 mil­lion gal­lons a day and the unknown water con­sump­tion of the hun­dreds of thou­sands of units of devel­op­ment enabled by the project, includ­ing Callery-Judge’s 5 mil­lion gal­lons a day.

“These projects are direct threats to Ever­glades Restora­tion,” declared Ever­glades Earth First! mem­ber Peter Shultz. “What we need is con­ser­va­tion, not more con­struc­tion.”

Dublin Shell to Sea – Bringing it all Back Home

Day of Action — They deserve it and you deserve bet­ter

On the 18th of May Dublin Shell to Sea is going to esca­late its cam­paign against Shell’s com­mand cen­tre – Cor­rib house on Lee­son Street with anoth­er day of action start­ing at 7.30 am sharp. This attempt to shut down Shell’s HQ, like our last day of action (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82200), is being called to high­light the incred­i­ble theft of our nat­ur­al resources that totals 51 bil­lion euros in the Cor­rib field alone. This is only pos­si­ble with your help; we encour­age every­one to come along.

1st Dublin Shell Day of Action 1
1st Dublin Shell Day of Action 2
Day of Action — They deserve it and you deserve bet­ter

On the 18th of May Dublin Shell to Sea is going to esca­late its cam­paign against Shell’s com­mand cen­tre – Cor­rib house on Lee­son Street with anoth­er day of action start­ing at 7.30 am sharp. This attempt to shut down Shell’s HQ, like our last day of action (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82200), is being called to high­light the incred­i­ble theft of our nat­ur­al resources that totals 51 bil­lion euros in the Cor­rib field alone. This is only pos­si­ble with your help; we encour­age every­one to come along.

Dublin Shell HQ mapFuel Pover­ty – A Nation­al Scan­dal
Ire­land is cur­rent­ly fac­ing a cri­sis. Our health ser­vice verges on the brink of col­lapse as our nurs­es are forced to strike for decent work­ing con­di­tions. Our politi­cians have told us they can’t give in, in fear we all might ask for decent con­di­tions.

We have been con­stant­ly remind­ed in the elec­tion cam­paign about how much we owe our politi­cians. We are told the Celtic Tiger has brought untold rich­es and this coun­try is now awash with mon­ey. This is true to a cer­tain extent. More mon­ey has been gen­er­at­ed and emi­gra­tion has stopped. But still all is far from per­fect in this coun­try. Mon­ey has been wast­ed and the great­est give­away is hap­pen­ing as we speak. 51 bil­lion euros of our nat­ur­al gas reserves is being giv­en to Shell, Marathon and Sta­toil (for more info on deal see http://www.publicinquiry.ie/reports.php). Whilst these fig­ures are often too big to con­tem­plate, it is some­times eas­i­er to look at who is being direct­ly affect­ed. As usu­al it is those who need help most who will be affect­ed worst.

Unbe­liev­ably, each win­ter, up to 3,000 peo­ple die pre­ma­ture­ly every year from fuel pover­ty (‘The Poten­tial Health Ben­e­fits of Improv­ing House­hold Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy’ Clinch and Healy 2000 and Help The Aged., source: http://www.eirigi.org/campaigns/naturalresources/fuel_p…y.htm). This is our par­ents and grand­par­ents who are dying. What is our politi­cians’ response to this? Instead of try­ing to solve the prob­lem they gave away the one thing that could alle­vi­ate the prob­lem – nat­ur­al gas. Above all else nat­ur­al gas could have ensured that three thou­sand peo­ple lived out their lives, but they chose to give it away instead (http://www.publicinquiry.ie/reports.php).

Roy­al Dutch Shell A.G.M. in The Hague
Whilst our politi­cians are to blame they are not the only ones. Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon are the thieves in this sit­u­a­tion and are mak­ing away with enor­mous amounts of our resources. This week one of the thieves, Shell, will cel­e­brate their grotesque prof­its at their A. G.M. in Hol­land. It’s quite telling that the only place that Shell’s board of direc­tors can be held to account (if you are rich) is in a con­fer­ence hall in The Hague. We the right­ful ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the nat­ur­al gas deposits off our west coast won’t have a say.

The new ben­e­fi­cia­ries are peo­ple like the Queen of Hol­land (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Beatrice) Lord Kerr of Kin­lochard (also direc­tor of Rio Tin­to, Jeroen van der Veer, Lin­da Cook, Andy Pyle and Ter­ry Nolan (for oth­er mem­bers of Shell’s board of direc­tors see (http://www.search.shell.com/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi). Through­out this week Roy­al Dutch Shell will wine and dine the glob­al elite and divide out 51 bil­lion euros of our mon­ey.
At this meet­ing the rest of Shell’s share­hold­ers will get the chance to see how their invest­ments are doing and decide what to do with €51 bil­lion they stole from you and Shell’s exec­u­tives this year will no doubt have a nice cig­ar and cham­pagne at your expense.

These men and women with their suits and brief­cas­es will sit smug in The Hague with their caviar in the knowl­edge that they have ripped off a coun­try that needs its resources bad­ly — Our health ser­vice verges on the brink of col­lapse as our nurs­es are forced to strike for a decent wage, our elder­ly now live in fear of Win­ter as up to 3000 peo­ple die each year from fuel pover­ty and pen­sions are being pri­va­tised.

What you can do?
But all is not doom and gloom, on Fri­day the 18th just as Shell’s Irish elite arrive back hav­ing giv­en away our resources to the glob­al rich. Dublin Shell to Sea plans to greet these peo­ple by shut­ting down their Irish nerve cen­tre and head­quar­ters – Cor­rib House. This is the build­ing where all deci­sions are tak­en, where they hatched the plans to steal our resources and tar­get the Mayo com­mu­ni­ties in their relent­less pur­suit of prof­it. So come and join us in protest­ing against these crim­i­nals and block­ade their offices on Fri­day the 18th of May – they deserve it and you deserve bet­ter!

Relat­ed Link: http://www.shelltosea.com

Squatted Community Garden Opening Day — Sat 19th May — Reading!

“COMMON GROUND”
(Read­ing Squat­ted Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den)
** OPENING DAY! **

SATURDAY MAY 19TH,
1pm till Late!
** BBQ, live acoustic music and dance exhi­bi­tion by local kids from 6pm! **

“COMMON GROUND”
(Read­ing Squat­ted Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den)
** OPENING DAY! **

SATURDAY MAY 19TH,
1pm till Late!
** BBQ, live acoustic music and dance exhi­bi­tion by local kids from 6pm! **

A group of anti-cap­i­tal­ists in Read­ing have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful gar­den from a squat­ted piece of derelict land for our com­mu­ni­ty to use and enjoy. On Sat­ur­day 19th May we will be open­ing to the pub­lic for the first time, hope to see you there!

Lim­it­ed acco­mo­da­tion is avail­able, 1st come 1st serve — please let us know asap, thanx!

The entrance is through the alley­way, next to the Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, Sil­ver Street, Cen­tral Read­ing, UK. We are 10mins walk from train sta­tion.

“Any­thing is pos­si­ble when we take the ini­tia­tive”

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please email rgacollective(AT)hotmail.co.uk