Category: Other

Oth­er

The first Green and Black Cross Network Gathering

Lon­don June 18th 11–6 Fol­lowed by a social. Venue TBC

Sup­port is attack!

Green and Black Cross were set up after the Mill­bank demon­stra­tion of Novem­ber last year through iden­ti­fy­ing a need for the type of sup­port that had been devel­oped in the Cli­mate Move­ment. Since then we have sup­port­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple from many back­grounds in their rebel­lions and protests.

Lon­don June 18th 11–6 Fol­lowed by a social. Venue TBC

Sup­port is attack!

Green and Black Cross were set up after the Mill­bank demon­stra­tion of Novem­ber last year through iden­ti­fy­ing a need for the type of sup­port that had been devel­oped in the Cli­mate Move­ment. Since then we have sup­port­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple from many back­grounds in their rebel­lions and protests.
From a legal sup­port hot­line to tire­less legal observers on the streets, brave action medics to a kitchen team smug­gling flap­jacks behind police lines. Our empha­sis on sup­port is to allow the poten­tial for fur­ther rebel­lion, for peo­ple to rise up and in doing so take con­trol of the direc­tion of their lives and spread a rela­tion­ship of sol­i­dar­i­ty and mutu­al aid.

It’s time to get involved!

At Lon­don we’ve devel­oped work­ing groups around forms of sup­port includ­ing Legal, Kitchens, Medics, Toi­lets and Rad­i­cal Child Care. We want not only to strength­en these groups in the region but also to expand a sup­port net­work. If you’re from Man­ches­ter and you’ve been legal observ­ing on demon­stra­tions, if your from Leeds and you’re think­ing about pro­vid­ing food at pick­et lines, if you live in Bris­tol and you want to be there when pro­tes­tors get injured, where ever you live and you are think­ing about get­ting involved – come! Share skills, swap sto­ries and find out more. The day will be split between intro­duc­tions to the project, ques­tions and debate on the Green and Black Cross net­work struc­ture, work­ing group time to share and devel­op our prac­tices and end­ing the day with a social event.

Why Lon­don? Unfor­tu­nate­ly GBC is present­ly Lon­don based. We aim to bring about a hor­i­zon­tal net­work that con­tains region­al auton­o­my. To do this though we want to share where we’re at so far and to make this pos­si­ble to organ­ise we’ve called the gath­er­ing in the big smoke.

Want to get involved soon­er but need some skills and or infor­ma­tion? GBC has set up a project to offer info/skill shares for groups who want to be trained up in a par­tic­u­lar sup­port role. We can offer skill shares in your rea. Get in touch with GBC@riseup.net.

We’re trans­form­ing rela­tion­ships, we’re fight­ing destruc­tion. Get involved with GBC and make way for the move­ment! For more info and pos­si­bil­i­ties of crash space email GBC@Riseup.net

Full details — fol­low the link in the Action Dates & Gath­er­ings link, to the left

SDL and BNP: Smashed out of Glasgow!

22.9.10

A last minute mobil­i­sa­tion of anti-fas­cists on Sun­day saw off both the BNP and the Scot­tish Defence League, who both attempt­ed to hold sep­a­rate pub­lic activ­i­ty in Glas­gow city cen­tre.

22.9.10

A last minute mobil­i­sa­tion of anti-fas­cists on Sun­day saw off both the BNP and the Scot­tish Defence League, who both attempt­ed to hold sep­a­rate pub­lic activ­i­ty in Glas­gow city cen­tre.

With fears that the SDL were attempt­ing a ‘flash-mob’ style protest, in the vein of what the EDL organ­ised in Old­ham last week­end, SAFA activists were already keep­ing an eye on the city cen­tre, when they came across the BNP set­ting up a stall around 1pm.

SAFA activists – plus peo­ple from left-wing stalls else­where in the city cen­tre – were able to quick­ly mobilise to con­front the BNP. Around 1.45pm, a large num­ber of anti-fas­cists descend­ed on the stall, which was kicked over and the con­tents of it torn up or seized. With a large crowd now gath­ered around, the BNP were left stand­ing beside the ruins of their stall as up to 100 onlook­ers and anti-fas­cists chant­ed at them. The police showed up around 15 min­utes lat­er and attempt­ed to gain con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion, but in the end were forced to remove the BNP mem­bers for their own safe­ty.

Mean­while, the SDL were begin­ning to gath­er in The Goose pub on Union Street. They indi­cat­ed that they would head­ing to George Square at 5.30pm, for an assem­bly at the Ceno­taph – their full inten­tions were unclear. By the time the 15 SDL sup­port­ers showed up, around 100 anti-fas­cists and local youth were gath­ered in the square. A brief con­fronta­tion ensued, with one SDL sup­port­er arrest­ed, along­side a 14 year old, who alleged­ly threw a punch in the direc­tion of the SDL.

The SDL were denied the use of the Ceno­taph, and the police were again forced to step in to remove the fas­cists from our streets.

All in all, a huge­ly suc­cess­ful day of direct action against fas­cism – let’s hope they got the mes­sage and don’t return any time soon.

Two emails re US evidence Cherney Bari bomb

Dar­ryl Cher­ney and Judi Bari were both mem­bers of the IWW at the time.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_16025546

SAN FRANCISCO — The sur­vivor of an Oak­land car bomb­ing reopened a 20-year-old case Wednes­day when he asked a fed­er­al judge to bar the FBI from destroy­ing bomb frag­ments he argued could con­tain evi­dence.

Dar­ryl Cher­ney and Judi Bari were both mem­bers of the IWW at the time.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_16025546

SAN FRANCISCO — The sur­vivor of an Oak­land car bomb­ing reopened a 20-year-old case Wednes­day when he asked a fed­er­al judge to bar the FBI from destroy­ing bomb frag­ments he argued could con­tain evi­dence.

Author­i­ties this week said they exhaust­ed all leads and noti­fied the lawyers that evi­dence from the bomb­ing would be destroyed. Judge James Larsen ordered the FBI to pre­serve the evi­dence until the court decides how to resolve the issue.

The Earth First activist, Dar­ryl Cher­ney, claimed the FBI still has two sets of bomb rem­nants that could con­tain DNA evi­dence, as well as a hand-let­tered sign and duct tape. The evi­dence could lead author­i­ties to the iden­ti­ty of the per­son who plant­ed a bomb in Cher­ney’s car, which explod­ed in Oak­land two decades ago.

Lawyers for Cher­ney filed the motion Wednes­day before U.S. Dis­trict Judge James Larsen.

Cher­ney won a $4.4 mil­lion law­suit against the FBI and Oak­land police for civ­il rights vio­la­tions com­mit­ted against him and fel­low Earth First orga­niz­er Judi Bari relat­ed to the bomb­ing.

The two were on their way to a Save the Red­woods Fes­ti­val in San­ta Cruz when the bomb explod­ed May 24, 1990.

The blast ripped through the floor­board, seri­ous­ly injur­ing Bari. Cher­ney suf­fered minor injuries.

Oak­land police and the FBI claimed the cou­ple made the bomb. They said the bomb explod­ed acci­den­tal­ly and arrest­ed Cher­ney and Bari on felony explo­sive charges. The FBI lat­er admit­ted the bomb was not in the back seat as agents pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed but that it was placed under the dri­ver’s seat, accord­ing to a KGO Radio report.

Also, the nails in the bomb did not match oth­ers found in oth­er parts of the car.

The charges against Bari and Cher­ney were lat­er dropped by the Alame­da Coun­ty dis­trict attor­ney, who cit­ed insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to pro­ceed fur­ther. Bari died of can­cer in 1997.

Both charged that the FBI and Oak­land police nev­er con­duct­ed a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion, tar­get­ing only Bari and Cher­ney as sus­pects. A fed­er­al jury award­ed $4.4 mil­lion to Cher­ney and Bar­i’s estate in 2002. Jury mem­bers said their civ­il rights were vio­lat­ed when the FBI and Oak­land police arrest­ed them and ille­gal­ly searched their homes.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/08/BANR1FAM6L.DTL

(09–08) 16:54 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — It’s an infa­mous case that nev­er seems to go away, even after mil­lions of dol­lars have been paid out in civ­il set­tle­ments and police say the trail has gone cold.

The case is the 1990 bomb­ing in Oak­land of Earth First envi­ron­men­tal activists Judi Bari and Dar­ryl Cher­ney, who were near­ly killed when a nail-stud­ded explo­sive device blew up in their car.

Nobody was ever charged with the attack, and now, two decades lat­er, the FBI wants to destroy the last bits of evi­dence it has been stor­ing ever since the inves­ti­ga­tion drib­bled dry — rem­nants of the bomb and one like it that blew up in a North Bay town a few days ear­li­er.

Not so fast, says Cher­ney, 54, who has nev­er giv­en up try­ing to solve the case him­self.

Say­ing in court briefs that the evi­dence “pro­vides the last best hope for learn­ing who bombed Judi Bari,” Cher­ney and his lawyers were in fed­er­al court Wednes­day in San Fran­cis­co to try to force the FBI to turn the evi­dence over to them so they can run DNA and oth­er tests on it.

They man­aged to get U.S. Mag­is­trate Judge James Lar­son to order the evi­dence pre­served for 30 days while he decides its fate, but the judge indi­cat­ed the clock is tick­ing fast — and not in Cher­ney’s favor.
Main­tain­ing inter­est

“Frankly, I think it would behoove your side to talk to some­one in the attor­ney gen­er­al’s office to see if they can get inter­est­ed in this,” Lar­son told Cher­ney’s attor­ney, Den­nis Cun­ning­ham, refer­ring to the U.S. attor­ney gen­er­al’s office.

The idea would be for fed­er­al author­i­ties — or any­one involved in inves­ti­gat­ing the bomb­ing two decades ago — to reopen the case, or at least indi­cate enough inter­est to want to hang on to the FBI’s evi­dence.

Fail­ing that, the judge seemed inclined to let the agency go ahead and destroy the pieces of the explo­sives. He did say, how­ev­er, that he would do more research and con­sult with those who pre­vi­ous­ly dealt with the issue in court before he makes his deci­sion.
‘Hard to accept’

That gave Cher­ney’s back­ers hope, and they said Wednes­day they would be check­ing with inves­ti­ga­tors and pros­e­cu­tors to see if any­one wants to take pos­ses­sion of the bomb bits.

“There’s no rea­son they can’t keep these two box­es,” Cun­ning­ham said. “It’s hard to accept that these things have no more use when the bomber or bombers have nev­er been found.”

At issue are the rem­nants of the bomb that blew up in Bar­i’s car on May 24, 1990, on Park Boule­vard, and of a sim­i­lar device that par­tial­ly explod­ed in Cloverdale on May 9. The Cloverdale bomb explod­ed at the Louisiana-Pacif­ic Corp. mill, caus­ing min­i­mal dam­age, and was accom­pa­nied by a card­board sign read­ing, “LP screws mill work­ers.”

Both bombs are pre­sumed to have been made by the same per­son — some­one who sent a let­ter to the San­ta Rosa Press Demo­c­rat, sign­ing it as “the Lord’s Avenger” and giv­ing details that law enforce­ment said only the bomber would know. The evi­dence is being kept in two box­es in an FBI stor­age room in San Fran­cis­co.
Fin­ger­prints sought

“We need to be able to look at these bomb parts, do DNA test­ing on them, use them to try to find out who bombed us,” Cher­ney, who lives in Gar­berville (Hum­boldt Coun­ty), said after the hear­ing. By try­ing to destroy the parts, he said, “the FBI is run­ning cov­er for the bomber.”

He said he also wants copies of two fin­ger­prints lift­ed from evi­dence in the case that inves­ti­ga­tors said nev­er yield­ed a sol­id lead.

The like­li­hood that anoth­er agency will want to take over the evi­dence or reopen the case seems slim. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Oak­land Police Depart­ment and FBI said they con­sid­er the case closed, as did Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Joseph Sher when he argued on the FBI’s behalf Wednes­day in court.

“We see no rea­son for this evi­dence to be retained,” Sher said after the hear­ing. “The inves­ti­ga­tion is done.”

The FBI, he added, does­n’t rou­tine­ly hand over evi­dence to pri­vate cit­i­zens, espe­cial­ly not bombs.

Cher­ney and Bari were injured when the bomb, locat­ed on the floor behind the dri­ver’s seat of her Sub­aru sta­tion wag­on, explod­ed as the two were head­ed to a ral­ly to begin a cam­paign of protests to pro­tect old-growth forests, called Red­wood Sum­mer.

Inves­ti­ga­tors prompt­ly brand­ed the two as eco-ter­ror­ists, and Cher­ney and Bari were soon arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of hav­ing cob­bled up the bomb them­selves. But pros­e­cu­tors dropped the case weeks lat­er.
Suc­cess­ful civ­il law­suit

The pair filed a civ­il law­suit against the FBI and the Oak­land Police Depart­ment for false arrest and slan­der. Although Bari died of can­cer in 1997, Cher­ney pur­sued the case until he won a $4 mil­lion set­tle­ment in 2004 from the agen­cies. He split the mon­ey with Bar­i’s estate.

“I want to make it clear,” said Cher­ney, who is still with Earth First. “We are going to get those bomb com­po­nents. If they’re done, hand them over.”

E‑mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan@sfchronicle.com.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/08/BANR1FAM6L.DTL#ixzz0z0xTGRxF

People Unite in Opposition to Scottish Coal’s Open Cast Plans in Midlothian

22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

Growing Resistance22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

The protest start­ed in the Vil­lage Hall, with peo­ple gath­er­ing for a speech and wel­come by CAAOC Chair­per­son Dougie McKen­zie. The group then marched through the vil­lage the short dis­tance to the pro­posed open cast site, set in Mid­loth­i­an’s beau­ti­ful coun­try­side, and through the right of way to the cen­tre of the open cast area. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers explained the extent of the bound­aries of the site and the dev­as­ta­tion that would be caused by it.

Fiona Reed, of Coal Action Scot­land, speak­ing to the con­gre­gat­ed crowd, said: “We’ve come here today to con­tin­ue our long term com­mit­ment to sup­port and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with this com­mu­ni­ty and their strug­gle against open cast coal. Across Scot­land com­mu­ni­ties are blight­ed by com­pa­nies like Scot­tish Coal, whether its the health impacts, eco­nom­ic degra­da­tion or the destruc­tion of their local envi­ron­ment they suf­fer. Togeth­er we are stronger!”

Dougie McKen­zie, chair of the cam­paign­ing group, Com­mu­ni­ties Against Air­field Open Cast (CAAOC), said, “We are delight­ed that Coal Action Scot­land is sup­port­ing our cam­paign. Local peo­ple have real con­cerns not only about the impact this mine will have on local busi­ness­es, but also on our safe­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of our chil­dren — the area sur­round­ing the vil­lage of Cous­land is rid­dled with old lime­stone mine work­ings, and we have seri­ous con­cerns about the impact blast­ing will have on the already unsta­ble ground. Already this year we believe there have been 2 land col­laps­es into old mine work­ings in the fields around Air­field, and a few years pre­vi­ous­ly a 15-year old boy nar­row­ly escaped death when the ground in the local play­ing field col­lapsed beneath him .”

“We hope this rur­al protest march will raise aware­ness of our cam­paign and will encour­age more peo­ple to object to Scot­tish Coal’s appli­ca­tion. We sus­pect that there will be many peo­ple in Edin­burgh unaware of this pro­posed blot on the beau­ti­ful land­scape so close to the city.”

Drill huggers stop Shell’s drilling work in Rossport, Ireland

13.8.10

13.8.10
Yes­ter­day peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty of Pul­lath­omas and Ross­port and Sol­i­dar­i­ty campers lead by the rous­ing sound of a vis­it­ing bag­piper and drum­mer, returned to one of Shel­l’s drilling rigs, gain­ing access at low tide across the exposed sand bars of Sruwad­da­con bay. On arriv­ing at the rig a num­ber of peo­ple sur­round­ed the drill cas­ing and danced around it before form­ing a tight hud­dle to pre­vent any fur­ther work occur­ring. Mean­while oth­ers held a large ban­ner and occu­pied the area while chil­dren played in the sand.

I‑RMS secu­ri­ty guards asked the drill hug­gers to leave the area “for their own safe­ty”, an offer that was polite­ly refused. Around an hour lat­er Gar­di arrived and observed while super inten­dant Diskin had a pri­vate chat with I‑RMS chief Jim Far­rell.

Bizarrely after 30 min­utes or so all the Gards left leav­ing I‑RMS in charge of polic­ing the pro­test­ers, despite their shock­ing record of vio­lence towards the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Peo­ple spent the after­noon occu­py­ing the area while chat­ting, singing, play­ing music and foot­ball.

Around 5 o’clock in the evening when most peo­ple had left, with no warn­ing I‑RMS men jumped on pro­test­ers and force­ful­ly remov­ing them, them­selves sur­round­ing the drill. The pro­test­ers attempt­ed to reach the drill again but were repeat­ed­ly “repelled” by secu­ri­ty, at this point the drill start­ed to oper­ate again while pro­test­ers and secu­ri­ty were close to it. For the next 30 min­utes this bat­tle con­tin­ued in obvi­ous breach of safe­ty reg­u­la­tions putting both work­ers and pro­test­ers at risk.

The day demon­strat­ed yet again that Shell have total dis­re­gard not only for envi­ron­ment and local com­mu­ni­ty but also for their own employ­ees.

for more info

www.shelltosea.com, www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

Trashing, dashing, bashing, mashing: the new EF! Action Update

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

Maybe you’re in need of a break. But if you’re not, and are just champ­ing at the bit, the return of AUn­tie MIffy’s prob­lem page might help, address­ing what to do if there’s no local group near you. There’s an arti­cle about the begin­nings of EF! in this coun­try, look­ing for­wards to the next 20 years, to help inspire. If you need sup­port to get things going where you live, do get in touch. And if all that’s not enough, here’s a quo­ta­tion, from Paul Wat­son, the Sea Shep­herd cap­tain:

“Future gen­er­a­tions will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor the knowl­edge. It is up to us — you and I.”

Print ver­sion
Oth­er issues and extra info

Earth First! Summer Gathering set-up plans announced

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We also have a mobile num­ber for set­up which is 07766 947852. This will be on-site from Sat­ur­day lunchtime, and may well get answered in the few days before­hand but please don’t try ring­ing until then — e‑mail will remain the main con­tact point until near­er the time — sum­mer­gath­er­ing -{at}- earthfirst.org.uk

What we need to know:

*Please can you let us know when you are com­ing? — this helps us plan foods, facil­i­ties and what jobs to do when.

*It is also help­ful if you can let us know if you have any par­tic­u­lar skills or inter­ests with respect to set-up — we might need dri­vers, so if you are over 25, hold a clean licence, are con­fi­dent dri­ving a 3.5 tonne Luton AND can bring along both parts of your dri­ving licence please let us know.

*Sim­i­lar­ly if you are arriv­ing in a vehi­cle and could poten­tial­ly pro­vide lifts, trans­port equip­ment en route or run errands from site once you arrive please let us know. In this case it is very help­ful if you are able/willing to sup­ply us with a con­tact phone num­ber.

How to get there

As you maybe aware that we do not announce the exact site of the gath­er­ing until one week before the main event, this means direc­tions will be avail­able on the web­site http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/ from Wednes­day, 27 July. We realise this will be short notice for peo­ple arriv­ing on the Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er to make things eas­i­er we will e‑mail direc­tions to set-up crew on that day (that still 4 days to check a map!).

The near­est train sta­tion is Der­by if you want to pre-book train tick­ets, you will also need to take a local bus ser­vice from Der­by (these are fre­quent). We are aim­ing to have a vehi­cle on site that can assist if peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ties between Der­by and the site, so hope­ful­ly every­one will be able to get there okay.

There may be a very small num­ber of lifts avail­able from the Not­ting­ham area across the week­end of Sat­ur­day 31st July/Sunday first of August. There may also be lifts from the Leeds area first thing on 31 July. Let us know if this may be of inter­est to you.

What to bring

*Every­thing you need to the gath­er­ing, tent sleep­ing bags etc. and espe­cial­ly a torch

*It may be wise to come a bit more self-suf­fi­cient in food and snacks than you would need to for the main gath­er­ing — we will have a basic kitchen but Veg­gies and the tuck shop are not arriv­ing until Wednes­day

*If you are able to bring any tools, espe­cial­ly for basic car­pen­try, these are often use­ful

Big thanks for offer­ing to help out

Do get in touch if you have any ques­tions

Love & rage

The EF! Gath­er­ing crew

summer camps in the UK & Merthyr coal train action sentencing — solidarity demo

The next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

Climate Camp Cymru 2010 logoThe next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

The Peace News Sum­mer Camp is almost upon us in sun­ny Oxford­shire, “an inclu­sive, demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-run five-day expe­ri­ence-in-minia­ture of the kind of world we are try­ing to bring about”. This year, fem­i­nism joins our stand­ing themes of peace and jus­tice.
http://peacenewscamp.info/

The EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is of course in ear­ly August in the beau­ti­ful Peak Dis­trict. “5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low- impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers. Meet and share skills with oth­ers who care. Plan actions and cam­paigns. Have fun. We’ve got over 80 work­shops, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘Where Next’ ses­sions planned, get in touch if you want to offer a work­shop! ”
A tonne of var­ied and amaz­ing work­shops and train­ing ses­sions, full details at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2010/front.html

And the Welsh Cli­mate Camp is in mid-August (see call­out below), “a basic ‘lite’ action-focused camp in South Wales; with its atten­tion fixed firm­ly on coal. This will be linked to a sis­ter-site /in­fo-shop in Cardiff which will act as a point of con­tact before and dur­ing the camp. Work­shops will be most­ly lim­it­ed to action-based train­ing and infor­ma­tion although there will be space to hear from com­mu­ni­ty cam­paigns and open dis­cus­sion forums through­out the camp.”
http://climatecampcymru.org/?page_id=1000

The UK Camp for Cli­mate Action is head­ing north to Edin­burgh at the end of August, “Our sus­tain­able and col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised base­camp will give you the chance to learn, train up, and meet like mind­ed indi­vid­u­als. Excit­ing action plans are cur­rent­ly in the plot­ting stages, so watch this space.”
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010

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Open cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape
It’s time to take action
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru
13 – 17 August

A momen­tum is build­ing. Last year we camped next to Ffos y Fran — one of the largest open­cast mines in Europe — for a week of work­shops and sus­tain­able liv­ing. This sum­mer we’re going back to basics with a light action-based camp, tar­get­ing coal some­where in south Wales.

Our cur­rent eco­nom­ic sys­tem is based on an addic­tion to fos­sil fuels and on max­imis­ing prof­it at the expense of peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. Fos­sil fuel cor­po­ra­tions can­not be allowed to progress unchecked. We need green jobs for Wales, not dirty destruc­tion.

On the 13th we’ll meet in Cardiff and make our way from there to the site.
Things to bring:

> Tent
> Sleep­ing bag
> Warm clothes and water­proofs
> Plate, bowl, mug and cut­lery
> and a bike could be use­ful too

Burn­ing coal is destroy­ing our cli­mate, while open­cast min­ing dam­ages the earth and the health of local peo­ple. We must leave it in the ground.

Join a grow­ing num­ber of ordi­nary peo­ple tak­ing direct action, and explor­ing alter­na­tives, to stop the mad­ness that is destroy­ing the earth. This August 13th ‑17th come to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru.

www.climatecampcymru.org
info@climatecampcymru.org
07040 909 147

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Head­ing to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru on August 13th? 13 peo­ple who block­ad­ed the rail­way at Ffos y Fran open­cast mine in April are being sen­tenced at Merthyr Crown Court that day at 2pm. Why not drop by around 1pm for a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo.

update on resistance to High-Speed Railway in the Basque Country

Soci­ety has open­ly giv­en response to the High-Speed Train (HST) in the lat­ter times. We know, and so do they, that we are many peo­ple against HST. In Hen­daya, there were more than 15.000 peo­ple in a recent demon­stra­tion against this project.

TAV mine evictionSoci­ety has open­ly giv­en response to the High-Speed Train (HST) in the lat­ter times. We know, and so do they, that we are many peo­ple against HST. In Hen­daya, there were more than 15.000 peo­ple in a recent demon­stra­tion against this project. Many ref­er­en­dums were placed and the response against the project was wide­ly sup­port­ed. There have been also many pub­lic appear­ances and actions all over. But pow­er does­n’t seem to lis­ten and the sit­u­a­tion is get­ting worse day by day. Civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action are the only means we have left to stop the HSP project, and that’s why four activists took the deci­sion to take part in this action, putting their lives in dan­ger. It’s been three days now since 4 activists decid­ed to go inside a tun­nel in the mines in Itsason­do (Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Coun­try). They are actu­al­ly blocked and chained inside the tun­nel with no way to go out by them­selves. Even if their sit­u­a­tion has gone pub­lic, none of the pub­lic orga­ni­za­tions involved have tak­en any mea­sures or orga­nized any res­cue team. This has put their lives in seri­ous dan­ger. Besides, the explo­sions and the nor­mal oper­a­tions in the mines have not been stopped, mak­ing this dan­ger even worse. As a result, we are fac­ing a real­ly dan­ger­ous sce­nario, not only because the explo­sions have not been stopped, but also because pub­lic pow­ers are act­ing with absolute neglect, putting the lives of the activists in real seri­ous risk. How can it be pos­si­ble that in these times when life is pub­licly extolled, pub­lic pow­ers show so lit­tle respect for the lives of those cit­i­zens? How can all those who talk so much about “the peo­ple’s choice” go on with their project to build the High-Speed Train, after many peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions have wide­ly showed their refusal to this infra­stuc­ture? For all these rea­sons we encour­age peo­ple to join us in the demon­stra­tion that will be held tomor­row, 4th of July in Ordizia (Gipuzkoa-Basque Coun­try), 5 o’clock in the after­noon, and also to show their sup­port to the activists in the mine by com­ing to the sup­port camp in Itsason­do (Gipuzkoa).

2010-07-04
Under the slo­gan “Till stop­ping HST, resis­tance in Itsason­do’s mines” a demon­stra­tion left Ordizia yes­ter­day in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the ini­tia­tive of four activists whom chained them­selves inside a mine on Thurs­day. At the same time, the demo demand­ed the cease of works for the High Speed Train. The event linked the towns of Ordizia and Bea­sain, mak­ing two stops in the works of this infra­struc­ture, which par­tic­u­lar­ly affects the val­ley of Goier­ri. The atti­tude of the Region­al Home Depart­ment and the Basque Rail­way Net­work ignor­ing the pres­ence of the activists inside the mines and con­tin­u­ing with the works has pro­voked big anger which was noti­ci­ble dur­ing the demon­stra­tion. After teh demo, a large group of demon­stra­tors cut the rail­way rail traf­fic for at least five min­utes after tak­ing over the Beasin RENFE train sta­tion (RENFE, the Spainsh rail­way com­pa­ny is the oth­er com­pan­ny involved in the project). The ral­ly yes­ter­day was not the only event held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with activists in recent days. On the evening of Fri­day, unknown activists cut the water sup­ply for the Mari­aratz con­struc­tion site, where activists are chained. the action aimed also to show their dis­gust at the atti­tude of the insti­tu­tions regard­ing the 4 chained activists and to dis­rupt in the same way the con­struc­tion of this infra­struc­ture. Remain under­ground Mean­while, the four activists, who are now into their fifth day chained to con­crete-filled drums with­out the option of leav­ing on his own feet, noticed their health dete­ri­o­rat­ing because of the harsh con­se­quences of the mines, main­ly high damp­ness and wet­ness. Yes­ter­day morn­ing a walk hap­pened too with the aim of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the activists, who said that they were “very tired and weak.” They were affect­ed by the high humid­i­ty inside the mines where they are. There were no search Haitzu­lue­tako Aurkari­ak (activist group) announced the exact loca­tion where the chain activists were last Sat­ur­day, in order to force a new search. The region­al police claimed to have no record of the pres­ence of these activists in the area. There­fore, the sup­port group isist­ed for the search to be repeat­ed. Appar­ent­ly the Ertzaintza did not enter the area dur­ing all day yes­ter­day. The action start­ed on Thurs­day morn­ing, but the explo­sions for the con­struc­tion of the HST tun­nel did not stop. There were con­stant blast­ing on Thurs­day and Fri­day and even the chained activists felt detach­ments of walls and ceil­ing inside the mine. Accord­ing to the loca­tion they gave on Sat­ur­day, the activists would be in the 4th min­ing zone with­in the Ordizia-Itsason­do con­struc­tion site, a few meters from the core of the explo­sions.

A day lat­er (5/07/2010) the Basque police, the Ertzaintza, have evict­ed the four anti TAV activists who have been locked-on in the Itsason­do mines. The first two are cur­rent­ly (17:30) on their way to the sta­tion to give evi­dence, after going to the health cen­tre for a check-up. The last two have since been evict­ed from the mines. Through­out the after­noon about a 100 peo­ple have been gath­er­ing at the mouth of the mine to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the activists. They have been charged with “pub­lic dis­or­der, resis­tance and dis­obe­di­ence to author­i­ty.”

TAV truck digger-divingOn 6th July, despite the TAV trucks hav­ing secu­ri­ty escorts, we sat in front of the vehi­cles. The truck dri­ver was very aggres­sive, grab­bing us by the throat and threat­en­ing us. He drove at us, so we got out of the way before being hit. He tried to attack with a club, but the secu­ri­ty guards restrained him! We denounce this aggres­sion and will con­tin­ue to resist from the Leginetxe squat­ted work­ers’ cot­tages.

There will be a protest action camp against the TAV from 26th July to 1st August.

Tesco targeted in Beeston, Nottingham

30.6.2010
In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing, the gates of a con­struc­tion site of Tesco super­mar­ket in the Beston area of Not­ting­ham were d‑locked shut and graf­fi­ti was sprayed on the boards sur­round­ing the site say­ing ‘TESCO — FUCK OFF’ and ‘EVERY LITTLE HURTS — FUCK OFF TESCO’

30.6.2010
In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing, the gates of a con­struc­tion site of Tesco super­mar­ket in the Beston area of Not­ting­ham were d‑locked shut and graf­fi­ti was sprayed on the boards sur­round­ing the site say­ing ‘TESCO — FUCK OFF’ and ‘EVERY LITTLE HURTS — FUCK OFF TESCO’

The more we allow our food sup­ply to be con­trolled by cor­po­ra­tions, or to be admin­is­tered by the log­ics of cap­i­tal­ism, the more we sur­ren­der our auton­o­my.

Tesco is just one cog in a cap­i­tal­ist machine that is based on exploita­tion and oppres­sion, and is ruin­ing our ecol­o­gy and envi­ron­ment.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those in active resis­tance against cor­po­rate pow­er.