Category: Global

Glob­al

Responding to Harmful Government Inaction, Protestors Stop Blasting on Coal River Mountain

Four Pro­tes­tors cur­rent­ly on Coal Riv­er Moun­tain. Two locked down to drill rig on Bee Tree Per­mit site. Mine secu­ri­ty and coun­ty police are cur­rent­ly there as well. Blast­ing is still halt­ed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 11/21/09
Con­tact: Zoe Beavers 304–854-7372
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

Four Pro­tes­tors cur­rent­ly on Coal Riv­er Moun­tain. Two locked down to drill rig on Bee Tree Per­mit site. Mine secu­ri­ty and coun­ty police are cur­rent­ly there as well. Blast­ing is still halt­ed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 11/21/09
Con­tact: Zoe Beavers 304–854-7372
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

PETTUS, W. Va. – Ear­ly this morn­ing two con­cerned cit­i­zens, Dea Gob­lirsch and Nick Mar­tin, locked down to a drill rig on Coal Riv­er Mountain’s Bee Tree moun­tain­top removal site, effec­tive­ly stop­ping blast­ing. Two oth­ers, Grace Williams and Lau­ra Von Dolen, joined them in direct sup­port, hold­ing a ban­ner with the mes­sage “Save Coal Riv­er Moun­tain”.

These non­vi­o­lent pro­tes­tors have tak­en this action to bring atten­tion to the extreme dan­ger fac­ing res­i­dents of the Coal Riv­er Val­ley from blast­ing near the Brushy Fork Impound­ment. They plan to stay locked down until law enforce­ment removes them.

Res­i­dent of Rock Creek, W Va., Del­bert Gun­noe, stat­ed his con­cerns with the blast­ing, “You know when they put a blast over there, and it shakes the win­dows over here, at what, ¾‑a-mile dis­tance, imag­ine what it does over there.” Gun­noe con­tin­ued, “if [the impound­ment] did bust…what would be the destruc­tion? The town of Whitesville would no longer exist.”

The four are fear­ful of the blast­ing that Massey Ener­gy began in late Octo­ber. These blasts are 200 feet from the Brushy Fork Impound­ment, per­mit­ted to hold nine bil­lion gal­lons of tox­ic coal slur­ry. The impound­ment sits atop miles of hol­low, abound­ed under­ground mines, fur­ther endan­ger­ing its integri­ty. By Massey’s own esti­mates, rough­ly 998 peo­ple will die should the dam break. The emer­gency evac­u­a­tion plan states that a 40-foot wall of sludge, crest­ing at 72 feet, will flow through the val­ley, reach­ing 20-feet-high about 15 miles down the road. Apart from the ini­tial flood, the impact of this poten­tial spill would be felt along the Coal River’s 88 miles.

“The Brushy Fork Sludge Impound­ment keeps res­i­dents of the Coal Riv­er Val­ley up at night, wait­ing for eight bil­lion gal­lons of tox­ic coal slur­ry to come rush­ing towards them,” said Dea Gob­lirsch, one of the two locked down. “I don’t know how Massey exec­u­tives sleep sound­ly at night.”

Hydrol­o­gist, Dr. Rick Eades spoke of con­cerns about the sta­bil­i­ty of the dam as blast­ing occurs. He ques­tioned “blast­ing where under­ground mines exist­ed in the Eagle coal seam, the pos­si­bil­i­ties for adverse­ly affect­ing near-sur­face bedrock in a way that could pos­si­bly enhance path­ways for slur­ry to be released via the sub­sur­face and bypass the dam.”

The con­cern is that slur­ry will break into under­ground mine shafts and blow out through old mine open­ings on the side of the moun­tain. This poten­tial­i­ty for Coal Riv­er Moun­tain mir­rors the cause of the world’s largest slur­ry spill which occurred in Mar­tin Coun­ty, Ky. In 2000, 250 mil­lion gal­lons of slur­ry broke forth from a 2.2‑billion-gallon impound­ment, killing near­ly all life in the Big Sandy Riv­er. Its impact reached all the way to the Ohio Riv­er, about 100 miles away.

Ear­li­er this week, EPA sent out a let­ter to Mar­fork Coal Co., a sub­sidiary of Massey Ener­gy Co., air­ing con­cerns about the absence of a val­ley fill per­mit, and request­ing an exten­sive amount of infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the moun­tain­top removal oper­a­tion on the Bee Tree site.

In note of this, Nick Mar­tin, cur­rent­ly locked down, said, “The EPA’s recent action proves that the com­mu­ni­ties’ con­cerns about this site are shared at the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment.”

Matt Louis-Rosen­berg, a Cli­mate Ground Zero activist, adds, “Coal Riv­er Wind attempt­ed to get a meet­ing with the gov­er­nor for a year and it took peo­ple sit­ting in his office to get him to sit down and meet with con­cerned com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, just like it takes our actions up on Coal Riv­er Moun­tain to get the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to step in.”

The con­cern showed by the EPA reflects what the res­i­dents of the Coal Riv­er Val­ley have known for a long time; the Brushy Fork Impound­ment is putting lives in dan­ger, and the blast­ing on Coal Riv­er Moun­tain only increas­es that dan­ger. The pro­tes­tors on the Bee Tree site are putting out a call to action to save Coal Riv­er Moun­tain and pro­tect all those who would be impact­ed by a cat­a­stro­phe there. This action fits into a larg­er fight against moun­tain­top removal in Appalachia.

On the whole, Gunnoe’s sen­ti­ment was, “Don’t like much about Oba­ma, but he’ll have one heck of a sup­port­er if he stops moun­tain­top min­ing.”

Note: More infor­ma­tion avail­able at http://climategroundzero.org.

ELF Attacks Carso Cement Company in Mexico State

“On the night of Novem­ber 18, we again attacked the enter­prise CARSO in the state of Mex­i­co. This time we saw that a wide hose com­ing out of the cement busi­ness was fur­ther con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the canal. The tox­ic waste of civ­i­liza­tion com­plete­ly destroys bio­di­vesi­ty, cre­at­ing ill­ness and addi­tion­al­ly, these destroy­ers of the land push to the edge the last that remains of wild nature.

“On the night of Novem­ber 18, we again attacked the enter­prise CARSO in the state of Mex­i­co. This time we saw that a wide hose com­ing out of the cement busi­ness was fur­ther con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the canal. The tox­ic waste of civ­i­liza­tion com­plete­ly destroys bio­di­vesi­ty, cre­at­ing ill­ness and addi­tion­al­ly, these destroy­ers of the land push to the edge the last that remains of wild nature.

It is because of this that we decid­ed to act and we threw bot­tles filled with gaso­line at the hose, and after this we threw rocks wrapped in cloth and lit on fire. The per­son oper­at­ing a big crane had a look of aston­ish­ment after see­ing from the dark­ness of the branch­es of the trees, balls of fire com­ing direc­ty at the prop­er­ty of the wretched CARSO enter­prise.

We will not tol­er­ate more envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion. The vin­di­cat­ing fire lives not only in our words but also in our actions.

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front”

http://www.elfpressoffice.org/comm111809.html

Buy Nothing Day (Bristol, Birmingham, Falmouth, Leeds, Lincoln, Sheffield…) — Steal Something Day (everywhere)

Bris­tol: To buy, or not to buy…

Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 28th is Buy Noth­ing Day (UK). It’s a day where you chal­lenge your­self, your fam­i­ly and friends to switch off from shop­ping and tune into life. The rules are sim­ple, for 24 hours you will detox from shop­ping and any­one can take part pro­vid­ed they spend a day with­out spend­ing!

Shop Less Live MoreBris­tol: To buy, or not to buy…

Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 28th is Buy Noth­ing Day (UK). It’s a day where you chal­lenge your­self, your fam­i­ly and friends to switch off from shop­ping and tune into life. The rules are sim­ple, for 24 hours you will detox from shop­ping and any­one can take part pro­vid­ed they spend a day with­out spend­ing!

Every­thing we buy has an impact on the envi­ron­ment. Buy Noth­ing Day high­lights the envi­ron­men­tal and eth­i­cal con­se­quences of shop­ping. The devel­oped coun­tries — only 20% of the world pop­u­la­tion are con­sum­ing over 80% of the earth­’s nat­ur­al resources, caus­ing a dis­pro­por­tion­ate lev­el of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and an unfair dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth.

As con­sumers we need to ques­tion the prod­ucts we buy and chal­lenge the com­pa­nies who pro­duce them. What are the true risks to the envi­ron­ment and devel­op­ing coun­tries? The argu­ment is infi­nite — while it con­tin­ues we should be look­ing for sim­ple solu­tions and Buy Noth­ing Day is a good place to start.

As last year’s buy noth­ing day was a huge suc­cess in the city cen­tre, we will be doing the same event again — a free shop, where peo­ple can take away things for free. We will be right at the heart of the mad shop­ping world that is Broad­mead.

Help­ing peo­ple think about the mate­r­i­al world we live in, and mak­ing con­scious deci­sions in the way we exploit the world, its peo­ple and the nat­ur­al resources.

Bring musi­cal instru­ments, things to give away in the free shop, chalk, and your love­ly self!

Hope to see you there.

Hap­py 10th Buy Noth­ing Day!

Buy Noth­ing Day start­ed in North Amer­i­ca in the ear­ly 90’s and has grown to an inter­na­tion­al day cel­e­brat­ed in over 50 coun­tries. The Buy Noth­ing Day UK web­site went online in Jan­u­ary 2000. We’re not quite 10 years old, but on Novem­ber 28th Buy Noth­ing Day will be just 10 days young — anoth­er rea­son to cel­e­brate the fru­gal fes­ti­val.

http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/

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Birm­ing­ham: We are hold­ing our 8th annu­al San­ta Parade in Birm­ing­ham City Cen­tre for Buy Noth­ing Day on 28th Novem­ber at 12:00 noon. Email: joe (at) birminghamfoe.org.uk. For last years parade click here.

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Fal­mouth:
Free Shop
Ker­now Action Now! a new direct action group in Corn­wall will be launch­ing what will become a reg­u­lar Freeshop on Buy Noth­ing Day. The Freeshop will be from 1pm out­side the old Wool­worths in Fal­mouth, Corn­wall.

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Leeds:

Buy Noth­ing Day is try­ing to make peo­ple think about the goods they buy — think before you shop!  We are NOT ask­ing you to go with­out milk if you run out. Instead, before you buy think about where things come from, how they got here, what resources were used to make them and: do you REALLY need them?

The idea is to encour­age peo­ple that instead of buy­ing some­thing for Christ­mas they could make some­thing (see our alter­na­tive Christ­mas gifts for ideas).  There is so much adver­tis­ing say­ing BUY THIS we thought that there should be some say­ing BUY NOTHING.

Last year we had Christ­mas Car­ols, a free shop, food and all for free in Brig­gate.  Lots of peo­ple inter­est­ed in the con­cept and lots of cups of tea.

Join us.

See web­site below for meet­ings or come to Brig­gate — 11am

http://www.greenactionleeds.org.uk/buy-nothing-day-09

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Lin­coln:

My Dads Strip Club out again on Buy-Noth­ing-Day-Release, this time three events in three days in the city of Lin­coln.

Thurs 26 Nov 2009 8–10pm Dog and Bone, St Johns St, Lin­coln.
BITE THE HAND feeds thoughts of break­ing con­di­tioned respons­es … sub­vert­ing sys­tems upon them­selves… inter­rupt­ing need­less con­sump­tion… and cut­ting off the pow­er. Enjoy an evening at the Dog and Bone with My Dads Strip Club as they demon­strate to you ‘the art of reclaim­ing space’. Putting embar­rass­ment aside, they will address the del­i­cate sub­ject of car­nal knowl­edge of Coke machines. The com­e­dy in the work runs very close to anger, and excites all kinds of stuff in on-look­ers.

Fri 27 Nov 2009 5.30–7.30 pm at the Healthy Hub cafe Beau­mont Fee
(after The 4pm Mini-Wave hap­pen­ing at the cathe­dral )
FROM DIRTY CASH TO CLEAN GREEN come watch us try to nav­i­gate our way out of the chaos of cli­mate change through draw­ing and per­for­mance cap­tur­ing the con­nec­tions between slag heaps and super­mod­els green-wash­ing and the titan­ic and our flood­ed out cum­bri­an towns. Sound by FLOTEL.

Sat 28 Nov 2009 at var­i­ous loca­tions in the city of Lin­coln.
GOOD SHIT DOESN’T HAVE TO COST THE EARTH Mak­ing our annu­al dis-func­tion­al attempt to relate to the shop­ping expe­ri­ence MDSC will try to coerce inno­cent shop­pers to break their addic­tion to mass pro­duced poor­ly made prod­ucts (cheap-shit) instead offer­ing for sale alter­na­tive organ­ic and sus­tain­able high-priced mer­chan­dise. Meet us for a report back at the Dog and Bone pub 1pm sharp.

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Lin­coln Mini Wave — meet Fri­day 4pm out­side Lin­coln Cathe­dral. The event is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with mobil­i­sa­tions around the UN con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen www.ecolincs.org
Buy Noth­ing Day — sab­o­tage the shop­ping
www.buynothingday.co.uk
www.dogandbonelincoln.co.uk — Best com­mu­ni­ty pub in Great Britain award 2009

http://www.mydadstripclub.com

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Con­sumer Virus Out­break, Sheffield

Meet by the stat­ue in the main Mead­owhall con­course at 1pm and do any­thing but shop!
We know that sweet tasty braaaains will be short sup­ply dur­ing the run up to Christ­mas, but let’s see what we can do … Zom­bies and out­break cleanup crew are all wel­come : bring friends, cos­tumes, signs and fake blood aplen­ty!!!
A face­book event page can be found here : www.facebook.com
FEEL FREE TO INVITE FRIENDS : ALL ARE WELCOME IN THE ZOMBIE HOARD!!!

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Steal Something Day
Steal Some­thing Day

“…Unlike Buy Noth­ing Day, when peo­ple are asked to “par­tic­i­pate by not par­tic­i­pat­ing,” Steal Some­thing Day demands that we “par­tic­i­pate by par­tic­i­pat­ing.” Instead of down­play­ing or ignor­ing the cap­i­tal­ists, CEOs, land­lords, small busi­ness tyrants, boss­es, PR hacks, yup­pies, media lap­dogs, cor­po­rate bureau­crats, politi­cians and cops who are pri­mar­i­ly respon­si­ble for mis­ery and exploita­tion in this world, Steal Some­thing Day demands that we steal from them, with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion.…

…Unlike the mis­placed Buy Noth­ing Day notion of con­sumer empow­er­ment, Steal Some­thing Day pro­motes empow­er­ment by urg­ing us to col­lec­tive­ly iden­ti­fy the greedy bas­tards who are actu­al­ly respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing mis­ery and bore­dom in this world. Instead of ignor­ing them, Steal Some­thing Day encour­ages us to make their lives as uncom­fort­able as pos­si­ble.

As we like to say in Mon­tre­al: diranger les rich­es dans leurs nich­es!

And remem­ber, we’re talk­ing about steal­ing, not theft. Steal­ing is just. Theft is exploita­tive. Steal­ing is when you take a yup­pie’s BMW for a joyride, and crash into a parked Mer­cedes just for the hell of it. Theft is when you take can­dy from a baby’s mouth.

Steal­ing is the re-dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth from rich to poor Theft is mak­ing prof­its at the expense of the dis­ad­van­taged and the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment. Steal­ing is an unwrit­ten a tax on the rich. Theft is tax­ing the poor to sub­si­dize the rich. Steal­ing is noth­ing more than a tax on the rich. There is sol­i­dar­i­ty in steal­ing, but prop­er­ty is noth­ing but theft.…”

For the full orig­i­nal text and call-out, go to http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/432

Preparing for a warm winter in Copenhagen: A guide to the COP15 protests

This Decem­ber the Unit­ed Nations Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence or COP15 will take place in Copen­hagen, Den­mark. Those organ­is­ing the con­fer­ence claim it aims to be a step towards the build­ing of a ‘new glob­al cli­mate treaty’ in an attempt to tack­le cli­mate change.

But many feel that this meet­ing is a sham, cre­at­ed to prop up exist­ing sys­tems that pro­mote, not hin­der cli­mate change. Pro­pa­gan­da to back this up is already pour­ing out of the COP15 web­site which in a recent­ly pub­lished arti­cle dubbed Britain, France, Ger­many, Greece and Swe­den as ‘cli­mate heroes’.

Never Trust a COP-15This Decem­ber the Unit­ed Nations Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence or COP15 will take place in Copen­hagen, Den­mark. Those organ­is­ing the con­fer­ence claim it aims to be a step towards the build­ing of a ‘new glob­al cli­mate treaty’ in an attempt to tack­le cli­mate change.

But many feel that this meet­ing is a sham, cre­at­ed to prop up exist­ing sys­tems that pro­mote, not hin­der cli­mate change. Pro­pa­gan­da to back this up is already pour­ing out of the COP15 web­site which in a recent­ly pub­lished arti­cle dubbed Britain, France, Ger­many, Greece and Swe­den as ‘cli­mate heroes’.

Many groups and indi­vid­u­als have spent the last year and a half organ­is­ing against COP15. This will cul­mi­nate in sev­er­al days of protest dur­ing the con­fer­ence. The protests, organ­ised by a wide net­work under a loose ban­ner of ‘Cli­mate Jus­tice Action’ focus on many cli­mate relat­ed issues includ­ing pro­duc­tion, anti-cor­po­rate action and indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture.

Copen­hagen has seen sev­er­al mass protests in recent years, notably in 2008 after author­i­ties evict­ed the Ung­domshuset squat­ted social cen­tre. Read more at http://www.lasthours.org.uk/news/riots-in-copenhagen/
Who’s who?

What is COP15?

COP15 is the name giv­en to the Unit­ed Nations Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence tak­ing place between the 7th and 18th of Decem­ber in the city of Copen­hagen, Den­mark. Offi­cials from almost 200 coun­tries are expect­ed to attend as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives from oth­er organ­i­sa­tions and NGOs. The aim is to estab­lish a ‘glob­al cli­mate agree­ment for the peri­od from 2012′. The con­fer­ence is spon­sored by cor­po­ra­tions such as BMW, Hon­da and Vol­vo.

Who are Cli­mate Jus­tice Action?

Cli­mate Jus­tice Action (CJA) is a broad net­work peo­ple and groups mobi­liz­ing to take action against Cli­mate Change. The group includes NGOs and char­i­ta­ble organ­i­sa­tions as well as more grass­roots groups. All are oper­at­ing under a unit­ed set of net­work goals and prin­ci­ples. For more infor­ma­tion on CJA or to read the net­work prin­ci­ples vis­it http://www.climate-justice-action.org/about/about-cja/

Nev­er Trust A COP

More explic­it­ly anti-cap­i­tal­ist organ­is­ing is also tak­ing place. A net­work titled Nev­er Trust A COP was formed in April 2009. The net­work includes peo­ple from the rad­i­cal left, anar­chists and ‘groups based on con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing’. The net­work have called for an anti-cap­i­tal­ist block on Decem­ber 12th’s mass demon­stra­tion as well as par­tic­i­pa­tion in the action on Decem­ber 13th (see below). A longer text from NTAC which out­lines the need for anti-cap­i­tal­ist action can be read here.

What’s hap­pen­ing?

[ edit­ed — see Last Hours link below for more details of events hap­pen­ing through­out, BUT please note that the fullest and most cor­rect dates/links dur­ing the cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions are at http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22201 ]

Both Cli­mate Jus­tice Action and Nev­er Trust A COP offer logis­ti­cal infor­ma­tion from their web­sites. The UK based group Camp for Cli­mate Action have organ­ised coach­es to Copen­hagen for the protests. You can find more infor­ma­tion on this at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/copenhagen-2009/coaches

Read at http://www.lasthours.org.uk/articles/preparing-for-a-warm-winter-in-copenhagen-a-guide-to-the-cop15-protests/ for links and pic­tures.

Global Minga Round-up (AKA Mobilisation in Defence of Mother Earth and the Peoples)

Octo­ber 12 (the 517th anniver­sary of Colum­bus’ land­ing in the West­ern Hemi­sphere) marked the first day of the Glob­al “Minga”/Mobilisation in Defence of Moth­er Earth and the Peo­ples, called by the IV Con­ti­nen­tal Sum­mit of Indige­nous Peo­ples Abya Yala.

Octo­ber 12 (the 517th anniver­sary of Colum­bus’ land­ing in the West­ern Hemi­sphere) marked the first day of the Glob­al “Minga”/Mobilisation in Defence of Moth­er Earth and the Peo­ples, called by the IV Con­ti­nen­tal Sum­mit of Indige­nous Peo­ples Abya Yala. Ral­lies, protests and oth­er actions are being car­ried out around the world in response to the call, includ­ing (infra­struc­ture-relat­ed actions high­light­ed):

Labrador, Cana­da: Inuu elder and activist Eliz­a­beth Penashue launched a week-long walk along the Mit­sa-Shipu (Churchill Riv­er) from Hap­py Val­ley-Goose Bay to Gull Island, in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed Low­er Churchill Hydro Project. If built, the two dams would cause vast envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion and irrepara­ble loss of Innu land, his­to­ry and cul­ture.

USA: The Com­mit­tee in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Peo­ple of El Sal­vador (CISPES) is hold­ing a week­long mobi­liza­tion against the North Amer­i­can and Cen­tral Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ments (NAFTA/CAFTA) and against gold min­ing in El Sal­vador. Events are planned for Seat­tle, Olympia, Port­land (OR), San Fran­cis­co, Wash­ing­ton (DC), Mil­wau­kee, Los Ange­les, Boston, New York, Bal­ti­more and Philadel­phia. Find out more infor­ma­tion here.

On Octo­ber 16, the Duran­go, Col­orado chap­ters of Earth First! and Root Force are pre­sent­ing the Bee­hive Design Col­lec­tive on their True Cost of Coal graph­ic tour.

Lon­don, Eng­land: Protests were held at the Colom­bian, Peru­vian and Span­ish embassies, the UK For­eign Office and the Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate change, demand­ing and end to EU-Latin Amer­i­ca free trade agree­ments and an end to UK agro­fu­el sub­si­dies.

Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia: A Latin Amer­i­can Sol­i­dar­i­ty Net­work space was launched at Trades Hall. A doc­u­men­tary film night will be held Octo­ber 15.

Guatemala: Social move­ments marked the Min­ga with a non­vi­o­lent demon­stra­tion. An assas­sin dressed in black fired on the crowd, killing a 19-year-old and seri­ous­ly injur­ing a 16- and a 65-year-old.

Colom­bia: More than 25,000 indige­nous Peo­ple have begun to March to the city of Cali to protest for respect for their ter­ri­to­ry and against the harm­ful social poli­cies main­tained by the Uribe gov­ern­ment. The pro­test­ers are expect­ing to arrive on Octo­ber 16. 115 indige­nous coun­cils have ceased ongo­ing dia­logues with the gov­ern­ment for the occa­sion. (For updates, keep an eye on: www.cric-colombia.org, www.onic.org.co). Approx­i­mate­ly 2000 Uwa have also begun an “armed strike” in oppo­si­tion to Ecopetrol, who has been exploit­ing nat­ur­al resources from their ances­tral sanc­tu­ary for the past 13 years.

Paris, France: Social groups have orga­nized a week of sol­i­dar­i­ty actions for the Min­ga, includ­ing pub­lic debates, forums, a one-day fes­ti­val, and protest ral­lies in sup­port of Indige­nous Peo­ples.

Argenti­na: A Glob­al Week of Action against Debt and Inter­na­tion­al Finance Insti­tu­tions (IFI’s) is run­ning in con­junc­tion with the Min­ga. Oppos­ing the new agree­ment between the Gov­ern­ment and the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, par­tic­i­pants will be ral­ly­ing for cli­mate jus­tice (Octo­ber 13), rur­al women and the repu­di­a­tion of debt (15 Octo­ber), food sov­er­eign­ty (16 Octo­ber) and the erad­i­ca­tion of pover­ty (Octo­ber 17). A memo­r­i­al was also held on Octo­ber 11, hon­or­ing the mar­tyrs of resis­tance.

Cuba: A one day event http://www.movimientos.org/defensamadretierra/show_text.php3%3Fkey%3D15924&rurl=translate.google.ca&usg=ALkJrhgIwwHDwwtuTEeL6TgbGl3sC3Ef7g” target=“_blank”>commemorating the tenth anniver­sary of the Cry of the Exclud­ed was held in Havana.

Bolivia: The First hear­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Cli­mate Jus­tice will be run­ning at the Uni­ver­si­dad May­or de San Simón in Cochabam­ba, from Octo­ber 13 to 17. The event will be trans­mit­ted LIVE on the inter­net. An Assem­bly of Social Move­ments will also be held in Cochabam­ba on the 15th, imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by a Region­al Meet­ing Against Cli­mate Change.

Peru: Del­e­ga­tions from around the coun­try marched to the head­quar­ters of the UN in Lima on Octo­ber 12, to present a series of demands and pro­pos­als by indige­nous peo­ples to stop glob­al warm­ing. This will be fol­lowed by 3 days of work­shops led by indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

Oth­er events, includ­ing fes­ti­vals, work­shops, protests, Cer­e­monies and oth­er actions are tak­ing place in Spain, Ecuador, Uruguay, Brazil, and else­where.

Via Campesina has also called for an Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Multi­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tions for the final day of the Min­ga: Octo­ber 16, 2009.

Defend­ers of the Land, a cross-Cana­da net­work of First Nations in land strug­gle, is also putting togeth­er a week of edu­ca­tion­al events on Indige­nous Rights and strug­gles, from Octo­ber 25–31, 2009.

More infor­ma­tion and reports are avail­able (in Span­ish) here.

Phoenix, AZ — The week was kicked off with a protest at Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty against the recog­ni­tion of “Colum­bus Day,” along with edu­ca­tion about the true (geno­ci­dal) nature of Colum­bus. The rest of the week con­sists of a media ini­tia­tive to spread the truth about Colum­bus Day. It will cul­mi­nate on Fri­day with a mass march to protest the racist and human rights-abus­ing poli­cies of Mari­co­pa Coun­ty Sher­riff Joe Arpaio.

Tuc­son, AZ — A ban­ner was sus­pend­ed from a down­town bridge in oppo­si­tion to min­ing (pos­si­bly a ref­er­ence to planned cop­per mines in Ari­zona).

Anoth­er anti-mines ban­ner, this one read­ing “No New Mines on Apache Land! Ya Bas­ta!” was hung in Tuc­son, AZ on Octo­ber 16 (this time from the “Snake Bridge” over Broad­way Boule­vard). It was in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed mine in Supe­ri­or, Ari­zona on sacred Apache land.

Also in Tuc­son, activists held a Fair Trade fair. In Tuc­son and New York City, activists dis­trib­uted infor­ma­tion on the con­nec­tion between the North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment (NAFTA) and swine flu.

MOVEMENT #1 — No Borders Newsletter

The new free month­ly newslet­ter fea­tur­ing news and updates from the No Bor­ders Net­work and beyond.

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Join the mail­ing list

MOVEMENT 1The new free month­ly newslet­ter fea­tur­ing news and updates from the No Bor­ders Net­work and beyond.

Down­load the .pdf

Join the mail­ing list

The re-nam­ing and re-launch­ing of the newslet­ter is part of an attempt to to cre­ate a more reg­u­lar and broad based peri­od­i­cal, draw­ing in oth­er groups, organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als that work for free­dom of move­ment and equal­i­ty for all.

More details

Alleged ELF/ALF Anarchist Arrested in Mexico

ELP has learnt of an arrest in Mex­i­co where a 16 year old is accused of ELF activ­i­ty. Below is a report about his arrest.

Last 27 of Octo­ber a 16 years old Mex­i­can activist was arrest­ed at night and acused of being part of the ELF. He was rid­ing his bike with a back pack wen a police patrol start­ed to fol­low him. He decid­ed to get rid of the back­pack and ran away with his bike. Sad­ly the cops man­aged to cap­ture him. After­wards they took the back­pack and found 4 incen­di­ary devices (each one made with two petrol bot­tles), anoth­er petrol bot­tle, a pair of plas­tic gloves, a bal­a­cla­va, a lighter, a spray can, and envi­ron­men­tal­ists logos.

ELP has learnt of an arrest in Mex­i­co where a 16 year old is accused of ELF activ­i­ty. Below is a report about his arrest.

Last 27 of Octo­ber a 16 years old Mex­i­can activist was arrest­ed at night and acused of being part of the ELF. He was rid­ing his bike with a back pack wen a police patrol start­ed to fol­low him. He decid­ed to get rid of the back­pack and ran away with his bike. Sad­ly the cops man­aged to cap­ture him. After­wards they took the back­pack and found 4 incen­di­ary devices (each one made with two petrol bot­tles), anoth­er petrol bot­tle, a pair of plas­tic gloves, a bal­a­cla­va, a lighter, a spray can, and envi­ron­men­tal­ists logos.

He was sent to the police sta­tion were the police took pic­tures of him and found out that he is veg­an. He was kept there all night and next morn­ing. He refused to talk to the police or explain why he was car­ry­ing all that stuff in his back­pack.

Accord­ing to the press he is sus­pect­ed of at least six attacks with incen­di­ary devices by the ELF, ALF and eco-anar­chists which are:

- The destruc­tion by fire to a JCB on March 22 by the ELF.
— The arson attack that left seri­ous dam­age inside a McDon­alds on 12 May by the ALF.
— The destruc­tion of a truck by an incen­di­ary device of the gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tion Sis­tema Inter­mu­nic­i­pal Water and Sew­er on May 19 by the ELF.
— The bomb threat at Fed­er­al Palace and the hos­pice cot­tages, where the Sum­mit of North Amer­i­can lead­ers took place on July 7 by eco-anar­chists.
— The place­ment of an incen­di­ary device under a sports car in a res­i­den­tial area in Zapopan on 18 August by eco-anar­chists.
— The burn­ing of sev­en lux­u­ry cars at a car show on Sep­tem­ber 26th by eco-anar­chists.

See com­mu­niques at http://www.elfpressoffice.org/actions2009.html and the McDon­alds arson com­mu­nique (+ video) at http://www.directaction.info/news_may12_09.htm

Accord­ing to the press Diego A, the arrest­ed activist, admit­ed to be Anar­chist, part of the ELF and respon­s­able of the 6 attacks. But accord­ing to the Mex­i­can Ani­mal Rights mag­a­zine Rabia y Acción, this seems to be false.

Last 29 of Octo­ber he went to tri­al but the judge did­nt find enought evi­dence to con­vict him in a spe­cial prison for young men under 18 years old, so he was released. Now his par­ents are respon­s­able of his future behav­iour.

US oil company threatened with eviction from Amazon

30 Octo­ber 2009

Indige­nous peo­ple have threat­ened to evict a US com­pa­ny, Hunt Oil, explor­ing for oil on their ances­tral land in the Peru­vian Ama­zon.

30 Octo­ber 2009

Indige­nous peo­ple have threat­ened to evict a US com­pa­ny, Hunt Oil, explor­ing for oil on their ances­tral land in the Peru­vian Ama­zon.

Accord­ing to FENAMAD, an indige­nous organ­i­sa­tion in south-east Peru, at least two hun­dred peo­ple have gath­ered in a small town called Sal­vación, which acts as Hunt’s base in the region.

A meet­ing between com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives, local indige­nous peo­ple and high-rank­ing gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, includ­ing the prime min­is­ter, was sched­uled to take place on Wednes­day. Fifty police­men have been sent to Sal­vación – a move con­demned by Peru’s nation­al indige­nous peo­ples’ organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP.

FENAMAD says local peo­ple have not giv­en Hunt con­sent to work on their land, and they are will­ing to put their ‘lives on the line’ to stop them from doing so. They said they would evict the com­pa­ny if it con­tin­ued to vio­late their rights.

FENAMAD says that local peo­ple have also asked to speak direct­ly to Hunt’s own­ers. Hunt is a pri­vate com­pa­ny whose CEO, Ray Hunt, is a long-stand­ing asso­ciate of for­mer US pres­i­dents George Bush and George W. Bush.

Hunt owns the rights to explore in the region, which includes land belong­ing to the Yine, Mat­si­gen­ka and Harakm­but tribes, with Rep­sol-YPF. Last month, FENAMAD announced it was suing both com­pa­nies.

At the heart of the region is the Ama­rakaeri Com­mu­nal Reserve, used by many indige­nous vil­lages for hunt­ing and fish­ing and the source of six rivers that are the only fresh water sup­ply for an esti­mat­ed ten thou­sand peo­ple.

Earth Liberation Front hits in Butovo, Russia

“We wait­ed for this night.
When we said to our­selves, “Enough!”
That night, we have pro­claimed the begin­ning of the con­tin­u­a­tion of the strug­gle.
Wrestling on anoth­er front.
Against those who despite the protests of the peo­ple, ruth­less­ly destroy nature for prof­it or any oth­er objec­tives.

ELF sticker logo“We wait­ed for this night.
When we said to our­selves, “Enough!”
That night, we have pro­claimed the begin­ning of the con­tin­u­a­tion of the strug­gle.
Wrestling on anoth­er front.
Against those who despite the protests of the peo­ple, ruth­less­ly destroy nature for prof­it or any oth­er objec­tives.

At this time the price of this heinous act was one trac­tor and one exca­va­tor to dig a trench along the Buto­vo forests to pave the heat­ing to the build­ings inter­nal intel­li­gence ser­vice. This will cut down 135 trees and 268 shrubs. SVR car­ries most of the Buto­vo for­est park of state for­est lands in the land of Defense, for the con­struc­tion of its object, there­by destroy­ing the for­est, which may affect the envi­ron­men­tal sit­u­a­tion in the south of Moscow.

They have not heard (or did not want to hear) the invo­ca­tion of peo­ple, so that night the way home, we cov­ered the last minute, soul­less machine.
They went beyond the law, we too.
We want this to become an impe­tus for stronger action against those who kill our land.
When not help­ing the pow­er of speech, can help force the fire.

Morn­ing on 3 Octo­ber.
Lib­er­a­tion Front of land.”

Porob­nee of situt­sii — Legal cam­paign to save the for­est: http://www.spasiteles.ru

Source of trans­lat­ed com­mu­nique: http://action.anarchistnews.org/?q=node/58

Orig­i­nal source of action: http://325.nostate.net/?p=328

ELF Press Office: http://www.elfpressoffice.org

Amazon mega-dams stoke new wave of Indian protests

Kayapó Indi­ans are to hold a protest against a huge hydro-elec­tric dam planned for Brazil’s Xin­gu Riv­er, one of the Amazon’s main trib­u­taries.

Kayapó Indi­ans are to hold a protest against a huge hydro-elec­tric dam planned for Brazil’s Xin­gu Riv­er, one of the Amazon’s main trib­u­taries.

The week-long protest will start on 28 Octo­ber and take place in the Kayapó com­mu­ni­ty of Piaraçu. At least 200 Indi­ans are expect­ed to gath­er. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Brazil’s Min­istry of Mines and Ener­gy, and the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment, have been invit­ed there to talk with the Indi­ans.

The Kayapó and oth­er indige­nous peo­ples oppose the dam, say­ing they have not been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed about it and have not been informed of its true impacts on their lands.

The dam will divert more than 80% of the flow of the Xin­gu Riv­er, and have a major impact on fish stocks and forests along a 100 km stretch of the riv­er inhab­it­ed by indige­nous peo­ples. Sur­vival has protest­ed to the gov­ern­ment about the project.

The Kayapó are furi­ous with Edi­son Lobão, the Min­is­ter of Mines and Ener­gy, who recent­ly stat­ed that ‘demo­ni­ac forces’ were pre­vent­ing the con­struc­tion of large hydro-elec­tric dams in Brazil. Kayapó leader Megaron Txu­car­ra­mae said, ‘These words are very ugly and are offen­sive to us and to those who defend nature.’

Belo Monte is one of the largest infra­struc­ture projects in the government’s Accel­er­at­ed Growth Pro­gramme. In 1989 the Kayapó organ­ised a mas­sive protest against a series of dams planned for the Xin­gu Riv­er. They suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied the World Bank to pull out of fund­ing the project, which was then shelved.

Dams planned for oth­er Ama­zon rivers are also the tar­get of indige­nous protests. A year ago, the Enawene Nawe tribe ran­sacked a dam build­ing site in a bid to stop dozens of dams planned for the Juru­e­na riv­er. The Indi­ans say the dams will ruin the fish­ing on which they depend.

In the west­ern Ama­zon, the San­to Antônio dam, part of a com­plex of dams being built on the Madeira Riv­er, will flood the land of at least five groups of uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans. One group is thought to live only 14 kilo­me­tres from the main dam con­struc­tion site.

In a let­ter to Pres­i­dent Lula, the Kayapó explained their posi­tion: ‘We don’t want this dam to destroy the ecosys­tems and the bio­di­ver­si­ty that we have tak­en care of for mil­lenia and which we can still pre­serve. Mr. Pres­i­dent, our cry is for stud­ies that are well-done and which seek to dis­cuss with indige­nous peo­ples this great eco­log­i­cal cra­dle of our ances­tors… We want to par­tic­i­pate in this process with­out being treat­ed as evil demons who hold back the country’s evo­lu­tion.’

Survival’s Direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘The real impact of the dams has been hid­den. If they go ahead they will destroy the lives, land and liveli­hoods of many tribes. No amount of com­pen­sa­tion can ever make up for dam­age on this scale, that will wreck peo­ples’ lives and inde­pen­dence.’