Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Action to re-occupy the ZAD

A reoc­cu­pa­tion action is being planned in case of an evic­tion at the ZAD, near Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des in France: To re-plant and rebuild against the con­struc­tion of the air­port: Vin­ci get out! Not here, not Khim­ki, not any­where! Meet on the 4th Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion with your pitch­forks, tools, beams and camp­ing gear. Although we don’t know when the troops will be sent in, we are launch­ing this call-out now to be able to cre­ate a mas­sive rapid reac­tion.

A reoc­cu­pa­tion action is being planned in case of an evic­tion at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des in France: To re-plant and rebuild against the con­struc­tion of the air­port: Vin­ci get out! Not here, not Khim­ki*, not any­where!

This is a joint call out from occu­pants of the ZAD and the net­work Reclaim the Fields to meet on the 4th Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion, near Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des.

To give an idea of some of the things that have hap­pened:

On 7 May 2011, we were a thou­sand peo­ple on an action, pitch­forks in hand, to clear and put to use an aban­doned plot of agri­cul­tur­al land. This was to cre­ate a space to grow food to feed the strug­gle against the air­port — and it’s been thriv­ing since the action! We’ll be back to strive to pro­tect this farm and oth­er occu­pied places on the ZAD (Zone d’A­me­nage­ment Dif­feré), or in oth­er words, Zone About to be Destroyed).

On 24 June, Vin­ci start­ed evic­tion pro­ce­dures against eight squats, includ­ing Les Planchettes, our col­lec­tive space of organ­is­ing and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

On 10 July, dur­ing a gath­er­ing a few thou­sand peo­ple made a human ban­ner say­ing “Vin­ci d égage!” (Vin­ci get out!)

On 23 August, the pres­i­dent of the region Pays de la Loire, Jacques Aux­i­ette, asked the local author­i­ties to clean out the rad­i­cal occu­piers of the ZAD. It was an unam­bigu­ous bru­tal call for repres­sion, but this will not pre­vent us from resist­ing, re-occu­py­ing and re-grow­ing.

To fol­low up on May 7, occu­piers from the ZAD and Reclaim the Fields, a net­work of young activist peas­ants, are invit­ing you to be a part of a huge demon­stra­tion to re-occu­py in case of an evic­tion, and urge all groups and col­lec­tives to sup­port this action. If the police force does arrive to clean us out, we want to be back by the thou­sands to give shape to the cry “Vin­ci get out!” and to con­tin­ue to occu­py the zone and to stop con­struc­tion works in their tracks.

For forty years, deci­sion mak­ers and con­struc­tion man­agers have been push­ing a new air­port next to Nantes, at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, to make their dreams of mas­sive eco­nom­ic expan­sion and a metrop­o­lis. The ZAD: it’s 2000 hectares of cul­ti­vat­ed and inhab­it­ed land that they want to anni­hi­late under con­crete. The resis­tance against this project is at the cross­roads of many chal­lenges on which to unite, to address issues of com­mon strate­gies and think­ing.

Through this strug­gle we are fight­ing indus­tri­al soci­ety and agri­cul­ture, its eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment poli­cies, its cli­mate change and its con­trol of the land, the mega­lopo­lis and the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of ways of life, the pri­vati­sa­tion of the com­mons, the myth of end­less growth and the illu­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion …

The deci­sion-mak­ers are con­stant­ly try­ing to sell their project and to give the impres­sion that going back­wards is unthink­able at this stage. So after forty years strug­gling, the pre­lim­i­nary con­struc­tion work of the air­port and its high­way have start­ed: drilling for soil analy­sis, envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments, archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions and clear­ing works… all pre­req­ui­sites for pour­ing con­crete all over the area.

But its oppo­nents are far from giv­ing up and the actions inten­si­fy: block­ing drillings, dis­turb­ing the envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment work of Biotope*, dis­trib­ut­ing news­pa­pers, occu­py­ing offices, con­struc­tion sites, open­ing up Vin­ci’s toll­ways, and much more..

In addi­tion, for more than two and a half years, instead of the ZAD grad­u­al­ly emp­ty­ing to the rhythm of black­mail and destruc­tion, life and activ­i­ty has been flour­ish­ing.

Many of the hous­es left aban­doned were refur­bished and occu­pied, new hous­es were con­struct­ed on the ground and in the trees, col­lec­tives occu­pied land to make veg­etable gar­dens. Meet­ing spaces, guest acco­mo­da­tion, a bak­ery and a library were opened for one and all. There are more than a hun­dred peo­ple per­ma­nent­ly occu­py­ing the ZAD, sup­port­ed by many oth­ers, local and else­where, who meet and organ­ise. The occu­pa­tions are part of a move­ment that has many dif­fer­ent forms. Among oth­er things, they have a allowed rapid reac­tions to the first steps tak­en by Vin­ci towards con­struc­tion work.

In June 2011, Vin­ci began evic­tion pro­ce­dures in order to have the legal means to remove the occu­piers of the ZAD who have “no right or title”. Now they want to stop the growth of the move­ment and make a clean sweep to start the work: as well as evict­ing the occu­piers, they are think­ing about the ten­ants, own­ers and farm­ers. At the same time, those names who are pro-air­port do every­thing they can: run­ning a cam­paign to iso­late the occu­piers, attempt­ing to divide the move­ment and break up sol­i­dar­i­ty, rein­force the dai­ly police pres­ence and repres­sion of col­lec­tive action.

Despite this con­text, we’re keep­ing the mem­o­ry of past vic­to­ries in France against mega­lo­man­ic projects, from nuclear to mil­i­tary, like at Car­net, Plo­goff or Larzac, and we know that this air­port can still be stopped. We look to the oth­er side of the Alps, where oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of the Lyon-Turin high-speed train line across a val­ley, where tens of thou­sands of peo­ple pre­vent work. We are prepar­ing the same here: any attempt to con­crete the place will cost them dear­ly.

This call for action sig­ni­fies that evic­tions do not mean in any way the end of the strug­gle; it allows us to launch col­lec­tive attacks after the poten­tial evic­tions as well. It affirms that they can­not mil­i­tarise or ster­ilise this place at all times and that what­ev­er their efforts they won’t stop us reoc­cu­py­ing it. It shows the com­mon will to keep the occu­pa­tions going to pre­vent the air­port project. This event will allow, as nec­es­sary, the recon­struc­tion of col­lec­tive spaces for organ­is­ing, hous­ing, or again for grow­ing food.

Although we don’t know when the troops will be sent in, we are launch­ing this call-out now to be able to cre­ate a mas­sive rapid reac­tion. We pro­pose to meet again on the fourth Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion — bring your pitch­forks, tools and beams — to reclaim the land and rebuild togeth­er.

In addi­tion to this call for reoc­cu­pa­tion, oth­er ini­tia­tives are clear­ly wel­come: sol­i­dar­i­ty actions wher­ev­er you are, pres­ence at evic­tion time to hin­der the police … And until then, efforts con­tin­ue to pre­vent the air­port, and life on the ZAD as well!

Prac­ti­cal Info:

- Check reg­u­lar­ly  http://zad.nadir.org, espe­cial­ly in case of an evic­tion. The date and exact meet­ing loca­tion will be spec­i­fied at the time.

- It will be pos­si­ble to arrive on the eve of the event, for the final prepa­ra­tions and bring­ing every­one up to speed. Come pre­pared to camp.

- We invite you to stay here after the action to pro­tect the re-occu­pied spaces and con­tin­ue the con­struc­tion.

*Extra expla­na­tion:
Vin­ci is the biggest con­struc­tion com­pa­ny in the world and is respon­si­ble for build­ing the air­port at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des. It is also engaged in build­ing pris­ons, high­ways, nuclear pow­er sta­tions, deten­tion cen­ters for ille­gal immi­grants, exploit­ing the ura­ni­um mines in Niger and destroy­ing the for­est of Khim­ki near Moscow.
Biotope: An enti­ty respon­si­ble for ensur­ing, through envi­ron­men­tal expert on the flo­ra and fau­na, the eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the air­port … the new fron­tiers of green cap­i­tal­ism!

A call-out from occu­piers on the ZAD and Reclaim the Fields

 reclaimthezad@riseup.net

zad@riseup.net
zad.nadir.org

Monsanto takes double hit in January — who’s next?

Monsanto Admits Defeat in France, Biotech Corn Contaminates

26/1/12

Monsanto Admits Defeat in France, Biotech Corn Contaminates

26/1/12

France has held firm in its oppo­si­tion to Monsanto’s genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied MON 810 maize – and the agri-chem­i­cal multi­na­tion­al has admit­ted defeat.

Mon­san­to had been putting legal pres­sure on the French gov­ern­ment to lift its 2008 cul­ti­va­tion ban on MON 810, first­ly with a suc­cess­ful appeal to the Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice, then with a fol­low-up case heard in France’s own high­est court, the Coun­cil of State.

But despite both these insti­tu­tions rul­ing that the ban was “insuf­fi­cient­ly jus­ti­fied in law”, the French Gov­ern­ment, backed by Pres­i­dent Sarkozy, has insist­ed that it will still not allow cul­ti­va­tion of the biotech maize.

Now Mon­san­to has announced that it would not be sell­ing seeds for MON810 in France this year.

France’s stand – and Monsanto’s capit­u­la­tion – has been warm­ly wel­comed by anti-GM lob­by­ists GM Freeze, whose cam­paign direc­tor Pete Riley said: “The deci­sion by Mon­san­to not to mar­ket MON810 seeds in France in 2012 is yet anoth­er sign that Mon­san­to has failed to con­vince the pub­lic or pol­i­cy mak­ers that there is any ben­e­fit to grow­ing to grow­ing GM crops.

“This needs to be acknowl­edged by indus­try and politi­cians and there should be a big shift to agri­cul­tur­al research and devel­op­ment which address­es the future sus­tain­abil­i­ty of farm­ing in Europe. EU pol­i­cy needs to for­get about the bot­tom line of biotech cor­po­ra­tions and focus on devel­op­ing agro-eco­log­i­cal farm­ing which pro­vides for the needs of farm­ers, con­sumers, the envi­ron­ment and future gen­er­a­tions.”

Five oth­er EU coun­tries – Ger­many, Greece, Aus­tria, Lux­em­bourg and Hun­gary – have cur­rent bans on MON810 cul­ti­va­tion in place, and the issue has recent­ly been com­pli­cat­ed by anoth­er Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice rul­ing requir­ing hon­ey con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with GM pollen to be ful­ly autho­rised as a nov­el prod­uct and labelled as such before it can be sold.

— And from ear­li­er in the month: Mon­san­to attacked by Anony­mous hack­ers! In a thread of hack events from the Anony­mous group, the most recent tar­get has been Monsanto.com. Anony­mous, which briefly knocked the FBI and Jus­tice Depart­ment web­sites offline as well as Music Indus­try web­sites in retal­i­a­tion for the US shut­down of file-shar­ing site Megau­pload, is a shad­owy group of amaz­ing inter­na­tion­al hack­ers. Anony­mous Mes­sage To Mon­san­to: We fight for farm­ers! – Video Tran­script (Cross-Post­ed from Organ­ic Com­mon Sense): “To the free-think­ing cit­i­zens of the world: Anony­mous stands with the farm­ers and food orga­ni­za­tions denounc­ing the prac­tices of Mon­san­to We applaud the brav­ery of the orga­ni­za­tions and cit­i­zens who are stand­ing up to Mon­san­to, and we stand unit­ed with you against this oppres­sive cor­po­rate abuse. Mon­san­to is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the world with chem­i­cals and genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food crops for prof­it while claim­ing to feed the hun­gry and pro­tect the envi­ron­ment. Anony­mous is every­one, Any­one who can not stand for injus­tice and decides to do some­thing about it, We are all over the Earth and here to stay. To Mon­san­to, we demand you STOP the fol­low­ing: * Con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the glob­al food chain with GMO’s. * Intim­i­dat­ing small farm­ers with bul­ly­ing and law­suits. * Prop­a­gat­ing the use of destruc­tive pes­ti­cides and her­bi­cides across the globe. * Using “Ter­mi­na­tor Tech­nol­o­gy”, which ren­ders plants ster­ile. * Attempt­ing to hijack UN cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions for your own fis­cal ben­e­fit. * Reduc­ing farm­land to desert through mono­cul­ture and the use of syn­thet­ic fer­til­iz­ers. * Inspir­ing sui­cides of hun­dreds of thou­sands of Indi­an farm­ers. * Caus­ing birth defects by con­tin­u­ing to pro­duce the pes­ti­cide “Round-up” * Attempt­ing to bribe foriegn offi­cials * Infil­trat­ing anti-GMO groups Mon­san­to, these crimes will not go unpun­ished. Anony­mous will not spare you nor any­one in sup­port of your oppres­sive ille­gal busi­ness prac­tices. AGRA, a great exam­ple: In 2006, AGRA, Alliance for a Green Rev­o­lu­tion in Africa, was estab­lished with fund­ing from Bill Gates and The Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion. Among the oth­er found­ing mem­bers of, AGRA, we find: Mon­san­to, Novar­tis, Sanofi-Aven­tis, Glax­o­SmithK­line, Proc­ter and Gam­ble, Mer­ck, Mosa­ic, Pfiz­er, Sum­it­o­mo Chem­i­cal and Yara. The fact that these cor­po­ra­tions are either chem­i­cal or phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers is no coin­ci­dence. The peo­ple of the world see you, Mon­san­to. Anony­mous sees you. Seeds of Oppor­tunism, Cli­mate change offers these busi­ness­es a per­fect excuse to prey on the poor­est coun­tries by swoop­ing in to “res­cue” the farm­ers and peo­ple with their GMO crops and chem­i­cal pes­ti­cides. These cor­po­ra­tions erad­i­cate the tra­di­tion­al ways of the country’s agri­cul­ture for the sake of enor­mous prof­its. The intro­duc­tion of GMOs dras­ti­cal­ly affects a local farm­ers income, as the price of chem­i­cals required for GMOs and seeds from Mon­san­to crip­ples the farmer’s mea­ger prof­it mar­gins. There are even many cas­es of Mon­san­to suing small farm­ers after pollen from their GMO crops acci­den­tal­ly cross with the farmer’s crops. Because Mon­san­to has a patent on theri brand of seed, they claim the farmer is in vio­la­tion of patent laws. These dis­gust­ing and inhu­mane prac­tices will not be tol­er­at­ed. Anony­mous urges all con­cerned cit­i­zens to stand up for these farm­ers, stand up for the future of your own food. Protest, orga­nize, spread info to your friends! SAY NO TO POISONOUS CHEMICALS IN YOUR FOOD! SAY NO TO GMO! SAY NO TO MONSANTO! We are Anony­mous We are legion We do not for­give We do not for­get Expect us” Glob­al Jus­tice Ecol­o­gy Project, an anti-biotech group found­ed by Earth First! activists, also not­ed in a post on the attack that Mon­san­to was also one of the orig­i­nal founders of the GE tree com­pa­ny Arbor­Gen. The Pres­i­dent and CEO of Arbor­Gen, Bar­bara Wells, led Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready soy divi­sion in Brazil. GMO soy in Brazil and oth­er parts of Latin Amer­i­ca has tak­en over vast swaths of Ama­zon and oth­er for­est land, and has dis­placed or poi­soned many com­mu­ni­ties there. Find out more about their cam­paign against Arbor­Gen here. We fight for farm­ers video — http://youtu.be/Q1A-DYK4M4Q DOS attack on Mon­san­to — http://youtu.be/3XutsnEe4VY

Protesters mount diggers in bid to save trees in Stuttgart

22nd Jan­u­ary 2012

22nd Jan­u­ary 2012

Demon­stra­tors against the con­tro­ver­sial “Stuttgart 21” rail project tried to block work­ers from felling more than 30 trees ear­ly on Sun­day. Police removed pro­test­ers from trees and demo­li­tion equip­ment to allow teams to fin­ish the work.

On Sat­ur­day, ral­ly organ­is­ers said some 4,000 peo­ple gath­ered to protest the sta­tion’s con­struc­tion, while police esti­mat­ed the num­ber of demon­stra­tors at 1,200.

About 40 pro­test­ers tried to block teams from clear­ing the trees, but a police spokesman said offi­cers were able to dis­perse the crowd. The work was com­plet­ed by 6 a.m. on Sun­day but had to be stopped twice when two demon­stra­tors climbed on top of demo­li­tion equip­ment.

A spokesper­son for Parkschützer, an ini­tia­tive that aims to pre­serve the park, crit­i­cised the action, say­ing the trees should not have been tak­en down due to wind and poor vis­i­bil­i­ty.

Matthias von Her­rmann of Parkschützer took aim at the state gov­ern­ment in Baden-Würt­tem­berg.

“It is a trav­es­ty when (state) pre­mier Kretschmann con­tin­ues to preach about how the gov­ern­ment has to adhere to the law, but then police are out at a con­struc­tion site with­out a build­ing per­mit,” he said.

The mul­ti-bil­lion-euro project aims to trans­form the Baden-Würt­tem­berg cap­i­tal into a major Euro­pean trans­port hub. The sta­tion has sparked a wave of protests.

Deutsche Bahn wants to replace Stuttgart’s exist­ing train sta­tion with an under­ground one that it says would great­ly improve links between Paris, Vien­na and ulti­mate­ly Budapest.

http://www.thelocal.de/tag/Stuttgart_21

More nails in the GM coffin — bye bye BASF / amaranth fights back against GM menace / Take the Flour Back

18 Jan­u­ary 2012

BASF, the last firm still devel­op­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in Ger­many is stop­ping its work, admit­ting defeat in the face of wide­spread Euro­pean oppo­si­tion to to the idea.

18 Jan­u­ary 2012

BASF, the last firm still devel­op­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in Ger­many is stop­ping its work, admit­ting defeat in the face of wide­spread Euro­pean oppo­si­tion to to the idea.

This fol­lows deci­sions by Bay­er and Syn­gen­ta to stop their genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) crop work in Ger­many over the last few years.

Ger­man chem­i­cal giant BASF has announced that it will halt the devel­op­ment or com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) crops in Europe, and move its biotech R&D oper­a­tions to the US. The firm cit­ed con­sumer and polit­i­cal resis­tance to trans­genic plants in Europe for its deci­sion. 

BASF will now con­cen­trate its plant biotech­nol­o­gy activ­i­ties in North and South Amer­i­ca, and the head­quar­ters of BASF Plant Sci­ence will be moved from Lim­burg­er­hof, Ger­many, to Raleigh, North Car­oli­na, US. BASF expects that this will result in the loss of 140 jobs in Europe.

‘We are con­vinced that plant biotech­nol­o­gy is a key tech­nol­o­gy for the 21st cen­tu­ry,’ said Ste­fan Mar­ci­nows­ki, a mem­ber of BAS­F’s exec­u­tive board. ‘How­ev­er, there is still a lack of accep­tance for this tech­nol­o­gy in many parts of Europe — from the major­i­ty of con­sumers, farm­ers and politi­cians. There­fore, it does not make busi­ness sense to con­tin­ue invest­ing in prod­ucts exclu­sive­ly for cul­ti­va­tion in this mar­ket.’ 

BAS­F’s deci­sion was met with warn­ings from indus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives and lob­by­ists, but cel­e­bra­tion by oth­ers, includ­ing envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates and at least one for­mer indus­try insid­er. 

Present­ly, only two GM crops are autho­rised for cul­ti­va­tion in the EU: MON810 maize, made by US-based Mon­san­to, and BAS­F’s Amflo­ra pota­to. MON810 is only approved for sale as an ani­mal feed and starch from Amflo­ra is used in indus­tri­al process­es.

Mau­rice Moloney, the chief exec­u­tive of Rotham­st­ed Research in the UK, which has been engaged in GM work, said that mov­ing the focus of crop sci­ence even fur­ther away from Europe is ‘deeply regret­table’. Such a move will ‘make inno­v­a­tive new tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to GM, less avail­able to Euro­pean pro­duc­ers and con­sumers and car­ries the risk of deny­ing them access to crops and foods with health and envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits,’ he added. 

BAS­F’s deci­sion is like­ly to adverse­ly affect Europe’s eco­nom­ic growth and food sup­ply, Moloney warned. ‘It is iron­ic that much of the sci­ence that cre­at­ed mod­ern biotech­nol­o­gy came from Europe and yet Euro­peans have been deprived of the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits such as the reduc­tion of the use of pes­ti­cides and improved soil qual­i­ty as well as the more obvi­ous eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of cheap­er food and agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts,’ he said. 

In addi­tion, Alan Dewar, an inde­pen­dent ento­mol­o­gist who directs Dewar Crop Pro­tec­tion and used to be head of ento­mol­o­gy at a divi­sion of Rotham­st­ed Research, called BAS­F’s deci­sion to quit Europe ‘indica­tive of the ever increas­ing iso­la­tion that Euro­pean sci­en­tists find them­selves in’. Dewar high­light­ed ‘inad­e­quate sen­tences’ hand­ed down by judges in sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries to pro­tes­tors who have been ‘caught red-hand­ed’ destroy­ing GM field tri­als, say­ing it is not sur­pris­ing that biotech crop research has stalled in Europe. 

But Igna­cio Chapela, a micro­bial ecol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley and senior researcher with the Cen­tre for Biosafe­ty in Nor­way, says that genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms have been over­hyped and that the indus­try needs to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly trimmed down. 

‘The size of the GMO mar­ket should be much small­er, but it is being pro­mot­ed very strong­ly with the full force of the US gov­ern­ment,’ Chapela says, who for­mer­ly worked for Swiss firm San­doz, Sygen­ta’s pre­de­ces­sor, devel­op­ing new agri­chem­i­cals. He says much pub­li­cised claims that GM crops would cut lev­els of her­bi­cides and insec­ti­cides in the food chain have failed to mate­ri­alise and, in fact, many of these prod­ucts have led to more of both. 

The envi­ron­men­tal group Friends of the Earth (FoE) Europe also cel­e­brat­ed BAS­F’s announce­ment. ‘This is anoth­er nail in the cof­fin for genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied foods in Europe,’ said Adri­an Bebb, agro­fu­els cam­paign coor­di­na­tor for FoE Europe. ‘This is a good day for con­sumers and farm­ers and opens the door for the Euro­pean Union to shift Europe to green­er and more pub­licly accept­able farm­ing.’

How­ev­er, is this a real vic­to­ry or a sleight of hand?  Read more

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Ama­ranth, the Inca sacred plant, attacks GM soya crop

5,000 hectares trashed, 50,000 threat­ened! 

It first hap­pened in 2004, when a farmer in Atlanta in the US found ama­ranth that had spread to his fields was resis­tant to Roundup — the her­bi­cide much GM was bred to resist.  But since then, the ‘weed’ has spread wide­ly, and accord­ing to the UK’s Cen­tre for Ecol­o­gy and Hydrol­o­gy there has been gene trans­fer. 

[note: this is an old arti­cle, excerpt tak­en from here.  There have been a rash recent­ly of arti­cles about GM repost­ed from the last years, that pur­port to be from 2012; this arti­cle about ama­ranth was not pre­vi­ous­ly cov­ered on this site, hence it’s brief repost­ing]

——

Past action against BAS­F’s UK HQ

Future action this May against GM wheat tri­al

ANOTHER EXCAVATOR MADE HARMLESS

Jan­u­ary 12, 2012 — Swe­den
report­ed to Öre­bro’s ALF/DBF Press Office (after pho­to from svt.se):

“We just end­ed a death machine, a so called exca­va­tor, in the wood side of Öre­bro.. You should do so to if you care at all about the earth­lings around you, and all of our home, plan­et earth.

-Against the true ECO FASCISM: the fas­cism com­mit­ted against all wild life, and against all oth­er oppres­sion.
FUCK ALL NATIONAL STATES, FUCK PATRIOTISM! Love this plan­ets life instead!
GO OUT!!!

EARTH LIBERATION FRONT
JORDENS BEFRIELSEFRONT”

Video

Scaling tree cutters and trees to halt Corrib pipeline works

Shell today, 9th Jan­u­ary 2012, began to cut down a Coillte plan­ta­tion in the vil­lage of Leen­amore, Co. Mayo. This sur­prise move marks the begin­ning of their attempts to pre­pare the 4km stretch of land between the Augh­oose tun­nelling com­pound and the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery. Despite a large Gar­da and pri­vate secu­ri­ty pres­ence, cam­paign­ers entered the tree felling area and halt­ed work.

Shell start­ing this sec­tion of the pipeline was com­plete­ly unan­tic­i­pat­ed both by local cam­paign­ers and those of us liv­ing at Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. Rumour had it that the clear­ing of the plan­ta­tion might not hap­pen until lat­er in the year. As it hap­pened many of us had planned to take the day off actions today to tend the camp gar­dens, carve new wind tur­bine blades, bake bread and work on oth­er projects. The day turned out quite dif­fer­ent to how we planned…

When we arrived at Leen­amore at 11am we saw that they were cut­ting down trees at two dif­fer­ent sec­tions of the road and set­ting up a machin­ery stor­age com­pound. There was a heavy Gar­da pres­ence includ­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic order unit with no num­ber tags. There were twen­ty Gar­daí and at least fifty of Shell’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty IRMS attempt­ing to guard the tree line. There was sev­en of us, basi­cal­ly mean­ing we were out­num­bered by about 10 to 1.

A few of us tried to get over the fence or into the trees to pre­vent the tree cut­ting from hap­pen­ing. Five of us suc­ceed­ed in breach­ing lines of secu­ri­ty to impede work at dif­fer­ent times. Some of us were car­ried back over the barbed wire fence by secu­ri­ty guards. The secu­ri­ty guards had real dif­fi­cul­ty in remov­ing us from the area as the ground was extreme­ly uneven and bog­gy. They kept stum­bling as they car­ried us out and it was real­ly dan­ger­ous for the secu­ri­ty them­selves. The Gar­dai were stand­ing out on the road and wouldn’t let us stand on the road.

After try­ing to get in over the fence along the road a few times, sev­er­al cam­paign­ers broke away to try to enter from fur­ther away and dis­ap­peared in the woods.

To everyone’s delight, one cam­paign­er reap­peared about an hour lat­er, on top of a tree-cut­ting dig­ger. Anoth­er cam­paign­er, also reap­peared a hour lat­er, with­out his trousers! His expla­na­tion was that the ski-suit he had been wear­ing had been caus­ing rustling as he approached secu­ri­ty lines so even­tu­al­ly he had to resort to remov­ing them and run in his ther­mals to make it to climb a tree that was in the path of Shell’s destruc­tion. As a new­com­er to the camp, this is his expe­ri­ence of try­ing to stop Shell in his own words;

“I arrived at the camp a few days ago. It’s my first vis­it. I spent the first day help­ing to block lor­ries and got a good chance ot be active against Shell’s destruc­tion. This morn­ing every­one was sur­prised that Shell were start­ing work on the for­est. A few of us went away to come at the machin­ery from anoth­er angle. We crawled through the woods towards the area they were cut­ting slow­ly. As were crawl­ing towards the dig­ger I dart­ed off left. All the secu­ri­ty were shout­ing ‘hold the line’. I kept run­ning until a group of secu­ri­ty broke away from a group at the road and start­ed run­ning after me. I ran back into the woods with them run­ning behind me shout­ing, so I went to ground and hid for 20 min­utes. Then crawled down a bit and looked up to see where they were and they were all around me. I had to run accorss a big gap where they could all see me and into anoth­er patch of woods. With them all run­ning behind me I got into the trees again. I reached the first suit­able tree to climb just to the right of the tree-cut­ting-dig­ger. By the time I was up the secu­ri­ty guards had run past me but couldn’t see me. Fif­teen or twen­ty of them were below film­ing and wan­der­ing around. They shout­ing at me, things like ‘are you going to come down?’ and ‘Chop him down!’. I climbed right to the top to see where the dig­ger was. I swung to anoth­er tree and then to anoth­er to get a bit clos­er to the dig­ger as it moved. I stayed up for about 45 min­utes as the dig­ger broke up the trees beside me. The secu­ri­ty guards start­ed to get more and more angry with me. They start­ed shak­ing the tree and get­ting sticks. I said, ‘I’m real­ly going to want to come down with you doing that!’. I nego­ti­at­ed with them to let me come down safe­ly and agreed that one of them would escourt me out of the woods. I met up with the oth­er campers and camp back to get a cup of tea and some food. A few local peo­ple called in to catch up with us. I feel good to be here to so far. I’ve met some good peo­ple. I found it good to be doing actions with ener­getic peo­ple who have been fight­ing this cam­paign for a long time.”

The oth­er camper up on the tree-cut­ter stayed up to stop work until 6.30pm before com­ing down. This camper report­ed that one of the IRMS secu­ri­ty super­vi­sors that had been run­ning after him in the woods, as he got to the tree-cut­ter, had injured his ankle and had even­tu­al­ly been stretchered off the site. The cam­paign­ers were not arrest­ed as the cut­ting was hap­pen­ing on pri­vate land.

New camp mem­bers are always wel­come and even if you don’t feel like crawl­ing around in the woods in your first few days there is plen­ty of oth­er things to do…

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is call­ing for sup­port in advance of this com­ing Fri­day the 13th of Jan­u­ary. Fri­day is the first Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty of the new year, when peo­ple from around Ire­land are invit­ed to join the protests for a day to show their sup­port for the ongo­ing resis­tance to the Cor­rib Gas Project.

http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org
 
—
 

Shell’s tree cutting disrupted for second day running

Dis­rup­tion to the felling of the Coillte wood­land for Shel­l’s planned onshore pipeline (along with the stop­ping of haulage trucks to the Augh­oose com­pound), con­tin­ued today as pro­tes­tors inter­cept­ed a spe­cial­ist 8‑track tree felling machine between the Augh­oose tun­nelling com­pound and Leen­amore for­est.

A Bar­ret­t’s truck trans­port­ing the machine was halt­ed as it made the 1km jour­ney at 7am this morn­ing by a small band of mer­ry pro­tes­tors, one of whom quick­ly ascend­ed the arm and set­tled into posi­tion as a lone Gar­da looked on. Sev­er­al more Gar­daí soon came to join her sup­port­ed by a large num­ber of IRMS staff who have been posi­tioned along the road by the for­est since yes­ter­day.

As a win­tery dawn broke over the beseiged bog the Gar­daí “removal” team arrived along with their “trans­porter”, dri­ven by Sgt Aidan Gill, who then pro­ceed­ed to ini­ti­ate Gar­da attacks on the gath­er­ing sup­port­ers, in the name of health and safe­ty.

Fol­low­ing some hasty posi­tion­ing of ‘crash-mat­tress­es’ and blan­kets (!!) on and around the machine an attempt was made to remove the pro­tes­tors, only for the Gar­daí to dis­cov­er that the pro­tes­tor had D‑locked her neck to the machine.

In an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly reck­less move, the Gar­daí then decid­ed to use an angle grinder just mil­lime­ters away from the pro­tes­tors’ head, all to enable the con­tin­u­a­tion of Shel­l’s work for the day.

How­ev­er the delay of 3 & 1/2 hours to the tree felling had also thwart­ed all deliv­er­ies of stone and removals of peat at the Augh­oose com­pound as the dri­ver of the truck car­ry­ing the machine had been swerv­ing so much, as to end up pre­vent­ing the pas­sage of any oth­er trucks on the road.
After being tak­en down the pro­tes­tor was arrest­ed and charged and is due to appear in Bel­mul­let court along with 4 oth­er cam­paign­ers.

Lat­er on in the evening anoth­er protest was called for out­side Bel­lan­aboy, how­ev­er it seems the lat­est activ­i­ty has result­ed in a fur­ther increase in the amount of Gar­daí loi­ter­ing in the area. About 15 Gar­daí were imme­di­ate­ly on hand and so not too many trucks were stopped in the evening.

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is call­ing for sup­port in advance of this com­ing Fri­day the 13th of Jan­u­ary. Fri­day is the first Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty of the new year, when peo­ple from around Ire­land are invit­ed to join the protests for a day to show their sup­port for the ongo­ing resis­tance to the Cor­rib Gas Project.

 

 

Three days of action against Shell

Decem­ber 13, 2011

Pro­test­ers give Shell an ear­ly Christ­mas present

Decem­ber 13, 2011

Pro­test­ers give Shell an ear­ly Christ­mas present

The Shell to Sea cam­paign is still run­ning strong 11 years after the incep­tion of the Cor­rib gas project. Every­day peo­ple are becom­ing aware of the peo­ple’s strug­gle against Shell, but still more are need­ed to come and see for them­selves and save our coun­try from the glob­al cor­po­rate takeover.

On Fri­day 9th of Decem­ber, Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign [http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org/] con­tin­ued with the locals’ protest slow­ing down Shel­l’s work, spir­its were high and peo­ple were pleased with the action despite the Chief’s legal judge­ment [http://www.indymedia.ie/article/101060] peo­ple still braced the cold con­di­tions to con­tin­ue the protest.

On Sat­ur­day the 10th a Day Of Action com­menced with groups of peo­ple from all over the coun­try com­ing out to sup­port the Shell to Sea cam­paign. Peo­ple from the Occu­py camps [http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100863] in Gal­way, Dublin and Cork came to protest Shel­l’s occu­pa­tion of Erris. Pro­test­ers stood out­side the com­pound at Aghoos for 2 hours pre­vent­ing any work from start­ing. The action was a suc­cess and no Gar­da pres­ence was noticed.

On Mon­day 12th a spon­ta­neous action hap­pened at the refin­ery site at Bal­linaboy with 15 pro­test­ers from var­i­ous parts of the coun­try man­ag­ing to stop up to 12 trucks simul­ta­ne­ous­ly for an hour, no arrests were made, the small Gar­da pres­ence were no match for the swift­ness and brav­ery of the pro­test­ers. The only casu­al­ty was a bike unlaw­ful­ly con­fis­cat­ed by the Gar­da.

On Tues­day 13th the reg­u­lar protest took place at the Bal­linaboy com­pound. Around 15 pro­test­ers were met with an equal num­ber of Gar­dai who pre­vent­ed peo­ple walk­ing on the road. The right to peace­ful protest was met with the threat of arrest. Peo­ple still man­aged to stop 7 trucks for 40 min­utes. Strong cold winds and hail, com­bined with the pro­test­ers, stopped Shell doing any work on the Tues­day.

Through the inter­net and Occu­py groups in var­i­ous Irish cities there is an out­let for infor­ma­tion of upcom­ing actions and events. Jan­u­ary 13th is the next Day Of Action; all are wel­come to come and change our nation’s his­to­ry.

No TAV Resistance in the Susa Valley goes on, Italy

10.12.11

10.12.11

As I wrote a few days ago, the NO TAV move­ment was plan­ning a huge day of mobil­i­sa­tion on Decem­ber 8, for the anniver­sary of what has become known as “The Bat­tle of Venaus” in 2005, where activists man­aged to defeat police and secu­ri­ty forces and take back parts of the val­ley that had been evict­ed and cleared up in the pre­vi­ous days.

How the local author­i­ties per­ceived this call out is clear from their reac­tion: on Decem­ber 7 a tem­po­rary decree was issued, pro­hibit­ing the access and tran­sit of peo­ple and vehi­cles around the fenced areas of the val­ley for the fol­low­ing two days. New check points were estab­lished or rein­forced dur­ing the day. As on pre­vi­ous occa­sions, the only response was to try to com­plete­ly block  protests around the fenced areas by increas­ing mil­i­tary pres­ence local­ly and ban­ning all activ­i­ties in the sur­round­ings.

Sin­is­ter char­ac­ters already known to the NO TAV move­ment were invit­ed to take part in the “order main­te­nance”, such as one of the chief inspec­tors who autho­rised the vio­lent evic­tions in Venaus in 2005, and oth­er inspec­tors and Digos chiefs who organ­ised and man­aged the repres­sion of the protests last sum­mer.

The NO TAV had two main actions planned for the day: a “siege” of the fenced areas of the val­ley on one side, and a huge block of a local motor­way on the oth­er (which went on for more than 14 hours).

Once again, the police react­ed with extra­or­di­nary vio­lence, in par­tic­u­lar around the fenced areas. Dozens of peo­ple were injured, includ­ing a 16 year old young man who was hit in the head by a tear gas cylin­der while he was try­ing to put down a fire caused by the same tear gas car­tridges, and a 50 year old man, also hit in the face, who might loose his sight com­plete­ly. Many oth­ers were injured by rocks and stones thrown by the police;unlike last sumer, this time some RAI3 cam­era­men man­aged to film these events and broad­cast them.

After evict­ing the look­out post (which was suc­cess­ful­ly tak­en back the fol­low­ing day!), police forces entered the build­ing, dam­aged any­thing that was in it, and final­ly con­fis­cat­ed all the remain­ing equip­ment. Dur­ing the day at least 6 peo­ple were giv­en ban­ning orders that pro­hib­it them to vis­it the area for the next 3 years. Some of the “dan­ger­ous” equip­ment found in their vehi­cles includ­ed water­proof jack­ets. The fol­low­ing day, a work­er of a local gar­den­ing co-oper­a­tive was also stopped and searched, and his gar­den­ing tools con­fis­cat­ed while he was on his way to open up a local eco-cen­tre.

As usu­al, the media and the polit­i­cal clowns unit­ed in a joint crit­i­cism of the vio­lent pro­test­ers. Fassi­no, cur­rent May­or of Turin, stat­ed “There were only extrem­ists in the Susa Val­ley “. Oth­er com­ments were made about the neces­si­ty of defend­ing the val­ley from the NO TAV activists!, and about the use­less­ness of these protests in view of the fact that the high speed line project is going to go ahead any­way.

The “left-wing” news­pa­per La Rebub­bli­ca even tried to dimin­ish the grav­i­ty of the inci­dent involv­ing the 16 year old boy, say­ing that he is Dan­ish and was there by chance…he is actu­al­ly Dan­ish but grew up in the Susa Val­ley, but his nation­al­i­ty doesn’t change the fact that he’s in a hos­pi­tal with trau­mat­ic brain injury…

The NO TAV held a press con­fer­ence the day after, and their main points were:

1) The NO TAV move­ment is one and unit­ed. There are no bad nor good pro­test­ers, nor were chil­dren in the demo used as human shields (one of the accu­sa­tions made by some politi­cians). The NO TAV strug­gle belongs to every­one.

2) The pro­test­ers didn’t attack the police forces, but only tried, as they’ve done in the past, to cut down the fences, which in their eyes are ille­gal and ille­git­ti­mate. The police imme­di­ate­ly react­ed with tear gas and water jets.

3) All the injured are among the pro­test­ers; there were no injured among the police forces (as was stat­ed by the media).

4) The look­out post in La Mad­dale­na was sub­ject­ed to dam­age, loot­ing and dev­as­ta­tion per­pe­trat­ed by the police forces. The tools con­fis­cat­ed by the police (e.g. axes) are not weapons, but nec­es­sary tools to cut down wood.

5) The move­ment will go back to the post and clean it up, and will vis­it the fenced area again. The police bru­tal­i­ty and the accu­sa­tions made by politi­cians will not stop the move­ment.

Faith­ful to their words, hun­dreds of NO TAV activist have gone back to the fenced area this morn­ing. They had lunch togeth­er, with hun­dreds of police look­ing at them from the oth­er side of the fences. Then they start­ed walk­ing along the fences and cut­ting them down. The police act­ed imme­di­ate­ly and fired the water jet, but mirac­u­lous­ly mis­aimed, hit­ting instead a group of Digos offi­cers. Well done, for once! Watch the video here:

Thanks to notav.info for the orig­i­nal arti­cles, pics and videos.

Translated by Italy Calling

Relentless Blockading of $hell’s Work

Novem­ber 29, 2011

In Erris, Co. Mayo the Tues­day morn­ing tra­di­tion­al gath­er­ing out­side the $hell refin­ery con­tin­ues despite increas­ing pres­ence of Gar­dai and rain.

Novem­ber 29, 2011

In Erris, Co. Mayo the Tues­day morn­ing tra­di­tion­al gath­er­ing out­side the $hell refin­ery con­tin­ues despite increas­ing pres­ence of Gar­dai and rain.

$hell use the refin­ery as a hold­ing area for mate­ri­als, and it is also set on the haulage route between local quar­ries, the peat depo­si­tion site, and the com­pound at Augh­oose.

This morn­ing local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp were out in good num­bers, block­ing deliv­er­ies of stone and truck­loads of extract­ed peat through­out the morn­ing and giv­ing the Gar­dai a run for their dirty mon­ey. Regard­less of the odds one per­son rose to the chal­lenge, occu­py­ing a truck from Bar­ret­t’s quar­ry for two hours — all work at the com­pound then came to a halt.

The Gar­dai even­tu­al­ly brought in the ‘trans­porter’ to remove them, dur­ing which they also attempt­ed to pre­vent peo­ple film­ing the arrest.

In the face of the enor­mi­ty of $hel­l’s plans for Erris, the strug­gle con­tin­ues!
If you would like to join us for any amount of time see
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org / www.shelltosea.com

——

Gardai and IRMS rendered powerless as campaigners blockade Shell’s compound

Decem­ber 2, 2011

Work was com­plete­ly halt­ed at Shell’s com­pound yes­ter­day for over five hours in a great show of resiliance by local cam­paign­ers and their sup­port­ers. For the past two weeks now, Shell have been attempt­ing to remove mass­es of peat from the com­pound in prepa­ra­tion for the tun­nel bor­ing machine which is expect­ed to arrive ear­ly next year. Progress has been con­tin­u­ous­ly dis­rupt­ed as pro­test­ers brave the win­ter weath­er to stop trucks and a deter­mined resis­tance is build­ing momen­tum.

A local cam­paign­er yes­ter­day wait­ed patient­ly out­side the main gate of Shell’s com­pound in his car and request­ed to see some­one in charge. For weeks now he has been try­ing to lodge com­plaints about pub­lic safe­ty and traf­fic issues gen­er­at­ed from the Augh­oose com­pound. His con­cerns have been to date ignored. Hav­ing con­tact­ed the Shell offices in Bel­mul­let and the refin­ery he was fur­ther direct­ed by staff to go and try lodge his com­plaints at the com­pound in Augh­oose where fol­low­ing a long wait his request remained unan­swered. Once again the seri­ous con­cerns of local peo­ple were ignored.

In the mean­time, pro­test­ers arrived to slow work down and were met with six gar­da vehi­cles and a dozen or more Gar­dai along with just as many IRMS secu­ri­ty. A trac­tor was pre­vent­ed from enter­ing the com­pound with equip­ment despite gar­dai push­ing and shov­ing pro­test­ers around the road. Once the cam­paign­ers asked the Gar­dai to full­fil their duty and arrest them for block­ing Shell vehi­cles the Gar­dai stepped back. It is obvi­ous that the state’s police force here in Mayo pre­fer to employ vio­lence against pro­test­ers where pos­si­ble. Civ­il dis­obe­di­ence in num­bers made them think again.

For the fol­low­ing 4 hours the gates remained shut, a long line of trucks and trac­tors turned off their engines and work ground to a halt as cam­paign­ers con­tin­ued to peace­ful­ly demon­strate. One local per­son was assault­ed by IRMS and after many requests the Gar­dai even­tu­al­ly took his com­plaint. No arrests were made in a high­ly spir­it­ed day. An Gar­da Siochana, who are sup­pos­ed­ly the guardians of the peace, can bla­tant­ly be seen to be guardians of cor­po­ra­tions and cor­rup­tion up here in Erris.

The strug­gle con­tin­ues. Be part of the resis­tance. All are wel­come to stay at our win­ter camp or come join us dur­ing our day of sol­i­dar­i­ty on Sat­ur­day, 10th of Decem­ber.

anti-nuke Castor transport protests in France and Germany

27 Novem­ber 2011

Ger­man pro­test­ers block rail track

27 Novem­ber 2011

Ger­man pro­test­ers block rail track

HUNDREDS of riot cops with heli­copter sup­port have cleared the way for the Cas­tor nuclear waste train in Ger­many.

This video (& lots of links to oth­er footage) from graswurzel.tv (grass roots tv) shows how activists approached the rail­way line through woods, before evad­ing police to stage a mas­sive occu­pa­tion of the track num­ner­ing up to 5,000 peo­ple.

More than 1,000 peo­ple were arrest­ed for refus­ing to leave and police also clashed with two groups of pro­test­ers that hurled stones and fire­works, say cor­po­rate media.

There were clash­es in France last week (see below) when pro­test­ers man­aged to sab­o­tage the line and torch a police vehi­cle.

The ship­ment paused overnight south of Ham­burg and is expect­ed to reach its des­ti­na­tion with con­sid­er­able delay on Mon­day.

—

23 Novem­ber 2011

Pro­test­ers bat­tle French riot cops

ANTI-NUCLEAR pro­test­ers bat­tled with riot police in France in a bid to stop a train of nuclear waste head­ing for Ger­many.

The author­i­ties used tear gas and brute force, but the envi­ron­men­tal­ists man­aged to sab­o­tage part of the rail­way and torch a police vehi­cle.  

The French state is refus­ing to end its nuclear oper­a­tions, even after the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter and the hor­rif­ic after-effects.

The ship­ment from the French nuclear giant Are­va’s repro­cess­ing plant at La Hague is the last planned to Ger­many.

Sim­i­lar protests are expect­ed along the whole route — the last con­voy in 2010 was blocked for three hours in Caen and one night in Ger­many.

Video

http://vastminority.blogspot.com