Eco-VIllage Occupation London 6th June Update + Other News.

Hel­lo friends,

In this report:

News of the upcom­ing Eco-Vil­lage occu­pa­tion tak­ing place on a dis­used piece of land near Ham­mer­smith start­ing on Sat­ur­day, 6th June (see attached e‑flyer for details).

Eco flyerHel­lo friends,

In this report:

News of the upcom­ing Eco-Vil­lage occu­pa­tion tak­ing place on a dis­used piece of land near Ham­mer­smith start­ing on Sat­ur­day, 6th June (see attached e‑flyer for details).

The lat­est from the Tyt­ing com­mu­ni­ty farm occu­pa­tion — infor­ma­tion on how you can get involved and sup­port the action.

And some inter­est­ing facts about the land in Britain.

ECO-VILLAGE OCCUPATION

The Eco vil­lage occu­pa­tion begins on the 6th June. Meet at Water­loo Sta­tion at 10AM under the clock. Please try to be on time.

********Please Note**********

If you are com­ing for the open­ing stage of the eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion, you will need to bring a tent, water and food sup­plies. If you have access to kitchen equip­ment and oth­er use­ful tat that you would be OK to loan, please bring it along too.

***************************

The Eco-Vil­lage Occu­pa­tion is about to begin. Infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties lie ahead; what will hap­pen depends on what we make it. By cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty in the heart of the urban jun­gle, we have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to raise the con­scious­ness of urban dwellers all around and shine a light on a way of liv­ing that goes far to solv­ing the prob­lem of the destruc­tion of peo­ple and plan­et.

Dur­ing the last pub­lic plan­ning meet­ing, we had con­sen­sus on the fol­low­ing issues:

- A no vehi­cle on site pol­i­cy. In order to max­i­mize liv­ing space and encour­age peo­ple to come to the vil­lage via sus­tain­able means.

- Acoustic music only. So that we don’t make ene­mies of the neigh­bours.

- All major deci­sions in the eco-vil­lage to be decid­ed via the con­sen­su­al deci­sion mak­ing of all the peo­ple in the eco-vil­lage.

Please come along and join us. Ide­al­ly, we are look­ing for com­mit­ted peo­ple who share in the vision of the eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty and who are able to com­mit for an indef­i­nite peri­od, how­ev­er if you sim­ply want to stay for a night or two or even vis­it for a day, please feel free to come along.

This eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion is inspired by The Land is Ours which cam­paigns peace­ful­ly for access to the land, its resources, and the deci­sion-mak­ing process­es affect­ing them, for every­one, irre­spec­tive of race, gen­der or age. for more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it:

www.tlio.org.uk

con­tact Car­olyn on: 01727 812369 or Gareth on: 07515 166011 or

diggers360@yahoo.co.uk

Tyt­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Farm Occu­pa­tion.

Six weeks ago a group of peo­ple (some fresh from the Raven’s Ait occu­pa­tion in Kingston) assert­ing their com­mon law right to live and grow food, com­menced the occu­pa­tion of Tyt­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Farm in Half Pen­ny Lane Guild­ford. (a pub­licly owned site which has been vacant for sev­er­al years).

Guild­ford coun­cil (the own­er of the prop­er­ty) has been try­ing with­out suc­cess and with much local oppo­si­tion to sell the com­mu­ni­ty farm off by divid­ing it into small­er lots.

The coun­cil were grant­ed an ‘inter­im pos­ses­sion order’ last Wednes­day (27th May) and threat­ened to send in the police to remove any­one still on the site. On Fri­day morn­ing, var­i­ous con­trac­tors arrived and board­ed up the farm­house (but no police).

Far from dent­ing their morale, the threat of force­ful evic­tion has sim­ply made those enjoy­ing life at the farm more deter­mined to stay their ground.

To see a video of what’s been hap­pen­ing at the farm please click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKe_uCHpokU

This occu­pa­tion is open to any­one who would like to be part of the com­mu­ni­ty, grow veg­eta­bles and live in a sus­tain­able way, whilst help­ing to retain com­mon rights to a valu­able and beau­ti­ful piece of com­mon land. If you want to get involved, sim­ply grab a tent and some food (plus some seeds if you have them) and come along. Here is a map of the loca­tion of the farm.

Facts about the land in Britain

did you know that.…

In Britain 70% of land is still owned by less than 1% of the pop­u­la­tion
Less than 8% of the coun­try is under con­crete
50% of the land in Eng­land and Wales remains unreg­is­tered
the Church of Eng­land has ‘mis­laid’ 1.5 mil­lion acres it owned 100 years ago
the Roy­al Fam­i­ly now own or con­trol the equiv­a­lent of an aver­age-sized coun­ty in Eng­land.

* infor­ma­tion cour­tesy of www.who-owns-britain.com

Shell compound breached in Glengad during RSC gathering

May 31, 2009
This after­noon at 5pm, over 200 peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Sum­mer Gath­er­ing attempt­ed to dis­man­tle Shel­l’s ille­gal com­pound at Glen­gad.

Trying to breach Shell compound at GlengadMay 31, 2009
This after­noon at 5pm, over 200 peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Sum­mer Gath­er­ing attempt­ed to dis­man­tle Shel­l’s ille­gal com­pound at Glen­gad.

After a day of direct action train­ing, local peo­ple and their sup­port­ers walked to the south side of the com­pound where they attempt­ed to breach the fence in two places. They were met by strong oppo­si­tion from over six­ty Gar­dai, includ­ing many from the Pub­lic Order Unit.

At least five peo­ple who scaled the fence into the com­pound were held by secu­ri­ty guards and lat­er arrest­ed.

Lat­er in the after­noon, as the crowd were leav­ing, a fur­ther arrest was made when the Gar­dai tar­get­ed a promi­nent cam­paign­er and forcibly detained him for speak­ing out against the actions of the Gar­dai.

Today’s action comes the day after Mau­ra Har­ring­ton was released after 13 days in Mount Joy prison, Dublin for non-pay­ment of fines, includ­ing a one thou­sand euro con­tri­bu­tion to the Gar­da Benev­o­lent Fund.

Around 200 peo­ple are attend­ing the RSC sum­mer gath­er­ing. It’s a beau­ti­ful­ly sun­ny week­end and preper­a­tions are now well under way for anoth­er sum­mer of action against Shell in Mayo, on land and sea. Come and be part of it!

71 arrested in Copenhagen resisting the World Business Summit on Climate Change

24th May 2009

Our Climate - Not Your BusinessApproaching climate business summit24th May 2009
Pro­test­ers clashed with police in Copen­hagen today while attempt­ing to dis­rupt the World Busi­ness Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change, a gath­er­ing of the worlds largest cor­po­ra­tions and, not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, biggest pol­luters. Orga­nized by the Dan­ish gov­ern­ment, the Busi­ness Sum­mit gave cor­po­rate inter­ests unprece­dent­ed access to the ongo­ing UN cli­mate talks, includ­ing face time with UN Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ban Ki-moon and so called cli­mate “hero” Al Gore.

The group of pro­tes­tors, lead by a ban­ner read­ing “Our Cli­mate is not Your Busi­ness” attempt­ed to breach police lines in order to dis­rupt the meet­ing. The live­ly group of activists want­ed high­t­light the dam­ag­ing and dis­rup­tive role that cor­po­ra­tions play in the inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks. The list of cor­po­ra­tions attend­ing includ­ed #1 car­bon emit­ter in the world Shell Oil, Duke Ener­gy (#12 at last count), and BP among oth­er cli­mate crim­i­nals.

“The Dan­ish gov­ern­ment appears to be under the impres­sion that some of the world’s most pol­lut­ing com­pa­nies are going to put for­ward tough mea­sures to tack­le cli­mate change,” said Ken­neth Haar, a researcher with Cor­po­rate Europe Obser­va­to­ry. “But unfor­tu­nate­ly this doesn’t seem like­ly to be the case. The major­i­ty of the cor­po­ra­tions attend­ing the World Busi­ness Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change seem more intent on pur­su­ing busi­ness as usu­al – with the promise that future tech­nolo­gies will resolve the prob­lem at a lat­er date.

“Cor­po­rate lob­by­ists have been try­ing to influ­ence the UN cli­mate talks from the start. But now they are being invit­ed to set the agen­da before the nego­tia­tors have even sat down. If their demands are lis­tened to, we might as well give up the fight against cli­mate change now.”

The WBSCC draws into ques­tion the legit­i­ma­cy of the UN cli­mate talks. How can we trust a process that opens the door to the very cor­po­ra­tions that cre­at­ed the cli­mate cri­sis, while shut­ting out the worlds poor, indige­nous, and land based

peo­ples who are least respon­si­ble for cli­mate change, yet will bare the brunt of its impacts?

To get involved with the resis­tance to cor­po­rate con­trol over the talks check out:

www.klimakollektiv.dk

More Arrests on Coal River Valley as Actions Against Mountaintop Removal and Coal Sludge Dams Continue

Non-vio­lent Civ­il Dis­obe­di­ence in Coal Riv­er Val­ley, WV: Sev­en­teen Arrest­ed in Three Sep­a­rate Actions

Non-vio­lent Civ­il Dis­obe­di­ence in Coal Riv­er Val­ley, WV: Sev­en­teen Arrest­ed in Three Sep­a­rate Actions

May 23, 2009: Coal Riv­er Val­ley, WV More than sev­en­ty-five res­i­dents of the Coal Riv­er Val­ley and mem­bers of a coali­tion that includes Moun­tain Jus­tice and Cli­mate Ground Zero pick­et­ed the entrance to Massey Ener­gy’s Mar­fork min­ing com­plex today at noon. Sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed. The actions were in protest of the com­pa­ny’s plans to blast 100 feet away from the Brushy Fork coal sludge impound­ment.

The demon­stra­tion began with a prayer and ser­mon by Bob “Sage” Rus­so of Chris­tians for the Moun­tains. Ref­er­enc­ing the Ser­mon on the Mount, he called upon cit­i­zens to be stew­ards of the Earth and to move towards sus­tain­able, sta­ble jobs.

Pro­tes­tors stood in front of the gates of the mine facil­i­ty with signs includ­ing “7 bil­lion spilled, 998 killed.”

“Passers­by on Route 3 were over­whelm­ing sup­port­ive with honks, waves, and thumbs up signs,” Rock Creek (Raleigh Coun­ty) res­i­dent Julia Sendor said.

Dur­ing the protest, sev­en peo­ple approached the entrance to the dam facil­i­ty and the Whitesville detach­ment of the West Vir­ginia State Police asked them to leave. When the sev­en refused, the State Police arrest­ed them. Dis­patch­ers say the activists were sent to the South­ern Region­al Jail near Beck­ley, but that infor­ma­tion has not been con­firmed. Bail was report­ed­ly set at $2,000 per per­son.

After the arrests, for­mer U.S. Con­gress­man Ken Hech­ler, a long­time oppo­nent of strip min­ing, gave a speech. He under­scored the respon­si­bil­i­ty of cit­i­zens to safe­guard their free­doms and stand up for their rights.

The protest came just hours after activists car­ried out two non-vio­lent direct actions to protest moun­tain­top removal and coal sludge impound­ments.

This morn­ing, at the Mar­fork facil­i­ty, two peo­ple wear­ing haz­mat suits and res­pi­ra­tors were arrest­ed after boat­ing onto the Brushy Fork impound­ment and float­ing a ban­ner that read, “No More Tox­ic Sludge.” State Police charged the activists with lit­ter­ing and mis­de­meanor tres­pass and trans­port­ed them to the South­ern Region­al Jail. Their bail has been set at $2,000.

At anoth­er action, six activists hung a “Nev­er Again” ban­ner and chained them­selves to a mas­sive dump truck on a Patri­ot Coal-owned moun­tain­top removal mine on Kay­ford Moun­tain. State Police arrived on site to find three peo­ple chained to the main axle of the truck and three oth­ers chained out­side the truck­’s cab. The police removed the six activists, who, along with two oth­ers sup­port­ing them, were trans­port­ed to the Madi­son Coun­ty Cour­t­house, where they were report­ed­ly processed and released.

The tox­ic lake at Brushy Fork dam sits atop a hon­ey­comb of aban­doned under­ground mines. Massey Ener­gy’s own fil­ings with the state Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion project a min­i­mum death toll of 998 should the sev­en-bil­lion-gal­lon dam break. Flood­wa­ters would reach 38.78 feet in height in the town of Pey­tona, 26.61 miles down­stream, with­in three hours and fif­teen min­utes of break­age.

—–

May 26, 2009: BECKLEY, W.Va. — Sev­en­teen moun­tain­top removal activists had no choice but to enforce the laws since all admin­is­tra­tive reme­dies have been exhaust­ed, said some of the activists and sup­port­ers at a press con­fer­ence today. The four still-jailed activists were released on their own recog­ni­zance by Judge Burn­side short­ly after the press con­fer­ence, which was held on the Raleigh Coun­ty Cour­t­house steps.

“I’ve lived in West Vir­ginia most of my life. I’m sick and tired of big busi­ness and the cor­rupt gov­ern­ment telling us what to do,” began Sid Moye of Mer­cer Coun­ty, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Pick­et at Pet­tus. “They come in and they can take our land, they can ruin our water and they can take our resources. It’s not right and some­body has to do some­thing about it so we do the lit­tle things that we can.”

Eric Blevins, also arrest­ed in the Pet­tus action, said, “I asked the offi­cer arrest­ing me if Massey is going to be allowed to blast near the dam and he did­n’t want to talk about it. I asked him, does­n’t he have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to enforce the law, and he said ‘Not those laws.’ ”

“We locked down on the Kay­ford moun­tain­top removal site with mud from Min­go Coun­ty on our boots,” Ash­lee Hen­der­son said in a state­ment from the Kay­ford 8, “After we were arrest­ed we had the dust remains from Kay­ford Moun­tain added to that mud.”

“Just because a min­ing per­mit is applied for,” Deb­bie Jar­rell of Rock Creek, Raleigh Coun­ty asked the crowd, “Is there a law that states that it has to be grant­ed? If there’s a clean­er way to devel­op ener­gy, such as the Coal Riv­er Wind Project, should we not take advan­tage of it?”

Matt Louis-Rosen­berg point­ed out the absur­di­ty of the lit­ter­ing charges for the two indi­vid­u­als on the Brushy Fork Dam and the $2,000 bail for each of the pro­test­ers. He con­trast­ed the bail rate with the $1,800 fine Massey paid in 1999, when 14.5 miles of the Coal Riv­er were black­ened with slur­ry and the $15,000 A & G Coal paid for the death of three year old Jere­my David­son out­side of Appalachia, Vir­ginia in 2004.

“It was extreme­ly unjust that the mag­is­trate ille­gal­ly post­ed such a high bail, when our max­i­mum fine was only one hun­dred dol­lars,” said Lau­ra Steeple­ton of the Pet­tus 7, who was released this after­noon. “He jus­ti­fied his state­ment by telling us that we had no ties to the area. As a human being and a cit­i­zen of this coun­try I do not only have a tie to this area, but a respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure secu­ri­ty for these moun­tains and the safe­ty for the peo­ple of this beau­ti­ful com­mu­ni­ty.”

Bristol Co-Mutiny 12th — 20th Sept “Social Change Not Climate Change”

Cap­i­tal­ism and its pup­pet de‘mock’cracy are spi­ralling out of control:a self-cre­at­ed reces­sion, rock­et­ing unem­ploy­ment, soar­ing nation­al debt, the ille­gal and unjust occu­pa­tion of Afghanistan & Iraq, apa­thy towards mas­sacres in Pales­tine and Sri Lan­ka, the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of free move­ment, the police assaults and murde

Co-mutiny flyerCap­i­tal­ism and its pup­pet de‘mock’cracy are spi­ralling out of control:a self-cre­at­ed reces­sion, rock­et­ing unem­ploy­ment, soar­ing nation­al debt, the ille­gal and unjust occu­pa­tion of Afghanistan & Iraq, apa­thy towards mas­sacres in Pales­tine and Sri Lan­ka, the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of free move­ment, the police assaults and mur­ders of peo­ple on the streets, the con­struc­tion of larg­er air­ports and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions in the face of dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, the pri­vati­sa­tion of social hous­ing, the list goes on.

But there is hope. There are anti gov­ern­ment protests from Greece to Paris, and Chi­na to Lon­don, as well as fac­to­ry and school occu­pa­tions across the U.K. World wide there are grow­ing, active, and increas­ing­ly angry rad­i­cal & work­ing class move­ments stand­ing up and resist­ing cli­mate chaos, oppres­sion, pover­ty, inse­cu­ri­ty and state con­trol.

Hand-in-hand with these protests are grass­roots actions to build a new soci­ety and take con­trol of our own lives. Ordi­nary peo­ple are find­ing ways to help each oth­er in the face of the cred­it cri­sis cre­at­ed by the banks and cor­po­ra­tions. We are re-learn­ing old skills and learn­ing new ones for the tran­si­tion to a just soci­ety; enabling us to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens, estab­lish hous­ing, food and worker’s co-ops, and use new eco­nom­ics in the neigh­bour­hoods where we live

In Bris­tol and sur­rounds, a diverse bunch of enraged cre­ative, dream­ers and schemers, builders and gar­den­ers, work­ers, stu­dents and unem­ployed have been drawn togeth­er by the com­mon threads of our indig­na­tion at how a com­bi­na­tion of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion is lead­ing us all towards cli­mate chaos and finan­cial col­lapse.

We invite you to con­verge on Bris­tol for an upris­ing of autonomous actions and events from 12th – 20th of Sep­tem­ber 2009.

The themes for those events and days of action are:

* Free­dom of move­ment (sur­veil­lance, migra­tion)
* Anti-mil­i­tarism (Sri Lan­ka, Afghanistan, Pales­tine, Fil­ton)
* Cli­mate jus­tice (Just tran­si­tion, financ­ing of cli­mate chaos, coal, air­ports)
* Finan­cial col­lapse / com­mu­ni­ty growth (role of banks, cre­at­ing a new econ­o­my)
* Work (Work­ers’ sol­i­dar­i­ty, co-oper­a­tive work­ing, work­place occu­pa­tions)
* Food (ani­mal rights, sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion, per­ma­cul­ture)
* Autonomous spaces (gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, hous­ing, squat­ting)

The Co-Muti­neers will be organ­is­ing actions and events but we need you to get involved, wher­ev­er you are from and what­ev­er your expe­ri­ence.

We encour­age autonomous actions. Come on down, join the mutiny, get in touch!

comutiny@riseup.net
http://comutiny.wordpress.com

Dates for your diary:
Sat 12th Sep­tem­ber – Bris­tol Anar­chist Book Fare
Sun 13th – Sun 20th Sep­tem­ber – CoMutiny Action Con­ver­gence – insert your rev­o­lu­tion here!
Fri 18th – Sun 20th Sep­tem­ber – Days of action in defence of squats and autonomous spaces.

Otaraua hapu save wahi tapu from oil pipeline in Aotearoa

28th May 2009
The Ota­raua hapu in Tarana­ki began pack­ing up their occu­pa­tion camp today after final­ly pro­tect­ing their wahi tapu, from Grey­mouth Petro­le­um’s new pipeline.

Greymouth occupation28th May 2009
The Ota­raua hapu in Tarana­ki began pack­ing up their occu­pa­tion camp today after final­ly pro­tect­ing their wahi tapu, from Grey­mouth Petro­le­um’s new pipeline.

After occu­py­ing the entrance to the well site and dis­rupt­ing work on the new well for more than two months, the hapu’s request to have Tiko­ran­gi Pa offi­cial­ly iden­ti­fied as a wahi tapu by the New Ply­mouth Dis­trict Coun­cil, was approved for an inde­pen­dent review last night.

After pre­vi­ous­ly demand­ing a writ­ten agree­ment from GMP, the hapu informed Grey­mouth Petro­le­um via fax yes­ter­day, stat­ing it was will­ing to accept a ver­bal state­ment by CEO Mark Dun­phy that GMP would not drill a pipeline through Tiko­ran­gi Pa. The hapu seem con­fi­dent that the Dis­trict Coun­cil review, due out in a few months, will pro­vide the pro­tec­tion they need for their pa.

Mr Door­bar said while the occu­pa­tion had brought the hapu togeth­er and clos­er to achiev­ing a com­mon goal, the fight was “not over”.

“It is impor­tant oil com­pa­nies who work in our com­mu­ni­ties under­stand the impact they have, not just on tan­ga­ta when­ua but on the wider farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty … for our­selves we feel we have achieved the out­comes of why we under­took this occu­pa­tion. Grey­mouth Petro­le­um did not drill through Tiko­ran­gi Pa. It remains to be seen whether or not we have to return to any form of peace­ful occu­pa­tion in the future.”

Updates: Day 11 | Day 17 | Day 55

Calais No Border Camp Call-Out 23–29 June 2009

The Calais No Bor­der camp is a joint ven­ture between French and Bel­gian activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

Calais No Borders campThe Calais No Bor­der camp is a joint ven­ture between French and Bel­gian activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

It aims to high­light the real­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion in Calais and North­ern France; to build links with the migrant com­mu­ni­ties; to help build links between migrants sup­port groups; and last­ly, but not least, to chal­lenge the author­i­ties on the ground, to protest against increased repres­sion of migrants and local activists alike.

This camp calls for the free­dom of move­ment for all, an end to bor­ders and to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tems of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens, into the doc­u­ment­ed and the undoc­u­ment­ed.

Why Calais?

We have cho­sen Calais for two main rea­sons; it is an impor­tant loca­tion in the his­to­ry, devel­op­ment and prac­tice of Euro­pean migra­tion con­trols and has long been a major bot­tle­neck for those seek­ing to get to Britain. But more impor­tant­ly, it is also a focus of the strug­gle between those who would see an end to all migra­tion into the EU, and those try­ing to break down the bar­ri­ers between peo­ples, the bor­ders that pre­vent the free­dom of move­ment for all, not just the priv­i­leged few.

Since the mid-nineties tens of thou­sands have lived in des­ti­tu­tion, sleep­ing rough in Calais, wait­ing for their chance to cross the chan­nel to Eng­land. Between 1999 and 2002 the Red Cross ran a cen­tre at neigh­bour­ing San­gat­te but this was forced to close after polit­i­cal pres­sure from France and Britain. Since then, the mas­sive police pres­ence and repres­sion in Calais has forced thou­sands of men woman and chil­dren to wan­der the Calais region and all along the North coast of France, Bel­gium and Hol­land. They are rou­tine­ly bru­talised by the police; tear-gassed, beat­en, arrest­ed and repeat­ed­ly interned at the near­by Coquelles deten­tion cen­tre. The police reg­u­lar­ly burn their shel­ters and the few mea­gre pos­ses­sions that they con­tain. The local groups that sup­port the migrants by pro­vid­ing food and oth­er human­i­tar­i­an aid are com­ing under increas­ing attack from the police and a num­ber of activists have been arrest­ed in recent months. Mean­while British Immi­gra­tion Min­is­ter Phil Woolas has been call­ing for the con­struc­tion of a per­ma­nent holding/detention cen­tre for migrants in Calais docks.

The Big­ger Pic­ture

Calais how­ev­er remains only one small part of the over­all pic­ture of Euro­pean migra­tion con­trols, a major inter­nal bor­der with­in the hi-tech EU bor­ders regime. Since the begin­ning of the decade, the EU been attempt­ing to build ‘Fortress Europe’; exter­nal­is­ing EU bor­ders into Africa and Asia with EU bor­der guards patrolling the Mediter­ranean, in Libya and off the West Coast of Africa cour­tesy of the Fron­tex bor­ders agency; and via the Euro­pean Neigh­bour­hood Pol­i­cy, where coun­tries from the Ukraine all the way round the Mediter­ranean to Moroc­co are now paid by the EU to do its migra­tion pre­ven­tion work for it.

Migrants’ Rights Are Work­ers’ Rights

Through this sys­tem of bor­der con­trols, author­i­ties cre­ate two kinds of migrants: a small num­ber of ‘skilled’ migrants, who are des­ig­nat­ed as ‘use­ful’ to the state; and a mas­sive num­ber of undoc­u­ment­ed work­ers who have no rights and are there­fore exploitable as cheap labour. Thus is our fight for free­dom of move­ment also a fight for the rights of all work­ers.

Transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty works!

Build­ing links and work­ing togeth­er allows us to share infor­ma­tion between us on a transna­tion­al lev­el. It also allows us to exploit the fault-lines and cracks in Fortress Europe. Last Novem­ber, transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty helped to pre­vent the planned depor­ta­tion of Afghans from Calais to Kab­ul.

Cam­paign­ing Against Bor­ders

This camp will con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of the No Bor­der camps across the world since the late 1990s and, like the camp tak­ing place this year in Lesvos in August, it will be a space to share infor­ma­tion, skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ences; a place to plan and take action togeth­er against the sys­tem of bor­ders which divides us all. For cen­turies Euro­pean impe­r­i­al pow­ers have exploit­ed the land, resources and peo­ple of the major­i­ty world to become wealthy and pow­er­ful, leav­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and mas­sive inequal­i­ty in their wake. Those who attempt the jour­ney to the UK or else­where in Europe are chal­leng­ing this injus­tice by their move­ment. The sit­u­a­tion in Calais is a result of the com­pro­mise and con­flict of inter­est between French and UK immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy and we call on groups, net­works and indi­vid­u­als here to take action across Europe and to become part of a glob­al move­ment of sol­i­dar­i­ty that defends their right to choose where they move .

Equal rights for all !!

*No One Is Ille­gal. Free­dom Of Move­ment And The Right To Stay For All*

http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/

http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

Saving Iceland Summer Mobilisation 2009!

Join us from 18th July to resist the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness and take direct action against heavy indus­try!

The Strug­gle So Far

Join us from 18th July to resist the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness and take direct action against heavy indus­try!

The Strug­gle So Far

The cam­paign to defend Europe’s great­est remain­ing wilder­ness con­tin­ues. For the past four years direct action camps in Ice­land dur­ing the sum­mer have tar­get­ed alu­mini­um smelters, mega-dams and geot­her­mal pow­er plants.

After the ter­ri­ble destruc­tion caused at Kárah­n­júkar and Hengill, it is time to crush the ‘mas­ter plan’ that would have seen every sin­gle major glacial riv­er dammed, every sub­stan­tial geot­her­mal field exploit­ed and the con­struc­tion of alu­mini­um smelters, oil refiner­ies and sil­i­con fac­to­ries, as well as a sig­nif­i­cant increase in Iceland’s green­house gas emis­sions.

The Sit­u­a­tion Now

Despite opti­mism fol­low­ing the ‘cut­lery rev­o­lu­tion’ where mass street protests and direct action brought down the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment and forced the issue of heavy indus­try back onto the polit­i­cal agen­da, the bat­tle is far from over.

The fall of alu­mini­um prices on the world mar­ket and the glob­al eco­nom­ic cri­sis has tak­en its toll on heavy indus­try projects and alu­mini­um com­pa­nies in Ice­land, putting many of the plans for alu­mini­um smelters, mega-dams and geot­her­mal pow­er plants on hold, or ruled out com­plete­ly. The heavy indus­try machine is far from hav­ing been defeat­ed but recent upris­ings show the deep impact Sav­ing Ice­land has had on the grass­roots and the polit­i­cal land­scape.

Polit­i­cal Changes

The recent elec­tions are a major blow for the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in Ice­land, with the ‘Left Greens’ boot­ing the min­is­ter of the envi­ron­ment out for being too much of a gen­uine envi­ron­men­tal­ist. We are look­ing at a heav­i­ly for­ti­fied pro-heavy indus­try gov­ern­ment, doing away with any pre­tence of the gov­ern­ment being ‘Green’ or even remote­ly Left wing. On top of this, nation­al ener­gy com­pa­nies have already start­ed nego­ti­a­tions with oth­er types of indus­try in the North, where some politi­cians ruled out a new smelter.

Anar­chy in Ice­land

Years of work by Sav­ing Ice­land to intro­duce the ideas of direct action and anar­chy into main­stream soci­ety, cou­pled with a rad­i­calised pop­u­la­tion fol­low­ing the down­fall of the gov­ern­ment, has result­ed in a con­stant­ly grow­ing move­ment of rad­i­cal activists and anar­chists in Ice­land.

Over the past few months squat­ters have twice tak­en a social cen­tre and defend­ed it from evic­tion, refugee and no bor­ders activism is going strong, Food Not Bombs hit the streets every week and actions such as the four “skyr attacks” (where green yoghurt is thrown all over dis­plays, com­put­ers and suits) in two months have tar­get­ed politi­cians and nature killers.

The mutu­al sup­port between the Ice­landic rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty and Sav­ing Ice­land this sum­mer will make for a very excit­ing and action-filled mobil­i­sa­tion!

Tar­gets this Sum­mer

The Hel­gu­vík alu­mini­um smelter, tar­get­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land last sum­mer with an action that stopped con­struc­tion for a whole day after 40 activists invad­ed the site, is still being built. Pow­er­ing the smelter will mean eight new pow­er plants, at least sev­en of which will be geot­her­mal from the Reyk­janes Penin­su­la, dry­ing it up, and Hell­isheiði – also tar­get­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land last sum­mer that saw a drill rig shut down cost­ing thou­sands of pounds. One of the geot­her­mal plants pow­er­ing Cen­tu­ry’s smelter could be in Bitra, close to Hengill, where a local cam­paign last win­ter stopped con­struc­tion from tak­ing place. The eighth pow­er plant will prob­a­bly be a mega-dam on the beau­ti­ful Þjórsá Riv­er.

If ever there was a build­ing site and “test drilling sites” destroy­ing unique and frag­ile ecosys­tems and vul­ner­a­ble to direct action this sum­mer they are on the Reyk­janes penin­su­la, South West Ice­land!

Get involved!

Come to Ice­land from the 18th July and join us for a sum­mer of resis­tance and direct action. Check www.savingiceland.org for reg­u­lar updates and infor­ma­tion for peo­ple join­ing us, or email us on savingiceland@riseup.net to let us know when you’re arriv­ing.

Help sup­port our strug­gle with dona­tions, trans­la­tions, sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and by spread­ing the word.

Climate Rush Pedal Power

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Mon­day 1st June the UK Par­lia­ment returns from recess for the sum­mer sit­ting.
We want to give them a warm wel­come and remind them of the heat they can expect if they con­tin­ue to ignore cli­mate change.

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Mon­day 1st June the UK Par­lia­ment returns from recess for the sum­mer sit­ting.
We want to give them a warm wel­come and remind them of the heat they can expect if they con­tin­ue to ignore cli­mate change.

Ed Miliband (Sec­re­tary of State Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change) is in Bonn that evening, dis­cussing with oth­er ‘world lead­ers’ the agen­da for the UN Cli­mate Sum­mit in Copen­hagen. Let’s give our ‘lead­ers’ a taste of the civ­il dis­obe­di­ence they can expect if real cli­mate jus­tice fails to mate­ri­alise.

It is also the first evening of a coal con­fer­ence at the illus­tri­ous ‘Chatham House’. Every­one who’s any­one, at least in the coal world, will be there.

We’ll begin our bike-ride out­side their con­fer­ence before wind­ing our way through town.

Meet us from 5pm on St James Square, SW1Y 4LE. We’ll then move off at 6pm and take our bikes for a relaxed tour through Lon­don. Labour might think that invest­ing in elec­tric cars is the solu­tion to cli­mate change but we know that cars using elec­tric­i­ty from coal-fired pow­er sta­tions is yet anoth­er red-her­ring.

Camp Climat at Nantes

Activists cam­paign­ing against a pro­posed local air­port near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 — 9 August 2009.

“Le Camp Cli­mat” con­cept is tak­ing off over the chan­nel, just as it is in the UK. Activists cam­paign­ing against the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a new air­port 16 kilo­me­tres north of Nantes (Loire-Atlan­tique, 44) have announced a camp from the 3 — 9 August 2009.

Activists cam­paign­ing against a pro­posed local air­port near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 — 9 August 2009.

“Le Camp Cli­mat” con­cept is tak­ing off over the chan­nel, just as it is in the UK. Activists cam­paign­ing against the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a new air­port 16 kilo­me­tres north of Nantes (Loire-Atlan­tique, 44) have announced a camp from the 3 — 9 August 2009.

The air­port plans have a long his­to­ry, with the ori­gins of the plan to con­struct a “hub” for north-west France, dat­ing from 30 years ago. The pro­posed air­port will con­crete over 2000 hectares of tra­di­tion­al bocage: pas­toral land divid­ed by tra­di­tion­al hedgerows. By con­trast Britain’s sec­ond busiest air­port Gatwick occu­pies a site of only 300 hectares. And all this despite 3 air­ports already oper­a­tional (Nantes, Angers, Rennes) with­in 100 kilo­me­tres of the pro­posed sites. None of the exist­ing air­ports are oper­at­ing at any­thing like full capac­i­ty at the moment, nor will they in the future if cur­rent air tick­ets sales con­tin­ue their present down­ward trend.

Despite being beyond any rea­son­able con­cept of util­i­ty, the Pharaonique project rolls for­ward, with forced sales of farms, homes, and land. Sur­veys and geo­log­i­cal sam­pling of the site began in Octo­ber 2008.

Oppo­si­tion to the project is cen­tred on two main organ­i­sa­tions: the Camp Cli­mat, and a coali­tion that unites res­i­dent groups called ACIPA, which has long pur­sued a civ­il cam­paign amongst the French bureau­cra­cy.

As the threat becomes more immi­nent, many acts of resis­tance have already occurred: with trac­tor road­blocks and sab­o­tage of sur­vey works. A vis­it­ing offi­cial from the pre­fec­ture, come to announce the loss of land and homes, was flanned. The sur­vey work­ers now work along­side an escort of up to six­ty gen­darmes. Eight activists face fines of up to 15,000 euros and sen­tences of 2 — 4 months for their part in the resis­tance.

Le camp fonc­tion­nera de manière auto­gérée, avec pour principes de base : une empreinte écologique min­i­mum, des actions à fort impact auprès de la pop­u­la­tion locale et/ou des médias, des échanges de savoirs sur les pra­tiques alter­na­tives et écologiques, la mise en com­mun des béné­fices, la pra­tique du prix libre ou coû­tant et le développe­ment de réseaux. Il s’inscrira dans le cadre d’une semaine de résis­tance sur le site et fera suite à deux moments forts sur place : le fes­ti­val « Le Planch­er des Vach­es » (same­di 1er août) et le pique-nique annuel des opposants au pro­jet d’aéroport (dimanche 2 août).

(The basic prin­ci­ples of the autonomous camp are: a min­i­mal eco­log­i­cal foot­print, strong local links, strong media impact, edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties and exchanges, devel­op­ment of net­works, and com­mu­nal liv­ing with food at prix libre (con­tribute as you can afford). The camp forms part of a week of resis­tance at the site with a music fes­ti­val on the 1 August, and an annu­al local pic­nic on the 2 August.)

Notre-Dames-De-Lan­des is 202 kilo­me­tres from the fer­ry ter­mi­nal at St. Malo, which makes for a pleas­ant two day ride to be here, but Nantes is also well served by rail: the TGV from Paris (1 train/hour) takes 2h 20mins.

www.campclimat.org