Category: Other

Oth­er

EF! summer gathering — exact location, travel info & updated workshop programme announced; coal-blighted communities visit

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, 18th-24th August 2009, Cum­bria

Nev­er has halt­ing the destruc­tion of our plan­et been so impor­tant… Learn how to make them stop!

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Seath­waite in the beau­ti­ful Bor­row­dale. The site is right in the heart of the Lake Dis­trict and sur­round­ed by moun­tains, streams and tarns. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith. More detailed direc­tions, pub­lic trans­port, walks & cycle rides to the site

Work­shop pro­gramme in a vari­ety of for­mats

EF!-rabbit-in-canoeEarth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, 18th-24th August 2009, Cum­bria

Nev­er has halt­ing the destruc­tion of our plan­et been so impor­tant… Learn how to make them stop!

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Seath­waite in the beau­ti­ful Bor­row­dale. The site is right in the heart of the Lake Dis­trict and sur­round­ed by moun­tains, streams and tarns. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith. More detailed direc­tions, pub­lic trans­port, walks & cycle rides to the site

Work­shop pro­gramme in a vari­ety of for­mats

WHO
Earth First! is a net­work of peo­ple and cam­paigns who fight eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and the forces dri­ving it. We believe in doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of what we do, whether we’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open­cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions at a low impact eco-liv­ing camp organ­ised non-hier­ar­chi­cal­ly

WHAT
Plan­ning actions and cam­paigns, meet­ing and shar­ing skills with oth­ers who care. Over 80 train­ing work­shops plus games and evening fun:
• Learn skills for direct action. Tree Climb­ing, Ori­en­teer­ing, Secu­ri­ty for activists, Legal brief­ing, Escap­ing pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions, street medics – first aid, self defence, Boat blockad­ing using kayaks, radio pro­ce­dures and rock abseil­ing.
• Net­work your cam­paign against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. open­cast min­ing, genet­ic engi­neer­ing, agro­fu­els, dam-build­ing, hunt-sab­bing, cli­mate actions, oil pipeline resis­tance, road stop­ping, anti-whal­ing, squat­ting, rain­for­est pro­tec­tion.
• Learn about ecol­o­gy, eco­cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of exploita­tion.
• Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing, field trips and hands-on work.

YOU
We are all crew! This is your gath­er­ing come pre­pared to help run the camp and con­tribute to the pro­gramme. Con­tact us in advance with ideas for work­shops, help with organ­is­ing the gath­er­ing, come ear­ly to help set­up the site or stay on for a cou­ple of days for take­down.
If you can help get in touch!

BRING
Bring tent and sleep­ing bag. You can either cook food for your­self or for £4 per day chip in with col­lec­tive cook­ing of deli­cious veg­an organ­ic food. There’ll be qui­et sleep­ing areas, toi­lets and run­ning water, a children’s space and spaces for work­shops and info stalls.
Veg­gies will pro­vide veg­an cake and snacks. Chil­dren and young adults wel­come with sub­si­dized meals.

Arrive Tues pm. Work­shops from Wed am until Sun pm.

Loads of cam­paigns are tak­ing to the water in defence of the plan­et, like at Ross­port where Shell are try­ing to lay onshore pipelines and the Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta at last sum­mers cli­mate camp. This sum­mer’s EF! gath­er­ing will be build­ing on these tac­tics with train­ing in water based actions.

An excur­sion to vis­it com­mu­ni­ties in the North East threat­ened by an expan­sion of coal min­ing on Mon­day 24th August. Vis­it beau­ti­ful val­leys and strong spir­it­ed com­mu­ni­ties and make links for ongo­ing resis­tance.

We aim to make the site as acces­si­ble as we can please con­tact us in advance if you have spe­cial needs, ques­tions or con­cerns.

WHERE
The site is near in the Lake Dis­trict, Cum­bria. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith and there is a bus ser­vice to the site, there are car and liv­ing vehi­cle spaces out­side the camp.

Dogs: We are for­tu­nate this year to be able to accom­mo­date well behaved own­ers with dogs on leads but think about whether your dog will feel com­fort­able in work­shops. Please call before­hand so we know num­bers.

Cost: £20 — £30 accord­ing to what you can afford. We are not for prof­it all extra cash goes to help fund next year. Under 14’s free.

For more info con­tact us at :
summergathering@earthfirst.org.uk
www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk

Climate Activists occupy roof of 2nd Vestas factory!

4.8.2009

Vestas 2nd factory occupation4.8.2009
Cli­mate activists have occu­pied the roof of the Ves­tas tur­bine fac­to­ry at Ven­ture Quays, East Cowes, Isle Of Wight, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers occu­py­ing a fac­to­ry in New­port. The pro­tes­tors have hung a ban­ner above the Fer­ry Port say­ing: “Ves­tas Work­ers — Sol­i­dar­i­ty in Occu­pa­tion. Save Green Jobs,” and issued the fol­low­ing state­ment:

This Cowes Week, tens of thou­sands of peo­ple have come to the island to use and cel­e­brate the free, abun­dant, and nat­ur­al pow­er of the wind. At the same time, work­ers at Ves­tas are strug­gling to keep Britain’s only wind-tur­bine blade man­u­fac­tur­er open. Fac­to­ries in East Cowes, New­port and Southamp­ton are being closed with the loss of over 600 jobs, and hun­dreds more in sup­port indus­tries like Gurit, dev­as­tat­ing not only green promis­es but the Isle of Wight local com­mu­ni­ties.

Now the peo­ple are say­ing enough is enough. At New­port dozens of work­ers are in the sec­ond week of their fac­to­ry occu­pa­tion with mes­sages of sup­port com­ing in from around the world. These coura­geous peo­ple are show­ing more vision and com­mit­ment to the future of jobs, com­mu­ni­ties and our plan­et than all the do-noth­ing busi­ness and polit­i­cal lead­ers put togeth­er.

In the face of man-made cli­mate-change, keep­ing these work­ers with their unique spe­cial­ist skills is as urgent for pow­er­ing a sus­tain­able future as it is for the for the island com­mu­ni­ties. But the gov­ern­ment which was so quick to nation­alise North­ern Rock and pour bil­lions into the ail­ing banks has so far done NOTHING to pro­tect the future of Britain’s wind-pow­er gen­er­a­tion, despite their recent pledge to invest in “Green Jobs”.

Ves­tas mean­while are leav­ing their work­force high and dry, with peanuts in redun­dan­cy pay and lit­tle hope of work, while they make off with the £76 mil­lion prof­its they made in the first quar­ter of 2009 out of their non-unionised work­force.

The Ven­ture Quays roof occu­pa­tion is in sup­port of Ves­tas work­ers demands. We say,

– Take Ves­tas fac­to­ries into pub­lic own­er­ship, under work­ers man­age­ment
Re-instate all work­ers, includ­ing those sacked while in dis­pute
Invest in devel­op­ing wind-pow­er in Britain
Retool the Ves­tas plant to pro­duce for Off-Shore Wind Gen­er­a­tion

This dis­pute comes in a peri­od of cri­sis, both eco­nom­ic and eco­log­i­cal. The eco­nom­ic cri­sis has already seen a mil­lion peo­ple los­ing their jobs while banks ask for hand-outs, with mas­sive cuts and tax ris­es on the hori­zon. On top of that, unless we act quick­ly, the eco­log­i­cal cri­sis of cli­mate-change will threat­en the very future of human life. Moti­vat­ed by greed and paral­ysed by fear, our rulers seem inca­pable of respond­ing. Instead, the lead is com­ing from below.

Work­ing peo­ple are increas­ing­ly stand­ing up and stay­ing put. Occu­pa­tion by not only work­ers but local res­i­dents is becom­ing a default option. This year we have seen occu­pa­tions at the Vis­teon fac­to­ries in Enfield and Belfast, schools occu­pied against clo­sure in Glas­gow and Lewisham, a Lon­don care-home, Thomas Cook in Dublin and now Ves­tas. Peo­ple have been dis-empow­ered for too long!

Lis­ten to the Ves­ta work­ers song “Boys on the Bal­cony” at http://www.seizetheday.org

http://savevestas.wordpress.com

Latest EF! Action Update bursts forth

Car tyres deflate in the night, dig­gers halt­ed in their tracks, build­ings and MPs cov­ered in slime…airports plagued by crazy golf, pic­nics, city gents and hostage-taking…eco-villages and oth­er autonomous spaces sprout, as oth­ers are under threat…tree-sits, banks evict­ed, fake phone-masts and whal­ing ships sunk.…it must be time for anoth­er Earth First! Action Update, bring­ing you a con­cen­trat­ed quar­ter­ly blast of inspi­ra­tion and con­tacts to get out there and take direct action against the bas­tards threat­en­ing this plan­et and its inhab­i­tants.

News from the front-lines — per­ma­nent protest camps old and new, and tem­po­rary gath­er­ings in a field near you, all the dates and info you need for a sum­mer of blis­ter­ing action and tor­ren­tial out­pour­ings!

Suc­cess­es here, across the pond and round the very oth­er side of the world.

People stop logging trucksCar tyres deflate in the night, dig­gers halt­ed in their tracks, build­ings and MPs cov­ered in slime…airports plagued by crazy golf, pic­nics, city gents and hostage-taking…eco-villages and oth­er autonomous spaces sprout, as oth­ers are under threat…tree-sits, banks evict­ed, fake phone-masts and whal­ing ships sunk.…it must be time for anoth­er Earth First! Action Update, bring­ing you a con­cen­trat­ed quar­ter­ly blast of inspi­ra­tion and con­tacts to get out there and take direct action against the bas­tards threat­en­ing this plan­et and its inhab­i­tants.

News from the front-lines — per­ma­nent protest camps old and new, and tem­po­rary gath­er­ings in a field near you, all the dates and info you need for a sum­mer of blis­ter­ing action and tor­ren­tial out­pour­ings!

Suc­cess­es here, across the pond and round the very oth­er side of the world.

A report back from the Coal Car­a­van, plus info about the com­mu­ni­ties along its route.

Court news — what hap­pened after pro­test­ers planned to shut a coal-fired pow­er plant, and climbed atop a train, plus handy Secu­ri­ty Tips for Going on Actions.

Leav­ing it All in the Ground — news of glob­al fights against the min­ing of gold, cop­per, baux­ite and alu­mini­um — blockad­ing, torch­ing and night-time pix­ieing.

A View from the Trees — a sto­ry from our eco-cen­tric cousins. And indige­nous Peru­vians fight on against the whole­sale onslaught on our world.

And a round-up of your favourite pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions — G20, SmashE­DO and Athen­ian rub­bish dumps!

Read, down­load and print it here, sub­scribe so you get it direct to your door, or look out for it at a cli­mate camp near you.

If you want to be list­ed or get a bunch of them to dis­trib­ute, please get in touch.

Share your inspi­ra­tional news at EF! Action Reports, and it’ll find it’s way into your very own print­ed EF!AU, in good old black and white print.

Daring Action Gets Supplies To Vestas Workers Occupation

30.7.2009
A group of twen­ty peo­ple suc­cess­ful­ly brought vital sup­plies into the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight this after­noon, to the whoops and cheers of the occu­py­ing work­ers.

30.7.2009
A group of twen­ty peo­ple suc­cess­ful­ly brought vital sup­plies into the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight this after­noon, to the whoops and cheers of the occu­py­ing work­ers.

The group includ­ing work­ers, local sup­port­ers, and cam­paign­ers from the Cli­mate Camp, Work­ers Cli­mate Action, the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion and Work­ers Lib­er­ty split into two teams. At around 2pm, one team approached the main entrance of the fac­to­ry, car­ry­ing decoy bags of food, to draw off police and secu­ri­ty guards. While this first team was being escort­ed and car­ried bod­i­ly from the site, a sec­ond team ran through a hedge and were able to pass a large sack of sup­plies up to the occu­py­ing Ves­tas work­ers. The sup­plies were based on a wish­list pro­vid­ed by the occu­piers, and includ­ed food, drink, and cru­cial­ly a ket­tle with tea and cof­fee.

Jim Spencer, a mem­ber of the Cli­mate Camp who took part in the action, said the Ves­tas man­age­ment have been attempt­ing to starve the occu­piers out. After much protest, they are cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ing them with one insub­stan­tial meal per day such as a sin­gle slice of piz­za or a lone sand­wich per work­er. This is an utter dis­grace, and so many of us camped out­side have been think­ing about how to get sup­plies in to them. It turned out that some of the fac­to­ry work­ers and their local sup­port­ers were think­ing the same way, so we all decid­ed to work togeth­er.

Mr Spencer went on: The fact that work­ers, locals, envi­ron­men­tal­ists and labour cam­paign­ers are all work­ing togeth­er reflects how impor­tant this occu­pa­tion is. It’s vital to the fac­to­ry work­ers and their fam­i­lies, it’s vital to the local econ­o­my, and it’s vital in the fight to avert cli­mate dis­as­ter. The Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry must be saved.

ENDS

For inter­views with some­one onsite, call 07932 096677
To con­tact the Cli­mate Camp media team:
phone: 07040 900 905 (or 07772 861 099 or 07932 096 677)
email: press@climatecamp.org.uk

Save Vestas — Defend Jobs, Save the Planet — Support the Occupation — UPDATE below: arrests, cops starving them out…

Work­ers at the Ves­tas Wind Tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have JUST NOW occu­pied their fac­to­ry. They are fight­ing for 600 jobs and the future of the plan­et. They need help now.

PLEASE TEXT AND CALL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

Vestas OccupationWork­ers at the Ves­tas Wind Tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have JUST NOW occu­pied their fac­to­ry. They are fight­ing for 600 jobs and the future of the plan­et. They need help now.

PLEASE TEXT AND CALL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

There is a large pick­et of sup­port start­ing out­side the fac­to­ry. This will be cru­cial in giv­ing peo­ple con­fi­dence inside. We want hun­dreds of peo­ple by morn­ing.
If you are not work­ing, come now, by car, bus or train.
If you are on the South Coast and work­ing, come for the night and go to work exhaust­ed and proud.

If you can’t come, call up friends and offer to pay the fare or petrol mon­ey for some­one else to come down. Or part of the fare.
Don’t just call the envi­ron­men­tal and union activists you know. Call your friends and ask them who they know. Call your brother’s friends or your children’s friends. Text every­one. Get your friends call­ing and tex­ting.

WE WANT HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE NOW. SAVE THE JOBS — SAVE THE PLANET.

The work­ers want Gor­don Brown to step in as if it was a trou­bled bank and save the jobs and keep mak­ing wind tur­bine blades. They gave the bankers tril­lions. They say they care about cli­mate change. He has talked about cre­at­ing 40,000 “Green Jobs”, the first step should be pro­tect­ing these 600.

The work­ers will need sol­i­dar­i­ty — dona­tions of mon­ey, food and oth­er assis­tance. In the first instance please send mes­sages of sol­i­dar­i­ty to savevestas@gmail.com

We will sug­gest oth­er forms of sol­i­dar­i­ty soon. Do this now. Reach for your phone.

—-

How to get there, and more info at:

http://savevestas.wordpress.com/

—-

A pro­test­er claims the 30 demon­stra­tors at a sit-in at the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight have been told they will be sacked.

Dan­ish com­pa­ny Ves­tas Windsys­tems plans to make 625 work­ers redun­dant at the end of July, despite ris­ing prof­its.

One of the pro­test­ers, who occu­pied the New­port site on Mon­day, said man­agers gave them until 2230 BST on Tues­day to end their action or face the sack.

Ves­tas said con­sul­ta­tion on the site was on-going and would not com­ment.

The work­er, who did not want to be named, said: “We have been told we will be sacked.

“We were giv­en the choice to leave by 2230 BST last night and keep our redun­dan­cy pack­age and walk out with no charges.

“Obvi­ous­ly we have stayed in. We did­n’t want it to come to this.

“We want the com­pa­ny to explore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment tak­ing the site over and improv­ing the redun­dan­cy pack­age.”

The cam­paign­ers have called on Ed Miliband, the ener­gy and cli­mate change sec­re­tary, to trav­el to the island and speak to them.

Luke, one of the pro­test­ers, said: “We’re pre­pared to stay here for as long as it takes.”

About 200 work­ers staged a protest out­side the fac­to­ry on Tues­day after being turned away when they arrived for work.

They were also joined by cli­mate change pro­test­ers who are sup­port­ing them.

Police said Ves­tas has start­ed legal action to gain an injunc­tion which would remove the pro­test­ers.

The com­pa­ny said the fac­to­ry was being closed next week due to reduced demand for wind tur­bines in north­ern Europe

—-

Update, 22nd July: ARRESTS AT VESTAS + FOOD IN

At 5.10am this morn­ing, a cli­mate activist at the protest out­side the Ves­tas plant attempt­ed to take a bag of food to the occu­py­ing work­ers by means of a rope which the work­ers had low­ered from the bal­cony. The activist was grabbed by 5 police offi­cers and arrest­ed. On his release he obtained the police report of his arrest, which stat­ed that the rea­son for his arrest was that, as his bring­ing food to the occu­piers had the stat­ed inten­tion of pro­long­ing the protest, it was facil­i­tat­ing a breach of the peace – clear­ly ludi­crous as the police have them­selves admit­ted that the protest is not breach­ing the peace.

At 1248, a large num­ber of pro­tes­tors walked through the line of police hold­ing food in their hands which they threw up to the bal­cony. The police pushed some of the pro­tes­tors and attempt­ed to obstruct the line but did not offer sub­stan­tial resis­tance. One pro­tes­tor was harassed by a secu­ri­ty guard, and asked a police offi­cer, whose num­ber was 24266, if he intend­ed to do any­thing about it; the offi­cer said he didn’t. Anoth­er pro­tes­tor saw a police offi­cer grab­bing the arm of an activist as he attempt­ed to throw food to the bal­cony – the activist told the police offi­cer that this con­sti­tut­ed harass­ment, the police offi­cer took no notice.

A sec­ond cli­mate activist was arrest­ed and tak­en through the front doors of the fac­to­ry. Lat­er, a sergeant whose num­ber was 3027 came out and said that no-one had been arrest­ed for car­ry­ing food, but that one activist had been arrest­ed for assault. Oth­er pro­tes­tors present have com­ment­ed that as the activist in ques­tion, who has not giv­en per­mis­sion for his name to be released, is a chris­t­ian paci­fist, this seems unlike­ly.

Secu­ri­ty have start­ed putting up a fence around the site, with pro­tes­tors out­side attempt­ing to get a sec­ond food-car­ry­ing walk-in past the police before its com­ple­tion. There are cur­rent­ly around 50 pro­tes­tors out­side the fac­to­ry, over 30 of them Ves­tas work­ers, and sources say they expect num­bers to increase dras­ti­cal­ly around 6pm when the protest starts.

EARTH FIRST! @ DEMOCRATIC PARTY, ROME

ACTIVISTS OF EF! ROME YESTERDAY PROTEST IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BEFORE BIG CONFERENCE OF SEGRETARY. LOT OF MEDIA IMPACT.
NEWS IN ITALIAN FROM OUR BLOG EF! ITALY

HOka hey! broth­ers and sis­ter!

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FUORI PROGRAMMA ALLA FESTA DEL PD
da agen­zia ADNKRONOS

ACTIVISTS OF EF! ROME YESTERDAY PROTEST IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BEFORE BIG CONFERENCE OF SEGRETARY. LOT OF MEDIA IMPACT.
NEWS IN ITALIAN FROM OUR BLOG EF! ITALY

HOka hey! broth­ers and sis­ter!

******************************************************************************************
FUORI PROGRAMMA ALLA FESTA DEL PD
da agen­zia ADNKRONOS

Roma, 16 lug. (Adnkro­nos) — Fuori pro­gram­ma alla fes­ta del Pd a Roma per unain­cur­sione ‘ecol­o­gista’ sul pal­co in cui il can­dida­to alla seg­rete­ria Pier­Lui­gi Bersani sta­va per iniziare il suo inter­ven­to. Alcu­ni ragazz­i­ambi­en­tal­isti han­no con­seg­na­to una let­tera a Bersani (che avreb­bero volu­to­leg­gere ma l’or­ga­niz­zazione del­la fes­ta ha ritenu­to che non fos­se il caso)nella quale si denun­cia la scarsa atten­zione all’am­bi­ente del­la fes­tade­mo­c­ra­t­i­ca di Roma. “Cer­to ambi­en­tal­is­mo pro­duce solo rifiu­ti ‑dice­Mas­si­mo, uno dei ragazzi che han­no insce­na­to la protes­ta- perche’ non e’pos­si­bile che ad una man­i­fes­tazione del genere non si fac­cia la rac­coltad­if­feren­zi­a­ta”. Dopo che i ragazzi sono sta­ti fat­ti scen­dere dal pal­co Bersani ha volu­to­co­munque subito rispon­dere alla loro sol­lecitazione: “si crit­i­ca lo scar­soe­col­o­gis­mo di ques­ta fes­ta ed io rispon­do che si puo’ sem­pre fare di meglioe ricor­do che i gov­erni di cen­trosin­is­tra sono sta­ti quel­li che per prim­i­han­no pos­to le tem­atiche ambi­en­tali tra le pri­ori­ta’ delle azioni digov­er­no”. (Mon/Ct/Adnkronos) 16-LUG-09 21:24

PD: BERSANI CONTESTATO DA AMBIENTALISTI A FESTA DE L’UNITA’ DI ROMA
da Agen­zia IRIS

ROMA, 16 LUG — Pier­lui­gi Bersani, ospite al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty di Roma, è sta­to con­tes­ta­to da alcu­ni ragazzi di un movi­men­to ecol­o­gista, Earth First Roma. “Si può sem­pre far meglio, tutte le critiche sono accetta­bili ma voglio ricor­dare che quan­do erava­mo al gov­er­no abbi­amo fat­to i prim­is­si­mi pas­si per accen­dere il motore verde nel­l’e­cono­mia ital­iana. La legge per i pan­nel­li foto­voltaici l’ab­bi­amo fat­ta noi. Bisogna fare di più per­ché ques­ta è la fron­tiera per rilan­cia­re l’e­cono­mia” risponde Bersani.

RAGAZZI CONSEGNANO UNA LETTERA DI CRITICHE AL CANDIDATO SEGRETARIO
da APCOM (nel­la foto lo striscione espos­to)

Pic­co­lo fuori pro­gram­ma alla fes­ta del Pd a Roma dove ques­ta sera viene inter­vis­ta­to Pier­lui­gi Bersani. Quan­do il can­dida­to alla seg­rete­ria prende pos­to sul pal­co alcu­ni ragazzi di un movi­men­to ecol­o­gista che si chia­ma Earth First! Roma, cer­cano di pren­dere la paro­la per denun­cia­re lo scar­so ecol­o­gis­mo del­la fes­ta, espo­nen­do un cartel­lo con la scrit­ta ‘Cer­to ambi­en­tal­is­mo pro­duce solo rifiu­ti’. Mas­si­mo spie­ga che non c’era alcun inten­to vio­len­to nel­l’inizia­ti­va ma solo il deside­rio di con­seg­nare una let­tera a Bersani per denun­cia­re il fat­to che “alla fes­ta del Pd non c’è la rac­col­ta dif­feren­zi­a­ta, non si usano prodot­ti rici­clati, non ci sono pan­nel­li foto­voltaici”. Bersani dal pal­co spie­ga e risponde: “Si può sem­pre far meglio, tutte le critiche sono accetta­bili ma voglio ricor­dare che quan­do erava­mo al gov­er­no abbi­amo fat­to i prim­is­si­mi pas­si per accen­dere il motore verde nel­l’e­cono­mia ital­iana. La legge per i pan­nel­li foto­voltaici l’ab­bi­amo fat­ta noi. Bisogna fare di più per­ché ques­ta è la fron­tiera per rilan­cia­re l’e­cono­mia”.

Pitched battles over open refuse dump outside Athens

8th July

Pitched bat­tles between locals of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, and riot police forces over the con­struc­tion of an open refuse damp with locals dig­ging trench­es, build­ing bar­ri­cades and torch­ing bull­doz­ers; scores have been wound­ed as bat­tles con­tin­ue amidst spread­ing fires.

8th July

Pitched bat­tles between locals of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, and riot police forces over the con­struc­tion of an open refuse damp with locals dig­ging trench­es, build­ing bar­ri­cades and torch­ing bull­doz­ers; scores have been wound­ed as bat­tles con­tin­ue amidst spread­ing fires.

More than 1500 locals of the Black Moun­tain vil­lage of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, have erect­ed bar­ri­cades and dug trench­es in order to stop the begin­ning of an open refuse damp (XYTA) con­struc­tion in their area. The locals torched the com­pa­ny’s bull­doz­ers after riot police forces arrest­ed and beat the resist­ing may­or, refus­ing to take him to the hos­pi­tal to treat his wounds.

One of the local coun­cil mem­bers has been declared: “There are fires every­where and strong police forces. We are afraid of a mas­sacre. The police is using bru­tal force and we have scores of wound­ed cit­i­zens. The riot police forces (MAT) have reached our last bar­ri­cade. If they man­age to cross it, then the sit­u­a­tion will be out of con­trol. How­ev­er this will prove hard, as it is our strongest bar­ri­cade. We have dug the earth plant­i­ng trac­tors and bull­doz­ers in it. All the vil­lage is here and is ready to fight”. Many peo­ple have been arrest­ed dur­ing the clash­es, and sev­er­al police­men have been wound­ed by pro­jec­tiles. The fire brigade has deployed 3 air­plane, 3 heli­copters and over 15 fire engines in order to fight the fires caused by the riot police mind­less use of tear gas and “blast and flash” grenades and are threat­en­ing a chil­dren sum­mer camp near­by.

The con­struc­tion of XYTA around the coun­try has cre­at­ed a chain of vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles, whose pro­to­type is Lefkim­mi, a Cor­fu vil­lage which has been resist­ing State plans for 18 months, los­ing one com­rade in the bat­tles with the police.

Shell to Sea activists board supply ship to Solitaire in Killibegs

6th July 2009

Shell to Sea demonstration6th July 2009
This after­noon sev­en Shell to Sea activists in kayaks vis­it­ed the Toisa Inde­pen­dent, which sup­plies pipe to the Soli­taire, a ves­sel used by Shell to lay the Cor­rib gas pipeline. The Soli­taire, which left Broad­haven Bay (1) yes­ter­day after lay­ing the first sec­tion of pipe for the project, has been the tar­get of sev­er­al actions recent­ly in the con­tin­u­al cam­paign against Shell. (2) Despite Shel­l’s increas­ing­ly heavy hand­ed response to protests, Shell to Sea activist’s have con­tin­ued their fight.

Niall Har­nett, speak­ing from the protest in Killy­begs today said “We demand that this port stops sup­port­ing the Cor­rib gas project which is destroy­ing the lives of the peo­ple in Erris. There has been much mis­in­for­ma­tion about the Cor­rib gas pipeline in the media, as cam­paign­ers con­tin­ue to protest in order to bring a halt to this unsafe project which threat­ens the homes and liveli­hoods of many in the local area”. The pipeline would car­ry unprocessed gas across the region to the refin­ery at Bel­lan­aboy. (4)

Har­nett con­tin­ued “We are also act­ing in protest against the theft of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. At a time when unem­ploy­ment lev­els are set to reach record num­bers and the gov­ern­ment attacks ordi­nary peo­ple with levies tax­es and pay cuts it is obscene that Shell are allowed to steal bil­lions of euro’s of our resources.” (5)

St.John O Donob­hain, also on the protest, said. “Shel­l’s attempts to pre­tend the Cor­rib project is a done-deal is mis­lead­ing. This is project is unjust, ille­gal, and immoral. It will fail.”

Activists strike at Chorlton Tesco, Manchester

4.7.2009
Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Tesco is a virus4.7.2009
Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Those who graf­fi­tied the super­mar­ket say they did so because they are con­cerned about the effect of stores such as this on the local area. They are also angry about Tesco’s record on work­ers rights, both abroad and at home, and their mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

The new Tesco is prov­ing dam­ag­ing to small local busi­ness­es, many of which have been around for many decades. Far from increas­ing choice, the intro­duc­tion of Tesco has just added to Tesco’s stran­gle­hold and is push­ing out all of the area’s vari­ety and vital­i­ty.

Dan, one of those involved in last night’s activ­i­ty said, “It’s pret­ty hor­ri­fy­ing that 1 out of every 3 pounds spent on gro­ceries in Britain is spent in Tesco. This kind of uni­for­mi­ty is not what we want, it’s destroy­ing the vibran­cy of local com­mu­ni­ties.”

The planned open­ing of the Tesco was the sub­ject of much anger in the local area and kick-start­ed a cam­paign against its con­struc­tion called Keep Chorl­ton Inter­est­ing (It should be stressed that none of those involved in this cam­paign were respon­si­ble for this action). Despite oppo­si­tion from hun­dreds of local res­i­dents, inde­pen­dent retail­ers, coun­cil­lors and the local MP, the nation­al plan­ning inspec­torate over­turned the deci­sion by the Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to refuse the appli­ca­tion.

Tesco’s record on work­ers rights is shock­ing. War on Want, the anti-pover­ty char­i­ty, showed last year that work­ers in one of Tesco’s fac­to­ries in India were being payed £1.50 a day and forced to work 60 hour weeks.

Barak Oba­ma recent­ly weighed into the debate and attacked Tesco for refus­ing to allow work­ers to unionise in its stores in a let­ter to its boss Ter­ry Leahy.

On top of all this Tesco is a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change: its shops are ener­gy-inten­sive, food is flown in from thou­sands of miles away, and the com­pa­ny’s demand for prod­ucts like palm oil is destroy­ing vast tracts of the rain­for­est.

“Tesco will tram­ple on any­one or any­thing for a quick buck. All they care about is their prof­it mar­gins. Well, we say, it’s time we fought back and that’s just what we’ve start­ed to do here,” said activist, Dan.

The group say they will be will­ing to act in a sim­i­lar way in the future if it helps to high­light the true nature of Tesco. Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Those who graf­fi­tied the super­mar­ket say they did so because they are con­cerned about the effect of stores such as this on the local area. They are also angry about Tesco’s record on work­ers rights, both abroad and at home, and their mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

The new Tesco is prov­ing dam­ag­ing to small local busi­ness­es, many of which have been around for many decades. Far from increas­ing choice, the intro­duc­tion of Tesco has just added to Tesco’s stran­gle­hold and is push­ing out all of the area’s vari­ety and vital­i­ty.

Dan, one of those involved in last night’s activ­i­ty said, “It’s pret­ty hor­ri­fy­ing that 1 out of every 3 pounds spent on gro­ceries in Britain is spent in Tesco. This kind of uni­for­mi­ty is not what we want, it’s destroy­ing the vibran­cy of local com­mu­ni­ties.”

The planned open­ing of the Tesco was the sub­ject of much anger in the local area and kick-start­ed a cam­paign against its con­struc­tion called Keep Chorl­ton Inter­est­ing (It should be stressed that none of those involved in this cam­paign were respon­si­ble for this action). Despite oppo­si­tion from hun­dreds of local res­i­dents, inde­pen­dent retail­ers, coun­cil­lors and the local MP, the nation­al plan­ning inspec­torate over­turned the deci­sion by the Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to refuse the appli­ca­tion.

Tesco’s record on work­ers rights is shock­ing. War on Want, the anti-pover­ty char­i­ty, showed last year that work­ers in one of Tesco’s fac­to­ries in India were being payed £1.50 a day and forced to work 60 hour weeks.

Barak Oba­ma recent­ly weighed into the debate and attacked Tesco for refus­ing to allow work­ers to unionise in its stores in a let­ter to its boss Ter­ry Leahy.

On top of all this Tesco is a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change: its shops are ener­gy-inten­sive, food is flown in from thou­sands of miles away, and the com­pa­ny’s demand for prod­ucts like palm oil is destroy­ing vast tracts of the rain­for­est.

“Tesco will tram­ple on any­one or any­thing for a quick buck. All they care about is their prof­it mar­gins. Well, we say, it’s time we fought back and that’s just what we’ve start­ed to do here,” said activist, Dan.

The group say they will be will­ing to act in a sim­i­lar way in the future if it helps to high­light the true nature of Tesco.

Rossport solidarity demo at Irish Embassy

2nd July 2009

2nd July 2009
Peo­ple gath­ered in Lon­don out­side the Irish Embassy at 1pm yes­ter­day to protest at the dra­con­ian jail­ing of 7 Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors in Co. Mayo, Ire­land. The 4 women and 2 men were arrest­ed on Sun­day June 28th for their part in the ongo­ing cam­paign against the con­struc­tion of the Shell Cor­rib gas pipeline in Erris, Mayo. They were remand­ed on Mon June 29th to appear at court this Fri­day, 3rd July at 10.30am. Those being held on remand were all charged with minor pub­lic order offences (sec­tion 6: breach of the peace, sec­tion 8: refus­ing instruc­tions of a guard and sec­tion 9: will­ful obstruc­tion of a high­way — 3 of them were arrest­ed for sim­ply walk­ing across the road). None of these offences would usu­al­ly result in some­one being put on remand. We are con­cerned that the treat­ment of the pro­tes­tors has been unjust for the fol­low­ing rea­sons;

- None of the pro­tes­tors had pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, yet they were refused nor­mal bail con­di­tions
— Judge Devins denied and/or deferred deci­sions on their kegal aid, although it was evi­dent that some of the pro­tes­tors are not able to afford their legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.
— Judge Devins has shown her dis­dain and bias against Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors. Send­ing peo­ple to jail whose first offence is to be arrest­ed for not obey­ing the direc­tions of a guard is ridicu­lous and unprece­dent­ed.

We deliv­ered a let­ter to the Irish Ambas­sador call­ing for him to ensure that the pro­tes­tors are treat­ed fair­ly, released from remand, and are allowed access to the legal aid to which they are enti­tled. It also express­es gen­er­al con­cerns regard­ing the recent treat­ment of pro­tes­tors by the Gar­dai and by the secu­ri­ty that Shell have employed have employed to pro­tect their gas project — Inte­grat­ed Risk Man­age­ment Ser­vices. I‑RMS have been con­tin­u­al­ly accused of using exces­sive force against the pro­tes­tors. The let­ter also calls for a fair and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the recent alle­ga­tions and for assur­ances that cam­paign­ers who are car­ry­ing out their demo­c­ra­t­ic right to protest are treat­ed fair­ly and their human rights upheld.

* The protest also hoped to raise aware­ness of events in Co. Mayo by hold­ing ban­ners and giv­ing out leaflets ask­ing peo­ple to sup­port the sev­en on remand, and to make their protest against the actions of Shell and the Irish Gov­ern­ment.

For fur­ther info­ma­tiona and updates: www.indymedia.ie and www.corribos.com
Email: info@corribos.com

Shell to Sea spokesper­sons: Ms Mau­ra Har­ring­ton (T.087 9591474) an Mr Ter­rence Con­way (T.086 0866264). Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp media co-ordi­na­tor: Mr Niall Har­nett (T. 086 8444966)