Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Occupation of Minvest Deva Headquarters in Romania

3/2/14

Nine activists from Roma­nia and Ger­many climbed the fire escape of Min­vest Deva’s head­quar­ters today and unfurled two thir­ty-foot-long ban­ners call­ing for a ban on cyanide min­ing. They were fined 500 lei each, but declared they would not pay.

3/2/14

Nine activists from Roma­nia and Ger­many climbed the fire escape of Min­vest Deva’s head­quar­ters today and unfurled two thir­ty-foot-long ban­ners call­ing for a ban on cyanide min­ing. They were fined 500 lei each, but declared they would not pay.

The ban­ners read, “Respect Exis­tance or Expect Resis­tance,” “Min­ing with Cyanide Caus­es Death!” and oth­er slo­gans

The activists chose Min­vest Deva due to con­flict of inter­est. Accord­ing to one activist named Mih­nea Bli­dar­iu who was involved in the ban­ner drops, ”The cur­rent Direc­tor of Deva Gold , Mr Nico­lae Stan­ca, is the same per­son who in 1987 signed the Asso­ci­a­tion Agree­ment between Gabriel Resources and the Roman­ian state.”

The full state­ment from the group is below (from Rev­o­lu­tion Sociale)

“Today, the 3rd of Feb­ru­ary 2014, we, cit­i­zens of Roma­nia and Ger­many have occu­pied Min­vest Deva head­quar­ters in order to draw atten­tion at the ille­gal and ille­git­i­mate favor­ing of min­ing com­pa­nies by the Roman­ian state author­i­ties.

We denounce the cyanide based min­ing projects from Certej, Deva-Mun­cel, Băiţa Cră­ci­unești, Brad, Rov­ina și Roșia Mon­tană, projects that have destruc­tive effects towards nature and humans and can only start with no regard of legal pro­ce­dures.

Only at Certej, in 16 years of oper­a­tion 26.448 tons of sodi­um cyanide and 15.280 tons of cop­per sul­phate would be used. Large-scale cyanide use does not bring pros­per­i­ty to a com­mu­ni­ty, only death and the impos­si­bil­i­ty to devel­op oth­er eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties. We denounce deeds that reek of cor­rup­tion, con­flict of inter­ests and abus­es of Nico­lae Stan­ca, cur­rent direc­tor at Deva Gold. He has signed, in the name of the Roman­ian state, the asso­ci­at­ing doc­u­ments between Min­vest Deva and Gabriel Resources in 1997, then being employed by the con­tro­vert­ed busi­ness­man Frank Timis.

We con­demn the government’s inten­tion to bring for­ward to the par­lia­ment a new min­ing law, we con­demn the irre­spon­si­ble and undig­ni­fied atti­tude of the Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment, Rovana Plumb, and ask for her res­ig­na­tion. We warn prime-min­is­ter Vic­tor Pon­ta that a new attempt to pass the min­ing law with absurd stip­u­la­tions that only serve the inter­ests of the min­ing indus­try will not remain with­out con­se­quences. In his urgency and pres­sure on the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to make forced expro­pri­a­tion of cit­i­zens by pri­vate com­pa­nies legal he is doing exact­ly the oppo­site of what the pub­lic opin­ion wants. As the events of last year have demon­strat­ed, ille­git­i­mate sup­port of min­ing com­pa­nies is not backed up by par­lia­ment (two leg­isla­tive attempts have failed last year), nor by the tens of thou­sands of peo­ple that have gone to the streets in 2013.

Last but not least, we wish to draw atten­tion to the total aban­don of moral­i­ty by polit­i­cal peo­ple such as Dan Șova or Rovana Plumb. Dan Șova, from the gov­ern­ment table pro­pos­es legal solu­tions for min­ing projects of his mother’s law clients. Cyanide-based projects are then passed to be eval­u­at­ed to his col­league min­is­ter, Rovana Plumb, who will do any­thing to see them approved, includ­ing drop­ping charges in court.

We ask the cit­i­zens of Roma­nia to inform them­selves cor­rect­ly about the many draw­backs of min­ing projects and remem­ber the hor­ri­ble eco­log­i­cal acci­dents at Certej in 1971 and Baia Mare in 2000. We do not want such tragedies to be repeat­ed! We show our sol­i­dar­i­ty with move­ments around the world that strug­gle against such destruc­tive min­ing projects: Krem­ni­ca (Slo­va­kia), Halkidi­ki (Greece), Cor­coesto (Spain), Salave Asturias (Spain), Berga­ma (Turkey), Kum­tor (Kyr­gyzs­tan), Tal­vi­vaara (Fin­land).

Respect exis­tence or expect resis­tance!
Roma­nia with­out cyanide!

Live update pe mobil: http://goo.gl/RnJUsl
Live update pe Vice: @MinvestDevaLIVE (this account has now been sus­pend­ed by Twit­ter)

Via https://www.facebook.com/rosia.montana.in.unesco

Italy: Police Arrest Four on Terrorism Charges Against High Speed Rail

tav_corteo030a711_sitonotaveeu--400x300 9th Decem­ber  Police on Mon­day arrest­ed four alleged anar­chists in the north­west­ern Pied­mont and the north­ern Lom­bardy regions on ter­roris

tav_corteo030a711_sitonotaveeu--400x300 9th Decem­ber  Police on Mon­day arrest­ed four alleged anar­chists in the north­west­ern Pied­mont and the north­ern Lom­bardy regions on ter­ror­ism charges.

The four sus­pects were alleged­ly plan­ning to car­ry out attacks using explo­sives against a high-speed train line cur­rent­ly being built between Italy and France, accord­ing to inves­ti­ga­tors.

Pros­e­cu­tors in Piedmont’s region­al cap­i­tal, Turin ordered the arrests after an attempt­ed attack on 13–14 May at a buid­ing site in Chiomonte in Piedmont’s Valle De Susa using molo­tov cock­tails.

Work began this year on the main 58-kilo­me­tre tun­nel, of which 12 km are in Italy, for the 15 bil­lion euro train-link due to go into ser­vice around 2023.

The line will cut three hours off the cur­rent sev­en-hour train jour­ney between Paris and Milan.

But it has sparked fierce oppo­si­tion includ­ing from res­i­dents, envi­ron­men­tal groups and local may­ors. Pro­test­ers claim drilling to build the train link will dam­age the local ecosys­tem and could release poten­tial­ly harm­ful sub­stances into the envi­ron­ment.

Dozens have been arrest­ed and hun­dreds of demon­stra­tors and police injured in vio­lent protests over the high-speed link and scores of envi­ron­men­tal activists sent to tri­al. Far-left ‘black block’ extrem­ists from Italy and oth­er coun­tries have infil­trat­ed the protest move­ment, acc­cord­ing to police.

In 2010, a bul­let was mailed to Turin may­or Ser­gio Chi­ampar­i­no for his sup­port for the project, which Rome has vowed to com­plete.

Con­struc­tion of the high-speed link in Italy was brought to a stand­still by protests before and after the Turin Win­ter Olympics in 2006.

Romania Update: Protests Continue as Chevron Restarts Fracking Exploration

pungesti-tvr-1 9th Decem­ber  Protests against Chevron’s activ­i­ty in Silis­tea – Pungesti, north­east­ern Roman­ian, area esca­lat­ed on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 6, trig­ger­ing the Amer­i­can oil and

pungesti-tvr-1 9th Decem­ber  Protests against Chevron’s activ­i­ty in Silis­tea – Pungesti, north­east­ern Roman­ian, area esca­lat­ed on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 6, trig­ger­ing the Amer­i­can oil and gas com­pa­ny to sus­pend its activ­i­ty on site.

Pro­test­ers destroyed the fence Chevron had built around the 20,000 – sqm land plot at the vil­lage out­skirts. One day lat­er, how­ev­er, Chevron re-start­ed their activ­i­ty on site.

Protests were staged down­town in cap­i­tal city Bucharest as well, with a peak reg­is­tered on Sun­day evening (Decem­ber 7), when three pro­test­ers were tak­en into cus­tody by the gen­darmes.

Silis­tea – Pungesti has now been declared a spe­cial area for pub­lic secu­ri­ty, with author­i­ties imple­ment­ing spe­cial mea­sures against vio­lence includ­ing plac­ing gen­darmes all around the vil­lage, accord­ing to Roman­ian media, which has been fol­low­ing the top­ic all through­out last week­end.

The gen­darmes have been check­ing the doc­u­ments of every­one vis­it­ing the vil­lage while vil­lagers have com­plained of the intru­sion, say­ing gen­darmes were in front of every house ask­ing peo­ple of their where­abouts.

The group of pro­test­ers in Pungesti, some 400 peo­ple, were a mix of locals and ecol­o­gy activists from Iaşi, Bucureşti, Braşov and Sibiu. They ini­tial­ly protest­ed peace­ful­ly, but the protest became vio­lent as some of them began throw­ing stones into Chevron’s vehi­cles, and tear­ing down the fence sur­round­ing the explo­ration site. Footage from the Pungesti protests, here.

Mean­while, Chevron has again stat­ed that all explo­ration activ­i­ties will use con­ven­tion­al tech­nolo­gies based on the per­mits it received in the begin­ning of Octo­ber. “We respect people’s right to express their opin­ion, but we believe this should be done with­in the lim­its of the law,” Chevron wrote in an offi­cial state­ment. The com­pa­ny had start­ed its activ­i­ty on site in Silis­tea – Pungesti on Decem­ber 2, after a first delay ear­li­er in Octo­ber, also because of local protests.

The protests against explo­ration for shale case was trig­gered by con­cerns that explo­ration would be harm­ful to the envi­ron­ment, and coin­cid­ed with protests against gold min­ing in Cen­tral Roma­nia, at Rosia Mon­tana, where the planned used of cyanide also caused con­cern.

Direct Action Gets the Goods: Chevron Suspends in Romania

31 8th Decem­ber 

Chevron has sus­pend­ed explo­ration for shale gas in north­east­ern Roma­nia after hun­dreds of anti-frack­ing pro­test­ers tore down fences.

31 8th Decem­ber 

Chevron has sus­pend­ed explo­ration for shale gas in north­east­ern Roma­nia after hun­dreds of anti-frack­ing pro­test­ers tore down fences.

Chevron won approval to drill explorato­ry wells in the town of Pungesti, but halt­ed work for a sec­ond time Sat­ur­day after res­i­dents blocked access to the site.

Hun­dreds of riot police couldn’t pre­vent res­i­dents from demol­ish­ing fences and break­ing into the site. Dozens were detained and 14 were charged with destruc­tion of prop­er­ty and car­ry­ing knives.

Chevron said it had sus­pend­ed work “as a result of unsafe con­di­tions” and informed police of destruc­tion to its prop­er­ty.

Thou­sands of peo­ple have ral­lied across Roma­nia in recent months to protest against gov­ern­ment sup­port for shale gas explo­ration. Chevron had resumed work at the site on Dec. 2.

Support Spied Upon, a vital expose film telling the story of activists targeted by secret police

Dear Earth First!ers,

 

Dear Earth First!ers,

 

Due to its effec­tive use of cre­ative direct action tac­tics in recent decades, Earth First! has con­sis­tent­ly been a tar­get of state repres­sion and exces­sive police tac­tics. Now we are mak­ing a film with oth­er envi­ron­men­tal activists who have been tar­get­ed by under­cov­er police, with the goal of expos­ing these abu­sive repres­sion tac­tics.

 

“Spied Upon” is an inter­na­tion­al­ly made full-length doc­u­men­tary that uses the out­ing of for­mer UK under­cov­er cop Mark Kennedy as it’s start­ing point. Kennedy had begun his inter­na­tion­al oper­a­tion by tar­get­ing Earth First! in the UK in 2003, and had worked across Europe as well as for the FBI for sev­en-years before being out­ed by his unknow­ing activist girl­friend and her cir­cle of Not­ting­ham friends in 2010. Now this woman and a num­ber of oth­er women are suing police boss­es in the UK for what has been exposed as a reg­u­lar under­cov­er police tac­tic of dup­ing activist women into long-term rela­tion­ships. Spied Upon is work­ing with some of these women to sup­port them and help them have their sto­ry told.

 

Mark Kennedy turned pri­vate in 2010 and start­ed his own secu­ri­ty firm as well as say­ing that he was work­ing for Glob­al Open, a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm known to tar­get ani­mal rights activists on behalf of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny clients. It appears as though that is exact­ly what Kennedy was doing when he went to Italy to spy on an ani­mal lib­er­a­tion gath­er­ing in the sum­mer of 2010. He even tried to strength­en his cred­i­bil­i­ty by say­ing he was an impor­tant Earth First! activist, see the video clip here we shot with Ital­ian activists who tell about when they were unknow­ing tar­gets of Kennedy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx38iZ14nc

 

State repres­sion has long fea­tured the use of under­cov­er police, but a less­er known use of under­cov­er tac­tics has been those used by pri­vate secu­ri­ty firms on behalf of pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions. These prac­tices con­strue an intense inva­sion of pri­va­cy that is not even allowed for state under­cov­er police, and this scan­dal needs to be exposed! We have also uncov­ered ille­gal col­lu­sion between pri­vate and state secu­ri­ty forces. This col­lu­sion is a key focus of the film Spied Upon, which we are also mak­ing as a tool that activists can use to high­light the cur­rent prob­lems envi­ron­men­tal groups face today.

 

We plan to release Spied Upon inter­na­tion­al­ly in 2014. How­ev­er, to do this, we need your sup­port to make this film hap­pen. Our film crew comes from grass­roots activism, and we are turn­ing to the grass­roots, mean­ing you, to seek fund­ing. Please take a look at our crowd­fund­ing web-site and teas­er video at Indiegogo, and take action to help us please by mak­ing a dona­tion if you sup­port our work: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/spied-upon

 

In sol­i­dar­i­ty,
The crew at Spied Upon

 

PS. Lots more info at: www.spiedupon.com

protests and ecotage at road building site in Iceland

28.10.13

28.10.13

[from a main­tream news­pa­per:] Equip­ment at the Gál­gahraun lava field — where con­struc­tion of a con­tro­ver­sial new road is planned — was sab­o­taged by van­dal­ism last night.

As report­ed last week, pro­test­ers were arrest­ed at the lava fields for refus­ing to move out of the way of road con­struc­tion equip­ment. The pro­posed road, Álf­tanesve­g­ur, is planned to pass through a pro­tect­ed lava field, which has prompt­ed pub­lic resis­tance in the form of direct action.

Vísir now reports that con­struc­tion work­ers arrived at the site this morn­ing to find that some­one (or some peo­ple) had poured grav­el into the fuel tanks of the machines, ren­der­ing them use­less.

Lava Friends — the organ­i­sa­tion that has protest­ed road con­struc­tion at Gál­gahraun most promi­nent­ly — denied any involve­ment with the sab­o­tage, say­ing, “Lava Friends do not use vio­lence nor ruin the pri­vate prop­er­ty of oth­ers. Lava Friends speak on behalf of nature, and know that nature will win in the end.”

Icelandic road protest — elves and lava fields, Gálgahraun

Lögreglumenn fjarlægja mótmælendur í Gálgahrauni
21.10.2013
 
A group of pro­test­ers, hop­ing to stop planned road con­struc­tion through a pro­tect­ed lava field, were arrest­ed by police today. A law pro­fes­sor believes that arrest was pre­ma­ture.

As report­ed last month, the con­tro­ver­sy sur­rounds the lava fields of Gál­gahraun, which is locat­ed on the Álf­tanes penin­su­la. Although the fields were offi­cial­ly pro­tect­ed in 2009, con­struc­tion of a new road — Álf­tanesve­g­ar — was green-lit ear­li­er this month, and will in part go through Gál­gahraun.

This has sparked protests that have tak­en the form of direct action, as pro­test­ers put them­selves between the lava fields and con­struc­tion equip­ment, stop­ping devel­op­ment before it could begin.

Today, Vísir reports, police offi­cers moved in on the pro­test­ers, arrest­ing them, car­ry­ing some of them phys­i­cal­ly away from the site of con­struc­tion.

Among those arrest­ed was not­ed jour­nal­ist and envi­ron­men­tal­ist Ómar Rag­nars­son, as can be seen in this video.

Law pro­fes­sor Sig­urður Lín­dal told Vísir that he believes no arrests should have hap­pened before a court of law has decid­ed whether or not build­ing a road through a pro­tect­ed lava field is even legal.

“It is com­plete­ly nat­ur­al that [author­i­ties] wait for a court deci­sion first,” dis­trict court lawyer Katrín Odd­s­dót­tir said. “I admire peo­ple who stand up for this. Peo­ple should be able to sub­mit such mat­ters before a court of law to have con­firmed whether oper­a­tions that threat­en nature are legal.”

 
More pho­tos
Project cor­rup­tion back­ground
Over to the elves

Romanian Villagers 3‑day Occupation Forces Chevron to Stop Fracking

pungesti_vaslui_2_5505350018th Octo­ber

pungesti_vaslui_2_5505350018th Octo­ber

US ener­gy giant Chevron said Thurs­day it has sus­pend­ed shale gas test drilling in north­east­ern Roma­nia after three days of protests by vil­lagers opposed to frack­ing.

“Chevron can today con­firm it has sus­pend­ed activ­i­ties in Silis­tea, Pungesti com­mune, Vaslui coun­ty,” a press release read.

The move comes a day after Roman­ian police clashed with vil­lagers who have occu­pied since Mon­day a field to pre­vent Chevron from drilling its first explo­ration well.

The pro­test­ers are afraid of the envi­ron­men­tal and health impact of the high­ly con­tro­ver­sial drilling method used to unlock shale gas, called hydraulic frac­tur­ing or ‘frack­ing’.

The tech­nique con­sists of pump­ing water and chem­i­cals at high pres­sure into deep rock for­ma­tions to free oil and gas, with envi­ron­men­tal­ists warn­ing the process may con­t­a­m­i­nate ground water and even cause small earth­quakes.

Chevron has per­mits to explore for shale gas in three vil­lages in this impov­er­ished part of north­east­ern Roma­nia as well as on Romania’s Black Sea coast.

“Our pri­or­i­ty is to con­duct … activ­i­ties in a safe and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble man­ner con­sis­tent with the per­mits under which we oper­ate,” the group said Wednes­day.

RWE Fuck Off & Die! [Lignite/Brown Coal Protest] (Germany)

Yes­ter­day (Wed, 09.Oct.2013) ener­gy giant RWE (Rheinisch-West­fälis­ches Elek­triz­itätswerk AG) used the bailiffs of the sys­tem to break down the pro­tec­tive appli­ances in the squat­ted HAMBACH FOREST — we sus­pect an evic­tion to be immi­nent!

Yes­ter­day (Wed, 09.Oct.2013) ener­gy giant RWE (Rheinisch-West­fälis­ches Elek­triz­itätswerk AG) used the bailiffs of the sys­tem to break down the pro­tec­tive appli­ances in the squat­ted HAMBACH FOREST — we sus­pect an evic­tion to be immi­nent!
This is a call out to every­one inter­est­ed: Join the resis­tance in the Rhineland — you anar­chists, eco-activists, wrong-doers, rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies and every­one else, join the strug­gle — NOW!

——————————–
This is the rough trans­la­tion of a text pub­lished yes­ter­day on www.linksunten.indymedia.org (Ger­many) by a group call­ing them­selves “Black Block For­est Defend­ers” whom we are sup­port­ing here­with…
——————————-

“RWE Fuck off & Die!”

The Ham­bach For­est is bound to be clear-cut by RWE to fur­ther extend the biggest human-made hole in Europe (the Ham­bach open cast mine to exca­vate lignite/brown coal).
Since April 2012 there was a for­est occu­pa­tion (until Novem­ber 2012 and again in March 2012, adding there is an ongo­ing and vital protest camp locat­ed on a mead­ow direct­ly at the edge of the for­est since Novem­ber 2012.)
And recent­ly, dur­ing the Climate-/ReclaimTheFields!-Camps, a new for­est occu­pa­tion did arise and is held since one month now.

But this occu­pa­tion of the “doomed” for­est is of course threat­ened by the author­i­ties who already destroyed some plat­forms and also has­sle the mead­ow-protest-camp on a con­stant basis by ran­dom arrests (which always led nowhere) and destruc­tion of infra­struc­ture (show­ers, toi­lets, bar­ri­cades,…).

Yes­ter­day police and RWE-forestry-work­ers have been here again, destroy­ing bar­ri­cades, fill­ing trench­es, cut­ting lanes and rip­ping access roads in the for­est.

- we cer­tain­ly do not call those who want to sup­port the strug­gle but cannot/don’t want to come here to cre­ate their own ideas on how to attack state, cap­i­tal, ener­gy providers, police, repres­sive admin­is­tra­tions & Co. every­where… 😉

- and those who rather would like to squat hous­es instead of trees we do not tell that there are hun­dreds of emp­ty build­ings in the area. Because this might only be hearsay… 😉

Every­day now could be the time of evic­tion. In our view this day would be DAY X.

DAY X could be exact­ly the day to meet SOMEWHERE — here at the Ham­bach For­est or/and in your town and area to protest and do action, to be present against the sys­tem­at­ic crap which is hap­pen­ing here and every­where!
Cap­i­tal­ism, the log­ic of growth, the destruc­tion of our means of liv­ing, dis­place­ment, hunger and death are glob­al — and so are our anger, our hate and our actions of protest!

The ener­gy giant RWE is Europe’s most pro­lif­ic lover of lig­nite, is dig­ging the biggest hole in Europe in a relent­less manor (Tage­bau Ham­bach), is expro­pri­at­ing peo­ple on a law-base which was installed dur­ing the Third Reich (Bergrecht) and destroys whole areas (right now: Morschenich and Man­heim), is respon­si­ble for ten­t­hou­sands of mur­ders (cli­mate refugees, coal exca­va­tion in e.g. Colum­bia,…), the extinc­tion of species (Bech­stein-bat), is a vital part of the Ger­man pol­i­tics of aus­ter­i­ty (EIB-cred­its) and has its head­quar­ters in Essen (?!).

Ham­bach­er Forst stays!
Under­mine, occu­py, for­judge and dis­man­tle RWE — STOP THEM NOW!

www.hambachforest.blogsport.de (Blog in Eng­lish)
www.hambacherforst.blogsport.de (Blog in Ger­man)
http://vimeo.com/74042113 (video of the new for­est occu­pa­tion)

Hambach Forest is occupied again, but under eviction threat

Since the cli­mat- and reclaim the fields camp in ger­many, the Ham­bach For­est ist occu­pied again, by cli­mat activist. There are activists liv­ing at plat­tform­sin the trees since more than 2 weeks.

Since the cli­mat- and reclaim the fields camp in ger­many, the Ham­bach For­est ist occu­pied again, by cli­mat activist. There are activists liv­ing at plat­tform­sin the trees since more than 2 weeks. The Ham­bach For­est is one of the old­est for­est in mid­dle europe, but already more than 4/5 of it is destroyed for open cast min­ing. The open cast min­ing in the Rhein­land (between Colonge and Aachen) is the biggest cli­mat killer in all Europe. The for­est gets destroyed year by year, so that RWE the coal com­pa­ny (wich is the moth­er com­pa­ny of N‑Power) can open cast the land. Also big vil­lages get­ting destroyed for the open cast min­ing. Last year the for­est was occu­pied by cli­mat activist, the wohle spring and sum­mer, and got evict­ed in automne. The evic­tion was the longest evic­tion that hap­pened in ger­many, because of the tun­nel sys­tem (the only god sys­tem is a tun­nel sys­tem!). After the evic­tion activists squat­ted a mead­ow next to the Ham­bach For­est, wich is still occu­pied. In the end of august the cli­mat- and RTF Camp took place close to the Ham­bach For­est. With over 500 Par­tic­i­pants it was the biggest cli­mat camp since 5 years in ger­many. More than 200 peo­ple blocked the Ham­bach coal-rail for half an day. In the end of the cli­mat- andd RTF-Camp activists occu­pied the Ham­bach For­est again. Now it is occu­pied since more than 2 weeks. Police was there on mon­day to inspect the plat­tforms and blockad­ing-tools, and was not realy hap­py. In looks like the evic­tion might come the next days. But maybe they want to wait after the big elec­tions in ger­many this sun­day. So there might still be time to come over! See you in the for­est.

http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/

Here’s a video about the occu­pa­tion:http://vimeo.com/74042113

and about the coal trail block­ade: http://vimeo.com/73938171

and a video about the RTF-action: http://vimeo.com/73514620