Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

3rd, 4th and 5th of july amsterdam cyclist declare a war on cars

When the wars on cars begin we’ll have: crit­i­cal mass­es, alley cat races, tall bike joust­ings, bike wars, bike polo, road block­ades, work­shops, info­s­tands, food not bombs, par­ties and a lot of fun! Bike action days, this sum­mer in ams­ter­dam.

Man­i­festo

Bike powerWhen the wars on cars begin we’ll have: crit­i­cal mass­es, alley cat races, tall bike joust­ings, bike wars, bike polo, road block­ades, work­shops, info­s­tands, food not bombs, par­ties and a lot of fun! Bike action days, this sum­mer in ams­ter­dam.

Man­i­festo

In the week­end of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this week­end there will be a bike fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam. On dif­fer­ent loca­tions events, work­shops, info stands, fun & games, par­ties, and direct actions to block and frus­trate the traf­fic will be held. Cars lead to pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, deaths and injuries. They are a nui­sance, and are dom­i­nat­ing the pub­lic space.Where the pub­lic space is not designed to facil­i­tate the ever con­sum­ing shop­ping fren­zy and indus­try it is designed to please fos­sil-fuel-traf­fic.

Since there is so lit­tle time left to pre­vent cli­mate change to turn into cat­a­stroph­ic dis­as­ter we con­sid­er it irre­spon­si­ble to invest in any type of fos­sil fuels. To give way to the same cor­rupt­ed indus­tries that got us in this mess in the first place is redicu­lous. Still the gov­ern­ment is con­struct­ing more roads and high­ways, more lanes on exist­ing high­ways, and invest­ing in more indus­try and world trade. Even ‘Agro-fuels’ are not going to save the world. On the con­trairy they will starve most of the world’s pop­u­la­tion. The oil-age is at its end and west­ern soci­ety is clasp­ing on to its unfair­ly acquired con­cen­tra­tion of wealth and lux­u­ry. Now not only dev­as­tat­ing life else­where on this plan­et but with cli­mate change also mak­ing sure that in the future of the whole earth will not be so pleas­ant and bio-divers.

We are not going to take it any­more! When the war on cars begins we will send out a mes­sage to car users that they do not have ulti­mate pri­or­i­ty in pub­lic space any­more, that cars are out­dat­ed tech­nol­o­gy since oil will not be afford­able for ever and that we demand a healthy earth for the next gen­er­a­tions. We will tem­porar­i­ly reclaim some pub­lic space for games and fun, pro­mot­ing bikes and demand­ing more space and facil­i­ties for bikes, and for inform­ing peo­ple about alter­na­tives to an oil-based soci­ety.

Through­out the week­end there will be an ´alley-cat´-race, a car­ri­er bike (bak­fi­ets) race, tall bike joust­ing and bike wars. To enter an event send an email of your team name and which event to enter to or just show up with your (carrier)bike, tall bike or war­bike. Also a lot of help is need­ed in orga­niz­ing, and mobi­liz­ing. Espe­cial­ly out­side Ams­ter­dam and Hol­land! So get in touch, inform your sur­round­ings, get involved, get active!

bikesnotcars@gmail.com
http://bikesnotcars.wordpress.com

Anti-Shell actions at Rossport, Eire

2nd June 2009

Ross­port: Cause­way at Shell com­pound ‘washed away’ by Shell to Sea action

2nd June 2009
Removing Shell's causeway at Glengad
Ross­port: Cause­way at Shell com­pound ‘washed away’ by Shell to Sea action

Part of the Shell cause­way extend­ing into the sea at Glen­gad was yes­ter­day evening removed by Shell to Sea pro­test­ers. This was in protest at the ille­gal block­ing of access to the pub­lic beach and to oppose the forc­ing of this unsafe project on the local com­mu­ni­ty and the give­away of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources.

A group of about 30–40 peo­ple wad­ed into the sea to gain access to the cause­way, and pro­ceed­ed to remove a large amount of the stone which makes it up. They were con­front­ed by a 70 Shell secu­ri­ty after about half an hour of the action, at which point the peo­ple left. An upbeat and play­ful mood pre­vailed over a beau­ti­ful evening.

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has again tak­en up res­i­dence in Glen­gad, and after a very suc­cess­ful week­end, includ­ing a num­ber of actions, will build up the resis­tance to Shell over the com­ing weeks and months.

—-
Anti-Shell inflatable protest
Mon­day the 1st of June saw the arrival of a mul­ti­tude of assort­ed ves­sels to Broad­haven bay. The boats, which are sub­con­tract­ed by The Roy­al Dutch Shell com­pa­ny (Shell), are attempt­ing to pre­pare for works on the con­tro­ver­sial Cor­rib gas project.

Today how­ev­er, their progress has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly impaired by res­i­dent Shell to Sea activists that had already gath­ered a small, albeit for­mi­da­ble, fleet of kayaks, ready to deploy with­in short notice. The Kayaks were birthed from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, which direct­ly over­looks the vicin­i­ty that the Shell boats have been oper­at­ing in the past twen­ty-four hours.

Cur­rent­ly there are diverse assort­ments of ves­sels con­verg­ing in the once pris­tine bay; the major­i­ty of these are either car­ry­ing out, or assist­ing, dredg­ing and sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions. An Gar­da Siochana, have also been sight­ed patrolling the work zone, along with two black ribs; The Lau­ra Emi­ly accom­pa­nied by its twin the Gall­tee, which are both brim­ming with men dressed in black mil­i­tary fatigues.

Works, tak­ing place ear­li­er this after­noon, came grind­ing to a com­plete halt when twelve activists in kayaks broke through the secu­ri­ty line that con­sist­ed of nine high speed secu­ri­ty boats. The activists man­aged to tact­ful­ly cir­cum­nav­i­gate secu­ri­ty boats for approx­i­mate­ly two and a half hours, which effec­tive­ly halt­ed Shell dredg­ing works for a con­sid­er­able peri­od of time.

After numer­ous attempts by Gar­dai to secure an arrest, they even­tu­al­ly man­aged to drag one man from his inflat­able Kayak. The man, in his fifties, is report­ed to have been halt­ing a dredger con­vey­ing silt into a barge, and thus stop­ping after­noon work.

This cur­rent work being car­ried out by Shell is like­ly to sig­ni­fy the imped­ing arrival of the Soli­taire; at over 400 meters long the Soli­taire is the largest pipe lay­ing ves­sel in the world, and its expect­ed pres­ence in Co. Mayo will undoubt­ed­ly pro­voke for­mi­da­ble resis­tance.

At this point in the project, all dredg­ing works car­ried out in Ross­port are like­ly to be held as sacro­sanct by Shell’s board of direc­tors, and con­verse­ly seen as detri­men­tal by the Irish pub­lic.

Shell compound breached in Glengad during RSC gathering

May 31, 2009
This after­noon at 5pm, over 200 peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Sum­mer Gath­er­ing attempt­ed to dis­man­tle Shel­l’s ille­gal com­pound at Glen­gad.

Trying to breach Shell compound at GlengadMay 31, 2009
This after­noon at 5pm, over 200 peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Sum­mer Gath­er­ing attempt­ed to dis­man­tle Shel­l’s ille­gal com­pound at Glen­gad.

After a day of direct action train­ing, local peo­ple and their sup­port­ers walked to the south side of the com­pound where they attempt­ed to breach the fence in two places. They were met by strong oppo­si­tion from over six­ty Gar­dai, includ­ing many from the Pub­lic Order Unit.

At least five peo­ple who scaled the fence into the com­pound were held by secu­ri­ty guards and lat­er arrest­ed.

Lat­er in the after­noon, as the crowd were leav­ing, a fur­ther arrest was made when the Gar­dai tar­get­ed a promi­nent cam­paign­er and forcibly detained him for speak­ing out against the actions of the Gar­dai.

Today’s action comes the day after Mau­ra Har­ring­ton was released after 13 days in Mount Joy prison, Dublin for non-pay­ment of fines, includ­ing a one thou­sand euro con­tri­bu­tion to the Gar­da Benev­o­lent Fund.

Around 200 peo­ple are attend­ing the RSC sum­mer gath­er­ing. It’s a beau­ti­ful­ly sun­ny week­end and preper­a­tions are now well under way for anoth­er sum­mer of action against Shell in Mayo, on land and sea. Come and be part of it!

71 arrested in Copenhagen resisting the World Business Summit on Climate Change

24th May 2009

Our Climate - Not Your BusinessApproaching climate business summit24th May 2009
Pro­test­ers clashed with police in Copen­hagen today while attempt­ing to dis­rupt the World Busi­ness Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change, a gath­er­ing of the worlds largest cor­po­ra­tions and, not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, biggest pol­luters. Orga­nized by the Dan­ish gov­ern­ment, the Busi­ness Sum­mit gave cor­po­rate inter­ests unprece­dent­ed access to the ongo­ing UN cli­mate talks, includ­ing face time with UN Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ban Ki-moon and so called cli­mate “hero” Al Gore.

The group of pro­tes­tors, lead by a ban­ner read­ing “Our Cli­mate is not Your Busi­ness” attempt­ed to breach police lines in order to dis­rupt the meet­ing. The live­ly group of activists want­ed high­t­light the dam­ag­ing and dis­rup­tive role that cor­po­ra­tions play in the inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks. The list of cor­po­ra­tions attend­ing includ­ed #1 car­bon emit­ter in the world Shell Oil, Duke Ener­gy (#12 at last count), and BP among oth­er cli­mate crim­i­nals.

“The Dan­ish gov­ern­ment appears to be under the impres­sion that some of the world’s most pol­lut­ing com­pa­nies are going to put for­ward tough mea­sures to tack­le cli­mate change,” said Ken­neth Haar, a researcher with Cor­po­rate Europe Obser­va­to­ry. “But unfor­tu­nate­ly this doesn’t seem like­ly to be the case. The major­i­ty of the cor­po­ra­tions attend­ing the World Busi­ness Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change seem more intent on pur­su­ing busi­ness as usu­al – with the promise that future tech­nolo­gies will resolve the prob­lem at a lat­er date.

“Cor­po­rate lob­by­ists have been try­ing to influ­ence the UN cli­mate talks from the start. But now they are being invit­ed to set the agen­da before the nego­tia­tors have even sat down. If their demands are lis­tened to, we might as well give up the fight against cli­mate change now.”

The WBSCC draws into ques­tion the legit­i­ma­cy of the UN cli­mate talks. How can we trust a process that opens the door to the very cor­po­ra­tions that cre­at­ed the cli­mate cri­sis, while shut­ting out the worlds poor, indige­nous, and land based

peo­ples who are least respon­si­ble for cli­mate change, yet will bare the brunt of its impacts?

To get involved with the resis­tance to cor­po­rate con­trol over the talks check out:

www.klimakollektiv.dk

Calais No Border Camp Call-Out 23–29 June 2009

The Calais No Bor­der camp is a joint ven­ture between French and Bel­gian activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

Calais No Borders campThe Calais No Bor­der camp is a joint ven­ture between French and Bel­gian activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

It aims to high­light the real­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion in Calais and North­ern France; to build links with the migrant com­mu­ni­ties; to help build links between migrants sup­port groups; and last­ly, but not least, to chal­lenge the author­i­ties on the ground, to protest against increased repres­sion of migrants and local activists alike.

This camp calls for the free­dom of move­ment for all, an end to bor­ders and to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tems of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens, into the doc­u­ment­ed and the undoc­u­ment­ed.

Why Calais?

We have cho­sen Calais for two main rea­sons; it is an impor­tant loca­tion in the his­to­ry, devel­op­ment and prac­tice of Euro­pean migra­tion con­trols and has long been a major bot­tle­neck for those seek­ing to get to Britain. But more impor­tant­ly, it is also a focus of the strug­gle between those who would see an end to all migra­tion into the EU, and those try­ing to break down the bar­ri­ers between peo­ples, the bor­ders that pre­vent the free­dom of move­ment for all, not just the priv­i­leged few.

Since the mid-nineties tens of thou­sands have lived in des­ti­tu­tion, sleep­ing rough in Calais, wait­ing for their chance to cross the chan­nel to Eng­land. Between 1999 and 2002 the Red Cross ran a cen­tre at neigh­bour­ing San­gat­te but this was forced to close after polit­i­cal pres­sure from France and Britain. Since then, the mas­sive police pres­ence and repres­sion in Calais has forced thou­sands of men woman and chil­dren to wan­der the Calais region and all along the North coast of France, Bel­gium and Hol­land. They are rou­tine­ly bru­talised by the police; tear-gassed, beat­en, arrest­ed and repeat­ed­ly interned at the near­by Coquelles deten­tion cen­tre. The police reg­u­lar­ly burn their shel­ters and the few mea­gre pos­ses­sions that they con­tain. The local groups that sup­port the migrants by pro­vid­ing food and oth­er human­i­tar­i­an aid are com­ing under increas­ing attack from the police and a num­ber of activists have been arrest­ed in recent months. Mean­while British Immi­gra­tion Min­is­ter Phil Woolas has been call­ing for the con­struc­tion of a per­ma­nent holding/detention cen­tre for migrants in Calais docks.

The Big­ger Pic­ture

Calais how­ev­er remains only one small part of the over­all pic­ture of Euro­pean migra­tion con­trols, a major inter­nal bor­der with­in the hi-tech EU bor­ders regime. Since the begin­ning of the decade, the EU been attempt­ing to build ‘Fortress Europe’; exter­nal­is­ing EU bor­ders into Africa and Asia with EU bor­der guards patrolling the Mediter­ranean, in Libya and off the West Coast of Africa cour­tesy of the Fron­tex bor­ders agency; and via the Euro­pean Neigh­bour­hood Pol­i­cy, where coun­tries from the Ukraine all the way round the Mediter­ranean to Moroc­co are now paid by the EU to do its migra­tion pre­ven­tion work for it.

Migrants’ Rights Are Work­ers’ Rights

Through this sys­tem of bor­der con­trols, author­i­ties cre­ate two kinds of migrants: a small num­ber of ‘skilled’ migrants, who are des­ig­nat­ed as ‘use­ful’ to the state; and a mas­sive num­ber of undoc­u­ment­ed work­ers who have no rights and are there­fore exploitable as cheap labour. Thus is our fight for free­dom of move­ment also a fight for the rights of all work­ers.

Transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty works!

Build­ing links and work­ing togeth­er allows us to share infor­ma­tion between us on a transna­tion­al lev­el. It also allows us to exploit the fault-lines and cracks in Fortress Europe. Last Novem­ber, transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty helped to pre­vent the planned depor­ta­tion of Afghans from Calais to Kab­ul.

Cam­paign­ing Against Bor­ders

This camp will con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of the No Bor­der camps across the world since the late 1990s and, like the camp tak­ing place this year in Lesvos in August, it will be a space to share infor­ma­tion, skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ences; a place to plan and take action togeth­er against the sys­tem of bor­ders which divides us all. For cen­turies Euro­pean impe­r­i­al pow­ers have exploit­ed the land, resources and peo­ple of the major­i­ty world to become wealthy and pow­er­ful, leav­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and mas­sive inequal­i­ty in their wake. Those who attempt the jour­ney to the UK or else­where in Europe are chal­leng­ing this injus­tice by their move­ment. The sit­u­a­tion in Calais is a result of the com­pro­mise and con­flict of inter­est between French and UK immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy and we call on groups, net­works and indi­vid­u­als here to take action across Europe and to become part of a glob­al move­ment of sol­i­dar­i­ty that defends their right to choose where they move .

Equal rights for all !!

*No One Is Ille­gal. Free­dom Of Move­ment And The Right To Stay For All*

http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/

http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

Saving Iceland Summer Mobilisation 2009!

Join us from 18th July to resist the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness and take direct action against heavy indus­try!

The Strug­gle So Far

Join us from 18th July to resist the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness and take direct action against heavy indus­try!

The Strug­gle So Far

The cam­paign to defend Europe’s great­est remain­ing wilder­ness con­tin­ues. For the past four years direct action camps in Ice­land dur­ing the sum­mer have tar­get­ed alu­mini­um smelters, mega-dams and geot­her­mal pow­er plants.

After the ter­ri­ble destruc­tion caused at Kárah­n­júkar and Hengill, it is time to crush the ‘mas­ter plan’ that would have seen every sin­gle major glacial riv­er dammed, every sub­stan­tial geot­her­mal field exploit­ed and the con­struc­tion of alu­mini­um smelters, oil refiner­ies and sil­i­con fac­to­ries, as well as a sig­nif­i­cant increase in Iceland’s green­house gas emis­sions.

The Sit­u­a­tion Now

Despite opti­mism fol­low­ing the ‘cut­lery rev­o­lu­tion’ where mass street protests and direct action brought down the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment and forced the issue of heavy indus­try back onto the polit­i­cal agen­da, the bat­tle is far from over.

The fall of alu­mini­um prices on the world mar­ket and the glob­al eco­nom­ic cri­sis has tak­en its toll on heavy indus­try projects and alu­mini­um com­pa­nies in Ice­land, putting many of the plans for alu­mini­um smelters, mega-dams and geot­her­mal pow­er plants on hold, or ruled out com­plete­ly. The heavy indus­try machine is far from hav­ing been defeat­ed but recent upris­ings show the deep impact Sav­ing Ice­land has had on the grass­roots and the polit­i­cal land­scape.

Polit­i­cal Changes

The recent elec­tions are a major blow for the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in Ice­land, with the ‘Left Greens’ boot­ing the min­is­ter of the envi­ron­ment out for being too much of a gen­uine envi­ron­men­tal­ist. We are look­ing at a heav­i­ly for­ti­fied pro-heavy indus­try gov­ern­ment, doing away with any pre­tence of the gov­ern­ment being ‘Green’ or even remote­ly Left wing. On top of this, nation­al ener­gy com­pa­nies have already start­ed nego­ti­a­tions with oth­er types of indus­try in the North, where some politi­cians ruled out a new smelter.

Anar­chy in Ice­land

Years of work by Sav­ing Ice­land to intro­duce the ideas of direct action and anar­chy into main­stream soci­ety, cou­pled with a rad­i­calised pop­u­la­tion fol­low­ing the down­fall of the gov­ern­ment, has result­ed in a con­stant­ly grow­ing move­ment of rad­i­cal activists and anar­chists in Ice­land.

Over the past few months squat­ters have twice tak­en a social cen­tre and defend­ed it from evic­tion, refugee and no bor­ders activism is going strong, Food Not Bombs hit the streets every week and actions such as the four “skyr attacks” (where green yoghurt is thrown all over dis­plays, com­put­ers and suits) in two months have tar­get­ed politi­cians and nature killers.

The mutu­al sup­port between the Ice­landic rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty and Sav­ing Ice­land this sum­mer will make for a very excit­ing and action-filled mobil­i­sa­tion!

Tar­gets this Sum­mer

The Hel­gu­vík alu­mini­um smelter, tar­get­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land last sum­mer with an action that stopped con­struc­tion for a whole day after 40 activists invad­ed the site, is still being built. Pow­er­ing the smelter will mean eight new pow­er plants, at least sev­en of which will be geot­her­mal from the Reyk­janes Penin­su­la, dry­ing it up, and Hell­isheiði – also tar­get­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land last sum­mer that saw a drill rig shut down cost­ing thou­sands of pounds. One of the geot­her­mal plants pow­er­ing Cen­tu­ry’s smelter could be in Bitra, close to Hengill, where a local cam­paign last win­ter stopped con­struc­tion from tak­ing place. The eighth pow­er plant will prob­a­bly be a mega-dam on the beau­ti­ful Þjórsá Riv­er.

If ever there was a build­ing site and “test drilling sites” destroy­ing unique and frag­ile ecosys­tems and vul­ner­a­ble to direct action this sum­mer they are on the Reyk­janes penin­su­la, South West Ice­land!

Get involved!

Come to Ice­land from the 18th July and join us for a sum­mer of resis­tance and direct action. Check www.savingiceland.org for reg­u­lar updates and infor­ma­tion for peo­ple join­ing us, or email us on savingiceland@riseup.net to let us know when you’re arriv­ing.

Help sup­port our strug­gle with dona­tions, trans­la­tions, sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and by spread­ing the word.

Camp Climat at Nantes

Activists cam­paign­ing against a pro­posed local air­port near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 — 9 August 2009.

“Le Camp Cli­mat” con­cept is tak­ing off over the chan­nel, just as it is in the UK. Activists cam­paign­ing against the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a new air­port 16 kilo­me­tres north of Nantes (Loire-Atlan­tique, 44) have announced a camp from the 3 — 9 August 2009.

Activists cam­paign­ing against a pro­posed local air­port near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 — 9 August 2009.

“Le Camp Cli­mat” con­cept is tak­ing off over the chan­nel, just as it is in the UK. Activists cam­paign­ing against the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a new air­port 16 kilo­me­tres north of Nantes (Loire-Atlan­tique, 44) have announced a camp from the 3 — 9 August 2009.

The air­port plans have a long his­to­ry, with the ori­gins of the plan to con­struct a “hub” for north-west France, dat­ing from 30 years ago. The pro­posed air­port will con­crete over 2000 hectares of tra­di­tion­al bocage: pas­toral land divid­ed by tra­di­tion­al hedgerows. By con­trast Britain’s sec­ond busiest air­port Gatwick occu­pies a site of only 300 hectares. And all this despite 3 air­ports already oper­a­tional (Nantes, Angers, Rennes) with­in 100 kilo­me­tres of the pro­posed sites. None of the exist­ing air­ports are oper­at­ing at any­thing like full capac­i­ty at the moment, nor will they in the future if cur­rent air tick­ets sales con­tin­ue their present down­ward trend.

Despite being beyond any rea­son­able con­cept of util­i­ty, the Pharaonique project rolls for­ward, with forced sales of farms, homes, and land. Sur­veys and geo­log­i­cal sam­pling of the site began in Octo­ber 2008.

Oppo­si­tion to the project is cen­tred on two main organ­i­sa­tions: the Camp Cli­mat, and a coali­tion that unites res­i­dent groups called ACIPA, which has long pur­sued a civ­il cam­paign amongst the French bureau­cra­cy.

As the threat becomes more immi­nent, many acts of resis­tance have already occurred: with trac­tor road­blocks and sab­o­tage of sur­vey works. A vis­it­ing offi­cial from the pre­fec­ture, come to announce the loss of land and homes, was flanned. The sur­vey work­ers now work along­side an escort of up to six­ty gen­darmes. Eight activists face fines of up to 15,000 euros and sen­tences of 2 — 4 months for their part in the resis­tance.

Le camp fonc­tion­nera de manière auto­gérée, avec pour principes de base : une empreinte écologique min­i­mum, des actions à fort impact auprès de la pop­u­la­tion locale et/ou des médias, des échanges de savoirs sur les pra­tiques alter­na­tives et écologiques, la mise en com­mun des béné­fices, la pra­tique du prix libre ou coû­tant et le développe­ment de réseaux. Il s’inscrira dans le cadre d’une semaine de résis­tance sur le site et fera suite à deux moments forts sur place : le fes­ti­val « Le Planch­er des Vach­es » (same­di 1er août) et le pique-nique annuel des opposants au pro­jet d’aéroport (dimanche 2 août).

(The basic prin­ci­ples of the autonomous camp are: a min­i­mal eco­log­i­cal foot­print, strong local links, strong media impact, edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties and exchanges, devel­op­ment of net­works, and com­mu­nal liv­ing with food at prix libre (con­tribute as you can afford). The camp forms part of a week of resis­tance at the site with a music fes­ti­val on the 1 August, and an annu­al local pic­nic on the 2 August.)

Notre-Dames-De-Lan­des is 202 kilo­me­tres from the fer­ry ter­mi­nal at St. Malo, which makes for a pleas­ant two day ride to be here, but Nantes is also well served by rail: the TGV from Paris (1 train/hour) takes 2h 20mins.

www.campclimat.org

Rossport Shell to Sea Gathering, 29th May — 1st June

Every­one is invit­ed to the third annu­al June gath­er­ing here at Ross­port.

Fri­day 29th May — Mon­day 1st June.

The cam­paign has been run­ning for years now, and you can find out more on the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp web­site: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/

Every­one is invit­ed to the third annu­al June gath­er­ing here at Ross­port.

Fri­day 29th May — Mon­day 1st June.

The cam­paign has been run­ning for years now, and you can find out more on the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp web­site: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/

The gath­er­ing is a great chance to see the area (real­ly real­ly beau­ti­ful), find out what’s real­ly going on, and to meet the peo­ple involved — cam­paign­ers, locals, cats.

Also, music, work­shops, surf­ing, kayak­ing, food (includ­ing sea­weed).

Prepa­ra­tion is going on now, and it feels excit­ing.

Last year, when shell tried to lay the RAW gas pipeline, the peo­ple resist­ed all sum­mer. Even­tu­al­ly, the soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) was forced to fuck off, with its tail between its legs.

This year they will try again, and it is the spe­cial blend of locals, and activists, from near and far, that have kept them away so far.

Come and see what it’s like when all types of peo­ple com­ing togeth­er for a com­mon cause. Shell is so pow­er­ful, please come along and help.

ps. if you can’t make it for the gath­er­ing, you are wel­come any time you like through the sum­mer, even if it’s only for a day or two.

pps. please spread the word; email­ing, tex­ting, talk­ing about ross­port and the gath­er­ing.

Hop­ing to see you here!

Galwegian’s are Reclaiming it’s Streets (Eire)

May 17, 2009

Galway RTSMay 17, 2009
Yes­ter­day after­noon, Gal­we­gians and their friends from around the coun­try and world came togeth­er on new­ly renamed (by us), Anti-Shop Street, to take back our space from the cap­i­tal­ist, con­sumerist cul­ture which has tak­en over, with it’s bizarre ideas of a life ded­i­cat­ed to shop­ping, spend­ing, buy­ing and prof­it, so that we could share an expe­ri­ence of anoth­er world, where every­thing is free, peo­ple share and give food, fun, stuff and life, sim­ply because they can and it just feels good!

“Free Food, Free Stuff, Free Fun, Free Social Inter­ac­tion, Free World for Every­one”, was the chant of the day, encour­ag­ing every­one to join in the fun. ‘Feck Mon­ey’ could also be heard every now and again, amongst the joy­ful shout­ing and whoop­ing! The event start­ed at 1.30pm, when a ‘Real­ly Real­ly Free Mar­ket’, mag­i­cal­ly appeared out of nowhere; clothes, videos, toys, ted­dies, cards, match­es, mark­ers, crayons, zines and more were all decked out on a table and offered to bemused passers-by for free. Con­fused by the idea of free stuff, those who were afraid to ask were left won­der­ing ‘what’s the catch?’ Need­less to say, there was none. Just a group of peo­ple who believe in a bet­ter world where gifts can be giv­en freely, and the only prof­it sought is the joy of mak­ing oth­ers hap­py. They were prompt­ly joined by Gal­way Food-Not-Bombs, (who share veg­e­tar­i­an food, mes­sages of peace and a bet­ter soci­ety, with the pub­lic), to feed the par­tic­i­pants and onlook­ers with love­ly veg­e­tar­i­an soup, bread and amaz­ing cook­ies at the REAL reces­sion bust­ing price of no euros and no sense! Par­tic­i­pants dec­o­rat­ed Anti-Shop street with colour­full ban­ners let­ting peo­ple know “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”, encour­ag­ing them to “Spend Less, Give More”, invit­ing them to “Cel­e­brate Our Streets” and one sug­gest­ing that we should just “Feck Mon­ey!” Oth­ers dec­o­rat­ed the ground, chalk­ing mes­sages such as “Cap­i­tal­ism Kills”, until the Gar­dai informed them it was ille­gal!

Gal­way Shell to Sea, who know all about the urgent need to reclaim con­trol over our own lives, envi­ron­ment and resources, came out to par­tic­i­pate and spread the word about the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­p’s June Bank Hol­i­day Gath­er­ing, com­ing up on May 29th.
Enter­tain­ment was abun­dant with ran­dom indi­vid­u­als show­ing off and teach­ing their jug­gling and poi skills, tra­di­tion­al Irish music, Capoeira danc­ing with accom­pa­ny­ing music, peo­ple play­ing chess, oth­ers blow­ing bub­bles, DIY art with home-made nat­ur­al paints. And, how bet­ter to inter­act and have fun on our streets then to play Twister! Plus lots of oth­er fun and ran­dom stuff…

It was about two hours before traf­fic war­dens arrived to try and kill the fun. Unable to give out park­ing tick­ets, due to our incon­sid­er­ate lack of licence plate num­bers, they made a poor attempt at tak­ing our Twister. Then the Gar­dai were called in to deal with our men­ac­ing antics. The first Gar­da on the scene told us we had to move the Twister because we were block­ing the street. We polite­ly refused and argued that these were our streets and peo­ple seemed to be get­ting by just fine. Short­ly there­after, five to six guards hud­dled on the oppo­site cor­ner, obvi­ous­ly a bit unsure of what they should or could do. They no doubt were grate­ful when the free water arrived in abun­dance from the sky. Not ready to give up just yet we con­tin­ued on play­ing wet Twister for twen­ty min­utes, tak­ing full advan­tage of all the free water before wrap­ping it all up with a lot of cheer­ing, clap­ping and a great sense of achieve­ment. We had Reclaimed the Street if only for a few hours and we’ll do it again and again and again.…

To find out more about Gal­way Reclaim the Streets or get involved in the next one con­tact thestreetgig@gmail.com

Rossport: Tripod action at Glengad — Work halted at Shell’s illegal compound — update

May 14th 2009
Cam­paign­ers using a dar­ing “tri­pod” tech­nique have halt­ed the ille­gal work being under­tak­en by Shell at the Cor­rib Gas land­fall site at Glen­gad in Co Mayo.

Glengad tripods 1Glengad tripods 2May 14th 2009
Cam­paign­ers using a dar­ing “tri­pod” tech­nique have halt­ed the ille­gal work being under­tak­en by Shell at the Cor­rib Gas land­fall site at Glen­gad in Co Mayo.

Shell con­trac­tors were due this morn­ing to extend the con­struc­tion com­pound down onto the pub­lic beach at Glen­gad. How­ev­er, ear­ly bird Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers blocked access to the beach at 5 am by erect­ing two spe­cial­ly-designed tripods, each 20 feet in height. Two men attached them­selves to the top of the tripods using climb­ing equip­ment and as of lunchtime are still sus­pend­ed from the tripods.

The men, who live local­ly, are both in good form and a par­ty atmos­phere is evi­dent on the shore­line below them. Gar­daí and Shell secu­ri­ty have not attempt­ed to remove them so far, as to do so would put the two men’s safe­ty at risk.

Giant tripods of this nature have been deployed by cam­paign­ers around the world as a form of direct action. This is the first time tripods have been used in Ire­land for this pur­pose.

The com­pound has been erect­ed ille­gal­ly with­out plan­ning per­mis­sion to facil­i­tate works along the shore­line, which them­selves have yet to receive full legal con­sent. It is present­ly the sub­ject of legal pro­ceed­ings tak­en by An Taisce against Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil, which has facil­i­tat­ed Shel­l’s ille­gal­i­ty at every point along the way.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Mau­ra Har­ring­ton said: “Yet again, Shell is dis­re­gard­ing both the law and the will of the local com­mu­ni­ty by try­ing to extend their ille­gal com­pound onto the pub­lic beach. Today’s action shows that we are as deter­mined as ever to obstruct this obscene project, and the give­away of Irish nat­ur­al resources.”

As of 13.30, the new Gar­da Inspec­tor in Bel­mul­let, Joe Doher­ty, has direct­ed the two activists to come down for their own safe­ty under Sec­tion 8.1 of the Pub­lic Order Act. One of those sus­pend­ed has asked Doher­ty to apol­o­gise for punch­ing him in the stom­ach dur­ing the action last Sat­ur­day evening at the com­pound. For the time being at any rate, the Gar­daí and Shell secu­ri­ty have been out-manoeu­vred.

——

May 15th:

The two peo­ple on the tri­pod came down of their own accord at 5:30 yes­ter­day evening after 12 hours up on the tripods. At this stage all site work­ers exclud­ing secu­ri­ty had left the com­pound for the day. The two climbers then left the area along with sup­port­ers car­ry­ing their tripods unac­cost­ed by the watch­ing Gar­daí. The beach was patrolled by Gar­daí and Secu­ri­ty work­ing side by side for the rest of the night.

At 3:30 this morn­ing under the cov­er of dark­ness Shell stripped the cliff and broke out onto the beach. They now have an enclosed com­pound as far as where the tripods extend­ed yes­ter­day.

Shell may have suc­ceed­ed in break­ing onto the beach but over­all the com­mu­ni­ty spir­it is upbeat and momen­tum seems to be build­ing. This real­ly is the time to come and stand with the com­mu­ni­ty