Category: Unnecessary Developments

Lancaster anti-supermarket protest camp & update

New protest camp goes up in Lan­cast­er with local res­i­dents in sup­port — nobody wants a super­mar­ket with a huge park­ing here!

New protest camp goes up in Lan­cast­er with local res­i­dents in sup­port — nobody wants a super­mar­ket with a huge park­ing here!
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 1
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 2
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 3
News Release
From: Lan­cast­er Cit­i­zens’ Alliance
For imme­di­ate release
Mon 8 Octo­ber 2007

Angry res­i­dents occu­py pro­posed super­mar­ket site

This morn­ing Lan­cast­er res­i­dents moved on to coun­cil owned land in Scot­forth — the site of a pro­posed super­mar­ket, rumoured to be Tesco’s. Locals are shocked by secret moves in the Coun­cil’s Cab­i­net to sell off land at Law­son Bridge, off the A6. Their mes­sage: they will not allow the coun­cil to sell off their town for what they call “dodgy devel­op­ment”.

Says local res­i­dent Deirdre Mason: “The coun­cil may love the idea of Tesco’s, Cen­tros Miller and the Bail­rigg Sci­ence Park, but local res­i­dents are con­cerned about the threat to local busi­ness­es and the unique char­ac­ter of the city! These devel­op­ments will be the death of Lan­cast­er. Time to say ENOUGH! to all these sor­did schemes. Let’s send a clear mes­sage to all these devel­op­ers: they are not wel­come in our town.”

The occu­pa­tion will last for 24 hours and will be fol­lowed by a protest out­side the Cab­i­net meet­ing tomor­row (Tues­day 9th Oct) at Lan­cast­er Town Hall from 9.30am onwards.

Res­i­dents are con­cerned about the way the Coun­cil is sell­ing off Lan­cast­er piece­meal, lead­ing to a town crip­pled by grid­lock, and hav­ing only “clone town” shops that are to be found in any high street in the coun­try. “The coun­cil is blink­ered when it comes to recog­nis­ing the his­tor­i­cal val­ue of our town, the
vibran­cy and high qual­i­ty of the local traders.” says Stephen Dick­in­son of Scot­forth. “They sold off our mar­ket — it’s now half dead. Now they want to see off the rest of the town cen­tre with Cen­tros Miller’s pro­posed mon­stros­i­ty and this mega super­mar­ket in Scot­forth. The time has come to say ‘Enough!’. It’s
time for our coun­cil­lors to lis­ten to us!”

-ENDS-

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact Deirdre Mason at the protest camp on:
07798 745613

Pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties:
Mon 1pm at the protest camp, Law­sons Bridge, Scot­forth Road, Lan­cast­er
Tues­day 10am at Lan­cast­er Town Hall

Notes for the Edi­tor:
1 The land threat­ened by super­mar­ket devel­op­ment and cur­rent­ly under occu­pa­tion is near Law­son’s Bridge, between the rail­way line and the A6 (Scot­forth Road). Lan­cast­er City Coun­cil owns about 5.5acres there, imme­di­ate­ly to the south of Ray’s Dri­ve.

2 The land is cur­rent­ly rent­ed to a farmer for use as pas­ture. It is also well used by Scot­forth res­i­dents for dog-walk­ing and oth­er kinds of recre­ation, and there is a com­mu­ni­ty wood­land area at the north­ern end which is threat­ened by the devel­op­ment.

3 Lan­cast­er Coun­cil Cab­i­net will be dis­cussing the pro­posed sale in their Cab­i­net meet­ing on Tues­day, 9th Octo­ber. The meet­ing takes place at Lan­cast­er Town Hall at 10am.

——————————————————————————————-

Update — The fight car­ries on (and we will win!)

At this morn­ing’s Cab­i­net meet­ing of Lan­cast­er City Coun­cil coun­cil­lors vot­ed 8–2 to go ahead with start­ing the process of flog­ging the land for a super­mar­ket. This despite an over­whelm­ing dis­play of pub­lic out­rage. Hun­dreds of peo­ple wrote to the Cab­i­net Coun­cil­lors over the week. Scot­forth Parish Coun­cil decid­ing unan­i­mous­ly to oppose the super­mar­ket in an emer­gency meet­ing last night night and mak­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion to the Cab­i­net this morn­ing. Dozens of res­i­dents camp­ing out in the threat­ened field. A well attend­ed ral­ly this morn­ing. All this hap­pened in the space of five days — since we found out about the pro­posed deci­sion.

Cab­i­net Coun­cil­lors this morn­ing had the guts to refuse even to con­sult peo­ple pri­or to the sale.
The Con­ser­v­a­tive leader of the Coun­cil, Cllr Roger Mace said “we’ve had lots
of emails so there has been a con­sul­ta­tion already”. At this point sev­er­al mem­bers of the pub­lic could no longer con­tain their anger — shout­ing “that was us con­tact­ing you, not you con­sult­ing us” and storm­ing out.

Lib Dem Coun­cil­lor for Scot­forth East (which bor­ders onto Law­son’s Bridge)
John Gilbert said that “start­ing to mar­ket the land will allow con­sul­ta­tion
to take place” and “the pub­lic can con­sult all they want” (sic).

This ridicules any pre­tense of a demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem (with the notable excep­tion of our Green Coun­cil­lors who blew the whis­tle on the issue and joined in with the protest).

How­ev­er we are only at the start of this process and already hun­dreds of peo­ple are furi­ous about the plans and deter­mined to resist them every step of the way. We have already fought off two plan­ning appli­ca­tions for this site and we shall do so again.

In the mean­time, maybe we all need to recon­sid­er the way we shop — kick the habit and stop shop­ping at Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury’s/etc. Get to know your local shop keep­ers, sup­port inde­pen­dent small shops, set up food co-ops, before it is too late and they as well as your green fields are gone for­ev­er. These super­mar­ket giants are rid­ing rough-shod over com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment every­where.

To find out more about these issues vis­it: http://www.tescopoly.org/

Oh, by the way, we’ve not for­got­ten about the mon­strous Cen­tros Miller plans for our city cen­tre either. We’re just as deter­mined to see them off too! More info here: http://www.itsourcity.org.uk/

ENOUGH Is ENOUGH!

*The Bath Bomb * Issue #3 October ‘07 * @nti-copyright: copy and distribute! *

“Soapy suds of truth in a bath­tub of b*llshit!””

Oh, Just More Shops…

Walk­ing past the rub­ble of the South­gate Cen­tre, could my ears be deceiv­ing me? I have now heard sev­er­al peo­ple remark­ing how nice the view looks with­out the build­ings. The lat­est one of these came when I was walk­ing behind three very fash­ion­able look­ing girls who looked like they were ‘born to shop’:

Bath Bomb small logo“Soapy suds of truth in a bath­tub of b*llshit!””

Oh, Just More Shops…

Walk­ing past the rub­ble of the South­gate Cen­tre, could my ears be deceiv­ing me? I have now heard sev­er­al peo­ple remark­ing how nice the view looks with­out the build­ings. The lat­est one of these came when I was walk­ing behind three very fash­ion­able look­ing girls who looked like they were ‘born to shop’:
“What are they putting there?”
“Oh, just more shops.”
Could it be that more peo­ple than we real­ize would like more from life? Could it be time for some­thing new? Could it be that con­sumer cul­ture is real­ly on the wane? Coz it’s gonna take more than a Deben­hams to impress me.
What would the peo­ple of Bath like to see in a new shop­ping centre’s place? What could hap­pen if we let our imag­i­na­tions run wild? Why not get in touch with your ideas?

Reduce Car­bon, Cut Cap­i­tal­ism!

Sun­day the 16th Sep­tem­ber saw the arrival of the ‘Cut the Car­bon’ march in Bath. The group, includ­ing a mem­ber of MST, a Brazil­lian peas­ants move­ment who take land back from the rich to cul­ti­vate and feed their fam­i­lies, has been march­ing all over the UK, start­ing in Dublin, and end­ing the fol­low­ing week in Lon­don, to pub­li­cise the effects of cli­mate change on the plan­et. The group was met in Abbey Court­yard by 50 sup­port­ers, includ­ing a con­tin­gent from Bath Activist Net­work, wav­ing red and black flags and a ban­ner read­ing ‘social change not cli­mate change!’.
Their mes­sage was sim­ple, we can all do our bit to help stop cli­mate change, but it is the rich and the big busi­ness­es, from oil com­pa­nies to coal min­ing cor­po­ra­tions to the road build­ing indus­try, that are real­ly rap­ing the plan­et. We reck­on that the solu­tions to cli­mate change, pover­ty, wage slav­ery and greed can all be solved when we get togeth­er and take the pow­er away from those caus­ing the prob­lems — politi­cians, the idle rich and the cor­po­ra­tions. Bath Bomb would like to wish the ‘Cut the Car­bon’ marchers well on the last leg of their jour­ney and good luck in spread­ing their impor­tant mes­sage.

Work Kills

A new cam­paign has start­ed in Bath to high­light the dan­gers of casu­al and tem­po­rary work. This cam­paign is aimed at stu­dents and young peo­ple, many of whom are killed and injured doing this type of work each year. The cam­paign is being run by the Trades Coun­cil, a grass-roots trades union group, and the Simon Jones cam­paign (an action group set up to demand jus­tice for a stu­dent killed at work due to the neglect of com­pa­ny man­age­ment)
The cam­paign will be talk­ing at schools and uni­ver­si­ties, offer­ing advice and help. In ear­ly 2008, there will be a pub­lic meet­ing and an exhi­bi­tion (keep an eye on the Bath Bomb for fur­ther details!)
This cam­paign is need­ed because the state jus­tice sys­tem and boss­es care more for con­trol and prof­its at work than safe­ty.

www.simonjones.org.uk

Events List­ing

Mon­day nights Bath Hunt Sabo­teur meet­ings back room of Bell, Wal­cot Street, 8pm
6th Oct Fight the Pipe ben­e­fit gig, 8pm, The Plough in Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, with Crow­zone, Drug Snif­fin’ Dogs and Burnt Pork­chops
13th Oct Bath FreeShop out­side Hol­land & Bar­retts, Stall Street, 12–3pm
14th Oct Per­ma­cul­ture Col­lec­tiec Cafe food, film & work­shop, Kebele Kul­ture Pro­jekt 14 Robert­son Road, Bris­tol, from 5.30pm
15th Oct Day of action against Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, details tbc
19th Oct ‘Left­ism’ Ben­e­fit club night in aid of B.A.N., down­stairs at The Crown, Bath­wick Street, 9pm-1am
19th Oct Anar­chist Black Cross ben­e­fit gig, 8pm, The Junc­tion, 51 Stokes croft, with Born Dead, Jesus Bruis­er, 7 Crowns and War/System
21st Oct ‘Bub­bling Under: Behind The Mask’ Porter Cel­lar Bar, George Street, 1–4pm
23rd Oct cheap house clear­ance, ben­e­fit­ing ani­mal shel­ter in Kent! Ring 07990 847700 for details
27th Oct Anar­chist Book­fair in Lon­don www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk
1st Nov Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing down­stairs Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, 7.30–9pm
1st-11th Nov Bath Film Fes­ti­val www.bathfilmfestival.org
3rd Nov Bash The Rich, Not­ting Hill, Por­to­bel­lo road, Lon­don, 2pm www.bashtherich.org.uk [come along if you’re Class War or cop]
3rd Nov Gagged! ben­e­fit gig, Le Pub, Cax­ton Place, New­port, 9pm, with No Choice, Kilnaboy & Gun­rack?
7th Nov Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street, 7.30–8.30pm
10th Nov SHAC demo Hunt­ing­don town cen­tre, nation­al day of action against ani­mal abuse in Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences, www.veggieromance.com/f/61290
13th Nov Green Light Lec­ture — ‘Peak Oil: how to face the chal­lenge of glob­al oil decline’ — BRLSI, Queen Square, 7.30pm
24th Nov Punk all-day­er gig, ben­fit­ting legal costs from the Nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action, from 1pm at back­room [Wal­cot Palais!] of the Porter Butt on Lon­don Road — Tofu Love Frogs, Kilnaboy, Span­ner, Jesus Bruis­er, and more!

Fur Patrols

Here in the Bath Bomb office it’s start­ing to get a bit nip­py, now that win­ter’s on its way. But don’t wor­ry, this isn’t a call for heat­ing dona­tions — we’ve still got plen­ty of Chrons to feed the fire! What this does mean though, is that fur will soon start return­ing to our high streets, and we can’t have that. Around 40 mil­lion inno­cent ani­mals die every year to feed the fash­ion mar­ket, often spend­ing their entire lives in tiny cages, going mad with hunger and fear. ‘Pelt­ing’, or slaugh­ter, often takes the form of bru­tal hang­ings, elec­tro­cu­tion, car exhaust gassing — that is, if they’re not skinned alive.
For the last cou­ple of years, Bath Ani­mal Action and friends have been cam­paign­ing against fur out­lets in the city, with a string of suc­cess­es: Square signed the fur-free pledge last year, and John Antho­ny the year before. After weeks of reg­u­lar demos, it now remains to be seen as to whether Eleano­ra Brown at AH Moda will bring in rab­bit fur, again. Cry­ing wolf like any of today’s best actress­es, she col­lab­o­rat­ed with police last year to try and fit up a cou­ple of activists on false Pub­lic Order charges back in Jan­u­ary, both of whom were found not guilty.
BAA sleuths are now inves­ti­gat­ing the shop­ping cen­tres of the city to see if any stores are intent on prof­it­ing from this ani­mal abuse. Real fur is soft­er than syn­thet­ic fur, and if you do sus­pect any stores of sell­ing, please drop them a line: bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk.

http://www.caft.org.uk/

How Many MPs Does It Take To Veto Nuclear Pow­er…

We are hear­ing more and more that nuclear is the solu­tion to our pow­er needs, how plants are so much safer these days, blah blah blah. STOP. This is a dan­ger­ous thing to be con­sid­er­ing and will not even achieve what we need it to (nuclear pow­er, which only sup­plies elec­tric­i­ty, would only cut UK emis­sions by 4% by 2025–2030, by the government’s own fig­ures). Renew­able ener­gy will get for­got­ten about in the process, with hard­ly any fund­ing allo­cat­ed to research.
Nuclear pow­er is waste­ful, caus­es a lot of pol­lu­tion, is dan­ger­ous in many ways and isn’t even more reli­able see­ing as it still needs a fuel source which we must get from oth­er coun­tries. Renew­able ener­gy offers a sup­ply of clean fuel that is right on our doorsteps (such as wind, solar and geot­her­mal), it will achieve much more and soon­er. The government’s stub­born insis­tence on nuclear pow­er is anoth­er exam­ple of a quick fix that seems like it’s solv­ing a prob­lem when real­ly it’s only a tem­po­rary mea­sure that will come back to bite us in the ass in the future. Hard. We’ve got to stop cut­ting cor­ners and take the route that might take a bit more effort, may be a bit less famil­iar, but that is ulti­mate­ly the only way to begin to get us out of this mess we’ve got our­selves into.
Have your say here www.greenlightonbath.org/ with a ques­tion­naire or send out the mod­el let­ter to add your views to the Government’s review of the future of nuclear ener­gy. Also on this site, under the resources link is an inter­est­ing DVD you can view amongst oth­er things. The dead­line for this is the 10th Octo­ber, but if you miss that, as it’s short notice, there’s bound to be more oppor­tu­ni­ties to have your say. We must all shout loud and be deter­mined in our refusal of nuclear. The def­i­n­i­tion of stu­pid is doing the same thing (over and over) and expect­ing dif­fer­ent results. Also remem­ber two easy things you can do to reduce your ener­gy use — low ener­gy light bulbs (they cost more but last much longer) and turn off your stand­bys!

www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/index.php
http://nuclearpower2007.direct.gov.uk/reg/reg.asp

Direc­tor’s [Bolt] Cut

The sec­ond film in the ‘Bub­bling Under’ alter­na­tive cin­e­ma series screens on Sun­day the 21st of this month, down­stairs at Porter Cel­lar on George Street, at 1pm. Kei­th Mann, for­mer ani­mal lib­er­a­tionist jail­bird, intro­duces ‘Behind The Mask’, a doc­u­men­tary about peo­ple who risk their lib­er­ty to save ani­mals. He’ll also be dis­cussing his book ‘From Dusk Til Dawn’. Great veg­gie food also avail­able.

www.fromdusktildawn.org.uk

Who Are Bath Activist Net­work?

We are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment,
envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce
The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to
anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter.
For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email
bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

Dirty Mon­ey

Not a week goes by now with­out anoth­er cli­mate change and severe weath­er hor­ror sto­ries hit­ting the press, caus­ing around annu­al 160,000 deaths world­wide. And we know some of the cul­prits, too: while com­pa­nies like Esso, Shell and Nation­al Grid plun­der the earth and endan­ger our lives, the finance to do this has to come from some­where. This is where the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land come in. The self-pro­claimed ‘Oil & Gas Bank’, whilst oth­er investors are jump­ing to fund renew­ables projects round the world, RBS is busy under­cut­ting com­peti­tors, and fund­ing the dead­liest and dirt­i­est projects around: liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas in Qatar, oil pipelines in Azerbaijan/Georgia, tar sand extrac­tion in Cana­da, North Sea Oil, and anoth­er drilling project off the coast of Rus­sia, the sum­mer feed­ing ground of the threat­ened west­ern grey whale. And then they fund air­port expan­sion, too!
In 2005, their var­i­ous fund­ed projects pro­duced near­ly 4 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 emis­sions, as well as dis­plac­ing indige­nous peo­ples and encour­ag­ing oil wars the world over.
Also, remem­ber Bath Cli­mate Camp? That was set up to oppose Land & Marine’s LNG pipeline in south Wales, also fund­ed by RBS, putting the lives of thou­sands in jeop­ardy from poten­tial gas explo­sions. Eco-cam­paign­ers are call­ing for a nation­al day of action against the bank [who also own NatWest, Direct Line and Churchill Insur­ance] on the 15th of this month, so keep a look out!

www.theoilandgasbank.com
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk
www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pd
To find your near­est RBS branch or office:www.rbs.co.uk/microsites/general/branch_locator/step1.asp

HOT OFF THE PRESS!:
Cad­bury’s prove yet again that they could­n’t give a Fudge about their staff, with the announced clo­sure of their suc­cess­ful fac­to­ry in Keyn­sham, Wink-ing out 500 jobs. And whilst it’s Time Out for the work­ers who have helped make the Mr Big execs rich, the relo­ca­tion to Poland will no doubt prove a tidy Boost to the confectioner’s prof­its; as well as stir­ring up Moro racism and anti-Pole resent­ment over here. Greedy bas­tards.

http://www.thisisbath.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=180730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232315&home=yes&more_nodeId1=163047&contentPK=18568762

Well Fed Not An Ani­mal Dead!

Sat­ur­day morn­ing of the 22nd Sep­tem­ber saw Bath Ani­mal Action and sup­port­ers hold­ing a stall of veg­an food, gratis, prov­ing that there is such thing as a free lunch! Held as part of ‘Go Veg­gie Month’, it all went like hot cakes, and the pub­lic enjoyed it, too! Recipes were swapped and debates were had, and a real feel­ing of com­mu­ni­ty was [not Don!] fos­tered.

Fox Hunt­ing’s Fishy His­to­ry

Did you know that the expres­sion ‘red her­ring’ orig­i­nates from peas­antry in cen­turies past try­ing to sab­o­tage fox hunts? Pissed off with low pay, long hours and crap work­ing con­di­tions, it was a week­end pas­time for many of the 18th and 19th Cen­tu­ry rur­al poor to ruin their rich mas­ters’ hob­by. Amongst oth­er tac­tics, they did this by lay­ing her­rings and oth­er fish in the under­growth, dis­tract­ing the hounds from the scent of the fox, allow­ing it to escape. Our meth­ods may have changed since then, but hunt sabo­teurs are still out in the fields every week­end pro­tect­ing hunt­ed wildlife from the over-rich, under-IQ’d inbreds that con­sti­tute Britain’s rul­ing class. If you are inter­est­ed in pub­li­cis­ing Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs, help­ing us raise mon­ey, or bet­ter yet, com­ing out and help­ing us active­ly sab­o­tage local hunts, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk or give us a bell on 07854 062336

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring
http://hsa.enviroweb.org/hsa.shtml

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions are avail­able
on request

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute to this newslet­ter, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

http://www.myspace.com/bathbomb

I Bike MCR October Bike Events

Update about some bike stuff hap­pen­ing soon in man­ches­ter.

The Spokes Bicy­cle Dance Troupe
Per­for­mances: Fri­day 19th Octo­ber 1pm-5pm Whit­worth Park, Man­ches­ter (opp MRI) Sun­day 21st Octo­ber Lon­don Bicy­cle Film Fes­ti­val, Bicy­cle Polo tour­na­ment

Update about some bike stuff hap­pen­ing soon in man­ches­ter.

The Spokes Bicy­cle Dance Troupe
Per­for­mances: Fri­day 19th Octo­ber 1pm-5pm Whit­worth Park, Man­ches­ter (opp MRI) Sun­day 21st Octo­ber Lon­don Bicy­cle Film Fes­ti­val, Bicy­cle Polo tour­na­ment

Hey ladies! Join the Spokes: come to a rehearsal- next one this Sun­day 7th
octo­ber at 10am at long­ford park, chorl­ton. email info@ibikemcr.org.uk if you have any ques­tions or want to know the next prac­tice time

The MCR Dropouts Bike Polo Prac­tice:
Every Thurs­day at 7pm and Sat­ur­day at 2pm at Platt Fields Park
Open prac­tice and demo: Fri­day 19th Octo­ber 1pm-5pm Whit­worth Park, Man­ches­ter (opp MRI)

Mcr Bicy­cle Art Parade and crit­i­cal mass
Fri­day 26th Octo­ber, 6pm, Cen­tral Library

woooo it will not only be an amaz­ing bike ride to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle, to
meet oth­er cyclists, to have an excuse to ride around, to feel part of a bike gang, to have a fun evening etc etc

but!

this month it will also be Man­ches­ter’s FIRST EVER Bicy­cle Art Parade! So
dress up your bike in tin­sel or glit­ter or make it look like a drag­on or a
fly…whatever..lets get cre­ative!!!!

Thurs­day 25th Octo­ber 4pm Tem­po­rary Autonomous Arts Exhi­bi­tion
(see forbiddenartsmanchester.org.uk for venue infor­ma­tion)
Pre-Parade crazy bike weld­ing and bike dec­o­rat­ing work­shop

If you can, bring old bikes, bits of bikes, spray paint, glit­ter, tin­sel, news­pa­per, chick­en wire, pva glue, paints, plas­tic bags, weld­ing equip­ment and skills to the work­shop

the last few months have seen around 120 cyclists on crit­i­cal mass, lets make this one even big­ger

see http://ibikemcr.org.uk/criticalmass.htm for info
join the i bike mcr bul­letin list:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/ibikemcr

Ride Safe

x x xmanchester bike art parade

Demo — in Solidarity with Miriam Rose and Persecuted Saving Iceland Activists

1PM Tues­day 2nd Octo­ber, Ice­landic Embassy meet at Sloane Square
Come and show Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Miri­am Rose, a Sav­ing Ice­land activist from the UK fac­ing depor­ta­tion from Ice­land where she lives for being: “a threat to pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty and fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues” also to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ola­fur Pall Sig­gurd­son an Ice­landic activist being framed for “Obstruct­ing a Police Vehi­cle” fol­low­ing an attempt to run him over by a senior police­man.

1PM Tues­day 2nd Octo­ber, Ice­landic Embassy meet at Sloane Square
Come and show Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Miri­am Rose, a Sav­ing Ice­land activist from the UK fac­ing depor­ta­tion from Ice­land where she lives for being: “a threat to pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty and fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues” also to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ola­fur Pall Sig­gurd­son an Ice­landic activist being framed for “Obstruct­ing a Police Vehi­cle” fol­low­ing an attempt to run him over by a senior police­man.

Full arti­cle about Miri­am’s Depor­ta­tion: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/382239.html

Deportation Alert! Icelandic State Cracks Down on Saving Iceland Activists

The Ice­landic State has hound­ed and harassed Sav­ing Ice­land activists since the net­work was formed in 2004. In the lat­est episode of this sor­did saga; Miri­am Rose, an activist from the UK who lives in Ice­land is threat­ened with depor­ta­tion for being: “a threat to ‘pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty’ and ‘fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues’. She has only ever been con­vict­ed of ‘Dis­obey­ing Police Orders’ con­trary to the dra­con­ian ‘Police Acts’ for which she has served a short prison sen­tence; in soli­tary con­fine­ment in a men’s prison.

The Ice­landic State has hound­ed and harassed Sav­ing Ice­land activists since the net­work was formed in 2004. In the lat­est episode of this sor­did saga; Miri­am Rose, an activist from the UK who lives in Ice­land is threat­ened with depor­ta­tion for being: “a threat to ‘pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty’ and ‘fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues’. She has only ever been con­vict­ed of ‘Dis­obey­ing Police Orders’ con­trary to the dra­con­ian ‘Police Acts’ for which she has served a short prison sen­tence; in soli­tary con­fine­ment in a men’s prison.

On Fri­day 21st Sep­tem­ber, Sav­ing Ice­land activist Miri­am Rose was pre­sent­ed with a let­ter from the Ice­landic Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion threat­en­ing her with pos­si­ble expul­sion from Ice­land. The let­ter claims that due to her par­tic­i­pa­tion in two actions at smelter sites she may be con­sid­ered a threat to ‘pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty’ and ‘fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues’. The let­ter also claims that Sav­ing Ice­land pays activists for being arrest­ed, a claim repeat­ed­ly denied and proven to be false.

Sav­ing Ice­land is an inter­na­tion­al grass roots net­work that uses direct action to con­front the Ice­landic gov­ern­men­t’s Heavy Indus­try Pol­i­cy. The gov­ern­ment are intent on build­ing alu­mini­um smelters to exploit the coun­try’s geot­her­mal and hydro-elec­tric poten­tial, an eco­log­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe sold as ‘green ener­gy’. Sav­ing Ice­land also pro­motes and prac­tices sol­i­dar­i­ty with strug­gles against the alu­mini­um indus­try world­wide, such as in Trinidad, South Africa and India.

Miri­am has already served 8 days in prison for protest­ing against the destruc­tion of Ice­landic wilder­ness, for which the UK Green Par­ty Prin­ci­pal Speak­er Dr Derek Wall accused the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment of polit­i­cal harass­ment and demand­ed her imme­di­ate release. In Radio 1 Ice­landic news pro­gram Spegillinn yes­ter­day, the police admit­ted that this was to be the first of many attempt­ed depor­ta­tions of activists.

Miri­am is now wait­ing for a deci­sion by the Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion, hav­ing sub­mit­ted her objec­tion to depor­ta­tion. ‘I am very shocked that the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue to pun­ish me, after already pay­ing so heav­i­ly for my actions and ideals. This seems to be an attempt to scare peo­ple from protest­ing here, and I find such treat­ment sur­pris­ing in a sup­pos­ed­ly devel­oped democ­ra­cy like Ice­land. I am a peace­ful and edu­cat­ed per­son and have nev­er posed a threat to the police or any oth­er per­son dur­ing my time here. I was intend­ing to set­tle in Ice­land, and have been mak­ing moves to learn Ice­landic and con­tribute to this soci­ety.’

In 2005 the Ice­landic Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion attempt­ed to deport 21 Sav­ing Ice­land activists. Activists were snatched off the streets of Reyk­javik by plain clothes police, held overnight with no food, water or even pre­tense of a legal process. An elder­ly aca­d­e­m­ic with no con­nec­tion to Sav­ing Ice­land was hos­pi­talised with seri­ous head injuries after he wit­nessed activists being bun­dled into an unmarked car. Plain clothes police also broke into build­ings in an attempt to get to activists on the ‘black­list’. The Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion, denied that there was such a list in an inter­view with tabloid paper DV, for­tu­nate­ly Sav­ing Ice­land was able to sup­ply them with a copy com­plete with the Direc­torate’s seal and Hildur Dun­gal’s (the Direc­tor’s) sig­na­ture. Even­tu­al­ly the Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion admit­ted it had no legal right to deport any­one on the list.

In 2006 14 activists were tried and con­vict­ed for ‘Dis­obey­ing Police Orders’ and received prison sen­tences of up to 18 days a small group was also con­vict­ed of ‘Repres­sion of Lib­er­ty’ and sen­tenced to 2 months sus­pend­ed for 3 years on the false wit­ness of a man­ag­er at engi­neer­ing firm Hon­nen where they had attempt­ed to occu­py offices, the same man­ag­er punched and kicked pro­test­ers and slammed a door on some­one’s head.

Ear­li­er this year after Reyk­javik’s first Reclaim the Streets the Ice­landic police began to con­fis­cate pass­port of for­eign activists, some­thing they have no legal author­i­ty to do. The Ice­landic State have also had a long his­to­ry of harass­ing Ice­landic activists, in one case they have alleged­ly made false reports to Inter­pol accus­ing a Sav­ing Ice­land activist of trav­el­ing on a forged pass­port and attempt­ed to strip the activists Ice­landic Cit­i­zen­ship.

If the Ice­landic Police and Immi­gra­tion Direc­torate can get away with deport­ing Miri­am, then they will use depor­ta­tions more fre­quent­ly to silence dis­sent and under­mine sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ice­landic envi­ron­men­tal­ists. They must be stopped!

The web­site of the Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion is http://www.utl.is/english

The direc­tor’s name is Hildur Dun­gal: hildur@utl.is

See also:
Report on Miri­am’s depor­ta­tion and state­ment from Sav­ing Ice­land:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/983

Report on Miri­am’s Incar­cer­a­tion in Soli­tary Con­fine­ment in a Men’s Prison:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/892

State­ment of Sup­port from UK Green Par­ty:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/985 and @ http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/3171

Report on Sav­ing Ice­land’s fund­ing:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/846

Report of Pre­vi­ous attempts to Deport Sav­ing Ice­land activists:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/144

Report on how the Ice­landic Immi­gra­tion Direc­torate can behave quite dif­fer­ent­ly if you are pals with a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/759Police Brutakity at Reykjavik's first RTS this summerPolice Brutakity at Reykjavik's first RTS this summer

Report from Anti London Olympics/regeneration march and meeting plus comment

Sun­day the 23rd Sep­tem­ber was a sad day in the his­to­ry of gar­den­ing. It was the day the Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments were closed by the Olympic Deliv­ery Author­i­ty.

Manor allotments demoSun­day the 23rd Sep­tem­ber was a sad day in the his­to­ry of gar­den­ing. It was the day the Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments were closed by the Olympic Deliv­ery Author­i­ty.

It was also the day for­mer allot­ment hold­ers and many oth­er peo­ple decid­ed to march and demon­strate their con­cern over the way in which devel­op­ment and so called regen­er­a­tion is soak­ing up much need­ed green space. Mar­tin Slavin an Olympic researcher was on the march and com­ments “ … so called regen­er­a­tion projects like the Olympics are more about the careers of those involved in the Olympic indus­try, and the prof­its of devel­op­ers and con­struc­tion com­pa­nies than they are about improv­ing the lives of ordi­nary peo­ple”.

The Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments, were a lit­tle piece of the coun­try­side in Lon­don, and were giv­en to the gar­den­ers of East Lon­don by May­or Vil­liers, an old fash­ioned phil­an­thropist, he was ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing the life of work­ing class Eas­t­en­ders by a trans­fer of resources from him (rich) to the peo­ple of East Lon­don (poor). As well as the allot­ments, the Olympic project has swal­lowed up a huge chunk of land in East Lon­don, most of it com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased. The acqui­si­tion of the Olympic Park land is vir­tu­al­ly a mir­ror image of what Major Vil­liers did all those years ago.

The com­pul­so­ry pur­chase of the Olympic Park­land has been fund­ed by pub­lic mon­ey, and as such it can be argued that it should stay in pub­lic own­er­ship, post Olympics, how­ev­er, exact­ly what will hap­pen to the land remains unde­cid­ed, but both Ken Liv­ing­stone and Ruth Kel­ly have pub­licly stat­ed that they plan to bank role the Olympic project by sell­ing off land with­in the park to devel­op­ers when the Games are over. Major Vil­liers would no doubt turn in his grave, as his beau­ti­ful allot­ments along with vir­tu­al­ly the whole STATE AREA site is bull­dozed for a project which will most like­ly result in a trans­fer of land from pub­lic to pri­vate own­er­ship. As the Olympic project runs fur­ther and fur­ther into finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ty the pres­sure will be on to claw back as much mon­ey as pos­si­ble. This will inevitably mean get­ting into bed with prop­er­ty devel­op­ers who, along with the con­struc­tion com­pa­nies, will be the main ben­e­fi­cia­ries of a project that has been flawed from the very begin­ning.

An added tragedy to this sto­ry is that much what will form Olympic Park was pre­vi­ous­ly avail­able for use, on a non-income depen­dent basis, a cycle cir­cuit, allot­ments, social hous­ing, foot­ball pitch­es, lit­tle nooks and cran­nies, were all sorts of mar­gin­al busi­ness and artists had found a foothold. There was also a rave scene at Hack­ney Wick, with tired and dazed ravers leav­ing par­ties on Sun­day morn­ings whilst the well dressed con­gre­ga­tions of the many African Church­es filed by. It was an area that had grown organ­i­cal­ly over more thaan a cen­tu­ry and though it has some rough edges the area had an authen­tic­i­ty rarely found in 21st cen­tu­ry Lon­don. This has been lost to what will more than like­ly be an Olympic lega­cy of expen­sive flats with­in gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, a ster­ile, pri­vate­ly owned area sim­i­lar to the dock­lands.

It would be impos­si­ble to sell the Olympics to the nation for 3 weeks of sport, it is sim­ply too expen­sive, so those mak­ing their liv­ing out of this project have mar­ket­ed it on the sup­posed ben­e­fits of a lega­cy which remains unplanned. One of the prob­lems is that New labour has con­trol of the project, it has cen­tral gov­ern­ment back­ing and with New Labour also con­trol­ling all 4 of the bor­oughs in which the Olympic Park is sit­u­at­ed, and with the Olympic Deliv­ery Author­i­ty award­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion to itself the Olympic project can be pushed through vir­tu­al­ly unchecked.

Sunday’s march from Hack­ney Town Hall to the new secu­ri­ty gates of the Olympic con­struc­tion site was a sign of the public’s mis­giv­ings over this deeply flawed project. After the march there was a meet­ing where dis­cus­sions were held relat­ing to devel­op­ment and regen­er­a­tion. One inter­est­ing point cov­ered in this dis­cus­sion was the way these large projects evolve. First plans are made, then a so-called con­sul­ta­tion takes place and then the work begins. How­ev­er the meet­ing agreed that the con­sul­ta­tions were gen­er­al­ly a pub­lic rela­tions exer­cise and that they made lit­tle dif­fer­ence to the out­come of projects, which are usu­al­ly forced through despite any pub­lic mis­giv­ings. The Olympics appears to be a case in point.

Sun 23rd Sep: Rally Against Olympic Evictions — on Allotment Demolition Day

Details of March & Ral­ly Against Olympic Evic­tions on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day — Sun­day 23rd Sept
Meet 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall

The demo will be in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er evict­ed groups such as Clays Lane Hous­ing Co-op who have already been evict­ed from their homes and traveller/Gypsy com­mu­ni­ties soon to be evict­ed. The demo in Hack­ney calls into ques­tion the exces­sive social, eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal costs of the Olympics as a cat­a­lyst for (de)regeneration.

Marsh Lane allotment protest flierMarsh Lane allotmentsDetails of March & Ral­ly Against Olympic Evic­tions on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day — Sun­day 23rd Sept
Meet 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall

The demo will be in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er evict­ed groups such as Clays Lane Hous­ing Co-op who have already been evict­ed from their homes and traveller/Gypsy com­mu­ni­ties soon to be evict­ed. The demo in Hack­ney calls into ques­tion the exces­sive social, eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal costs of the Olympics as a cat­a­lyst for (de)regeneration.

For a leaflet/flyer for this event, click onto the Lifeis­Land web­site:
http://www.lifeisland.org/

“Devel­op­ment” — at what cost?
Their con­sul­ta­tion = we know best

Plan­ning per­mis­sion for the Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments tem­po­rary relo­ca­tion site at Marsh Lane Fields in Waltham For­est was grant­ed on Tues­day June 12th 07. The Lon­don Devel­op­ment Agen­cy’s plan has always been to remove them to make way for a foot­path to the sta­dia need­ed for the four weeks of the Olympics.

Manor Gar­dens, bequeathed to be allot­ments ‘in per­pe­tu­ity’ by their orig­i­nal own­er the ‘Right Hon’ Major Vil­liers, sit in the North cen­tral sec­tion of the Olympic Park. The site has been ear­marked to be vacat­ed on Sun­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber.

How­ev­er, allot­ment hold­ers aren’t going out with a whim­per. Tomor­row, they are going to hold a march and ral­ly on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day. Allot­ment hold­ers, sup­port­ers and cam­paign­ers will be meet­ing at 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall, march­ing to Hack­ney Wick Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion Baths, 80 East­way, E9.

Allotment Holders Sowing the Seed of Resistance in Reading

On Mon­day 17th Sep­tem­ber 07 Cow Lane allot­ment hold­ers began their first action against plans to bull­doze the site to make way for a new road as part of the Read­ing sta­tion upgrade.

Cow Lane allotmentsOn Mon­day 17th Sep­tem­ber 07 Cow Lane allot­ment hold­ers began their first action against plans to bull­doze the site to make way for a new road as part of the Read­ing sta­tion upgrade.

See http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/377780.html for pre­vi­ous report.

Allot­ment hold­ers where alert­ed to the arrival of sur­vey­ors gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion for the new road design last week. To ensure this event did not go unno­ticed allot­ment hold­ers quick­ly mobilised to greet and dis­miss the sur­vey­ors.

Most allot­ment hold­ers were at work, how­ev­er a small group man­aged to make a very vis­i­ble pres­ence at the gates to the allot­ment site. They erect­ed a 10 metre long ban­ner over the entrance, fash­ioned some makeshift plac­ards and hand­ed out 500 leaflets to pass­ing motorists, many of whom where very sup­port­ive, hoot­ing there horns and stop­ping to take leaflets. The usu­al sharp-wit­ted rant of ‘Get a Job’ was only heard once towards the end of the day. Friends from Com­mon Ground com­mu­ni­ty gar­den and asso­ci­at­ed activists also turned up to show sup­port.

One Land­scape Archi­tect had the audac­i­ty to turn up only to be turned away with a clear mes­sage that we intend to fight to save our allot­ments, and those com­pa­nies involved would not be immune from action.

The allot­ments are under threat due to the clo­sure of one of the Cow Lane bridges and a sub­se­quent diver­sion of the road as a part of devel­op­ment plans for Read­ing sta­tion. The road will also affect the Read­ing Fes­ti­val site, Mobile home res­i­dents and the River­side Sports and social cen­tre.

We also made it into our local rag ( http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/2015/2015224/protest_over_allotment_land)

Find out more about us and our cam­paign at www.cowlane.org.uk

Oth­er allot­ment sites under threat!
www.lifeisland.org
www.eastleigh-allotments-association.org.uk

Anti-City Academy Teachers Take To The Trees

Sat­ur­day 8 August, 2007: For six months teach­ers have squat­ted the sports ground on Forty Lane in Wem­b­ley, North West Lon­don, to protest against a pri­va­tised City Acad­e­my school being built on the site.

The coun­cil threat­ened to evict them and the sports ground lease­hold­ers if they did not leave. So in true fight­ing fash­ion, the teach­ers, with some advice from Heathrow Air­port Cli­mate Camp erect­ed tree plat­forms right under the noses of the author­i­ties and took to the branch­es on Fri­day night.

Wembley City Academy protest 2
Wembley City Academy protest 1
Wembley City Academy protest 3Sat­ur­day 8 August, 2007: For six months teach­ers have squat­ted the sports ground on Forty Lane in Wem­b­ley, North West Lon­don, to protest against a pri­va­tised City Acad­e­my school being built on the site.

The coun­cil threat­ened to evict them and the sports ground lease­hold­ers if they did not leave. So in true fight­ing fash­ion, the teach­ers, with some advice from Heathrow Air­port Cli­mate Camp erect­ed tree plat­forms right under the noses of the author­i­ties and took to the branch­es on Fri­day night.

Sat­ur­day saw a very loud protest on the ground and from the trees, inform­ing local peo­ple of what it means to send your chil­dren to a City Acad­e­my.

City Acad­e­my’s, for those not in the know, are fund­ed by wealthy busi­ness peo­ple, who get a say in what is and is not being taught.

Oth­er City Academy’s have erad­i­cat­ed any sign of Dar­win­ism and evo­lu­tion from the class­room, only teach­ing cre­ation­ism. Oth­er Academy’s have designed the edu­ca­tion pro­gram to suit their cor­po­rate inter­ests, train­ing chil­dren for jobs, not edu­cat­ing them, cut­ting out activ­i­ties like art, music and oth­er cre­ative out­lets.

One Acad­e­my, as one of the teach­ers told me, does has after-school activ­i­ties though – a ful­ly work­ing Call Cen­tre, where chil­dren as young as 11-years can learn the joys of work­ing your prover­bials off in prob­a­bly the most piti­ful form of employ­ment known to the human race.

The protest last­ed the week­end, the teach­ers endur­ing vicious abuse from the Eng­land fans, who descend­ed on Wem­b­ley for the Eng­land-Israel foot­ball match. They could be heard for miles yelling, “Who’s that wanker in the tree” while throw­ing toma­toes and eggs at the teach­ers.

But the teach­ers endured, sev­er­al giv­ing it back and get­ting the last laugh when the Eng­land fans turned on the Israeli’s with the now his­tor­i­cal­ly record­ed chant of, “Take you Islam and shove it up your ass.”

Foot­ball fan intel­li­gence on parade.

Need­less to say, many of the foot­ball fans did not grasp the fact that the teach­ers were try­ing to save the foot­ball pitch­es for the local chil­dren.

Acad­e­my Schools do not like play areas for their kids. The pro­posed Acad­e­my at Wem­b­ley has no space for play or out­side activ­i­ties.

But as the sun set that Sat­ur­day evening, the irony set in. There we were. Sat under the lit-up Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um arch­way, fol­low­ing a nation­al foot­ball game, drink­ing with teach­ers who were try­ing to save the last sports ground in the area from becom­ing breeze-block, con­crete and glass. And mass prof­it for some pri­vate investor.

For more infor­ma­tion or to sup­port the cam­paign and oppose all City Acad­e­my’s and the rapid pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK school­ing sys­tem, see: http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk

Global Actions Against Heavy Industry

12.09.2007 — Today, peo­ple in South Africa, Ice­land, Trinidad, Den­mark and Amer­i­ca are protest­ing against heavy indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion. This is the first coor­di­nat­ed event of a new and grow­ing glob­al move­ment that began at the 2007 Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp in Ölfus, Ice­land. The com­mon tar­get of these protests against heavy indus­try is the alu­mini­um indus­try, in par­tic­u­lar the cor­po­ra­tions Alcan/Rio-Tin­to and Alcoa.

12.09.2007 — Today, peo­ple in South Africa, Ice­land, Trinidad, Den­mark and Amer­i­ca are protest­ing against heavy indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion. This is the first coor­di­nat­ed event of a new and grow­ing glob­al move­ment that began at the 2007 Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp in Ölfus, Ice­land. The com­mon tar­get of these protests against heavy indus­try is the alu­mini­um indus­try, in par­tic­u­lar the cor­po­ra­tions Alcan/Rio-Tin­to and Alcoa.

South Africa, around 250 peo­ple have marched on Alcan’s head­quaters in Johanas­burg to protest against Alcan’s pref­er­en­tial ener­gy treat­ment, ahead of a pop­u­la­tion of which 30% have no access to elec­tric­i­ty. Alcan is to be pro­vid­ed with coal and nuclear pow­ered ener­gy for a new smelter in the East­ern Cape that will con­sume as much elec­tric­i­ty as half of Cape Town, at some of the low­est tar­riffs in the world. Today the entrance to the Alcan HQ was blocked for one and a half hours with no one com­ming in or out.

The organ­i­sa­tion Earth­life Africa Jhb, whose mem­ber Ler­a­to Maregele attend­ed the Sav­ing Ice­land 2007 Con­fer­ence and protest camp, are tak­ing part in the demon­stra­tion and have the fol­low­ing demands: First, Alcan and Eskom, the nation­al pow­er com­pa­ny, ful­ly dis­close all the details of their deal, includ­ing the actu­al price of elec­tric­i­ty sold. Sec­ond, that Eskom allo­cate a basic life­line of 100kwh per month to every South African.

Ice­land, despite ter­ri­ble winds and rain today, there have been protests out­side the gov­ern­ment offices in Reyk­javik and a gath­er­ing along the islands next pro­posed dam route, along the riv­er Thjor­sa (Þjórsá) at 3pm GMT. Also, the Ice­landic Min­is­ter for the Envi­ron­ment, Thórunn Svein­b­jarnardót­tir, was vis­it­ed at her home this morn­ing to have a friend­ly chat with activists and receive a let­ter ask­ing her to clear up her seem­ing­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry green opin­ions.

The Ice­landic gov­ern­ment is try­ing to rush through the con­struc­tion of numer­ous new and expand­ed alu­mini­um smelters to bring the islands total alu­mini­um out­put up to three mil­lion tonnes per year. These hydro and geot­her­mal pow­ered heavy indus­try projects have been con­demned by envi­ron­men­tal sci­en­tists and lob­by­ing groups. Three dam reser­voirs are to be cre­at­ed along the Thjor­sa riv­er, where pro­test­ers have gath­ered, to pow­er a new Alcoa smelter near the north­ern town of Husavik, or an expan­sion of the Alcan plant in Haf­nar­fjor­dur which was vetoed in a local ref­er­en­dum.

“Unem­ploy­ment in Ice­land is 0.9%. So this destruc­tion is only based on the greed of Landsvirkjun [the nation­al pow­er com­pa­ny] and has no eco­nom­i­cal log­ic. We are here to show sup­port with the local farm­ers who are fight­ing against Landsvirkjun to defend their land and our land.”
— Sav­ing Ice­land activist Sig­gi Hardar­son.

Trinidad, activists are remem­ber­ing the first anniver­sary of an action in which peo­ple con­front­ed plans for an Alcoa smelter in the rur­al town of Chatam; whilst lawyers are regroup­ing ahead of a legal bat­tle against the Envi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Author­i­ty, rep­re­sent­ing heavy indus­try, that will be piv­otal in the islands devel­op­ment.

“Sep­tem­ber 12 2006 was the day that activists con­front­ed trac­tors and police on Food­crop Road and this day will for­ev­er live in the hearts and minds of activists in
Trinidad and Toba­go as a cru­cial moment of our fight for envi­ron­men­tal and
social jus­tice.”
— Attil­lah Springer, Rights Action Group

Pres­sure from grass­roots actions such as this per­suad­ed Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning to drop plans to build the Alcoa smelter in Chatam. Con­front­ed by four cas­es against them­selves, the EMA, whose two main stake­hold­ers are NEC and the alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tion Alutrint, were sig­nif­i­cant­ly turned down by the Judge in their plea that three NGO’s — RAG, PURE and Smelta Kar­a­van should not be able to bring action against them. This impor­tant rul­ing recog­nis­es that the issue of heavy indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion is to Trinidad nation­al, not mere­ly local. The peo­ple Vs EMA con­tin­ues on Thurs­day 13th Sep­tem­ber.

Den­mark, at 6pm CEST (4pm GMT) this evening a crowd will march to the Ice­landic embassy and the Green­land’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tion Office with a ban­ner that reads “Glob­al Strug­gle Against Heavy Indus­try”. Talks will be giv­en on the glob­al fight against heavy indus­try and the move­ment of resis­tance. Alcoa is in the plan­ning stage of a smelter project in Green­land whilst the prime min­is­ter Hans Enok­sen is present­ly in New York to seek loans to finance the hydropow­er project.

In Aus­tralia, res­i­dents in the West have acquired the sup­port of US Attor­ney Erin Brock­ovitch in a legal bat­tle against Alcoa. The cor­po­ra­tion intends to dou­ble the out­put of its oper­a­tions in the region whilst res­i­dents of the near­by town Yarloop are demand­ing that Alcoa relo­cate them. They claim that they are “liv­ing in a tox­ic bub­ble” and that their health has dra­mat­i­cal­ly suf­fered due to Alcoa’s work.

Fur­ther actions may be tak­ing place, we shall send updates out as soon as we get them.

saving­ice­land [at] riseup.net
http://www.savingiceland.org