Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

EXCAVATOR RENDERED HARMLESS, SWEDEN

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“SÖRMLAND, SUMMER 2011

We have come to the con­clu­sion that to save life that is oppressed A GOOD WAY is to dis­arm the oppres­sor, in any way ness­esary. No more shit talk.

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“SÖRMLAND, SUMMER 2011

We have come to the con­clu­sion that to save life that is oppressed A GOOD WAY is to dis­arm the oppres­sor, in any way ness­esary. No more shit talk.

We made some napalm bombs and used them to destroy the yel­low death machine beside the for­est, a machine used to help tear­ing nature apart.
Before that we mod­u­lat­ed the vehi­cle as much as pos­si­ble, by cut­ting cables, and tak­ing things away, and also wrote ELF mes­sages on the last sight of the hell­ma­chine ‑just in case some rot­ten nut would get the sick idea to try restor­ing it!

This is a state­ment to the life­friends world­wide that you bet­ter mil­i­tan­ti­sise your agen­da and to the forest­de­stroy­ing indus­tries; that if you come clos­er to our ter­ri­to­ry ter­ror will come, in the way you under­stand it, Eco­nom­ic cat­a­stro­phy. For the gain of you own future, stay away.

FOR ALL LIFE
(A)//(E)- JORDENS BEFRIELSEFRONT, ET/ EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, ET”

 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/E4gT2GJQlRA

Blockade against industrial wind project in Danish wilderness

July 26 – Police in Den­mark detained six envi­ron­men­tal activists on Tues­day protest­ing the felling of trees in a for­est to make room for a research cen­tre for wind tur­bines.

Pro­test­ers said they were not opposed to the cen­tre, but to the loca­tion.

July 26 – Police in Den­mark detained six envi­ron­men­tal activists on Tues­day protest­ing the felling of trees in a for­est to make room for a research cen­tre for wind tur­bines.

Pro­test­ers said they were not opposed to the cen­tre, but to the loca­tion.

The test cen­tre is meant to fur­ther Denmark’s posi­tion as world leader in wind pow­er, com­mon­ly seen as envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly renew­able ener­gy as it con­sumes no fos­sil fuels and pro­duces no emis­sions.

The protest began 10 days ago at Thy in windy north­west­ern Jut­land where Denmark’s wind indus­try aims to test giant tur­bines up to 250 metres high (820 feet).

“We are not against the cen­tre, we are not against the wind indus­try — on the con­trary,” Kent Klemme­sen, chair­man of the cam­paign against the project, told Reuters. “We are against the loca­tion, because we feel there are far bet­ter alter­na­tives.”

——–

Thurs­day morn­ing, 15 July 2011, the local Dan­ish police gave up remov­ing the activists who since Fri­day, 15 July 2011, have pre­vent­ed the cut­ting down of for­est to make room for the planned Nation­al Test Cen­tre for 250 metres high wind­mills in Thy, North­ern Jut­land [Den­mark].

Ten police offi­cers turned up to end the block­ade, but with­drew when it turned out that there were more activists than expect­ed. The pro­tes­tors are camp­ing in the for­est area where the author­i­ties intend to cut down the trees to cre­ate the right wind con­di­tions in the Test Cen­tre. “We shall be back in greater num­bers,” the police said.

The Test Cen­tre will be sit­u­at­ed between a pro­tect­ed bird sanc­tu­ary, a so-called Ram­sar area, and a Natu­ra 2000 area. The Dan­ish Soci­ety for Nature Con­ser­va­tion finds that the law regard­ing the Test Cen­tre vio­lates the Euro­pean Union (EU) Habi­tat Direc­tive, and has brought the case before the EU Com­mis­sion who has request­ed a detailed state­ment from the Dan­ish gov­ern­ment. Fur­ther­more, a local asso­ci­a­tion has filed a case against the Dan­ish State.

Fri­day, 15 July, the bird breed­ing sea­son end­ed and by mid­night the Dan­ish author­i­ties intend­ed to start cut­ting down the for­est. Through­out the day, the local pop­u­la­tion protest­ed against the demo­li­tion of one of Denmark’s last wilder­ness area.

The activists sim­ply laid down in front of the author­i­ties’ machines to pre­vent the cut­ting down to start. They are stay­ing in the area in tents, day and night. The rul­ing of the EU Com­mis­sion is expect­ed with­in a cou­ple of weeks. The activists demand that the cut­ting be post­poned until the rul­ing of the EU Com­mis­sion and the ver­dict of a Dan­ish court have been made pub­lic.

The demon­stra­tion in Thy has no cen­tral orga­ni­za­tion, but arose spon­ta­neous­ly. A spokesman for the activists appealed for sup­port and assis­tance from both Europe and the rest of the world—support as soon as pos­si­ble.

For more info, con­tact Peter Skeel Hjorth, spokesman of EPAW in Scan­di­navia and the Baltic States. Email: peter@skeelhjorth.dk Phone: +46 708 166521 Or Alek­sander Søn­der. Email: aleksander.soender@gmail.com Phone: +45 26160630

UPDATE & MORE BACKGROUND 7/26/2011: “Camp has been shut down again. Still there are peo­ple mon­i­tor­ing the for­est actions and report­ing them… The wind­mill com­pa­ny first want­ed to set­tle the camp on a place where the mil­i­tary is train­ing for Afghanistan. Because the mil­i­tary argues that they are in war, they did not led the test cen­ter be built there. So the last nature reserve in Den­mark has to be vic­tim­ized for this project. This isn’t demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly vot­ed, and the legal issue at the Euro­pean cout hasn’t been decid­ed. Still the work­ers already start­ed cut­ting down. And the police are still present.” —From an anony­mous source on the front­lines

For a longer list of “play­ers” ben­e­fit­ing from, and/or invest­ed in, this project go here

For some pro-indus­try lies promis­ing great­ness and fur­ther infor­ma­tion on this region and this enor­mous wind ener­gy project also vis­it here

 

Pro­test­ers argue that the effects of the huge wind­mills on human and ani­mal life have not been stud­ied ade­quate­ly and the 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres) of for­est should be pre­served.

Though tree felling has begun, Amos Sten­ner, an activist who spent five hours up in a tree on Tues­day, said he was not giv­ing up. “It is very pos­si­ble, that I will go up a new tree tomor­row,” he told Reuters.

The test cen­tre project is run by the Dan­ish Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty DTU, with sup­port from indus­try, includ­ing wind tur­bine man­u­fac­tur­ers Ves­tas and Siemens and state-owned DONG Ener­gy.

Rossport action update

Shell block­ad­ed on the first day
Tri­pod blo­cakd­ing road as first of new fences sit and wait with nowhere to go

At 6.59 this morn­ing a tri­pod was erect­ed on the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and their com­pound at Augh­osse, Co Mayo.

Shell block­ad­ed on the first day
Tri­pod blo­cakd­ing road as first of new fences sit and wait with nowhere to go

At 6.59 this morn­ing a tri­pod was erect­ed on the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and their com­pound at Augh­osse, Co Mayo.
At 6.59 this morn­ing a tri­pod was erect­ed by peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp on the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and their com­pound at Augh­osse there­by blockad­ing the road to all incom­ing trucks. Shell were due to move the first lot of fenc­ing from one site to anoth­er at 7am in order to pre­pare and enlarge the exist­ing com­pound in prepa­ra­tion for turf removal before pipe lay­ing, but instead the truck of fenc­ing now sits behind a line of 30 IRMS secu­ri­ty with nowhere to go. Mean­while the head of IRMS, Jim Far­rell, can be seen mak­ing fran­tic phone calls.
Watch this space for more updates through­out the day…

http://www.shelltosea.com/content/shell-blockaded-first-day

10.30 am update
Three and a half hours after it was erect­ed, the tri­pod block­ade is still hold­ing the road and no deliv­er­ies have yet been made. Scones have just been deliv­ered via local sup­port­ers.

—-

Shell delayed again — 2nd day
27.07.2011
A vari­ety of actions have been tak­ing place all day in order to delay Shel­l’s expan­sion and secur­ing of their new com­pound. Protests and block­ades from 7am to 7pm

On Tues­day 26th July the actions against Shel­l’s pro­posed high pres­sure gas pipeline began at 7am in the morn­ing with 6 peo­ple block­ing the road with an arm tube lock on. No arrests were made. This was fol­lowed by mul­ti­ple block­ades of trac­tors and equip­ment bound for the Augh­oose com­pound. Cur­rent­ly Shell are work­ing on secur­ing their com­pound by putting up stronger fences, lay­ing bog mats and bring­ing in machin­ery. This is in prepa­ra­tion for the peat removal from the area in order to begin lay­ing the pipe.

Peo­ple have been climb­ing up on the back of flat bed trail­ers and on top of var­i­ous trac­tors and trucks. One per­son was on top of a trac­tor for over an hour and a half before being forcibly removed and arrest­ed by the Gar­dai (police) who have been trav­el­ing in con­voy ‘pro­tect­ing’ the trac­tors all day.

Only 2 loads were suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­ered to the com­pound before mid­day. This after­noon has seen con­tin­u­ous dis­rup­tion of the deliv­er­ies, with peo­ple hid­ing along the road and jump­ing out/on the con­voy to force it to stop.

One local per­son suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the road by climb­ing up on top of a lor­ry direct­ly in front of the com­pound.

Its been anoth­er long and amaz­ing day. It is becom­ing clear that the Gar­daí are find­ing the inten­si­ty of the protests frus­trat­ing and that they seem reluc­tant to make arrests. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to keep this lev­el of polic­ing up but it is clear­ly exhaust­ing all of their resources.

This is a crit­i­cal time in the the cam­paign and to keep this kind of protests going we need more peo­ple! There is a mass Day of Action this Fri­day 29th July. If you can come up soon­er or stay for longer it would be great!

For more infor­ma­tion call 085 1141170 or check out www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org or rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.org

——

Mayo — Shell’s con­struc­tion stopped for fifth con­sec­u­tive day

– Cam­paign­ers blockad­ing heavy vehi­cles pre­vent con­struc­tion of Shell’s onshore pipeline — Press release from ear­li­er today — more details from today plus pho­tos to fol­low as soon as the folk involved catch their breath!

This morn­ing, 28th of July 2011, cam­paign­ers again suc­cess­ful­ly stopped the first haulage of the day from Shell’s refin­ery at Bal­linaboy to the pro­posed tun­nel­ing com­pound at Augh­oose, Erris. Co. Mayo. Two peo­ple climbed on top of the trac­tor car­ry­ing mate­ri­als for the con­struc­tion site at 7.05am. The cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly block­ing all fur­ther Shell trans­port for the fifth con­sec­u­tive work day since Shell attempt­ed to start peat removal on Fri­day the 22nd of July.

The first block­ade of the day last­ed for over two hours. At 9.45 a tri­pod block­ade was erect­ed on the same stretch of road, which is cur­rent­ly block­ing Shel­l’s haulage. Con­tin­u­ous block­ades can be expect­ed until 7pm this evening. Three arrests were made yes­ter­day. There have been no arrests so far today.

Local res­i­dent Bet­ty Schultz protest­ing this morn­ing at Bal­linaboy, said “Tomorrow’s Day of Action marks our con­tin­u­ing oppo­si­tion to the dis­rup­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty and the unique envi­ron­ment we live in. Now is the time to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty of Erris in their cam­paign. Ire­land can’t afford to give away its nat­ur­al resources.”

Peo­ple from around Ire­land are answer­ing this SOS call from Erris, and many are expect­ed to arrive this after­noon and this evening to be ready for a mass Day of Action tomor­row, Fri­day the 29th of July. In advance of the mass action tomor­row, local women gath­ered at the entrance to Bal­linaboy this morn­ing from 7am to show that Shell do not have the com­mu­ni­ty con­sent.

Gle­n­amoy res­i­dent Mary Horan at Bal­linaboy gates said “While in Ire­land we are clos­ing our hos­pi­tals due to lack of funds, Shell have today announced prof­its of 13 bil­lion euros. Shell’s prof­its announced this morn­ing are sick­en­ing to this com­mu­ni­ty whose health and safe­ty has been sac­ri­ficed for Shel­l’s share­hold­ers. Nei­ther Shell nor Enda Ken­ny can hide the injus­tice being done to Ire­land. We will be here until jus­tice is done.”

ENDS
–
www.shelltosea.com

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update 2011

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop.

If you can come down to help set up please do, we start on August the 5th, if you can stay a few days after the gath­er­ing to help bring it all do that’d also be grand.

Site phone num­ber 1 is 07551689365 or try num­ber 2 on 07866797016.

Here’s a detailed map

——————–

And here’s the work­shop sched­ule:

Wednes­day

11:30–1

Nation­al Bargee Trav­ellers Asso­ci­a­tion

Infor­ma­tion and dis­cus­sion ses­sion on the cur­rent strug­gle of trav­el­ling boat dwellers to keep their homes in the face of harass­ment and unlaw­ful enforce­ment by British Water­ways. Come along if you live on a boat, or if you want to know how you can help the boat­ing com­mu­ni­ty fight back!

Frack-Off! An intro­duc­tion to the threat of hydraulic frac­tur­ing.

Frack­ing is a night­mare! Tox­ic and radioac­tive water pol­lu­tion. Tap water you can set on fire. Run­away cli­mate change. To pro­duce expen­sive gas that will soon run out. So why are we doing it? This will be a detailed prac­ti­cal, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop aimed at bring­ing peo­ple up to speed on the issue, the specifics of which areas of the UK are direct­ly under threat and par­tic­u­lar­ly, where to find organ­ised resis­tance.

Squat Electrics

Deal­ing with our shit- Men against the Patri­archy. An open dis­cus­sion on the ways in which men can unlearn the arse­hole patri­ar­chal behav­iours they’ve picked up by being alive in this soci­ety, and rein­force with­in the rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ment.

2–4

Pop­u­lar Edu­ca­tion & Train­ing

Skill-share for Train­ers! Inter­est­ed in pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion & train­ing? Come learn & share pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion exer­cis­es & games designed for group par­tic­i­pa­tion and hor­i­zon­tal learn­ing. Find what col­lec­tives are work­ing in the UK (& beyond!) and the work they are doing.

Oh Fuck it’s the Apoc­a­lypse

work­ing on the basis that the col­lapse of indus­tri­al soci­ety is fair­ly immi­nent, and that we need to plan for it. To this end we’re look­ing at sus­tain­able liv­ing, per­ma­cul­ture, etc, with a sur­vival­ist angle; at ways to sur­vive a col­lapse and build a more sane soci­ety from the ruins; and dis­cussing how this analy­sis affects our oth­er activism and pri­or­i­ties. We’re a bit like Tran­si­tion Towns with an Edge and a Clue.

Using Radios- A begin­ners guide to using radios dur­ing actions.

Set­ting up a Tri­pod- Nev­er put up a tri­pod before, want a use one on an action. Here’s your chance to find out how.

4–6

Squatting,Direct Action and New Laws

Film: ‘Gasland’

When a doc­u­men­tary film-mak­er is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-coun­try odyssey uncov­er­ing a trail of secrets, lies and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. A recent­ly drilled near­by Penn­syl­va­nia town reports that res­i­dents are able to light their drink­ing water on fire. This is a US doc­u­men­tary, how­ev­er shale extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ is now head­ing to the UK.

Tin­kers Bub­ble

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Thurs­day

10–1130

Intro to Con­sen­sus

Con­sen­sus is wide­ly regard­ed as one of the most empow­er­ing and cre­ative ways of mak­ing deci­sions in a non-hier­ar­chi­cal group, but it isn’t always easy. This par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop pro­vides an intro­duc­tion or refresh­er to what it’s all about and how to make it work.

Rec­c­ing

Struc­tured and facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion to share skills and tips for suc­cess­ful rec­cies for action. Includ­ing a check-list of what to find out, inter­net and phone search­es, site vis­its, tricks and dis­guis­es for get­ting info, secu­ri­ty tips etc.

Intro to EF!

Lon­don Olympics

Resist­ing the Lon­don 2012 Olympics (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Counter Olympics Net­work)
What can we do to resist the Olympics in Lon­don next year? Peo­ple are aware of the prob­lems with the games — sur­veil­lance, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, pri­vati­sa­tion, job inse­cu­ri­ty etc and the ben­e­fits to cor­po­ra­tions. Come and dis­cuss these and how we can resist, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from peo­ple who have resist­ed oth­er Olympics.

How to plan a kick ass action:

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

1130–1300

Bank­ing & finance

Lock­ing on

Prac­ti­cal work­shop for learn­ing dif­fer­ent lock-on tech­niques for block­ades and oth­er actions. Arm-tubes, d‑locks, chains, hand­cuffs, super­glue and more!

20 years of EF! Look­ing for­ward

Fight Frack­ing

Shale gas extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ has been pol­lut­ing drink­ing water and the cli­mate in the US, where it has caused numer­ous health prob­lems. It’s been blamed for mini-earth­quakes in Black­pool and there are plans for projects across the UK, includ­ing in South Wales, Lan­cashire, Som­er­set, Kent, Sur­rey and Scot­land. Join an open dis­cus­sion & plan­ning ses­sion on how we can resist these projects.

Infil­tra­tion- Activist Trau­ma

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Deal­ing with Con­flict

An intro­duc­tion to under­stand­ing and deal­ing effec­tive­ly with dis­agree­ment and con­flict in our groups. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Intro to Anar­chy

Smash Edo

Anti-cuts and Against Aus­ter­i­ty

An open dis­cus­sion on how we’re cur­rent­ly work­ing against the cuts, what are we learn­ing about the sit­u­a­tion, what is prov­ing to be effec­tive, do we need to unlearn cer­tain behav­iours that have dom­i­nat­ed activist cir­cles in order to broad­en and con­nect the resis­tances cur­rent­ly occur­ring.

Men­tal Health

4pm- 6pm

Action Plan­ning for a kick ass action

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

Self-Defence for Paci­fists

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

Shell to Sea

Trou­ble Shoot­ing in meet­ings

A work­shop on trou­bleshoot­ing and improv­ing your meet­ings.

Pup­pet show

Per­for­mance and dis­cus­sion of a pup­pet show cel­e­brat­ing the his­to­ry of envi­ron­men­tal direct action in the UK.

——–

Fri­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Affin­i­ty groups

Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop explor­ing how and why work with oth­ers for action, includ­ing inspir­ing case stud­ies of suc­cess­ful autonomous actions.

Basic bike main­te­nance.

An infor­mal work­shop on brakes and gears, can also cov­er tru­ing wheels and look at oth­er repairs with no or few tools, by Bicy­col­o­gy.

Intro to EF!

Facil­i­tat­ing Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Work­shops

Have you got skills or infor­ma­tion you’d like to share? Or maybe you want to sup­port peo­ple to learn from each oth­er, or share expe­ri­ences? Devel­op skills, confidence& under­stand­ing to facil­i­tate fun, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry & dynam­ic work­shops.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty is a Weapon

1130–1pm

Intro to Direct Action

Direct action is about tak­ing things into our own hands instead of ask­ing the rich and pow­er­ful to do the right thing. Empow­er your­self to go out and make change hap­pen!

Intro to indus­tri­al Agri­cul­ture and GM

Anar­cho-Fem­i­nist

Black Fish

The Black Fish is a new­ly found­ed Euro­pean based con­ser­va­tion organ­i­sa­tion that takes action on the issues of whal­ing, indus­tri­al fish­ing and marine ani­mals in cap­tiv­i­ty. Using edu­ca­tion, inves­ti­ga­tion and non-vio­lent direct action, The Black Fish has set out on a mis­sion to change atti­tudes towards our pre­cious oceans and work to pro­tect the unique life with­in them.

2–4pm

Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance- A work­shop to explore how we can make our activism more sus­tain­able and effec­tive in the long term. Find­ing sources of per­son­al sup­port to help us stay inspired, nour­ished and cre­ative for the long haul and iden­ti­fy­ing how we can chal­lenge dam­ag­ing cul­tures of over­work and burnout in our activist groups.*

Doing Actions with­out get­ting caught

Prac­ti­cal work­shop cov­er­ing var­i­ous aspects of doing actions with­out get­ting caught, includ­ing get­ting to your tar­get with­out detec­tion both in the day and in the dark, foren­sics and dress sense, get­ting togeth­er mate­ri­als, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, get­ting away. Parts of the work­shop will involve phys­i­cal prac­tise, please wear suit­able clothes for crawl­ing through bush­es…

Women’s Self Defence

The lud­dites 200 year anniver­sary and tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics today

Cel­e­brat­ing the 200 Anniver­sary of the Lud­dite Upris­ings: Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­tics Then and Now (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum
In 1811-12 Arti­san cloth work­ers in the Mid­lands and North of Eng­land rose up against fac­to­ry own­ers who were impos­ing new machines and putting them out of work. Since the 1950s the Lud­dites have been paint­ed as fools opposed to all tech­nol­o­gy and progress, but in fact the Lud­dites were very selec­tive in their attacks, break­ing only machines they thought were ‘hurt­ful to Com­mon­al­i­ty’. What can the Lud­dites teach us about the ongo­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy to replace work­ers’ jobs, as well as issues like GM food and nuclear pow­er? Can we escape the myth that tech­nol­o­gy always brings progress?

Activist Trau­ma

4–6pm

Get­ting over Fences

Priv­i­lege and Oppres­sion

Pow­er and priv­i­lege play out con­tin­u­ous­ly in our group dynam­ics. This work­shop will explore the roles we each play as priv­i­leged and as oppressed in our move­ment and in wider soci­ety.

Dale Farm

this is the biggest unlaw­ful Trav­eller site in the UK. Res­i­dents own their land but have been repeat­ed­ly refused plan­ning
per­mis­sion and Basil­don Coun­cil have now gath­ered £18million in order to evict them. After years of fight­ing their evic­tion through the courts they have now been served their papers, and have until the 31st August to leave. this work­shop will out­line the his­to­ry of the cam­paign, dis­cuss plans for resist­ing the evic­tion and, if there is enough inter­est, organ­ise a work­ing par­ty to vis­it Dale Farm to help them pre­pare for evic­tion.

Coal Action Net­work

Intro to what’s hap­pened so far with CAN. Dis­cus­sions about what peo­ple would like from the network/website and where peo­ple think coal cam­paig­ing is going. How to get involved in CAN.

Tripods

Doing Actions with­out Get­ting caught part 2

We’ll be prac­tis­ing how to move in the dark with­out being spot­ted. Please wear dark clothes suit­able for crawl­ing through the bush­es and a torch if you can. Meet at 8.30 sharp at the gate tent. The prac­tise will fin­ish by 10pm.

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Sat­ur­day

10–1130

Facil­i­ta­tion

If you’ve nev­er facil­i­tat­ed a meet­ing before, or want to brush up your skills and gain con­fi­dence, this work­shop is for you.

Intro to EF!

Basic land nav­i­ga­tion

An intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion with map and a com­pass for total begin­ners or improvers. Please bring a com­pass if you have one . Also, an overview of very sim­ple route find­ing using the sun, stars and oth­er nat­ur­al signs.

Envi­ron­men­tal and Autonomous Edu­ca­tion for young peo­ple

A dis­cus­sion about var­i­ous alter­na­tive edu­ca­tion projects for young peo­ple, a space to share ideas, expe­ri­ences and rethink the ways in which we engage in these projects.

Coal Action Scot­land- What’s going on in the Val­leys at the moment and how can peo­ple get involved.

11.30am- 1.00pm

Build­ing Strong Groups- Share ideas and learn from oth­ers for mak­ing your group more acces­si­ble, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able.

Organ­is­ing the next win­ter moot and sum­mer gath­er­ing

Enjoyed this gath­er­ing? Thought this gath­er­ing was crap? Come along and start work­ing out how next years gath­er­ing could turn out.

Nutri­tion 101

May­day Indy­media

What is indy­media and how does it work? This work­shop, run by mem­bers of the col­lec­tive which looks after the indymedia.org.uk web­site, will attempt to answer your ques­tions about indy­media and will give you the infor­ma­tion you need to report your news effec­tive­ly on the uk site [and the local sites Birm­ing­ham, Sheffield and Oxford?], includ­ing writ­ing mid­dle col­umn fea­tures for the uk front page to give promi­nence to your cam­paigns and actions. Find out about the edi­to­r­i­al guide­lines and mod­er­a­tion, as well as how to raise queries and how to start up an indy­media col­lec­tive in your local area.

Rewil­d­ing

Facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Who Cares?

Open dis­cus­sion based around recent arti­cle pub­lished on Cease­fire enti­tled “Who Cares?” which talked about the fail­ures of the rad­i­cal move­ment with­in the UK to engage with child care in a way which relat­ed to anar­chist pol­i­tics.

Know your rights: Legal and arrest work­shop

Cov­ers basic law for activists and the arrest process. If you’ve
nev­er been nicked before or you want to brush up on your knowl­edge, this is for you. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Anti-Nuclear- Cam­paign update and info ses­sion

Using Radios

Sav­ing Ice­land and Samaren­dra Das: The Glob­al Crimes of the Alu­mini­um Car­tel

Behind the shin­ing image of alu­mini­um is a dark side of envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phes, the arms indus­try and cul­tur­al geno­cide. A joint pre­sen­ta­tion by Sav­ing Ice­land and Indi­an author/activist Samaren­dra Das. It will include cur­rent threats to the Ice­landic high­lands, one of Europe’s last great wilder­ness­es, the his­to­ry and future of the cam­paign and the fal­lac­i­es of hydro and geot­her­mal ener­gy. Samaren­dra Das will speak about the present strug­gle of Adi­va­sis against com­pa­nies such as Vedan­ta and the real facts behind the alu­mini­um indus­try.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Self-Defence

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

‘The True Cost of Coal’

The Bee­hive Design Col­lec­tive (part of the Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca Net­work) cre­ate portable murals of col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly pro­duced illus­tra­tions with an amaz­ing­ly engag­ing cen­tral nar­ra­tive. ‘The True Cost of Coal’ will take you on an inter­ac­tive visu­al tour of the con­nec­tions between Coal Min­ing, Cli­mate Change, the Ever Expand­ing Cap­i­tal­ist Econ­o­my, and the Strug­gle for Jus­tice in Appalachia, North Amer­i­ca and through­out the world.

GM Cam­paign- Cam­paign update and info share.

Com­mu­ni­ty Defence: Build­ing our own Exarchia’s

——–

Sun­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Region­al Meet­ings

Dsei

DSEi is the worlds largest Arms Fair, as many EFers know. This year it’s from Sep­tem­ber 13–18. It’s not sim­ply about the arms trade. It’s about pub­lic ser­vices “cuts”: the envi­ron­ment: bank­ing and investors: the con­flicts in the Mid­dle East and North Africa. Not to men­tion the bor­ders that stop peo­ple flee­ing con­flict There’s a call for a mass block­ade of the DLR on the Tues­day. Pre­vi­ous Days of Action- and oth­er days in the week ‑have includ­ed street par­ties, Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides, die-ins, mock sales of “arms”, legs and even a tank; splash­ing fake blood across the entrances, engag­ing with arms deal­ers on the trains and plat­forms, invad­ing the car park and rail entrance, block­ing the roads, lock­ing on to the trains, even swim­ming in the dock! And vis­it­ing the investors offices of course. And in ther run-up- your local arms fac­to­ry. Will be talk­ing about all this — Not to men­tion that vis­it to your local arms fac­to­ry!

11.30am- 1.00pm

Action Update

Gath­er­ings Col­lec­tive

Basic Plant I‑d

Dis­cus­sion about Veg­an­ism

Direct Action Train­ing

Come and get active in this inter­ac­tive and hope­ful­ly fun work­shop where we’ll be look­ing at some fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks for tak­ing non-vio­lent direct action to fight suf­fer­ing, and prac­tis­ing dif­fer­ent non-vio­lent ech­niques to hold occu­pa­tions, block­ade, break out of ket­tles, de-arrest peo­ple, and to deal with oth­er police tac­tics, like snatch squads, hors­es and dogs. We’ll also give lots of oth­er tips for deal­ing with pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions and for affin­i­ty group actions, includ­ing some key legal infor­ma­tion which you should know when you’re tak­ing action, and some tips about deal­ing with the media. And we’ll look at some of the val­ues and atti­tudes which are key to tak­ing NVDA, like non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing and con­sen­sus (and oth­ers). We’ll hope­ful­ly be able to adjust the work­shop to cov­er what you want, and to answer all your ques­tions.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Gath­er­ing Feed­back Show

——————–

Kids’ space and activ­i­ties

If you do not have a kid, we might still need your help, so read
on.……

The kids’ space is designed as a place where chil­dren and those car­ing for them can relax, play and eat. The space con­tains books, toys and craft mate­ri­als.

The kids’ space is NOT a creche and does­n’t have staff or facil­i­ties to care for chil­dren.

Par­ents and car­ers are respect­ful­ly remind­ed that they will need to col­lect chil­dren at meal times/breaks and that they much keep adults in the kids space informed of where they can be found; please also fill in the forms in the kids kitchen regard­ing food aller­gies etc.

If you do not have a child at the gath­er­ing, but would like to help in kids space, please talk to the col­lec­tive. Help with read­ing sto­ries, play­ing games, art and crafts always wel­come.

Kid’s kitchen

This pro­vides meals suit­able for and at appro­pri­ate times for chil­dren. Kids meal tick­ets cost £2 or £3 a day for 2 meals (the low­er rate is for tod­dlers); please buy these at the gate tent. This is the first time we have sold kids meal tick­ets and hope­ful­ly this will cov­er the cost of meals, but we may need to ask for help if this is not enough to cov­er our costs.

Even those with­out chil­dren can help by with cook­ing and wash­ing up in the kids space, please vol­un­teer if you can.

Games and activ­i­ties

Dur­ing the morn­ing (approx 10 am ‑noon) there will be activ­i­ties and work­shops for kids in one of the work­shop spaces.

In the after­noon (after lunch), there will be games in the top mead­ow for chil­dren and adults togeth­er. Again, any help with these very wel­come — just ask the collective/kids space crew.

——————–

Pub­lic Trans­port

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .

We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). !

Wheel­chair users intend­ing to use Diss sta­tion will need to book assis­tance with the train oper­a­tor. There are no lifts so sta­tion staff have to assist mobil­i­ty impaired cus­tomers across the track. Appar­ent­ly the sta­tion is not manned 24 hours a day and the gate for the cross­ing is kept locked — so do phone and book to be sure .We have been told the bus ser­vice includes some low-floor bus­es with easy access for pushchairs, peo­ple with mobil­i­ty impair­ments etc.

Hitch to Nor­wich or Diss; from Nor­wich hitch south on the A140 to Dick­le­burgh. It is then a 3 ‑4 mile walk or hitch to the site; on the Dick­le­burgh bypass (don’t go into Dick­le­burgh vil­lage) is a right turn to Shim­pling and Burston; fol­low this road through Burston vil­lage, past the vil­lage green and out of the vil­lage. There is a sharp left turn, then down a hill to a sharp right turn. Site is on the right just over a lit­tle brick bridge.

From Diss either walk or bus, or car­ry on up the A140 to the turn­ing on the Dick­le­burgh junc­tion as above (only this time the junc­tion is on the left).

[some even more detailed info includ­ing post-code, from pre­vi­ous year, at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html]

efsummergathering2011@riseup.net

No TAV: renewed violent clashes in the Susa Valley

On 22nd July peo­ple tried tak­ing the fences to the work-site down, and the police used water can­nons. Ten­sions have been mount­ing in pre­vi­ous days. Much tear gas has been used, stones thrown, with water can­nons also used to put out the fires set under the fences.

On 22nd July peo­ple tried tak­ing the fences to the work-site down, and the police used water can­nons. Ten­sions have been mount­ing in pre­vi­ous days. Much tear gas has been used, stones thrown, with water can­nons also used to put out the fires set under the fences.

Videos

More videos

The A‑Team — your guide to dif­fer­ent police forces in the Val de Susa.

23rd July 2011 — over 500 pro­test­ers lay siege to the works for four hours at night.

24th July — peo­ple tried to pull down the gate to the work site, fol­low­ing a ral­ly at which the moth­er of Car­lo Giu­liani (killed dur­ing protests against the G8 in Genoa 10 years ago) spoke.

The 4 activists arrest­ed on 3 July fol­low­ing the NO TAV protests in Chiomonte were all released the pre­vi­ous week. More info

Calais: “Welcome to Fortress Europe” action

Sat 23rd July 2011

This after­noon over a dozen No Bor­ders activists blocked both vehi­cle entrances into the City Europe com­pound, stop­ping shop­pers and screen­ing those try­ing to enter with rules almost as arbi­trary as those used at real bor­ders… check­ing the colour of their cars, stop­ping peo­ple wear­ing hats or glass­es or with too many peo­ple in the car, see­ing as Fortress Europe was get­ting full.

Sat 23rd July 2011

This after­noon over a dozen No Bor­ders activists blocked both vehi­cle entrances into the City Europe com­pound, stop­ping shop­pers and screen­ing those try­ing to enter with rules almost as arbi­trary as those used at real bor­ders… check­ing the colour of their cars, stop­ping peo­ple wear­ing hats or glass­es or with too many peo­ple in the car, see­ing as Fortress Europe was get­ting full.

While peo­ple shout­ed ‘con­trôl fron­tière ici’ vehi­cles refused entry were direct­ed to Coquelles deten­tion cen­tre on the street oppo­site. After only sev­er­al min­utes some peo­ple try­ing to enter became very irate at the incon­ve­nience this mock bor­der con­trol was caus­ing to their after­noon shop­ping. How­ev­er many peo­ple were recep­tive to the demon­stra­tion and its pur­pose and lots of leaflets explain­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Calais were dis­trib­uted, with peo­ple tak­ing on board the point of the action.

Secu­ri­ty and police arrived soon after and removed the bar­ri­er at one gate. Activists in high-vis­i­bil­i­ty jack­ets con­tin­ued to con­trol and direct traf­fic for half an hour before being forced into the car park.

This fake ‘con­trol zone’ demon­stra­tion mim­ics the farce of ID and bor­der con­trols that seg­re­gate and per­se­cute peo­ple because of their race, nation­al­i­ty and income.

Refugees here are being sub­ject­ed to poli­cies aimed at dri­ving them under­ground and mak­ing them invis­i­ble. This nor­mal­iza­tion of state vio­lence has been put in place by British and French gov­ern­ments. These peo­ple have often been dis­placed by the poli­cies of these gov­ern­ments and are liv­ing not just the pain of the loss of the lives they left behind and the fear and uncer­tain­ty for their futures.

Unlike a demon­stra­tion pre­vent­ing peo­ple from enter­ing a shop­ping com­plex, the Euro­pean pol­i­cy of bor­der clo­sure is deny­ing peo­ple the chance to escape dan­ger and mis­ery. Dur­ing the last months an esti­mat­ed two thou­sand refugees flee­ing the war in Libya have drowned in the Mediter­ranean and rather than send­ing res­cue boats, Fron­tex the Euro­pean bor­der force, has sent boats to push refugees packed into boats back to the Libyan coast.

In Calais over the last few weeks there has been a step up in the offen­sive against migrants start­ing with the evic­tion of Africa House – the shel­ter and home of around 100 peo­ple with and with­out papers – with mass evic­tions and the destruc­tion of peo­ples homes and per­son­al belong­ings.

After force­ful­ly mak­ing peo­ple home­less, every place peo­ple move to, to eat, rest or sleep, has been sub­ject to mass raids and con­stant harass­ment, leav­ing peo­ple with lit­er­al­ly nowhere left to go.

No Bor­ders denounce the com­pli­ance of the police and the munic­i­pal ser­vices with such bar­bar­ic orders and denounce the com­plic­i­ty of those who wit­ness this and yet remain unques­tion­ing­ly silent. We are all human. We must chal­lenge the hypocrisy and seg­re­ga­tion that bor­der con­trols cre­ate.

No bor­ders, no nations, stop depor­ta­tions.

ITALY : Repression against NO TAV movement & No TAV press conference

4 july 2011

4 july 2011
After a crowd­ed torch­light march on the night between June 26th and 27th, the Free Repub­lic of the Mad­dale­na in Pied­mont was bru­tal­ly assault­ed by a full-scale mil­i­tary oper­a­tion per­formed by around 2000 forces that turned the place into a bat­tle site : tear­gas thrown at eye lev­el, bull­doz­ers and heavy vehi­cles used to evict the camp, water jets against pro­test­ers, beat­ings, tents and equip­ment smashed up. In the near­by town of Venar­ia, a riot police vehi­cle on its way to the site ran over and killed “by mis­take” an elder­ly woman. Demon­stra­tions, pick­ets and sev­er­al oth­er ini­tia­tives were organ­ised all over Italy to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the NO TAV move­ment that for years has been fight­ing against the con­struc­tion of a high speed train line between Turin and Lyon in France. A nation­al demo was called out for today 3rd July, and it’s still going on as I’m writ­ing this. It’s about 8.40pm and it’s dif­fi­cult to have a clear idea of what’s been hap­pen­ing at the Mad­dale­na today, but what is clear is that there have been hun­dreds of peo­ple injured on both sides (but it’s only one side that I care about). Police have been using rub­ber bul­lets and at least one young man is seri­ous­ly injured after being shot in the face. Pro­test­ers have com­pared the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion to the repres­sion in Palestine…check out some of the videos to make your mind up : video 1, video 2,video 3 (and more on the same web­site).

The Val di Susa (Susa Val­ley) has been one of the most impor­tant polit­i­cal cam­paigns of the last few years, organ­is­ing resis­tance and fight­ing to pro­tect the local ter­ri­to­ry and the locals’ health, that gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies would like to sac­ri­fice once more in the name of prof­it. The TAV project (where TAV stands for High Speed Train) is basi­cal­ly a trans­fer of pub­lic mon­ey to a group of pri­vate com­pa­nies unit­ed under the name Impregi­lo – mul­ti­mil­lion­aire com­pa­nies such as FIAT, Benet­ton and oth­ers. After con­struc­tion, these com­pa­nies would be allowed to set up and run their own pri­vate rail ser­vice in com­pe­ti­tion with the State Rail­ways (just in case they didn’t make enough mon­ey already). Despite not being fin­ished yet, the busi­ness enter­prise has already earned its con­trac­tors (all of which are mil­lion­aire busi­ness­men) a very high income.

Sources for this arti­cle : Indy­media Pied­mont and the new Italy Indy­media site. Cool post­card images also found on Indy­media sites – thank you unknown artists !

https://madrid.indymedia.org/node/17884

http://italycalling.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/brief-history-of-the-no-tav-movement/

————–
NO TAV press con­fer­ence – “This is the people’s resis­tance”

In the midst of the riot porn that can be found on the inter­net about the NO TAV protests of Sun­day 3 July – and that I’m not going to post here because a) you can find it any­where and b) you can have too much of it – I’ve found a sto­ry that I think is much more impor­tant. On the Mon­day after the protests, the NO TAV net­work held a press con­fer­ence in Chiomonte. So what?, you might ask. Well, it could’ve been a dis­as­ter. In 2001, after the fero­cious state vio­lence of the G8 sum­mit in Genoa, the Genoa Social Forum made the big mis­take of retreat­ing: instead of stay­ing unit­ed, some groups left the alliance, oth­ers stayed but dis­tanced them­selves from the “bad pro­test­ers” (name­ly the Black Block) and blamed them for the vio­lent reac­tion of the police. The State, the police and the media had won their war: they had want­ed to tear the move­ment apart and they suc­ceed­ed. So, you can imag­ine what a joy it was for me to read the NO TAV net­work state­ments:

“It wasn’t the Black Block, it was just peo­ple, and the major­i­ty of them locals. We came pre­pared with hel­mets and masks after what hap­pened on the 27th June (see my pre­vi­ous arti­cle), but we came with bare hands. After the police start­ed attack­ing us with tear­gas, stones and water jets, we defend­ed our­selves in any way we could. We couldn’t do any­thing else”, declared Mau­r­izio Pic­cione, who opened the con­fer­ence. Anoth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive said “Pop­u­lar resis­tance is our way of doing things. The only accu­sa­tion we will agree with is that we resist­ed against a sit­u­a­tion that wasn’t cre­at­ed by us. The Black Block is being used as a scape­goat, because peo­ple can’t accept the fact that a whole val­ley wants to resist. We must thank the Val­susa res­i­dents for resist­ing, and we’re proud of this”.

The peo­ple’s Resis­tance in the Susa Val­ley

Despite it being a press con­fer­ence, the mar­quee was crowd­ed with about 50 peo­ple, not just rep­re­sen­ta­tives and del­e­gates of the dif­fer­ent groups, but also peo­ple who want­ed to tell their ver­sion of the sto­ry. When a jour­nal­ist of the right wing paper Sec­o­lo XIX asked about the Black Block, a per­son just replied “I was there and I’m not the Black Block”. The jour­nal­ist was chal­lenged and final­ly left the con­fer­ence. Oth­er jour­nal­ists left “in sol­i­dar­i­ty” with their col­league. Gone for­ev­er are those times when jour­nal­ists in Italy (or any oth­er coun­try) would lit­er­al­ly risk their lives to speak The Truth. Now they just mouth the words of those who stuff their mouths with gold.

The Catholic groups in the No TAV alliance crit­i­cised Susa’s local bish­op for clos­ing down the cathe­dral and obey­ing the prefect’s order of keep­ing the priests under him qui­et. A local wine farmer described his by-now dai­ly expe­ri­ence of hav­ing to trav­el into the mil­i­tarised ter­ri­to­ry to get to his vines. Every­one was unit­ed in their rage and out­rage at the lies per­pe­trat­ed by the media, and expressed sol­i­dar­i­ty and sym­pa­thy with the pro­test­ers injured and arrest­ed. At the moment there are 4 peo­ple still in prison – they were going to know today if their arrests would be con­firmed or not, but the meet­ing has been post­poned, so they’re still in. To send them cards and let­ters:

Mar­ta Bifani / Rober­to Nadali­ni / Sal­va­tore Soru / Gian­car­lo Fer­rari
Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale Lorus­so Cutug­no
Via Pianez­za 300
10151 Tori­no
Italy

Looks like there’ll be a protest camp at the end of July and an inter­na­tion­al one in August, so…stay tuned!

Arti­cle based on this text - if you under­stand Ital­ian you can watch some videos of the press con­fer­ence. This is a good web­site in gen­er­al, and it’s got a page with Eng­lish trans­la­tions, so take a look!

Translated by Italy Calling

Latest Action Update

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Blockad­ing coal in Bangladesh, cop­per min­ing in Peru, Ital­ian eco­tage against incin­er­a­tion, Greek fire­bombs oppos­ing land­fill, pro-rick­shaw car-smash­ing in India, actions and camp­ing to pro­tect the Tas­man­ian forests, and anti-min­ing trash­ing of many things in Indonesia…just a taste from around the world of how peo­ple cam­paign to stop the destruc­tion of the earth and it’s inhab­i­tants.

More news from the front lines: trav­ellers dig­ging in, mobile phone mast torch­ing, a first time hunt sabber’s diary, the lat­est from the GM ‘anti-lob­by’, and track­ing new devel­op­ments — UK frack­ing, FFS!

Plus with the lat­est advice from AUn­tie Miffy, con­tacts and dates to get you in the mood for Cap­tain Swing, down­load, dis­trib­ute, sub­scribe and get out there, and stuck in.

earthfirst.org.uk/efau
[- to sub­scribe & get the EF!AU as soon as it’s pro­duced, rather than when we put it up here!]

Brutal dawn attack on anti-TAV protest camp, Italy

27/06/2011
At 5am this morn­ing, 2,000 police stormed the protest camps in Val di Susa, north­ern Italy, to try to start work on the High Veloc­i­ty Rail­way (TAV).

27/06/2011
At 5am this morn­ing, 2,000 police stormed the protest camps in Val di Susa, north­ern Italy, to try to start work on the High Veloc­i­ty Rail­way (TAV).

They went in using force and vast amounts of tear gas. Some of the ’No TAV’ pro­test­ers have been injured and their vehi­cles and camp­ing gear smashed up.

The peo­ple in the area have surged onto the roads and the motor­ways are blocked with lor­ries. Work­ers have been com­ing out of their fac­to­ries to join the pro­test­ers and defend them against the police attack. The met­al-mechan­ics’ union, Fiom, has declared an imme­di­ate 8 hour strike in the area in protest and sol­i­dar­i­ty.

…

Near­ly 30 peo­ple were injured on Mon­day when police clashed with demon­stra­tors protest­ing against a planned high-speed rail line run­ning through a scenic val­ley in north­ern Italy, police said.

The clash­es occurred as con­struc­tion work­ers pre­pared to begin work on bor­ing a tun­nel for the line in the Susa Val­ley near Turin.

Police in Turin said 25 offi­cers were injured includ­ing four who were hos­pi­talised, while the four injured demon­stra­tors were treat­ed on site.

Around 2,000 demon­stra­tors took part in the torch­lit pro­ces­sion through the val­ley on Sun­day night.

“A group of oppo­nents began attack­ing the police in a pret­ty vio­lent way around 7:00 am, and the police respond­ed by charg­ing them,” said Mario Vira­no, the gov­ern­ment offi­cial in charge of con­struc­tion of the Lyon-Turin train line.

He described the sit­u­a­tion on the ground as “dif­fi­cult”.

Oppo­nents of the line had already placed obsta­cles on the roads lead­ing to the site and set up sev­er­al camps with the aim of block­ing work on the project, said Vira­no.

Police fired tear­gas to dis­perse the demon­stra­tors and demol­ished the bar­ri­cades with heavy mech­a­nised shov­els, accord­ing to demon­stra­tors and tele­vi­sion footage.

Leader of the demon­stra­tors Alber­to Peri­no said gov­ern­ment gained the upper hand fol­low­ing Mon­day’s scuf­fle.

“We have lost a bat­tle but we haven’t lost the war,” he said.

Work has to start before the end of June if the project is to ben­e­fit from a tranche of Euro­pean sub­ven­tions for the rail link.

Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Rober­to Maroni pledged Sun­day that work on the project would go ahead “before June 30”.

“The project will hap­pen. If that was­n’t the case, we would be say­ing good­bye to hun­dreds of mil­lions in Euro­pean sub­ven­tions, but par­tic­u­lar­ly to con­nec­tions with Europe, and also we would be say­ing good­bye to the future,” he warned.

France and Italy signed a deal in 2001 on build­ing a high-speed line to slash trav­el time between Milan and Paris from sev­en hours to four, and form a strate­gic link in the Euro­pean net­work.

The cost has been esti­mat­ed at 15 bil­lion euros (21 bil­lion dol­lars). But res­i­dents of the Susa Val­ley have fierce­ly opposed the plan, say­ing the con­struc­tion of tun­nels would dam­age the envi­ron­ment.

.…

Back­ground — http://www.ambientevalsusa.it/main_english.htm

Nine police injured in Stuttgart 21 clash

21 June 2011

Nine police were injured after clash­es on Mon­day night between police and anti-Stuttgart 21 pro­test­ers who had stormed the con­tro­ver­sial rail project, author­i­ties announced.

21 June 2011

Nine police were injured after clash­es on Mon­day night between police and anti-Stuttgart 21 pro­test­ers who had stormed the con­tro­ver­sial rail project, author­i­ties announced.

Eight offi­cers suf­fered blast injuries when “TNT-bangers” – home­made fire­crack­ers – were det­o­nat­ed near a police cor­don. A ninth offi­cer suf­fered unspec­i­fied injuries while try­ing to con­trol the protests. Sev­er­al demon­stra­tors were arrest­ed.

The site itself had “con­sid­er­able dam­age,” after the attack, accord­ing to a police spokesman. The pro­test­ers had torn down a fence, let the air out of con­struc­tion vehi­cle tyres and cov­ered them with anti-Stuttgart-21 stick­ers, among oth­er actions.

Around 400 pro­test­ers had gath­ered at the site Mon­day night, although they dis­persed in the ear­ly hours. A group of pro­test­ers lat­er attempt­ed to block the entrance to the con­struc­tion site but they left when ordered to do so by police.

It wasn’t imme­di­ate­ly clear how many peo­ple had attacked the offi­cers although police said sev­er­al pro­test­ers had been arrest­ed.

The inci­dent fol­lowed a day of peace­ful demon­stra­tions, dur­ing which around 3,000 peo­ple ral­lied against the project.

Politi­cians called on pro­test­ers to refrain from vio­lence.

“Vio­lence will not hurt Stuttgart 21, but the protests against it,” said Win­fried Her­mann, the min­is­ter for trans­port in the state of Baden-Würt­tem­berg.

Stuttgart 21 con­sists of a mas­sive con­struc­tion effort, involv­ing rebuild­ing the city’s main train sta­tion under­ground and turn­ing it around 90 degrees, as well as lay­ing 57 kilo­me­tres of new tracks. The aim is to make the city a major Euro­pean rail hub.

But oppo­nents mount­ed mas­sive protests against the project last year, call­ing it too expen­sive and unnec­es­sary. In Octo­ber, more than 100 demon­stra­tors were injured in a vio­lent clash with police.

The demon­stra­tion was fol­lowed by lengthy talks between state offi­cials, nation­al rail provider Deutsche Bahn and Stuttgart 21 oppo­nents. But offi­cials ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to go ahead with the project after mak­ing a few minor changes to plans.

Some believed the state’s new left-lean­ing gov­ern­ment would more strong­ly chal­lenge the project because the Greens opposed it before the the elec­tion, but they have so far failed to do so.

But state lead­ers have promised cit­i­zens will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote on the future of the project, prob­a­bly in the autumn.

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