Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

City Indians spread to Copenhagen: 4x4 drivers be warned

7th Novem­ber 2007

For sev­er­al months “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the spread of gas gus­sling jeeps in Swedish cities. Now they have moved to Copen­hagen.

Sev­er­al groups of mil­i­tant envi­ron­men­tal activists known as “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the wide spread use of so-called “city jeeps” in Swedish cities.

7th Novem­ber 2007

For sev­er­al months “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the spread of gas gus­sling jeeps in Swedish cities. Now they have moved to Copen­hagen.

Sev­er­al groups of mil­i­tant envi­ron­men­tal activists known as “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the wide spread use of so-called “city jeeps” in Swedish cities.

Their tac­tics are sim­ply to have groups of activists roam­ing the streets, let­ting the air out of the tires on the big, gas-gus­sling jeeps. Wher­ev­er they go they leave a note for the car own­ers, explain­ing the impact the cars and their exhausts are hav­ing on the envi­ron­ment and encour­ag­ing them to use pub­lic trans­porta­tion in stead.

The actions have result­ed in car own­ers organ­is­ing in vig­i­lante groups threat­en­ing to kill the activists caught.

Now this phe­nom­e­na has crossed to Den­mark, where a new group of Indi­ans have been on the prowl. The notes left behind are word­ed exact­ly like those in Swe­den and so far the tac­tics have been very sim­i­lar.

Tara — Transport minister has transport problems

Novem­ber 2nd 2007

Dig­gers dived and Dempsey done

“trans­port prob­lems for dept of trans­ports noel dempsey”

Con­ser­va­tion­ists angry at what they call,‘The des­e­cra­tion of Ire­land’s cul­tur­al her­itage’ laid siege to a Trim hotel (Fri­day 2nd nov) where trans­port min­is­ter Noel Dempsey cel­e­brat­ed anoth­er gov­ern­ment decen­tral­i­sa­tion project.

Novem­ber 2nd 2007

Dig­gers dived and Dempsey done

“trans­port prob­lems for dept of trans­ports noel dempsey”

Con­ser­va­tion­ists angry at what they call,‘The des­e­cra­tion of Ire­land’s cul­tur­al her­itage’ laid siege to a Trim hotel (Fri­day 2nd nov) where trans­port min­is­ter Noel Dempsey cel­e­brat­ed anoth­er gov­ern­ment decen­tral­i­sa­tion project.

Fol­low­ing a morn­ing of suc­ces­ful dig­ger div­ing by 2 crews at Col­lier­stown and sol­diers hill,where 1 activist was arrest­ed for not giv­ing his name,then released an hour lat­er.

Some of the 40 Tara M3 pro­tes­tors dodged secu­ri­ty to enter the rear of the Knights­brook Hotel and golf resort where the recep­tion was tak­ing place,

At one point cater­ing staff — some Pol­ish — were sent to con­front them.

Ear­li­er, 10 con­ser­va­tion­ists harangued the vet­er­an politi­cian as he left the con­struc­tion site for the new Office of Pub­lic Works, where he had turned the first sod.

His day was fur­ther spoiled when it was dis­cov­ered that two tyres of his min­is­te­r­i­al Mere­cedes had been let down.

A spokesman for Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il said: “The graves of the ancient Fian­na have been bull­dozed, the bones dug up and the remains are still await­ing re-inter­ment to their orig­i­nal rest­ing place.

“It is bla­tant grave rob­bery and Irish peo­ple should be dis­gust­ed,

“Imag­ine if Glas­nevin (Dublin) had a pro­posed motor­way going right through it in 2000 years time.

“The aim was not to scare Mr Dempsey but to have a chance to com­mu­ni­cate our con­cern at his lack of inter­est in an alter­na­tive, cheap­er M3 route avoid­ing the Tara Skyrne Val­ley where there is poten­tial for a rail line and for valu­able tourism for gen­er­a­tions to come.

“This pro­posed UNESCO World Her­itage Park will thus be an asset to the peo­ple of Ire­land.”

Resis­tance is grow­ing from Ross­port to Tara, and our actions are increas­ing in their effectiveness,as is evi­dent from the gov­ern­ment cen­sor­ing www.tarapixie.net on pub­lic access inter­net ter­mi­nals. This means we are win­ning some­where and have raised major con­cerns with­in the halls of pow­er. As song,poetry and music were once again heard in the halls of Tara over Samhain. We hope all Irish and inter­na­tion­al net­works will ral­ly to the sup­port of the Tara Valley.Activists urgent­ly need­ed now num­bers are low after the Samhain celebration.As activists dig in for the win­ter support,food,warm gear and peo­ple needed.Hear the call.

http://www.tarapixie.net

Autumn EF! Action Update out — and advance notice of the Winter Moot, 22–24 February (gathering of eco-activists), Nottingham

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here

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The EF! Win­ter Moot will hap­pen from 22nd — 24th Feb­ru­ary 2008, in Not­ting­ham — more details near­er the time, as this is just advance notice.

It’s a gath­er­ing for envi­ron­men­tal activists — in the past, it’s been a chance for peo­ple involved in all kinds of eco­log­i­cal direct action to get togeth­er for a week­end indoors to chat about where things are at in the UK, and so improve all aspects of how we work togeth­er, in order to take direct action in defence of the earth.

Con­tact 0845–0223 5254 for more info

New Ring Fort discovered at hill of Tara-activist arrested, plus reminder of Samhain action & celebration weekend

Octo­ber 19, 2007

URGENT

Call­ing out for sup­port NOW and for the rest of the day at main gate Sol­diers Hill N3.

2 Pro­tes­tors are locked on to a tri­pod and are not mov­ing until an inde­pen­dent archae­o­log­i­cal sur­vey is car­ried out on the new­ly revealed site.

Octo­ber 19, 2007

URGENT

Call­ing out for sup­port NOW and for the rest of the day at main gate Sol­diers Hill N3.

2 Pro­tes­tors are locked on to a tri­pod and are not mov­ing until an inde­pen­dent archae­o­log­i­cal sur­vey is car­ried out on the new­ly revealed site.

Please bring ban­ners, leaflets, warm and water­proof cloth­ing, phone cred­it, cam­eras, video equip­ment, food and water.

SPREAD THE WORD, CONTACT ALL MEDIA.

Thank you

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Reminder: Tara the Great Feast and Samhain cel­e­bra­tion Oct31/Nov3rd

Samhain Cel­e­bra­tion and big Actions come and rev­el and resist,calling out to all up for it pos­see.

Call­ing ALL PEOPLE to the defence of the Tara Val­ley, Ire­land.
Halt the destruc­tion of this ancient sacred site by the pro­posed M3 Motor­way. We need you NOW! Dig­gers are destroy­ing this World Her­itage site NOW.

We invite you to come to the Hill of Tara and cel­e­brate Samhain, Wed. Oct31st-Sat. Nov.3rd, the ancient Celtic New Year.
As well as havin it actions on Thurs Nov1st and Fri 2nd.
Also a reg­u­lar mon­day route walk and action,digger div­ing and free adren­a­lin rush.

Expe­ri­enced activists urgent­ly needed,tree house builders,tunnelers,techies,networkers,media spinners,and mid­night pix­ie com­man­dos.

Dust off your climb­ing har­ness and come,all help and sup­port appre­ci­at­ed.
If u cant make it to Tara,network where u are,organise a benefit,film showing,network fly­ers email the EU com­mis­sion­er Stavros Dimos info on web­sites below.

Also to come and sup­port ongo­ing actions through­out the com­ing year.
The tide is turn­ing the resis­tance grows these road build­ing cul­ture destroy­ing cra­zies aint seen noth­ing yet.The peo­ple are awakening,hear the call of the Ances­tors

Please down­load fly­er and posters,from www.tarapixie.net. or view info on www.circlecommunity.org ( Lift­shares are avail­able from London,Bristol,Brighton,Wales check web­site above)
Email to all con­tacts on your net­work.
Print copies and dis­trib­ute, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pub­lic places com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres and libraries.
Net­work it to the maximum.Thanks from Tara Sup­port.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.tarapixie.net www.tarawatch.org
www.circlecommunity.org www.savetara.com
www.indymedia.ie www.indymedia.org.uk

Posters and fly­ers down­load­able from www.tarapixie.net

tarasupport@googlemail.com

French GM maize decontamination action

Mon­san­to files suit against French GMO activists

Oct 19 (Reuters) — The French unit of U.S. Biotech giant Mon­san­to has filed a law­suit fol­low­ing the lat­est destruc­tion of some of its test fields for genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied maize. In a state­ment issued on Fri­day, Mon­san­to said that uniden­ti­fied activists had ran­sacked three test fields in Val­divi­enne in cen­tral France after dark on Thurs­day.

Mon­san­to files suit against French GMO activists

Oct 19 (Reuters) — The French unit of U.S. Biotech giant Mon­san­to has filed a law­suit fol­low­ing the lat­est destruc­tion of some of its test fields for genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied maize. In a state­ment issued on Fri­day, Mon­san­to said that uniden­ti­fied activists had ran­sacked three test fields in Val­divi­enne in cen­tral France after dark on Thurs­day.

‘This sense­less new act of vio­lence penalis­es French research into biotech crops yet again and has no sci­en­tif­ic basis,’ Mon­san­to said.

It used a pro­ce­dure in French law allow­ing legal action to be brought against unknown defen­dants.

Activists have ruined oth­er Mon­san­to GMO test fields this year, prompt­ing a series of offi­cial com­plaints which the com­pa­ny has said typ­i­cal­ly leads to court action.

Indus­try groups have denounced such attacks as dis­as­trous for the coun­try’s agri­cul­tur­al research work.

Some farm­ers sup­port­ive of GMO crops have called on the gov­ern­ment dur­ing gov­ern­ment-led meet­ings on the envi­ron­ment to pass a GMO law as soon as pos­si­ble, in part to stress the ille­gal nature of such activ­i­ties.

Heat­ed debate has sur­round­ed the use of GMO prod­ucts across Europe and in France, where many con­sumers and green groups doubt the safe­ty of GMO prod­ucts and fear that they will reduce bio­di­ver­si­ty.

REUTERS, Octo­ber 19 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL1944836620071019

Last week’s direct action news from Greece

direct action report 7–15 Octo­ber
DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

This blog is an attemp to cov­er, pub­li­cise and trans­late all known direct action news (most­ly con­cern­ing Greece but also near coun­tries as well), apart from the mass media medi­a­tion, pro­vid­ing an open data­base on sab­o­tage-van­dal­ism-riot­ing and oth­er fine pop­u­lar arts that blos­som through­out the ruins of our post-indus­tri­al soci­ety. It came as a per­son­al response to a wider need for all direct action to have its own prop­er spaces, in order to speak for itself, spaces avail­able to any­one that cares. So, i am will­ing to pub­lish all com­mu­niques and com­ments con­cern­ing the actions found here. There will not be pub­lished here actions claimed by any for­mal organ­i­sa­tions or par­ties. These gen­tle­men can ‑at least- afford their own image-mak­ing. You are wel­come to send your own reports to directactiongr@yahoo.gr

direct action report 7–15 Octo­ber
DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

This blog is an attemp to cov­er, pub­li­cise and trans­late all known direct action news (most­ly con­cern­ing Greece but also near coun­tries as well), apart from the mass media medi­a­tion, pro­vid­ing an open data­base on sab­o­tage-van­dal­ism-riot­ing and oth­er fine pop­u­lar arts that blos­som through­out the ruins of our post-indus­tri­al soci­ety. It came as a per­son­al response to a wider need for all direct action to have its own prop­er spaces, in order to speak for itself, spaces avail­able to any­one that cares. So, i am will­ing to pub­lish all com­mu­niques and com­ments con­cern­ing the actions found here. There will not be pub­lished here actions claimed by any for­mal organ­i­sa­tions or par­ties. These gen­tle­men can ‑at least- afford their own image-mak­ing. You are wel­come to send your own reports to directactiongr@yahoo.gr

http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/search/label/english

LAST WEEK’S NEWS…

15 sur­veil­lance cam­eras destroyed, Poly­tech­ni­cal School (Athens, 15/10/2007)
Source & leaflet text (greek only): athens.indymedia.org

Today at 3 o’clock peo­ple from the self-man­aged infos­hop of the poly­tech­ni­cal school and oth­er com­pan­ions, broke down 15 sur­veil­lance cam­eras around the school’s library and destroyed the mon­i­tors and the whole con­trol room.

A leaflet explain­ing the rea­sons of this action cir­cu­lat­ed last days as well as dur­ing the action, slo­gans against sur­veil­lance and social con­trol were spray-paint­ed and two ban­ners were hanged on the library area.

***

Arson at Eth­ni­ki Bank and rul­ing par­ty’s offices (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 15/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_kathremote_1_15/10/2007_207901

A dou­ble arson attack was realised around 3:10 in the morn­ing, when a sub­sidiary of Eth­ni­ki Bank on Leon­tos Sofou Str. in the city cen­ter and the local offices of Nea Dimokra­tia (the greek rul­ing par­ty) were made tar­gets of gas-can­is­ter bomb­ings.

***

Deputy edu­ca­tion min­is­ter’s office attacked (Athens, 14/10/2007)
Source: http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100021_15/10/2007_88953

Uniden­ti­fied per­sons left a incen­di­ary device with gas can­is­ters that explod­ed in front of mr. Lyk­ourent­zos office, on the sec­ond floor of an apparte­ments block at Solonos Str. in cen­tral Athens.

Anoth­er res­i­dent of the block found the device and called the police, but in his effort to extin­guish the fire that burnst out, he got some minor burns him­self.

***

Munic­i­pal Police offices attacked (Athens 12/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://news.antenna.gr/articleDetail/0,3091,167424,00.html

Some 15 per­sons wear­ing hoods attacked the offices of the munic­i­pal police in Paleo Faliro, Athens, late Sat­ur­day night. They threw stones and caused minor dam­ages to the offices entrance.

Note: Two anar­chists are being detained for an alleged arson against a munic­i­pal police car in Faliro, Chris­sos­to­mos Kon­tore­vithakis and Mar­ios Tsoura­pas, (for more infor­ma­tion: http://www.geocities.com/anarcores/faliro3)

***

Two banks burnt up (Athens, 12/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://news.pathfinder.gr/greece/news/434581.html — http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=5592&subid=2&pubid=48619

A lit­tle before 22:00 around 20 per­sons wear­ing hoods attacked two banks (one “Eth­ni­ki” and one “Agroti­ki” bank) in Ilisia area in Athens. They broke the glass win­dows and threw molo­tov cock­tails inside the banks. They all man­aged to escape police forces and run to the Zografou uni­ver­si­ty area.

Lat­er on, the police arrest­ed eight per­sons but left them free because they found no evi­dence, except from one of them that car­ried a wood­en glob and will be pros­e­cut­ed.

***

OTE telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions office fire­bombed (Athens, 10/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.naftemporiki.gr/news/static/07/10/10/1423317.htm

A few min­utes before 6:00 a group of about ten unknown per­sons attacked the offices of OTE telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny in Exarcheia, Athens.

***

Sports Muse­um under attack (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 07/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_kathremote_0_07/10/2007_206771

Accord­ing to the news­pa­per’s report, a small group of uniden­ti­fied per­sons, a few min­utes before 3:00, hurled molo­tov cock­tails at the entrance of the Sports Muse­um, locat­ed near the Aris­to­tle Uni­ver­si­ty. The fire caused minor dam­ages and was extin­guished by the muse­um’s guards. The group left the area when the police arrived.

***

Demon­stra­tors mess up “anti“terrorist con­ven­tion (Volos, 07/10/2007)
Source (greek only): Athens Indy­media

After a sol­i­dar­i­ty to the immi­grants march, demon­stra­tors invad­ed a con­ven­tion held at the Thes­salia Uni­ver­si­ty, dur­ing the crim­i­nol­o­gist Mairy Bossi’s speach.

Mairy Bossi has been the sci­en­tif­ic con­sul­tant of the min­istry of pub­lic order, she was as well will­ing to lead a “study of the social char­ac­ter­is­tics” of the 529 arrestees of the tech­ni­cal school’s occu­pa­tion in Athens, 1995, and she has also been a wit­ness of accu­sa­tion at the so-called ELA (peo­ple’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary strug­gle) jury, etc.
Her speach was inter­rupt­ed and she was forced to leave the room, when peo­ple threw cof­fees and snacks from the buf­fet at her.

The night before there was also an attack against the immi­grants con­cen­tra­tion cen­tre in Volos.

http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/search/label/english

Samhain bagpipe gathering at Tara, plus action days 31st October ‑5th November

Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara

Samhain
Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara
Hill of Tara, near Navan, co Meath, Ire­land.

Relight­ing the Ancient Bea­con fires & Samhain Shindig

Bring your feast­ing food that you want to eat and share

Wed Oct 31st Light­ing Taras 7 Bea­cons And Feast
Thurs 1st/Fri 2nd Nov DAYS OF ACTION
Sat Nov 3rd Fire, Music and Ban­quet
Mon 5th (and every Mon) direct action Route walk.

Vig­il camp 00353 861 758557 Action camp 00353 861 537146

Call­ing all musi­cians, bards, per­form­ers & poets
Bring your flutes, whis­tles, drums and voic­es to the Halls of Tara. Big call out to all
BAGPIPE play­ers to gath­er on the Wed and Sat.
Call­ing all Peo­ple to join in the Defense of TARA
Act now to pre­serve this world her­itage site!

Fliers/posters to down­load at www.tarapixie.net

For direc­tions to Tara check the web­sites below
www.savetara.com www.tarawatch.org
www.tarapixie.net

SAVE IRELAND’S TARA VALLEY!

Worldwide Day of Action Against McDonalds 16th October

14th Octo­ber 2007 ear­ly demo report: near­ly 30 peo­ple took part in the Lon­don leg of the world­wide anti-McDon­ald’s day. It start­ed at noon at the Leices­ter Square McDon­ald’s. There was a Ronald McDon­ald attack­ing a per­son dressed as a cow. The cow went down well with the kids and even some adults! Lots of leaflets were hand­ed out and the pub­lic seemed to be recep­tive on the whole. Also, the police were notice­able by their absence. The demo moved onto the Shaftes­bury Avenue McDon­ald’s and fin­ished at about 3.30.

Dying for a burger (London McD demo)
14th Octo­ber 2007 ear­ly demo report: near­ly 30 peo­ple took part in the Lon­don leg of the world­wide anti-McDon­ald’s day. It start­ed at noon at the Leices­ter Square McDon­ald’s. There was a Ronald McDon­ald attack­ing a per­son dressed as a cow. The cow went down well with the kids and even some adults! Lots of leaflets were hand­ed out and the pub­lic seemed to be recep­tive on the whole. Also, the police were notice­able by their absence. The demo moved onto the Shaftes­bury Avenue McDon­ald’s and fin­ished at about 3.30.

—

Adopt-YOUR-Store — leaflets from Veg­gies or Do It Your­self. Details here

ESCALATING DEFLATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST 4x4s IN SWEDEN

- One thou­sand 4x4s dis­armed by The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle

In recent months, a cli­mate action group call­ing itself The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle has struck against SUVs across Swe­den. Tyres on one thou­sand cars have been deflat­ed. The cam­paign is spread­ing like wild­fire, prompt­ing nation­al debate and furi­ous aggres­sion among SUV-own­ers.

Stockholm Indians of the Concrete Jungle hit 4x4- One thou­sand 4x4s dis­armed by The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle

In recent months, a cli­mate action group call­ing itself The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle has struck against SUVs across Swe­den. Tyres on one thou­sand cars have been deflat­ed. The cam­paign is spread­ing like wild­fire, prompt­ing nation­al debate and furi­ous aggres­sion among SUV-own­ers.

—-
19th Octo­ber 2007
It has hap­pened again. Once more, we have drawn the atten­tion of Malmö to what’s hap­pen­ing to our cli­mate. Bus, bicy­cle and train are always bet­ter then dri­ving SUVs. That’s why we deflat­ed 32 fuel-guz­zling SUVs on the night of Octo­ber 18. As dur­ing ear­li­er actions, SUVs were tar­get­ed in (the afflu­ent areas of) Väs­tra Ham­nen and Väs­tra Inner­stan. The let­ter below was left on the widescreen on all the cars, to explain why they were deflat­ed.
—-
26th Octo­ber
In the worst wild­fires in the his­to­ry of Cal­i­for­nia, even the stars of Hol­ly­wood have been threat­ened by the burn­ing flames of glob­al warm­ing. The lev­el of causal­i­ty between glob­al warm­ing and fires in Cal­i­for­nia may not be 100 per­cent, but sure­ly large enough to make it iron­ic that the upper class of Öster­malm in Stock­holm forces the upper class of Hol­ly­wood to evac­u­ate their homes. There­fore, yesterday’s defla­tion of 50 SUVs on Öster­malm is ded­i­cat­ed to the hun­dreds of thou­sands who had to fled the fire — includ­ing the stars of Hol­ly­wood.
—-
The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle have received a mes­sage from a new tribe in Umeå, Sweden’s fifth or sixth biggest city, and now the eleventh to be endowed with direct action against the insane cli­mate destruc­tion of SUVs. The mes­sage reads:

On the night of Fri­day, Octo­ber 19, tyres were deflat­ed on some 90 SUVs in Umeå.

Keep well!
—-
In the night between Octo­ber 6 and 7, the Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle of Falun deflat­ed 45 suv:s in the neigh­bour­hoods of Vil­las­taden, Lustig Knopp, Brit­sarvet, Bojsen­burg, Östan­fors, Gam­la Her­rgår­den, Sten­näset, Els­borg and Cen­trum. The night end­ed with a com­plete dis­ar­ma­ment of one of the infa­mous Hum­mer-vehi­cles. We took a pic­ture of it with a sign read­ing: “Have you got a Hum­mer, stu­pid?” (a rhyme in Swedish). Of couse, we took down the sign after­wards, since it might be inter­pret­ed as humil­i­at­ing.

Peace!

The tribe of Falun

(Falun is Sweden’s 26th biggest town, with some 40 000 res­i­dents.)
—-
Many more reports in Swedish at http://asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com
=================
(This is a mes­sage from The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle to the world.)

Every­one knows it: action on cli­mate change is a mat­ter of utter urgency. Nonethe­less, car­bon emis­sions con­tin­ue to accel­er­ate, pow­ered by the uncon­trol­lable machines of the world econ­o­my. One emi­nent sign of this rush to dis­as­ter is the trend of SUVs, clog­ging the streets in our West­ern cities, emit­ting up to three times more car­bon than cars of aver­age size on the mar­ket. SUVs have become a sym­bol of the irra­tional destruc­tion of the most basic con­di­tions of life. Attached to no human need what­so­ev­er — only to the con­spic­u­ous con­sump­tion of an afflu­ent class, feel­ing the ”need” to flaunt mon­ster vehi­cles — they con­sti­tute per­haps the most insane source of unnec­es­sary car­bon emis­sions. Every­one should know it: if we can’t deal with SUVs swift­ly, we can’t deal with any oth­er emis­sions either. And noth­ing less than our sur­vival is at stake.

Armed with this analy­sis, and with mung beans or grains of grav­el, a group called The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle has struck against hun­dreds of SUV:s in Swe­den in recent months. The first action occured in the posh­est part of innerci­ty Stock­holm in June. Tyres on 60 SUV:s in Öster­malm were
deflat­ed. A weblog was post­ed on the inter­net, and since then, the cam­paign for dis­ar­ma­ment of SUV:s in Swe­den has spread like wild­fire. To this date, approx­i­mate­ly 1000 SUVs have been tem­porar­i­ly dis­armed in at least nine Swedish cities, includ­ing the three largest (Stock­holm, Gothen­burg and Malmö) as well as sev­er­al small­er cities; new tribes are pop­ping up by the week. The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle have appeared in vir­tu­al­ly every major media out­let in the coun­try — from a prime time debate on nation­al tele­vi­sion, to a very sym­pa­thet­ic report in the com­pa­ny of Indi­ans in action pub­lished in the biggest morn­ing news­pa­per, to an op-ed piece in the biggest evening paper and count­less news reports in
local media. Thus, in a mat­ter of months, the issue of unnec­es­sary car­bon emis­sions in gen­er­al and SUV:s in par­tic­u­lar have risen to the top of the agen­da in Swe­den – some­thing that nev­er hap­pened before – and own­er­ship of the vehi­cle has become all the less con­ve­nient.

Swe­den is unique in Europe in its addic­tion to SUVs. Car­bon emis­sions from new cars on Swedish roads are some 20 per­cent above the Euro­pean aver­age; no males in the EU emit as much by dri­ving cars as Swedish males do. This is large­ly due to the suc­cess of Volvo’s SUV mod­el XC90, as well as oth­er cars from the con­sis­tent­ly cli­mate destruc­tive com­pa­ny. The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle have decid­ed to change this sit­u­a­tion.

The action per­formed by the Indi­ans is sim­ple. The cap of the tyre’s valve is unscrewed, a bean or a grain of grav­el is insert­ed, and the valve is screwed back on the tyre. The lit­tle thing will push down the peg in the mid­dle of the valve, mak­ing sure the air is gen­tly released. The whole manoeu­vre takes about 10 sec­onds, after which fol­lows the long sound of the air peter­ing out. A let­ter to the own­er is left on the widescreen, where­in the action is explained (see trans­la­tion attached below). Instruc­tions and the let­ter are avail­able on the weblog, for all like-mind­ed activists to use and spread lav­ish­ly. The Indi­ans refrain from tar­get­ing SUVs used by hand­i­capped dri­vers, health care insti­tu­tions and
com­pa­ny work­ers.

Though the response has, in gen­er­al, been pos­i­tive among the pub­lic, con­sid­er­able fury and aggres­sion have arisen among SUV-own­ers. A coun­ter­force call­ing itself ”The Cow­boys of the Con­crete Jun­gle” has
appeared, threat­en­ing to deflate the lungs of the Indi­ans, pre­sum­ably with knifes. On var­i­ous inter­net com­mu­ni­ties run by motorists and sol­diers, plans are made to guard SUVs and beat or even kill Indi­ans; pub­lic sup­port­ers of the cause have been sub­ject to threats of attacks on their homes. Undaunt­ed, the Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle have con­tin­ued and esca­lat­ed the cam­paign, and so far, no one has been hurt. Only one Indi­an has been nabbed by Swedish police, though it has not even decid­ed what kind of crim­i­nal offence deflat­ing tyres actu­al­ly con­sti­tutes – if indeed it is a crime at all.

The con­flict sur­round­ing the actions is con­sid­ered a suc­cess in itself. There are real, social con­tra­dic­tions in the field of cli­mate change between those who emit car­bon relent­less­ly and those who suf­fer the heav­i­est loss­es, and bring­ing these to light is cru­cial for any progress. Not every­one will fight cli­mate change. Not every­one will give up their lethal priv­i­leges vol­un­tar­i­ly.

The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle are deter­mined to con­tin­ue their cam­paign of dis­ar­ma­ment. If it is done repeat­ed­ly and on a mas­sive scale, deflat­ing tyres will devel­op from a slight annoy­ance in the eyes of the own­ers into a real obsta­cle for dri­ving SUV:s. Imag­ine wak­ing up to a car with­out air in the tyres every morn­ing, or even once a week! The cam­paign is poised to spread fur­ther in Swe­den, and now the Indi­ans are look­ing for­ward to tribes tak­ing up the cause in oth­er coun­tries as well. In the pur­suit of spread­ing the word, all dec­la­ra­tions of recent actions will here­after be post­ed in Eng­lish as well as Swedish.

The weblog is: http://asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com/

The Indi­ans are hap­py to answer any ques­tions. Just write to this email adress.

Let­ter to SUV own­ers:

Your SUV kills!

We have deflat­ed one or sev­er­al tyres of your SUV. Don’t take it per­son­al. It’s your car we don’t like. You are cer­tain­ly aware of the large amount of fuel it con­sumes, so we don’t have to enlight­en you about that. But either you are igno­rant of, or you don’t care about the fact that all the gas you con­sume by dri­ving around in your SUV in the streets of the city has dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for oth­ers. Sci­en­tists are entire­ly sure that we are very close to push­ing cli­mate change across a thresh­old, into a
phase where it will be total­ly out of con­trol.

When the glac­i­ers melt, people’s source of water dis­ap­pear. When the deserts spread, agri­cul­tur­al fields become uncul­tivable. When the sea lev­el ris­es, homes are inun­dat­ed. Result: bil­lions of refugees, count­less deaths. It’s already esti­mat­ed that 160 000 humans die every year due to the effects of cli­mate change, accord­ing to the WHO. As an afflu­ent Swede you will sur­vive longer then most. Those most vul­ner­a­ble, and already worst afflict­ed by the glob­al warm­ing caused by North­ern afflu­ence, are the peo­ple of poor coun­tries. In the end, how­ev­er, cli­mate chaos will affect us all, poor peo­ple as well as rich.

This does not have to hap­pen if we impose a rad­i­cal cut on car­bon emis­sions. Now. Not tomor­row. That’s why we have dis­armed your SUV by deflat­ing the tyres. Since you live in a city with a func­tion­ing and acces­si­ble pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem you will have no prob­lem get­ting where you want with­out your SUV.

/ The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 72, OCTOBER 2007

Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk
To receive this News Sheet month­ly, email news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk
with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes).

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
2) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD — OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
3) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING — 3–4.11.07 OXFORD
4) CLIMATE CAMPS — 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
5) TARA UPDATE — 22.9.07 IRELAND
6) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — NATIONWIDE
7) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS — AUTUMN 2007
8) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART — OCT ’07, EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
9) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES — 17.9.07
10) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11–2.12.07

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS — 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING,
MADRID & IRELAND
2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING — ARTICLES 2006/7
4) GAGGED! SOUTH WALES ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER — SEPTEMBER 2007
5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING — 14.9.07
6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN‑2 FUNDING — 15.8.07
7) “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT — 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA — 2/3.9.07
9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY — 12.9.07
10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION — SEPTEMBER 2007
11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS — 24.9.07
12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION AGAINST ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
RBS, the self-described ‘Oil and Gas Bank’ and sec­ond-largest bank in
Europe is the lead­ing financier of cli­mate change. From West Africa to the
Ecuado­ri­an rain­for­est, from the North Sea to the Mid­dle East, RBS loans
play a key role in forc­ing open the new car­bon fron­tier. The thir­ty oil
and gas finance deals RBS signed between 2001 and 2006 locked us all into
655 mil­lion tonnes of emis­sions over the next 15 years — more than the
UK’s cur­rent annu­al emis­sions total!
On 15th Octo­ber, get togeth­er with your local group, build on con­nec­tions
made at the Camp, reach out to oth­ers in your area and con­front RBS with
your own cho­sen style of cre­ative direct action.

To find your near­est RBS branch or office:
www.rbs.co.uk/microsites/general/branch_locator/step1.asp
Down­load Plat­for­m’s report ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’:
www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pdf
For help with plan­ning effec­tive actions: www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

One such action is being planned in con­junc­tion with West Corn­wall Friends
of the Earth; Out­side Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, Green St (off Lemon Quay),
Truro,
12 noon, Mon 15th Oct. Con­tact RTUK for oth­ers.

2) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD — OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
A lot has been hap­pen­ing in the last few weeks, includ­ing the inau­gur­al
Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass. Also, there are two URGENT let­ter actions that they
need your help with. They should only take a few min­utes of your time.
www.saveswallowswood.org.uk

3) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING — 3–4.11.07 OXFORD
The Cli­mate Camp did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing
social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the
upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Nov 3–4 in Oxford. Every­one is wel­come,
whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
www.climatecamp.org.uk

4) CLIMATE CAMPS — 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
Fol­low­ing the mod­el estab­lished by the Camp for Cli­mate Action in the UK,
plans are afoot for a Cli­mate-Action Camp in Ger­many in 2008. This will
include knowl­edge exchange (in work­shops), self-organ­ised liv­ing that
min­imis­es the eco­log­i­cal foot­print, net­work­ing and direct action. There
are plans for sim­i­lar camps to be set up next year in sev­er­al coun­tries.
watch this space…
www.climatecamp.org.uk

http://www.klimacamp.org/

5) TARA UPDATE — 22.9.07 IRELAND
They are des­per­ate for more peo­ple and sup­plies on site. There are
cur­rent­ly just 20 peo­ple try­ing to stop work all over the Tara Skryne
val­ley.
www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.circlecommunity.org
For recent videos & pho­tos of protests see;
http://livevideo.com/tarapixie

6) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — NATIONWIDE
For info. and updates check;
http://www.urban75.com/Action/critical.html

7) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS — AUTUMN 2007
Includ­ing “Reclaim Pow­er” 19.10.07 at 7pm fol­lowed by dis­cus­sion with
Ris­ing Tide rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

http://plymouthenvironmentcentre.org.uk/events.php#film-nights

8) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART SHOWS — OCTOBER 2007 EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
Edin­burgh 10th-14th Octo­ber
Man­ches­ter 24th-28th Octo­ber
For fur­ther info. check;
http://www.randomartists.org/

9) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES — 17.9.07
Two com­pa­nies plan­ning to explore for oil in Peru­vian rain­for­est have
revealed their sen­si­tive plans to ‘com­mu­ni­cate’ with the pre­vi­ous­ly
uncon­tact­ed inhab­i­tants using mega­phones! In the past, oil com­pa­ny work­ers
in the Ama­zon region have been killed by iso­lat­ed Indi­ans. Despite this
risk to their own work­ers, and the equal dan­ger of spread­ing fatal
dis­eases to the Indi­ans, the com­pa­nies — Bar­rett Resources of the US and
Rep­sol YPF of Spain — have refused to sus­pend their plans.
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2502
You can help by writ­ing a let­ter;
http://www.survival-international.org/actnow/letters/isolatedindians

10) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11–2.12.07

‘The Stu­dent Cli­mate Project came out of dis­cus­sions at the 2007 Cli­mate
Camp, and
seeks bring togeth­er stu­dents to take col­lec­tive action against the root
caus­es of
Cli­mate Change. It will also devel­op ways to build the stu­dent move­ment
and deal
with Cli­mate Change issues in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem. The project is
non-hier­ar­chi­cal
and based on con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing, and the Launch Gath­er­ing is the
per­fect
oppor­tu­ni­ty to get involved, share your ideas and plan for action. See
www.studentclimateproject.org.uk’

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-

1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS — 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING,
MADRID & IRELAND
There were a series of demon­stra­tions held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the day of
action against Shel­l’s plans for a gas pipeline & refin­ery in Mayo,
Ire­land.
In Ross­port itself over 150 peo­ple occu­pied the refin­ery site.
Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide held a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo at a Shell Garage in East­ville,
Bris­tol with leaflets and ban­ners.
For more details about the var­i­ous actions check;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5090
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1&type=page

2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
Activists in Bris­tol have been busy. Parts of three golf cours­es have been
dug up and the mes­sage “deca­dent waste of water” sprayed near a club
house. A mobile phone mast has been sab­o­taged. A non-pas­sen­ger line which
trans­ports cars and fos­sil fuel to the Mid­lands was cut three quar­ters of
the way through in two places and marked with high vis­i­bil­i­ty paint. A
warn­ing ban­ner read­ing: “Stop: Trees on line” was fixed across the line
sev­er­al hun­dred yards in front of this.
Also, with­in the last 6 months, the front tyres of forty 4x4s have been
punc­tured in and around Bris­tol.
Final­ly, a “cor­po­rate enter­tain­ment” com­pa­ny called 4‑Play, which pro­vides
off road dri­ving for 4x4s in the south west, has had vehi­cles spray
paint­ed with

“4‑play — blow-job the plan­et”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5050

3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING — ARTICLES 2006/7
An excel­lent series of arti­cles on why the neolib­er­al approach to cli­mate
change isn’t work­ing can be found at;
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate/

4) GAGGED! ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER – SOUTH WALES, SEPT 2007
Down­load the PDF here;
https://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/gagged/gagged19.pdf
Alter­na­tive­ly you can read it here;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5052

5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING — 14.9.07
A fed­er­al court has denied Shel­l’s lat­est request to lift an order
block­ing the com­pa­ny’s Arc­tic Ocean drilling. This rul­ing like­ly dooms the
Dutch oil giant’s drilling plans, at least for this year.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/

6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN‑2 FUNDING — 15.8.07
The Euro­pean Bank of Recon­struc­tion and Devel­op­ment has decid­ed to pull
its fund­ing for the $20-plus bil­lion Sakhalin‑2 liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas
project, locat­ed in Rus­si­a’s Far East.
Since Jan­u­ary, EBRD and the Sakhalin Ener­gy share­hold­ers (Gazprom, Roy­al
Dutch Shell, Mit­sui and Mit­subishi) have held talks over the pro­jec­t’s
finance. EBRD cut off dis­cus­sions in favour of financ­ing oth­er projects,
such as those that pro­mote sus­tain­able ener­gy.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/

7) PROTEST AS RDA HOLDS “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT — 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
York­shire For­ward (Region­al Devel­op­ment Agency) held an out­ra­geous “Flood
Sum­mit” at Finning­ley air­port. Local peo­ple vis­it­ed with pop-up tents and
ban­ners to leaflet the con­fer­ence’s par­tic­i­pants and hold alter­na­tive
work­shops high­light­ing the link between avi­a­tion growth and wors­en­ing
cli­mate change.
The con­fer­ence was intend­ed to con­grat­u­late the RDA on their response to
the recent floods. The choice of venue shows just how out of touch with
real­i­ty these half-wits are.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5021

8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA — 2/3.9.07
On the 2nd Sep­tem­ber, twelve Green­peace activists were arrest­ed at the
world’s biggest coal port at New­cas­tle, 160km north of Syd­ney, after
paint­ing the mes­sage “Aus­tralia Push­ing Export Coal” on the side of a coal
ship and unfurl­ing a large ban­ner in Chi­nese call­ing on Chi­na to be
cau­tious of John Howard and George Bush’s attempts to sab­o­tage Kyoto. The
protest comes at the start of the 2007 APEC (Asia Pacif­ic Eco­nom­ic
Coop­er­a­tion) forum meet­ing being host­ed by Aus­tralia.
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/media/releases/climate-change/apec-coal-protest
The fol­low­ing day activists locked them­selves on to a coal con­vey­or belt,
forc­ing the shut-down of a gen­er­a­tor and halv­ing pro­duc­tion from
Vic­to­ri­a’s biggest coal fired pow­er sta­tion.
http://www.realactiononclimatechange.blogspot.com/

9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY — 12.9.07
Peo­ple in South Africa, Ice­land, Trinidad, Den­mark and Amer­i­ca held a
series of coor­di­nat­ed protests against heavy indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion. This is
the first event of a new and grow­ing glob­al move­ment that began at the
2007 Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp in Ölfus, Ice­land.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5067

10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION — SEPTEMBER 2007
For direct action news from Greece, check;
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/

11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS — 24.9.07
For details and some great pics see;
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/381930.html

12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

and over 1500 hits. Take a look and send in your own work:
www.artnotoil.org.uk