Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Call out for support for forest occupation in Belgiu,

Since the first of Juli we (an action group from the Dutch Earth First!) have occu­pied a for­est in Wilrijk, s

Since the first of Juli we (an action group from the Dutch Earth First!) have occu­pied a for­est in Wilrijk, south of Antwerp in Bel­gium. So far there’s been no talk about evic­tion but this is about to change. The legal pro­ce­dures keep­ing the own­er from being allowed to cut are almost fin­ished.

 

Sep­tem­ber 15th till Ocot­ber 15th are the only weeks they are allowed to cut the for­est (this is to ‘pro­tect’ the bats and birds in the for­est), so we real­ly need peo­ple to come and help us pre­pare for evic­tion! Lots of work to be done, both on the ground and in the trees.

 

We expect the chance of evic­tion will be the great­est from Sep­tem­ber 12th till Sep­tem­ber 20th. So the more peo­ple in the for­est the bet­ter!

 

adress: fotografielaan 7, wilrijk

train to antwerp cen­tral

from roo­sevelt­plaats bus 500 to boom

get off close to the piz­za­hut (ask bus­driv­er)

walk to the piz­za­hut, go right, at the end of the road (cows) go right, first left, you’ll see the ban­ners

you can con­tact us at: steungroep.groenoord@gmail.com

for more info: www.groenoord.be / www.facebook.com/steungroep.groenoord

0032485507274

 

The area has been mapped as a for­est since 1771 and is an eco­log­i­cal­ly very valu­able oak for­est which is a habi­tat for lots of birds and endan­gered bat species. The for­est is a so called wrong­ly zoned for­est, it’s been zoned as an indus­tri­al area since 2005. Flan­ders (the dutch speak­ing part of Bel­gium) is the sec­ond poor­est region in Europe when it comes to forests, only 8 % of the land if for­est. About a third of those forests are wrong­ly zoned which means they are often threat­ened. Most of these forests are cut with­out any­one ever know­ing. So we are not just fight­ing for this spe­cif­ic for­est, we are fight­ing for a more just for­est pol­i­cy in Flan­ders.

 

The own­er wants to cut the for­est to build an office and stor­age space, but it is not clear if they have some­one to rent it yet. Their old part­ner end­ed the con­tract because the plans were delayed.

 

There’s heaps of emp­ty office build­ings in Flan­ders. With­in a minute’s walk from the for­est there’s 4 emp­ty build­ings that could be ren­o­vat­ed or bro­ken down to make space for a new build­ing. Yet they still want to cut the for­est.

 

Because they have nev­er done prop­er geo­log­i­cal stud­ies there’s big prob­lems with the water in the area. The water can’t go any­where so part of the for­est is often under water, which has killed a lot of the trees. Mea­sures need to be tak­en to ensure the sur­vival of the for­est.

 

When­ev­er cut­ting forests in Flan­ders, they talk about com­pen­sa­tion. Which is bull­shit. You can’t just cut a for­est here and plant a new one some­where else.

 

NO COMPROMISE IN DEFENSE OF MOTHER EARTH

 

Help us defend the trees!

 

Girona, Spain: Call for camping against the M.A.T. power line

 

 

WHAT IS THE M.A.T.?
The very high ten­sion pow­er line (M.A.T.) is an elec­tric motor­way which trans­ports at least 400,000 volts. It is being con­struct­ed in order to con­nect Euro­pean States to each oth­er and also Europe with Africa. It is nec­es­sary in order to sell and dis­trib­ute excess ener­gy pro­duced by nuclear pow­er plants and the so-called alter­na­tive sources of ener­gy. At the same time, it is the net­work which cap­i­tal­ism needs in order to sup­ply the elec­tric­i­ty nec­es­sary for oth­er projects and infra­struc­tures of death and destruc­tion, such as high-speed rail­way lines. Those respon­si­ble for all this are always the same ones and the con­struc­tion com­pa­nies in ques­tion are direct­ly involved in oth­er projects which are destroy­ing lands around the world; com­pa­nies like Vin­ci stand­ing out in Europe and Ende­sa in South Amer­i­ca.

 

WHY THIS CAMP?
So that the last deci­sive sec­tion for the con­nec­tion between France and Cat­alo­nia can not be con­struct­ed. So that the ener­gy com­ing from 6 French nuclear pow­er plants does not cross this land or any oth­er. So as to treat the strug­gle against the M.A.T. as a start­ing point for ques­tion­ing our way of liv­ing, which is main­ly imposed by the dom­i­na­tion of Progress. So as to cre­ate on the affect­ed land a space for meet­ing, infor­ma­tion, agi­ta­tion and action.

WHY HERE AND WHY NOW?
After more than 10 years of strug­gle, we are at a deci­sive moment. In Sep­tem­ber expro­pri­a­tions are expect­ed to begin, direct­ed against own­ers who have refused to sign the sale of land need­ed for the con­struc­tion of the M.A.T.’s last pylons in Girona.

It is because of all of this that we are invit­ing you to par­tic­i­pate active­ly in the camp, in order to share, strug­gle and resist in a self-run space, with­out lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We want to cre­ate moments of exchange and con­nec­tion between var­i­ous strug­gles, because the M.A.T. affects us all and is not an iso­lat­ed strug­gle.

AGAINST PROGRESS, ITS INFRASTRUCTURES AND ITS DEFENDERS:
LET’S TAKE OUR LIVES BACK!

SEE YOU ON THE 23rd OF AUGUST, 2013 ON THE LANDS AROUND GIRONA

Bring every­thing that you need for camp­ing.
More infor­ma­tion and updates: Tor­res más altas han caí­do

http://torresmasaltashancaido.espivblogs.net/

Mul­ti-lin­gual print­able fliers on 325   http://325.nostate.net/?p=8417

eng­lish fli­er http://torresmasaltashancaido.espivblogs.net/files/2013/08/mat-ing-imp.pdf

more: eco-/strug­gle here

http://325.nostate.net/?cat=7

http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net

Ongoing road bloackade against Mining in Sweden

30 July 2013 Right now there is a bat­tle against min­ing in Sap­mi, north of Swe­den, going on. We have bar­ri­cad­ed the road lead­ing to the site where Beowulf Min­ing Plc. want to make test mines. This is the Sami peo­ples lands stolen by the Swedish state and col­o­nized since way back. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with indige­nous cul­ture and fight against the mega-machine of min­ing. The Swedish police are now on the site remov­ing obsta­cles to help the min­ing cor­po­ra­tion pro­ceed. At least 6 peo­ple have been arrest­ed already but protests are still going on. For five days the police have this spe­cial mis­sion to help the evil cor­po­ra­tion, that’s why we need peo­ple now!

This is a strate­gic bat­tle, if the resis­tance to the mine is strong enough Beowulf will not be able to sell the min­ing site to anoth­er cor­po­ra­tion (which is their plan). There is a secu­ri­ty radius of 150m from the test pits, if peo­ple are inside those the cor­po­ra­tion are not able to det­o­nate explo­sives. How far is this cor­po­ra­tion ready to go? Are they ready to blow peo­ple up to get their ore? We don’t know but we are ready to die to stop them. Sol­i­dar­i­ty protests, new war­riors, prayers, actions and what­ev­er you can imag­ine to help is/are wel­come!

For every­thing wild and free!

Communiqué After 50 days of Occupation in Zurawlow, Poland

polandoccupychevron

polandoccupychevron

29th July 2013: It has been 50 days since the start of the protest against Chevron’s activ­i­ties by res­i­dents in Zurawlow, Rogow and Szczelatyn, Poland. Since then, they have suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the access to the land leased by Chevron where the shale gas extrac­tion was planned to be car­ried out.

Dur­ing that time, farm­ers had arranged meet­ings with var­i­ous offi­cials, rang­ing from local munic­i­pal­i­ty admin­is­tra­tors down to Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all of the meet­ings and dis­cus­sions failed to meet demands of the pro­test­ers.

Pro­test­ers are being sup­port­ed by activists from all over the world. We are deeply appre­cia­tive of your sup­port. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, we would like to ask you for direct sup­port. At this time of the year the most impor­tant peri­od (field har­vest­ing) for farm­ers begins, thus it is cru­cial for us your pres­ence at the site of the protest. Only your sup­port, joint actions and sol­i­dar­i­ty gives us a chance to reach vic­to­ry.

http://occupychevron.tumblr.com

Mayo farmer to face criminal damage charge over Shell protest

File photo of a caravan painted by campaigners from a 2011 protest 26 July 2013 Ger­ry Bourke – a farmer from Augh­oose in Coun­ty Mayo – is insist­ing he has no case to answer after being hit with a crim­i­nal dam­age and tres­pass charge in

File photo of a caravan painted by campaigners from a 2011 protest 26 July 2013 Ger­ry Bourke – a farmer from Augh­oose in Coun­ty Mayo – is insist­ing he has no case to answer after being hit with a crim­i­nal dam­age and tres­pass charge in rela­tion an inci­dent at Shell Ireland’s tun­nelling site in the vil­lage.

Gar­daí con­firmed to TheJournal.ie that a man was ques­tioned in rela­tion to an inci­dent at the site in Augh­oose on 22 June last by offi­cers at Bel­mul­let Sta­tion. The 48-year-old was arrest­ed and ques­tioned for around six hours yes­ter­day, before being released.

Bourke – who is a sup­port­er of the ‘Shell to Sea’ cam­paign – says he was engag­ing in a peace­ful protest with sev­er­al oth­ers on the date in ques­tion, and that he “couldn’t guess” as to why he was being charged with crim­i­nal dam­age. He told TheJournal.ie:

I was protest­ing at the site… I will keep protest­ing what’s going on as long as there’s life in my body.

He said the Shell to Sea cam­paign would con­tin­ue in order to draw atten­tion to the “unfair­ness” of what was hap­pen­ing in Mayo, adding:

Own­er­ship of oil and gas should belong to the peo­ple. You can­not have a sit­u­a­tion where­by peo­ple don’t own nat­ur­al resources. There has to be a fair deal done for the coun­try.

Ger­ry Bourke is due to appear in court in Bel­mul­let on 11 Sep­tem­ber.

A spokesper­son for Shell said that some dam­age had been caused at the site on the date in ques­tion, but declined to com­ment fur­ther as the case is now before the courts.

The Cor­rib Gas Project – which involves the extrac­tion of nat­ur­al gas from the north­west coast of the coun­try – has been the sub­ject of long-run­ning oppo­si­tion from ‘Shell to Sea’. Most recent­ly, the group erect­ed a series of signs close to a loca­tion where drilling was tak­ing place, warn­ing locals of the dan­ger posed by ‘sink holes’.

Sabotage of Nuclear Train in France

A fishplate similar to the one reportedly removed by an anti-nuclear group to derail a train earlier in July.

A fish­plate sim­i­lar to the one report­ed­ly removed by an anti-nuclear group to derail a train ear­li­er in July.

23 July 2013 An unknown anti-nuclear group has tak­en cred­it for a July 12 act of sab­o­tage that derailed a train trans­port­ing nuclear waste in the French city of Limo­ges.  French police are cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion. 

Accord­ing to the region­al news­pa­per Le Pop­u­laire du Cen­tre, they received an email claim­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty. The paper also explained that a steel plate, known as a fish­plate, was unbolt­ed from the tracks, the track was lift­ed and the rail cross­ings were dis­lodged.

The derail­ment took place in the morn­ing on a stretch of track used exclu­sive­ly by nuclear giant Are­va to trans­port nuclear waste.

The Are­va train shot off the rails more than 200 ft. Nei­ther of the two rail-work­ers aboard were injured.

ALF Liberates Dolphins

23 July 2013 2 dol­phins were set free from Yev­pa­to­ria dol­phi­nar­i­um as a result of spe­cial oper­a­tion with div­ing equip­ment. 

Dur­ing the night of the full moon on 20/07/2013 we cov­ered 2 km under water and breached secu­ri­ty perime­ter: we cut the nets and entered dol­phin con­tain­ment pools.

23 July 2013 2 dol­phins were set free from Yev­pa­to­ria dol­phi­nar­i­um as a result of spe­cial oper­a­tion with div­ing equip­ment. 

Dur­ing the night of the full moon on 20/07/2013 we cov­ered 2 km under water and breached secu­ri­ty perime­ter: we cut the nets and entered dol­phin con­tain­ment pools.

In the next hour we cut large part of perime­ter bar­ri­er. Dol­phins encour­aged our efforts with clicks and whistling. Their sup­port filled us with joy and excite­ment.

This has been an unfor­get­table meet­ing and encour­ag­ing expe­ri­ence for us. Our job done, we left the area of oper­a­tion.

By the way, the prison was equipped with night-vision cam­eras, but their red eyes were turned on the cat­walks and audi­ence seats. 

Nobody expect­ed our approach from below. As soon as dol­phins got wind of free­dom and open water, they escaped into the night sea.

- ALF/FAI SEALS on tour

ELF target car dealer, Germany

July 17, 2013 — Ger­many

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

July 17, 2013 — Ger­many

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“The last night we vis­it­ed a Ford store in Berlin, we left a pack­age with a fake bomb and a mes­sage ‘This sick infat­u­a­tion with life’s destruc­tion, this grotesque embod­i­ment of decay, a new world will rise from this dis­func­tion, when the insti­tu­tions of oppres­sion are laid to waste’ and wrote ELF in one of their vans. This multi­na­tion­al is noth­ing more than anoth­er sym­bol of our dis­gust­ing civ­i­liza­tion, with their oil, wars, destruc­tion of the plan­et and ani­mals habi­tats, enslave­ment of human-ani­mals and pure cap­i­tal­ism. For Wal­ter Bond, Marie Mason and all the vic­tims of The Green Scare

-Ani­mal and Earth Lib­er­a­tion”

Residents raise sinkhole warning signs over Shell tunnel

sinkhole_1.jpgYes­ter­day (14th July), local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers raised signs on Sruwad­da­con estu­ary, warn­ing of the sink­holes that con­tin­ue to appear over Shel­l’s tun­nel.

sinkhole_1.jpgYes­ter­day (14th July), local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers raised signs on Sruwad­da­con estu­ary, warn­ing of the sink­holes that con­tin­ue to appear over Shel­l’s tun­nel. Res­i­dents first noticed the sink­holes begin­ning to appear in the spe­cial area of con­ser­va­tion on the 20th May and numer­ous sink­holes have appeared along the tun­nel route since then.

The warn­ing signs which read “Dan­ger Sink­holes: Keep Back” were erect­ed in order to warn users of the estu­ary of pres­ence of the sink­hole, which have been up to 8 foot deep. Res­i­dents were forced to put up the warn­ing signs after both Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil and the Depart­ment of Ener­gy & Nat­ur­al Resources, despite being con­tact­ed, have failed to take any action.

The Nation­al Parks & Wildlife Ser­vice are also believed not to have inves­ti­gat­ed thus far the pos­si­ble dam­age that may be occur­ring to the ben­th­ic life in the estu­ary, despite the area being both a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion and a Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way stat­ed “When Shell experts were giv­ing evi­dence in the oral hear­ing, there was­n’t a word about sink­holes and the bub­bling up of pos­si­ble con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed mate­r­i­al to the sur­face of the spe­cial area of conservation”.[1]

Shell have pre­vi­ous­ly sent up to 10 work­ers with shov­els out on the estu­ary in a failed attempt to fill in the sink­holes.

Mr Con­way con­tin­ued “We can cur­rent­ly fol­low the path of the tun­nel by the trail of sink­holes that have appeared on the strand. Fail­ure to reg­u­late has caused alot of suf­fer­ing in Ire­land, yet the Gov­ern­ment are still allow­ing Shell to do what­ev­er they want. The sink­holes are fur­ther proof that the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to aban­don their respon­si­bil­i­ty to reg­u­late Shell.”

Links

[1] YouTube Video: What’s hap­pen­ing in Shel­l’s Tun­nel? — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hvz2l27Ooc

[2] Reports of sink­holes above Cor­rib tun­nel inves­ti­gat­ed
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/reports-of-sinkholes-abo…54717

[3] Mid­west Radio Clip about third sink-hole in Sruwad­da­con estu­ary
http://www.shelltosea.com/content/midwest-radio-clip-ab…tuary

 

sinkhole_2.jpg

Bubbling in the water in the foreground while people raise warning signs in the background of photo
Bub­bling in the water in the fore­ground while peo­ple raise warn­ing signs in the back­ground of pho­to

sinkhole_4.jpg

sinkhole_5.jpg

Police Fire Water Cannons to Quell Protest as Baton-Wielding Shop Owners Threaten Reporters in Istanbul

15 July 2013 Police have fired water can­nons and tear gas to the sev­er­al thou­sand pro­test­ers gath­ered on Istanbul’s İstikl­al Avenue to protest a mid­night bill adopt­ed this week by the Par­lia­ment which curbed the super­vi­sion of the Cham­ber of Archi­tects and Engi­neers (TMMOB) i

15 July 2013 Police have fired water can­nons and tear gas to the sev­er­al thou­sand pro­test­ers gath­ered on Istanbul’s İstikl­al Avenue to protest a mid­night bill adopt­ed this week by the Par­lia­ment which curbed the super­vi­sion of the Cham­ber of Archi­tects and Engi­neers (TMMOB) in all urban projects, giv­ing full author­i­ty to the Envi­ron­ment and Urban Plan­ning Min­istry. Some shop own­ers also threat­en­ing­ly attacked with batons reporters an pro­test­ers chased the pro­test­ers into the side streets by the police.

Mem­bers of TMMOB, of whom many were among the most active lead­ers of the Tak­sim Sol­i­dar­i­ty Plat­form that ini­ti­at­ed the protests over the demo­li­tion of Gezi Park in Istan­bul, as well as many pro­test­ers, had joined the demon­stra­tion in Galatasaray Square that start­ed at 5:30 p.m.

How­ev­er, police did not allow the group to walk to Tak­sim Square after the Governor’s Office refused to grant per­mis­sion. Police demand­ed the pro­test­ers to end the demon­stra­tion after the state­ment, warn­ing them that a dis­per­sion by force would be car­ried out against them if they failed to do so. Most of the pro­test­ers dis­persed while the police chased them into the side streets, cut­ting off some of the pedes­tri­an entrances to the İstikl­al Avenue.

Shop own­ers with batons attack pro­test­ers, reporters

After scat­ter­ing, some of the pro­test­ers start­ed to regroup on the İstikl­al Avenue. Water can­non trucks and panz­ers were also dis­patched to the area. Live footage showed riot police using tear gas in the side streets, while reports said that they also fired rub­ber bul­lets to pro­test­ers.

Mean­while, a group of baton-wield­ing shop own­ers attacked pro­test­ers run­ning from the police. They also threat­ened reporters, try­ing to pre­vent them in vain from film­ing and tak­ing their pic­tures.

Police also detained pro­test­ers, includ­ing art schol­ar Osman Erden. Erden was seen bleed­ing from the mouth while he was tak­en into cus­tody.

‘No to crazy projects’

Ear­li­er, a spokesper­son for the group slammed the mid­night bill, say­ing the gov­ern­ment want­ed to “silence” archi­tects and engi­neers to pre­vent hur­dles in grandiose urban projects. “They don’t want us because we are against [Istanbul’s] third bridge, because we said no to Canal Istan­bul,” he said, refer­ring to the mas­sive-scale con­struc­tion works brand­ed as “crazy projects” by Prime Min­is­ter Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Dur­ing his speech, the crowd also chant­ed “no to the third bridge, no to canal Istan­bul, no to crazy projects,” hint­ing that the demands of the pro­test­ers could widen.

The spokesper­son also recalled that many mem­bers of the Tak­sim Sol­i­dar­i­ty Plat­form and oth­er civ­il groups were harassed and ill-treat­ed while in cus­tody, includ­ing Mücel­la Yapıcı, the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of TMMOB’s Istan­bul office.

“We won’t sur­ren­der,” he said.

Pro­test­ers were also seen hold­ing pic­tures of Ali İsm­ail Kork­mez, the fifth Gezi pro­test­er to have died, who passed away this week after suc­cumb­ing to his injuries, inflict­ed by assailants who beat him with sticks.

Ear­li­er, moth­ers whose chil­dren had been detained orga­nized a sit-in in GalatasaraySquare, call­ing for the end of arbi­trary deten­tions.

Gezi Park was opened on July 8 after being in police lock­down for more than three weeks. The open­ing of the park had caused inci­dents as police inter­vened once again against pro­test­ers, tak­ing into cus­tody 50 peo­ple, includ­ing a num­ber of NGO mem­bers.