Stop the next generation of nuclear power stations with a blockade at Hinkley Point

Join us at Hink­ley on 3 Octo­ber 2011

Hink­ley Point is the first of eight pro­posed sites for nuclear new build to go ahead. We stopped them here before, and we can do it again. If they fail at Hink­ley, it is unlike­ly the “nuclear renais­sance” will have the momen­tum to con­tin­ue.

Join us at Hink­ley on 3 Octo­ber 2011

Hink­ley Point is the first of eight pro­posed sites for nuclear new build to go ahead. We stopped them here before, and we can do it again. If they fail at Hink­ley, it is unlike­ly the “nuclear renais­sance” will have the momen­tum to con­tin­ue.

The cat­a­stro­phe is still unfold­ing at Fukushi­ma, but the British gov­ern­ment is con­tin­u­ing with its plans for build­ing new nuclear pow­er sta­tions – nuclear new-build. While oth­er coun­tries at least put a mora­to­ri­um on new nuclear, or even make plans to phase out nuclear ener­gy com­plete­ly, in Britain it’s as if Fukushi­ma didn’t hap­pen. Like a mantra, gov­ern­ment and the nuclear indus­try keep repeat­ing that Fukushi­ma could not hap­pen in Britain because there are no earth­quakes of that mag­ni­tude. We heard sim­i­lar excus­es after Cher­nobyl (1986) and Three Mile Island (1979). But nuclear acci­dents can and do hap­pen – even in Britain; the dis­as­ter at Wind­scale in 1957 released mas­sive lev­els of radi­a­tion into the atmos­phere. If we con­tin­ue to use and expand nuclear pow­er, there will cer­tain­ly be more cat­a­stroph­ic acci­dents, not to men­tion all the oth­er enor­mous prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with nuclear pow­er pro­duc­tion, even when it is work­ing ‘nor­mal­ly’.

Nuclear pow­er is not nec­es­sary, not safe, not sus­tain­able

More back­ground at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/

We can stop new nuclear

The gov­ern­ment and the nuclear indus­try want us to believe that nuclear new-build in Britain is a done deal. They want to dis­cour­age us from protest­ing – the mes­sage they want us to swal­low is clear: oppo­si­tion is futile, and we will be going ahead any­way!

How­ev­er, that could­n’t be fur­ther from the truth. Yes, the gov­ern­ment has intro­duced a frame­work which effec­tive­ly will sub­sidise new nuclear at our expense – as elec­tric­i­ty con­sumers and tax­pay­ers. Yes, the gov­ern­ment has effec­tive­ly deprived local com­mu­ni­ties from hav­ing a say in the plan­ning process for new nuclear and oth­er major infra­struc­ture projects thus dump­ing a cru­cial cor­ner­stone of local democ­ra­cy.

But nuclear new-build in Britain is already behind sched­ule and has faced legal and oth­er set­backs. Pub­lic con­cern is mount­ing fol­low­ing the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter. If we can stop the build­ing at Hink­ley, we can stop the whole process. Now is the time to mobilise and take action.

New-nuclear in Britain is far from being a done deal, and we can still stop it!

NEW NUCLEAR — STOP IT AT HINKLEY!

The action:
A non-vio­lent block­ade of Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set

On 3 Octo­ber 2011 we will – with hun­dreds of peo­ple – non-vio­lent­ly block­ade the access to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion for one day.

While the block­ade will be the key focus, there will be plen­ty of roles and activ­i­ties for peo­ple who do not wish to risk arrest. So every­one who is anti-nuclear can come and join us on the day to express their oppo­si­tion in many dif­fer­ent ways. We will pre­pare our­selves for this block­ade with non-vio­lence train­ing, and we will not be deterred by police try­ing to pre­vent our non-vio­lent action.
The block­ade will be inclu­sive, allow­ing peo­ple from all walks of life and with a wide range of expe­ri­ence in non-vio­lent action – or no expe­ri­ence at all – to par­tic­i­pate. We will organ­ise a safe envi­ron­ment for every­one, built on trust for each oth­er, but also on our deter­mi­na­tion to stop nuclear new-build.

In the days before the block­ade, there will be local actions in Bridg­wa­ter. There will be a camp and local accommoda­tion for peo­ple over the week­end and non-vio­lence train­ing will be pro­vid­ed.

* Call­out for action — http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10

* Sign one of the pledges at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/pledges.

This is impor­tant, as it shows the strength of the cam­paign, and helps us to organ­ise the block­ade.
Web: http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk
Face­book: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-New-Nuclear/228971750452013
Phone: 0845–2872381

Stop New Nuclear is a cam­paign to stop new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and is an alliance of Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment, Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK, Kick Nuclear, Stop Hink­ley, Sizewell Block­aders, Shut­down Sizewell, South West Against Nuclear, and Tri­dent Ploughshares

Donate: We need your sup­port. Please donate at
http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate

Watut river communities ‘riot’ against Harmony and Newcrest mining in Papua New Guinea

June 4 – Riots have report­ed­ly bro­ken out against the Aus­tralian based min­ing com­pa­ny, New­crest Min­ing, and Har­mo­ny Gold of South Africa in the Bulo­lo Dis­trict of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.

June 4 – Riots have report­ed­ly bro­ken out against the Aus­tralian based min­ing com­pa­ny, New­crest Min­ing, and Har­mo­ny Gold of South Africa in the Bulo­lo Dis­trict of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The vio­lence has been sparked by the long out­stand­ing griev­ances of the com­mu­ni­ties down stream of the Hid­den Val­ley mine over min­ing pol­lu­tion and sed­i­ments which affect the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple who say they do not ben­e­fit one way or anoth­er from the oper­a­tions of some of the worlds biggest min­ing com­pa­nies.

Com­mu­ni­ties have, since 2009, been rais­ing issues regard­ing tox­ic sed­i­ment build up caus­ing dam­age to food gar­dens, wash­ing away foot­bridges, die back of veg­e­ta­tion, the death of aquat­ic organ­isms, health and hygiene com­pli­ca­tions in com­mu­ni­ties, loss of nav­i­ga­tion on water routes, loss of clean water and recre­ation­al areas, loss of eco­nom­i­cal land and hunt­ing sites, destruc­tion of secret (sacred) sites and destruc­tion of a pri­ma­ry income source – alu­vial gold.

Ear­li­er last month, Papua New Guinea Min­ing Min­is­ter, John Pun­dari, tried to address the com­mu­ni­ty griev­ances but this proved to be in vain as the meet­ing under­stand­ing sign by par­ties includ­ing Hid­den Val­ley Joint Ven­ture (HVJV), ‘a two face min­ing com­pa­ny’ com­pris­ing New­crest and Har­mo­ny, was not imple­ment­ed and HVJV and Papua New Guinea’s Min­er­al Resources Author­i­ty (MRA) failed to imple­ment the under­stand­ing.

Local com­mu­ni­ties say they served 24 hours notice on MRA to address their con­cerns on June 2nd but by 4pm local time on June 3rd there was no answer.

While the Watut Riv­er com­mu­ni­ties griev­ances were not addressed, HVJV staff silent­ly went on the com­mu­ni­ties land to col­lect water sam­ples for analy­sis.

Ear­li­er this year, the com­mu­ni­ty based orga­ni­za­tion, the Union of Watut Riv­er Com­mu­ni­ties, attempt­ed to enter into the Min­ing Lease and HVJV MoU cov­ered area with its own chemist to col­lect sam­ples but per­mis­sion was reject­ed by the min­ing com­pa­nies.

Yes­ter­day a vehi­cle belong­ing to the New­crest and Har­mo­ny was smashed by frus­trat­ed com­mu­ni­ties. Two Roy­al Police Con­stab­u­lary offi­cers who were pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty and pri­vate escorts to the min­ing com­pa­nies have also being accused by local peo­ple.

Local peo­ple say more riots are expect­ed today between the gov­ern­ment offi­cers, min­ing com­pa­ny and the PNG police force on one side with the rur­al min­ing affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties on the oth­er.

They also say police this morn­ing sent a warn­ing that they would burn vil­lages hous­es if there is any more trou­ble.

A road block­ade is expect­ed to start today.

Bauxite mining halted in Indian region

Ranchi, June 4: Min­ing, dis­patch and trans­porta­tion of baux­ite from Pakhar mines in the Nax­alite-hit Kisko police sta­tion area of Loharda­ga dis­trict have come to a grind­ing halt since Wednes­day evening after a group of rebels torched six vehi­cles.

Ranchi, June 4: Min­ing, dis­patch and trans­porta­tion of baux­ite from Pakhar mines in the Nax­alite-hit Kisko police sta­tion area of Loharda­ga dis­trict have come to a grind­ing halt since Wednes­day evening after a group of rebels torched six vehi­cles.

“Min­ing and trans­porta­tion activ­i­ties have been put on a halt since June 1. Around 25 rebels owing alle­giance to the CPI(Maoist) burnt down three trucks, an SUV and two earth-mov­ing equip­ment around 5.30pm and par­tial­ly destroyed anoth­er vehi­cle. They also fired in the air and beat up the dri­vers and helpers,” offi­cer in charge of Kisko police sta­tion Munu Tudu told The Tele­graph.

The vehi­cles belonged to a con­trac­tor and pri­vate oper­a­tors work­ing for Hin­dal­co Indus­tries Lim­it­ed — an Aditya Bir­la Group com­pa­ny.

.… Hin­dal­co gen­er­al man­ag­er (per­son­nel and admin­is­tra­tion) R.B. Singh said the com­pa­ny was suf­fer­ing huge loss­es because of the shut­down.

“We sup­ply around 1,000 tonnes of baux­ite from Pakhar, with more than 100 trucks ply­ing dai­ly. Every­thing has now come to a stand­still,” Singh said.

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/india-red-terror-hits-lohardaga-bauxite-mines/

Trash to the beet, Germany

Dur­ing the night of 31 May 2011, despite the fence and 24-hour secu­ri­ty, a KWS field was destroyed in Wet­ze, Ger­many. KWS is a Ger­man genet­ic engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny; the field tri­al was genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied beet H7‑1, resis­tant to the her­bi­cide Round-Up.

Dur­ing the night of 31 May 2011, despite the fence and 24-hour secu­ri­ty, a KWS field was destroyed in Wet­ze, Ger­many. KWS is a Ger­man genet­ic engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny; the field tri­al was genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied beet H7‑1, resis­tant to the her­bi­cide Round-Up.

We have destroyed this field to direct­ly attack an indus­try that makes us depen­dent on plant and ani­mal patents. This is only pos­si­ble in a cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem, in which new tech­nolo­gies are not cre­at­ed for need, but to max­i­mize prof­it and to obtain pow­er.

We see this action not only as an action against genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered crops, but against the entire cap­i­tal­ist order.

This sys­tem — with its var­i­ous impli­ca­tions and man­i­fes­ta­tions — is vul­ner­a­ble on many lev­els with many resources …

ELF SABOTAGE, ARSON ATTACK TARGETS OIL COMPANY, ITALY

1 June 2011
MARINO LAZIALE (ROME)

- Six noz­zles cut and tak­en away from the pumps
— Self-ser­vice booth sealed with liq­uid met­al
— Retail shop set on fire using two five-litre jer­rycans of napalm
— Ban­ner left, ‘ENI — by wars and envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters, they prof­it (A)’

1 June 2011
MARINO LAZIALE (ROME)

- Six noz­zles cut and tak­en away from the pumps
— Self-ser­vice booth sealed with liq­uid met­al
— Retail shop set on fire using two five-litre jer­rycans of napalm
— Ban­ner left, ‘ENI — by wars and envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters, they prof­it (A)’

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with anar­chists affect­ed by the recent wave of state repres­sion.
Sil­via, Cos­ta, Bil­ly and Mar­co.

Long live the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front!”

400 peasants, clowns, and reapers liberate Belgian GM potato field

The “bat­tle of the pota­to” field in Wet­terem, near Ghent, Bel­gium, was a resound­ing vic­to­ry for anti-GM activists on Sun­day (29 May) as mem­bers of a crowd of around 400 peo­ple broke through police lines and barbed wire fences to destroy an exper­i­men­tal Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied pota­to crop.

The “bat­tle of the pota­to” field in Wet­terem, near Ghent, Bel­gium, was a resound­ing vic­to­ry for anti-GM activists on Sun­day (29 May) as mem­bers of a crowd of around 400 peo­ple broke through police lines and barbed wire fences to destroy an exper­i­men­tal Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied pota­to crop.

Genet­ic mod­i­fi­ca­tion of food crops is cur­rent­ly banned in the French-speak­ing Wal­lo­nia region of Bel­gium, and in the Brus­sels area, but the region­al gov­ern­ment of Flan­ders had giv­en the go-ahead for this tri­al plant­i­ng. Peo­ple from across Bel­gium and fur­ther afield, includ­ing many “faucheurs volon­taires” (vol­un­teer reapers) from the estab­lished French anti-GM farm­ing move­ment, came togeth­er under the ban­ner of the “Field Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment” to put the exper­i­ment to an end.

The day start­ed with set­ting up of a farmer’s mar­ket and com­mu­nal kitchen in a sym­pa­thet­ic field across the motor­way from the tar­get site. There were brief­in­gs, dis­cus­sions, infos­talls, and some inter­ac­tion with mem­bers of a “Save Our Sci­ence” counter demo by GM sup­port­ers, who came to argue their case that only more agribusi­ness super­crops can save the hun­gry of the world from crises of pover­ty and mal­nu­tri­tion. At 2pm the crowd start­ed mov­ing, led by a big inter­na­tion­al sam­ba band, across the motor­way foot­bridge to the field of des­tiny on the oth­er side. The organ­is­ers had called for “non-vio­lence” and not to pro­voke the cops, and the crowd was colour­ful, noisy, with small chil­dren and grown-up clowns in abun­dance. Tru­ly Lud­dite in spir­it (in all pos­i­tive sense of that maligned term) it had the flavour of a peas­ants’ revolt con­fronting the high-tech forces of empire. Around 50 Flem­ish robo­cops wait­ed, batons in hand, sur­round­ing the field (only about the size of a bas­ket­ball court), which was also ringed by stur­dy fences topped with barbed wire, cam­eras and motion sen­sors.

As the sun broke through the clouds at 3pm a siren sound­ed and the action was under­way. About half the crowd hopped the first low fence into the inter­ven­ing mead­ow and ran towards the exper­i­men­tal enclo­sure. It was soon clear that the police were out­num­bered, with many gaps in their lines through which pro­test­ers swarmed. (A major local foot­ball match may cer­tain­ly have helped the pro­tes­tors here.) The fenc­ing was tough and attempts to pull it down with ropes proved unsuc­cess­ful. But it was­n’t high enough to keep out climbers who car­ried strips of car­pet to get over the barbed wire. Once inside the com­pound the secu­ri­ty mea­sures then worked to the reapers’ advan­tage as the cops could only clam­ber after them, too late to stop pota­toes fly­ing every­where. Organ­ic seed­ing pota­toes were hurled by oth­ers from out­side the fence to replace the mod­i­fied strain.

There were around 15 arrests, all those who had made it inside the com­pound were stuck and worthi­ly sac­ri­ficed them­selves to the law in the best paci­fistic tra­di­tion. The police then had to dig a tun­nel under the fence to get them out again, and they were imme­di­ate­ly released after giv­ing ID details. It is not clear yet what charges will be brought, but the con­sor­tium behind the field, which includes the uni­ver­si­ty of Ghent, threat­ens to sue for dam­ages. There were quite a few injuries includ­ing hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions from barbed wire cuts and trun­cheon blows.

To quote from the Field Lib­er­a­tion Move­men­t’s press release: “To sum up, the day of action was very suc­cess­ful. This action points out three paths to fol­low: the “peas­ant mar­ket” offered a plat­form for farm­ers with a real alter­na­tive, the demon­stra­tion gave the pub­lic the occa­sion to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with this cam­paign, and the action of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence effec­tive­ly lib­er­at­ed a pub­lic space. The debate is now open. From today, biotech­nol­o­gy has to demon­strate that its research is in the ser­vice of an agri­cul­tur­al mod­el which is sus­tain­able, eco­log­i­cal, and just.”

http://fieldliberation.wordpress.com

Land is Ours autumn gathering 2011

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gath­er­ing 2011

TLIO are host­ing a week­end gath­er­ing from Sat 8th to Sun 9th Octo­ber this year at Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Axmin­ster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspi­ra­tional talks, open dis­cus­sions, work­shops and evening enter­tain­ment in the pleas­ant­ly eccen­tric set­ting of Monk­ton Wyld.

Talks and work­shops will include the fol­low­ing themes:

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gath­er­ing 2011

TLIO are host­ing a week­end gath­er­ing from Sat 8th to Sun 9th Octo­ber this year at Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Axmin­ster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspi­ra­tional talks, open dis­cus­sions, work­shops and evening enter­tain­ment in the pleas­ant­ly eccen­tric set­ting of Monk­ton Wyld.

Talks and work­shops will include the fol­low­ing themes:

• The need for land redis­tri­b­u­tion — post Peak-Oil

• Agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies — who for & for what?/Campaigning against Mega­farms.

• The Local­ism Bill and oth­er Plan­ning Reforms — Threats and Oppor­tu­ni­ties.

• Defend­ing pub­lic forests.

• Set­ting up land trusts, for hous­ing and land projects.

• Reclaim the Fields and Via Campesina.

• What future for direct action land cam­paigns?

Oth­er pro­pos­als for work­shops etc are wel­come.

Places are lim­it­ed so please book ear­ly. There is no fee for atten­dance, but lunch and sup­per are pro­vid­ed at £6 per meal, and bed and break­fast costs per night are £25 for a bed, £15 for a yoga mat in the main hall, or £10 camp­ing (there will be a lim­it­ed no of places half-price for the main hall and camp­ing), avail­able Fri­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day evening. Please book in advance, by con­tact­ing

info@tlio.org.uk or 01297 561359
http://www.tlio.org.uk/TLIO-autumngathering2011

Please Note: There may be a TLIO Sum­mer Gath­er­ing hap­pen­ing in the West Coun­try area this sum­mer as well. Keep check­ing the web­site for fur­ther announce­ments

Peru: 10,000 Aymaras Protesting against Transnational Mining Company

31st May 2011
For the past three weeks, more than 10,000 Indige­nous Peo­ple, most­ly Aymaras, have been protest­ing against the oncom­ing San­ta Ana sil­ver mine in south­east­ern Peru near the bor­der with Bolivia.

31st May 2011
For the past three weeks, more than 10,000 Indige­nous Peo­ple, most­ly Aymaras, have been protest­ing against the oncom­ing San­ta Ana sil­ver mine in south­east­ern Peru near the bor­der with Bolivia.

The Indige­nous peo­ple are con­cerned that pol­lu­tion from the new mine would threat­en their liveli­hoods and con­t­a­m­i­nate local rivers and lakes. For those rea­sons, the pro­test­ers want to see the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment revoke the min­ing license it grant­ed to the com­pa­ny behind the min­ing project, Canada’s Bear Creek Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion. The pro­test­ers are also call­ing for a def­i­nite ban on all min­ing in the region.

The mas­sive protest, for which the Aymara and some Quechua have set up a sequence of block­ades along a 300km stretch of road on both sides of bor­der, was fac­ing a media black­out until this past week­end.

On May 27, a num­ber of gov­ern­ment build­ings in the Peru­vian bor­der town of Puno were loot­ed and set ablaze.

That seemed to give the media what they need­ed; how­ev­er, the orga­niz­ers of the protests are insist­ing that they aren’t respon­si­ble for the vio­lent lash out. Rather, they say, it was brought on by indi­vid­u­als who have infil­trat­ed the protests.

In hand with the lack of media cov­er­age, the police and mil­i­tary pres­ence through­out the protest has been almost non-exis­tent. On May 28, Reuters report­ed that Pres­i­dent Gar­cia has indeed autho­rized the mil­i­tary to “main­tain order”, but so far they haven’t tried do so.

That’s part­ly because of the sheer scale of the protest; but more­so because of the upcom­ing pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Peru, which is set for June 5. Accord­ing to Reuters, Gar­cia has stat­ed that he won’t give the order to stop the protests until after the elec­tion con­cludes.

There was, how­ev­er, at least one vio­lent con­fronta­tion before the protest was in full swing. As not­ed on the WW4 Report,

At least one is report­ed dead in Peru’s south­ern region of Puno after the Nation­al Police fired on pro­test­ers April 26, the sec­ond day of a 48-hour civ­il strike or paro called by campesino groups to demand a halt to local min­ing and petro­le­um leas­es. The deceased, iden­ti­fied as María Choque Limache, 61, died after inhal­ing tear gas as police broke up a protest at the vil­lage of Yohoro­co, in Huacul­lani dis­trict of Chu­cuito province, accord­ing to Wal­ter Adu­viri Cal­isaya, pres­i­dent of the Puno Front for the Defense of Nat­ur­al Resources. Nation­al Police com­man­der Jaime Cordero Ayala denied this ver­sion of events, insist­ing she had not been at the protest and had died of nat­ur­al caus­es.

Most recent­ly, on May 29, the pro­test­ers reject­ed a deal to stand down in exchange for a 12-month mora­to­ri­um on min­ing. Nego­tia­tors for the pro­test­ers ini­tial­ly agreed with the offer, but the pro­test­ers them­selves said they won’t set­tle for any­thing less than a defin­i­tive ban on min­ing which must be rat­i­fied through a pres­i­den­tial decree.

Video 1and 2

Coal protesters show solidarity with the people of South Mongolia, and stand against China’s crackdown on freedom of expression

Today, 30th May 2011, a small group of anti-coal pro­test­ers ral­lied to a call out by South Mon­go­lian human rights activists for glob­al protest [1] and held a short vig­il out­side the Chi­nese Con­sulate in Edin­burgh.

Today, 30th May 2011, a small group of anti-coal pro­test­ers ral­lied to a call out by South Mon­go­lian human rights activists for glob­al protest [1] and held a short vig­il out­side the Chi­nese Con­sulate in Edin­burgh. This comes at the end of a month of protests in Mon­go­lia against the Chi­nese coal indus­tries destruc­tion of Mon­go­lian herders land in which two peo­ple have been killed. One was a Mon­go­lian herder and local anti-coal activist, Mer­gen, who was delib­er­ate­ly run over by by a coal truck while try­ing to stop it from tak­ing short cuts across herders land on the 10th of May. Accord­ing to the Guardian anoth­er pro­test­er was killed four days lat­er [2].

These protests have rat­tled the Chi­nese state, which has respond­ed with bru­tal crack-downs, and total cen­sor­ship. Cities in South Mon­go­lia are awash with para-mil­i­tary police and intense sur­veil­lance as areas are placed under Mar­tial Law [3]. Inter­net a phone com­mu­ni­ca­tion has been shut down. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the repres­sion of peo­ple who dare to stand up for the rights of Mon­go­lians. One case of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to the South Mon­go­lia Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre is that of Mr Hada and his fam­i­ly [4].

The Inner Mon­go­lia Autonomous Region (IMAR) has been hit hard dur­ing what one human rights organ­i­sa­tion is call­ing the “coal rush.” Last year IMAR’s coal exports exceed­ed 700 mil­lion tons, with an esti­mat­ed 732.3 bil­lion tons of coal reserves still under the ground. This extrac­tion has come at the expense of the local pop­u­la­tion and envi­ron­ment. The Mon­go­lian peo­ple who have herd­ed live­stock on the land for gen­er­a­tions are now being thrown from their land and Chi­nese coal cor­po­ra­tions are mov­ing in to dig up the coal. Dur­ing the extrac­tion con­voys of coal trucks have been tak­ing short cuts through herders land, destroy­ing fences and live­stock. Bayagu­ut, a South­ern Mon­go­lian cyber dis­si­dent, said “this real­ly is a three-dimen­sion­al attack on us by the Chi­nese: they have destroyed our land, pol­lut­ed our air, and now dig­ging up what we have below ground. What we will be left with is a bar­ren land unin­hab­it­able to human beings.” [5]

The protest in Edin­burgh was held at mid­day and the group held plac­ards with slo­gans such as “End Chi­na’s Coal Rush” “Jus­tice For Mer­gen Killed By The Coal Indus­try” and “Stop The Killings In South­ern Mon­go­lia!” One also called for the release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Mon­go­lia. The protest was organ­ised at short notice by peo­ple from Coal Action Scot­land, a group which takes direct action and works with com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing the coal indus­try in Scot­land.

Luke Dou­glas, who attend­ed the protest, said “It’s real­ly impor­tant to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of South­ern Mon­go­lia, and to show the Chi­nese state that there are peo­ple out­side of Mon­go­lia and out­side of their con­trol who are watch­ing what’s going on. The bru­tal repres­sion of the herders and stu­dents protest­ing is despi­ca­ble. Peo­ple should not be impris­oned just for call­ing for human rights and cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal free­dom. I am inspired by the brav­ery by the peo­ple protest­ing in South­ern Mon­go­lia, and hope that today’s protest helps them in some way.”

Tam­my Price added “I’ve worked with com­mu­ni­ties in Scot­land who have been affect­ed by the Coal indus­try. The health and envi­ron­men­tal impacts of the open casts, plus the dis­rup­tion caused by the trans­port of the coal, are dev­as­tat­ing. It’s impor­tant to have a glob­al per­spec­tive on coal as an issue, as it is one that affects peo­ple all across the world. As well as peo­ple in Scot­land, we have pre­vi­ous­ly heard from those in Indone­sia [6], Colum­bia [7] and the US [8] fight­ing against the Coal indus­try. The coal indus­try glob­al­ly is respon­si­ble for envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, human rights abus­es, cor­rup­tion and colo­nial­ism on a scale dif­fi­cult to fath­om until you start mak­ing these links between peo­ple affect­ed on a glob­al scale.”

Coal Action Scot­land

media@coalactionscotland.org.uk

1. http://www.smhric.org/news_384.htm

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/mongolia-protests-communist-party-crackdown

3. http://www.smhric.org/news_385.htm

4. http://www.smhric.org/Hada/Hada.htm

5 http://www.smhric.org/news_376.htm

6 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2197

7 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1433

8 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2553

squatting stories wanted

Call­ing All Squat­ters!

Got any pos­i­tive, fun­ny or ran­dom sto­ries from your squat­ting expe­ri­ences?

We’re putting togeth­er an exhi­bi­tion and zine with pos­i­tive squat­ting sto­ries to con­tra­dict and show the oth­er side to squat­ting, to the one regur­gi­tat­ed again and again by the main­stream media.

Call­ing All Squat­ters!

Got any pos­i­tive, fun­ny or ran­dom sto­ries from your squat­ting expe­ri­ences?

We’re putting togeth­er an exhi­bi­tion and zine with pos­i­tive squat­ting sto­ries to con­tra­dict and show the oth­er side to squat­ting, to the one regur­gi­tat­ed again and again by the main­stream media.

Wher­ev­er you squat­ted, be it Brix­ton or Kur­dis­tan, or whether you squat now or you did in the 70s, any pos­i­tive sto­ries are wel­comed – the more var­ied in time & place the bet­ter. Some of the sto­ries we have so far include from after the sec­ond world war when fam­i­lies took refuge by squat­ting aban­doned army bar­racks, as so many homes had be bombed in the blitz, as well as some sto­ries of how new­ly arrived Asian fam­i­lies to Britain gave up the coun­cil hous­ing they had received to squat togeth­er in emp­ty estates to avoid the racial abuse they were suf­fer­ing.

Your sto­ries don’t have to be this extreme though, any­thing that is pos­i­tive, fun­ny or in some way a suc­cess of man­ag­ing to stick it up to the land­lords or a suc­cess­ful use of squat­ting for a protest or cam­paign, is very much wel­comed. The sto­ries don’t have to be your own expe­ri­ences but can be ones of friends, or ones you’ve heard, just so long as they are true.

Any good pic­tures you might have that can accom­pa­ny the sto­ries would be bril­liant too. Also, if you have pic­tures of trans­for­ma­tions you’ve made turn­ing a destroyed build­ing into a beau­ti­ful home, they would also be real­ly appre­ci­at­ed. Of course you can be com­plete­ly anony­mous from any­thing you con­tribute.

Email sto­ries & stuff to homemade@lorax.org.uk

Many thanks!