South Gate Block at Faslane

Peace lov­ing folk from the north-east­/new­cas­tle vist­ed Faslane Navel base on the clyde on mon­day, Faslane is home to the Tri­dent nuclear weapons system.The block­aders beleive that tri­dent is a gross pol­lu­tant on our plan­et and our human­i­ty, as well as cost­ing a big heap of cash which prof­its big arms mak­ers( B.a.e. rolls royce etc…)

Peace lov­ing folk from the north-east­/new­cas­tle vist­ed Faslane Navel base on the clyde on mon­day, Faslane is home to the Tri­dent nuclear weapons system.The block­aders beleive that tri­dent is a gross pol­lu­tant on our plan­et and our human­i­ty, as well as cost­ing a big heap of cash which prof­its big arms mak­ers( B.a.e. rolls royce etc…)
The group laid in the access road to the south gate late in the after­noon on mon­day, this was to cause as much dis­rup­tion to the base but not the local population(its exam time for the kidz in scot­land! so avoid b4 9am blocks)
Due to the suc­cess of Faslane365(www.faslane365.org) the police have been very quick to react and it is get­ting dif­fi­cult to lock-on, two of the group opt­ed to super­glue their hands togeth­er in advance to ensure dis­rup­tion.
The group encour­ages oth­er indi­vud­u­als and groups to stop the crim­i­nal activ­i­ty at faslane,coulport and alder­mas­ton.

If not you…then who???

Destruction of Tara Temporarily Halted by Protest

Con­struc­tion was held up on Fri 18th on the con­tro­ver­sial M3 in the Tara Val­ley by a peace­ful demon­stra­tion. A small group of con­cerned active cit­i­zens con­gre­gat­ed at Rath Lugh at 5:30am. Rath Lugh is one of the sev­en out­er defence forts of Tara which is only approx­i­mate­ly 150m from the new­ly dis­cov­ered Nation­al Mon­u­ment at Lis­mullen. When work­ers arrived at 6:10am, they were unable to get their vehi­cles on site and gath­ered on the N3. The work­ers seemed unaware that the carpark they were using is the new­ly closed arche­o­log­i­cal site at Roestown.

Tara protest 2Con­struc­tion was held up on Fri 18th on the con­tro­ver­sial M3 in the Tara Val­ley by a peace­ful demon­stra­tion. A small group of con­cerned active cit­i­zens con­gre­gat­ed at Rath Lugh at 5:30am. Rath Lugh is one of the sev­en out­er defence forts of Tara which is only approx­i­mate­ly 150m from the new­ly dis­cov­ered Nation­al Mon­u­ment at Lis­mullen. When work­ers arrived at 6:10am, they were unable to get their vehi­cles on site and gath­ered on the N3. The work­ers seemed unaware that the carpark they were using is the new­ly closed arche­o­log­i­cal site at Roestown.

Accord­ing to the maps, the pro­posed route of the mon­strous motor­way was sup­posed to avoid the beau­ti­ful iron-age Hill Fort and Coillte For­est. How­ev­er, since this sec­tion of the route was fenced off in Decem­ber, the removal of ancient trees on the side of the rath has cre­at­ed a cliff face of the hill. The NRA plan on rais­ing the lev­el of the motor­way to the top of the rise. This would result in it no longer being vis­i­ble from the hill of Tara and iso­lat­ing it from the Tara com­plex. Rath Lugh is a list­ed Nation­al Mon­u­ment, but was con­ve­nient­ly not marked on the last Ord­nance Sur­vey map.

The demon­stra­tors stood at two gates, one at Roestown on the East of the N3 and the oth­er at Treret at the entrance to the Berril­stown archae­o­log­i­cal com­plex. When work­ers arrived at 6:10am, they were unable to get their vehi­cles on site and gath­ered on the N3. The Assis­tant Project Man­ag­er for the M3 made him­self known to the peace­ful demon­stra­tors. He seemed shocked as most peo­ple are to learn of the extent of the unre­solved archae­ol­o­gy still sit­ting in the path of the 6‑lane motor­way. The work­ers seemed unaware that the carpark they were using is the new­ly closed arche­o­log­i­cal site at Roestown.

This was a mag­nif­i­cent sub­ter­ranean­com­plex with cir­cu­lar stone cham­bers joined by archi­tec­tural­ly per­fect tun­nels from the 6th Cen­tu­ry AD. Quartz cap­stones from this site were found in a ditch two weeks ago by a local per­son. This is an exam­ple of the prac­tice of NRA archae­ol­o­gy.

Con­struc­tion can­not be allowed to con­tin­ue in the val­ley until a full inde­pen­dent archae­o­log­i­cal assess­ment of the route through the val­ley is under­tak­en. NRA archae­ol­o­gists have proven them­selves inad­e­quate in their pro­fes­sions through allow­ing them­selves be pres­sured into pre­ma­ture con­clu­sion of their stud­ies. The pace at which they closed up the sites in April was ridicu­lous and the amount of archae­ol­o­gy still vis­i­ble in the ground is insult­ing and unac­cept­able. This is dis­ap­point­ing yet not sur­pris­ing con­sid­er­ing the NRA have no hard ethics pol­i­cy. The con­trac­tor who has com­menced con­struc­tion in the val­ley is How­ley Con­struc­tion. Their con­tract is worth 650 mil­lion euro. Can a price be put on the his­to­ry and knowl­edge that is being denied and lost with­in this 6–9km stretch of the motor­way alone.

When guards were called to the scene they informed the work­ers that as it was a peace­ful demon­stra­tion they had a right to protest. After sev­er­al hours of these envi­ron­men­tal and cul­tur­al activists hold­ing the space the con­struc­tion work­ers ripped down a fence adja­cent to the entrance but were unable to gain vehic­u­lar access. There was also a piti­ful dis­play of pigeon-chest­ed­ness by a lone work­er in a mini-dig­ger dig­ging ran­dom holes. After the demon­stra­tors moved to allow a local farmer access to cross the route to his cat­tle the posse of idle con­struc­tion work­ers realised that the didle-idle demon­stra­tors were not restrict­ing them from walk­ing on site. At 11:00am approx­i­mate­ly they start­ed a few heavy machin­ery on site but appeared to have run out of diesel after a cou­ple of hours. The space was held at the two gates by the deter­mined joy­ful group ’til mid-day today, over 30 hours lat­er. No destruc­tion or con­struc­tion was done in the val­ley today.

Large cement pipes which were unable to be unloaded at Roestown were then dropped on the archae­o­log­i­cal site at Col­lier­stown. As the con­struc­tion work­ers are using the access points for the archae­o­log­i­cal sites, these are the first areas to be demol­ished. This strate­gic destruc­tion of the sites gives urgency to the need for con­struc­tion to be halt­ed imme­di­ate­ly in the val­ley while their des­tiny is being decid­ed. The cement pipes at Col­lier­stown are only feet away from the piles of dis­card­ed grave­stones at the edge of the site. All fenc­ing and site signs have been removed apart from a lone archae­o­log­i­cal sign in Pol­ish strewn in the stream that pass­es through the dis­man­tled grave­yard. Bones and teeth are still vis­i­ble in the top­soil.

This mon­u­men­tal dis­as­ter must be avert­ed. The ter­ri­fy­ing mag­ni­tude of the sit­u­a­tion where the destruc­tion and denial of our nation­al land­marks of iden­ti­ty for the per­son­al eco­nom­ic gain of a few already very rich peo­ple is beyond com­pre­hen­sion.

Two local farm­ers stopped at the demon­stra­tion yes­ter­day. One said that, since he received his let­ter of CPO in the post from Meath Coun­ty Coun­cil four years ago, he has nev­er signed his name to any con­tract or piece of paper. Last Mon­day, machin­ery moved onto his land. The oth­er farmer explained how 15 acres of his land has now been iso­lat­ed from his farm on the oth­er side of the route and no access point has been pro­vid­ed.

The fact that it is gov­ern­men­tal manip­u­la­tion of com­mu­ni­ty needs, vague and watery plan­ning process­es, the poten­tial fal­si­fi­ca­tion of Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ments and the dnial of the integri­ty of count­less nation­al and world lead­ing inde­pen­dent archae­ol­o­gists and his­to­ri­ans is beyond pathet­ic. The fact that the motor­way won’t even solve the traf­fic con­ges­tion and could only get the com­muters to the tail­back going into Dublin 10 min­utes quick­er and that it is all being built by the Pub­lic Pri­vate Part­ner­ship and would have two tolls of €2.80+ on it is beyond a joke.

Who the féck do they think they are?
http://www.savetara.com/Roestown/

—————————————————-

A small num­ber of envi­ron­men­tal activists are hold­ing con­struc­tion work­ers at bay on the pro­posed M3.
They need help as quick­ly and as soon as pos­si­ble.
On the Navan side of Dun­shaugh­lin take a left turn, they are main­ly sit­u­at­ed on the Dunshaughlin/Dunsany road.
Ring the activist phone: 0861758557 for spe­cif­ic direc­tions.
Work must be stopped until the elec­tion is over at least — and then there may be a chance for Tara.

5pm Mon­day May 21st — activists being fenced in:
News just com­ing in that at least one group of activists block­ing an entrance have
had a fence built around them this after­noon.
More details as they arrive.

————

Gate­keep­ers still hold­ing

At 6pm today there were 4 gates occu­pied.

————

PRESS RELEASE — TARA — Work Halt­ed along Con­tro­ver­sial Stretch of Motor­way

Today in the Tara Skryne Val­ley a num­ber of envi­ron­men­tal activists pre­vent­ed machin­ery from exit­ing con­struc­tion depots along a con­tro­ver­sial stretch of the pro­posed M3 motor­way. The pro­test­ers main­tain that no work should be ongo­ing along the route until direc­tions are issued by Min­is­ter Roche regard­ing the new nation­al mon­u­ment at Lis­mullen. Two weeks ago a mas­sive henge, 80mts in diam­e­ter, was dis­cov­ered along the route through the Val­ley. Indi­ca­tions are that the henge was a cer­e­mo­ni­al site con­nect­ed to the Hill of Tara. No work took place along the con­test­ed stretch before lunchtime today.

The pro­test­ers, mem­bers of the ‘Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il’ along with a num­ber of locals block­ad­ed gates along the exist­ing N3 pre­vent­ing heavy machin­ery from enter­ing the site. Accord­ing to Don­agh Maguire, one of the pro­test­ers ‘A nation­al mon­u­ment has been dis­cov­ered along this stretch of the road and all con­struc­tion should be halt­ed pend­ing the Minister’s direc­tions. We will not allow this mon­u­ment to be destroyed in the same way that a num­ber of oth­er impor­tant sites have been destroyed over the last few months. While the coun­try is obsessed with the elec­tion the NRA are attempt­ing to qui­et­ly bull­doze through the Val­ley. We will not allow this to hap­pen.’

The Cam­paign to Save Tara, an umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing the major­i­ty of groups opposed to the M3 said it under­stood and sup­port­ed the actions of the pro­test­ers. Michael Can­ney of the cam­paign said ‘We ful­ly under­stand and sup­port the actions of the pro­test­ers today, many sites have already been destroyed and it is very impor­tant that the pub­lic are made aware that we could be sleep­walk­ing into a cat­a­stro­phe for the coun­ty and the coun­try if the NRA are not close­ly mon­i­tored.’

ENDS

Don­agh Maguire 0861758557 (in the Tara/Skryne Val­ley)

—————————————————-

TARA SOS — Pro­tes­tors being assault­ed by M3 motor­way work­ers. Ambu­lance called.
Tue May 22, 2007

Please come to Roestown as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.
Pro­test­ers at Tara being man­han­dled by the work­ers, includ­ing the
assis­tant project man­ag­er of SIAC. An ambu­lance has been called for one
of the young women who has been injured by the work­ers. The Gar­dai are
stand­ing by and have allowed the work­ers to take the law into their own
hands.
A young pro­test­er said:“The work­ers have ille­gal­ly ploughed through 2
hedges to make a new entrance, they have assault­ed the pro­test­ers,
because of the non reac­tion of the gar­dai and a young female pro­test­er
has been thrown and dragged around the place and now needs med­ical
atten­tion”.
Why are try­ing to begin work in the Val­ley before the elec­tion? Why not
at Clonee? What is the rush with work in the Val­ley?

————

Wed:
It is dif­fi­cult to know how to describe what hap­pened today. We have hun­dreds of pho­tos and also video footage. To give a resume -
activists manned gates around the Roestown com­pound indi­vid­u­al­ly. They slept there last night. They were joined by mem­ber of the pub­lic dur­ing the day.
Some points need to be empha­sised:
one young man was bad­ly assault­ed in front of gar­daí as the SIAC man­ag­er urged on the How­ley work­ers (the con­trac­tors on this sec­tion) to get him out of the way.
anoth­er young woman was thrown out of the way and hurt in the head etc.
anoth­er young man was thrown aside by the How­ley work­ers
These by and large are ordi­nary work­ing men — try­ing to earn a liv­ing. They have been told that they will be fired if they join a union. They did not get this job or take it on the under­stand­ing that they would have to behave as bul­ly boys for the NRA.
Pro­test­ers were bul­lied, injured, pushed, intim­i­dat­ed, dis­missed by the pow­ers that be. The guards stood back as they were assault­ed.
But when they realised that ordi­nary mem­bers of the pub­lic and uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers were present the atti­tude changed — so there is a great need for “ordi­nary peo­ple” to be present at this protest.
The elec­tion hap­pens on Thurs­day — they want to destroy the Val­ley before there is a pos­si­ble change of Gov­ern­ment. The small­er par­ties have promised to move the road or to review the route or the whole motor­way project. They are deter­mined to bull­doze the Val­ley before then. We have to stop them. Now is the time to act for Tara.
The con­trac­tors are deter­mined to attack the Val­ley — that means Col­lier­stown, Baron­stown, Lis­mullin -
The activists need your help.
It is quite amaz­ing how one per­son, two peo­ple at a gate can stop them.
This is the pow­er of one, two, three … but we need you all now. If you care about Tara — now is the time to act.
Watch­ing three peo­ple being threat­ened by a revers­ing lowlow­der into a small space, revers­ing into them was the most fright­en­ing expe­ri­ence of my life.
We need the aca­d­e­mics there — the work­ers, the chiefs, the guards act dif­fer­ent­ly when they are there.
Pho­tos to fol­low tomor­row …
Please pass this mes­sage on. This is the place where all is hap­pen­ing. You have seen the aeri­als … you know what they want to destroy … stop them now!
Roestown/ Collierstown/ Baronstown/ Lismullin/ .….….….….….…..

for infor­ma­tion ring:
086 1758557
087–9249510
087 3171572

International Day of Direct Action Against Climate Change and the G8 — UK events: Haringey… (& Jeff Luers solidarity callout)

Fri­day 8th June 2007
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice – Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

G8 2007 climate day flierFri­day 8th June 2007
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice – Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

We have a ten-year win­dow to act. As the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac G8 lead­ers meet in Ger­many, masked behind a bar­ri­er of fences and sol­diers, intent on lead­ing us fur­ther towards cat­a­stroph­ic and irre­versible cli­mate chaos, we must shout, scream and roar ‘no more’. Now is the time to take direct action and shut them down, them and their cli­mate crim­i­nal indus­try friends!

The 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Cli­mate Change and the G8 has been called by the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide Net­work. This is a call for autonomous, decen­tral­ized actions appro­pri­ate for your town, city, or local area. Use this inter­na­tion­al day of action to sup­port local strug­gles against oil refiner­ies, gas pipelines, strip mines and coal-fired pow­er plants. Dis­rupt the finan­cial back­ers of the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Organ­ise work­shops to spread sus­tain­able post-petro­le­um liv­ing skills. Find a weak point in the infra­struc­ture of resource exploita­tion and throw a lit­er­al or sym­bol­ic wrench in the works. It’s time to vis­it your local pol­luters and give ’em hell!

We already know of actions planned across the UK, North Amer­i­ca, Ger­many, Cana­da and Aus­tralia and that’s just the start! By 8th June actions will be planned around the world. Pass this call out on to all envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, cli­mate action, rad­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and relat­ed move­ments in all the G8 coun­tries and the Glob­al South.

Ris­ing Tide will cre­ate a col­lec­tion of out­reach and agit-prop mate­ri­als (includ­ing this call out in five dif­fer­ent lan­guages) that can be used by groups around the world to organ­ise local­ly. These mate­ri­als will be down­load­able from www.risingtide.org.uk and http://risingtidenorthamerica.org.
Direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are the ratio­nal response in this time of cri­sis. Sup­port the 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action against Cli­mate Change and the G8! Tell us about planned actions for cli­mate jus­tice being planned in your com­mu­ni­ty. Con­tact us — info@risingtide.org.uk and contact@risingtidenorthamerica.org

In June 2007 the G8 will under­stand the mean­ing of rebel­lion, revolt and rev­o­lu­tion. Their recipe for cat­a­stro­phe will be met with our world­wide resis­tance!

*G8 Day of Action Resources — Down­load­able G8 day of Action fly­ers and posters.
*Organ­ise a Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride on the 8th of June — here are some leaflet ideas to help you.

————————–
You could link your event in with Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Jef­frey Free Luers, June 9, 2007:

June marks the sev­enth year that our friend and com­rade, Jef­frey “Free” Luers has been impris­oned and held cap­tive by the state. Sen­tenced to an out­ra­geous 22 years and 8 months for burn­ing three Sport Util­i­ty Vehi­cles (SUVs) at Roma­nia Chevro­let in Eugene, Jeff has con­tin­ued to be active in prison and fight back with his words and inspi­ra­tion. Although Jeff recent­ly won his appeal and is expect­ing a reduced sen­tence, this case is not over:

“I have spo­ken with my attor­ney and there are still many bat­tles ahead. Hard choic­es will have to be made. I am by no means close to walk­ing out of prison, just one step clos­er. This is a vic­to­ry, and while my own per­son­al strug­gle is mak­ing head­way oth­ers are just begin­ning.”

We encour­age peo­ple to orga­nize events for Jeff and oth­er polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, unit­ing strug­gles for human, earth, and ani­mal lib­er­a­tion. In Jef­f’s own words:

“This June, show your sol­i­dar­i­ty with me, and all those who have strug­gled, past and present, to make this world a bet­ter place. Strug­gle with us. Hold demon­stra­tions or gath­er­ings at fed­er­al build­ings or US embassies and demand change. It doesn’t mat­ter what cause or issue you fight for — we are all con­nect­ed. What does mat­ter is that we stand unit­ed and make our voic­es heard.”

More at http://freefreenow.org/june2007.html

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>ANNOUNCED UK EVENTS»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>

HARINGEY CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE 2007

Can’t make it to Ger­many? Sick of the all those cars get­ting in your way on the auto­bahn! Don’t despair…join us on Sat­ur­day 9th of June for the 2007 Haringey Crit­i­cal Mass. A leisure­ly ride down the Green Lanes to reclaim our streets and send a breath of fresh air to those meet­ing in Ger­many.

Sat­ur­day 9th June • Assem­ble 12 Noon @ Manor House
• Fin­ish­ing at Chest­nuts Park for a pic­nic •

All Wel­come: espe­cial­ly cycles, scoot­ers, wheel­chairs, skate­boards, rollerblades, pedes­tri­ans…
Sup­port­ed by Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group www.haringey.org.uk

FOR CLEAN AIR AND A GREEN G8

WHY HAVE A CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE IN HARINGEY?
We are join­ing togeth­er on a Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride through Haringey as a colour­ful and fun way of high­light­ing envi­ron­men­tal and trans­port issues in the bor­ough. In the week when the G8 are gath­er­ing in Ger­many and the day
after the Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action Against Cli­mate Change we should also be focus­ing on the glob­al cri­sis of cli­mate change and the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of oil depen­den­cy.

• It’s time we reclaimed our streets from the traf­fic and con­ges­tion that caus­es tox­ic lev­els of pol­lu­tion and injury and death.
• We want cycle lanes on Green Lanes and all over Haringey to make cycling a safer, more viable form of trans­port.
• We want mea­sures in place to reduce traf­fic speeds on all roads in Haringey, where dan­ger­ous dri­ving reg­u­lar­ly puts cyclists, chil­dren and pedes­tri­ans at risk.

WHAT’S THE G8 GOT TO DO WITH THIS?

• The G8 (Group of eight, most indus­tri­al­ized nations) Sum­mits are host­ed, on rota­tion, by the group’s mem­ber states. In 2007 the sum­mit is to be held on 6–8 June in Ros­tock, Ger­many.
• While it seems to be in the news a lot, Cli­mate Change is per­haps the issue that has received least atten­tion com­pared to the scale of destruc­tion that life on earth is fac­ing. It is the most seri­ous prob­lem fac­ing the world, more seri­ous than inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism, accord­ing to the UK Government’s chief sci­en­tif­ic advi­sor.
• Cli­mate change needs to be high­er on the G8 agen­da. How­ev­er, we can­not leave it just to the sci­en­tists and politi­cians to dis­man­tle the car­bon machine.
• This bike ride aims to high­light this issue through action and the pro­mo­tion of cycling.

Let’s cel­e­brate the free­dom and plea­sure of trav­el­ling by bike – it’s much more fun and much health­i­er than being stuck in a car in a traf­fic jam. This will be a fun day out for every­one in a safe, sup­port­ive, pos­i­tive atmos­phere, show­ing how much safer and more pleas­ant our streets can be.

COME AND JOIN US!

If you feel it’s time to pro­mote cycling and encour­age a more sus­tain­able Haringey, or if you would like to get involved, vis­it the Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group web­site: www.haringey.org.uk

CRITICAL MASS — friday, London — may be the biggest ever? Plus Bristol & Glasgow call-outs

police have won a high court appeal. it means that ‘organ­is­ers’ of the crit­i­cal mass bike ride have to inform the police ahead of time and nego­ti­ate a fixed route. since there are real­ly no organ­is­ers, the mass will have dif­fi­cul­ty com­ply­ing. it is sim­ply a get-togeth­er of cyclists to go for an unor­gan­ised but syn­chro­nis­tic ride. a large turn-out will com­pli­cate the enforce­ment of this repres­sive deci­sion.

police have won a high court appeal. it means that ‘organ­is­ers’ of the crit­i­cal mass bike ride have to inform the police ahead of time and nego­ti­ate a fixed route. since there are real­ly no organ­is­ers, the mass will have dif­fi­cul­ty com­ply­ing. it is sim­ply a get-togeth­er of cyclists to go for an unor­gan­ised but syn­chro­nis­tic ride. a large turn-out will com­pli­cate the enforce­ment of this repres­sive deci­sion.

back in octo­ber 2005, after the intro­duc­tion of SOCPA (seri­ous organ­ised crime and police act) sec­tion 132, con­trol­ling protest around par­lia­ment, police hand­ed out their leaflets warn­ing the mass may be con­trolled.

in response, around 1500 cyclists took to the streets in novem­ber, bring­ing cen­tral lon­don to a stand­still, and mak­ing it impos­si­ble for the police to enforce their crazy repres­sion.

you don’t have a lot of time to organ­ise, but if you want to build a sim­i­lar event, it’s up to every­one to spread this news far and wide — leaflet, poster and recruit your local cycle shop, write to your local news­pa­per (“local per­son intends to defy police ban by cycling on fri­day”), swamp your mail­ing lists, and so on and so on.

remem­ber, the crit­i­cal mass is not an ‘organ­ised’ event, and so can­not noti­fy the police in advance of its route. since it’s not organ­ised by any one per­son, it means every­one who wants a mass needs to do some­thing this week to make it hap­pen large! no-one will do it for you.

so start act­ing, and think pos­i­tive and huge — if 1500 can come out on a cold novem­ber night over this issue, think how many might turn up on a pleas­ant may evening?

——

“One of the three appeal judges hear­ing today’s case did rule in favour of the cyclists. Lord Jus­tice Wall said a rul­ing that the event fell with­in the Pub­lic Order Act was “poten­tial­ly oppres­sive”. “The police, in my judg­ment, know what the cyclists are going to do. They are going to ride around the Greater Lon­don area. “That is a per­fect­ly law­ful activ­i­ty, and if, for any rea­son, it ceas­es to be so, the police have ample pow­ers to intervene.The judge said it was a valid argu­ment that not only is the Crit­i­cal Mass ral­ly a part of Lon­don life, but that none of the bod­ies respon­si­ble for pub­lic trans­port in Lon­don had ever felt it nec­es­sary to ask the police to con­sid­er using the Pub­lic Order Act against it.”

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Bristol CM headerThis Fri­day — 25th of May — Crit­i­cal Mass

THIS FRIDAY — 25th of May — Crit­i­cal Mass from the Foun­tains @ 5:30pm

Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t BLOCKING traf­fic — We ARE Traf­fic.

Crit­i­cal Mass is a month­ly bicy­cle ride to cel­e­brate cycling and to assert cyclists’ right to the road, hap­pen­ing on the last Fri­day of
every month in hun­dreds of cities and towns around the world. We meet at 5.30pm out­side the Foun­tains near the Water­front to set off by 6pm.

We take a leisure­ly ride through the city of Bris­tol for 30 mins to an hour allow­ing us to make our point and com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly with oth­er road users and author­i­ties.

By get­ting cars to slow down for cyclists we hope to raise aware­ness for:

the ben­e­fits of cycling
the need for more bus­es
the need for more cycle lanes
cut down your dri­ving
car dri­vers need to chill out
cycling is fun and there are lots of like mind­ed peo­ple will­ing to do
some­thing fun to help the envi­ron­ment.

Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t BLOCKING traf­fic — We ARE Traf­fic.

for more info see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass_%28bicycle%29
http://www.scorcher.org/cmhistory/howto.html
http://bristolcm.pbwiki.com/

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Glasgow CM May 07 flierBIG BIKE BLESSING — A Mass for Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass

Come all, come many …see you there with hol­ly oil.

www.glasgowcriticalmass.org.uk

May 25th, 5:30pm, George Sq, !!Bring your Bike to be Blessed!!

Who do you turn to when you no longer can cycle safe­ly in the city?
The police? The Coun­cil? The Prime Min­is­ter?
No … we need some­thing big­ger. We need the most pow­er­ful force to pro­tect our bikes on our jour­ney through the city on the next Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride. This is why we will be call­ing upon the All Mighty Lord to bless all of our self-pro­pelled vehi­cles. Amen! A Divine Inter­ven­tion will ensure our safe­ty so we will be bless­ing the bikes with our hol­ly waters, chant­i­ng hol­ly hymns from the hol­ly Bike Bible. Hal­lelu­jah! For it is the bikes that have been sent down from the heav­ens to save us and our burn­ing plan­et. Amen!

Come all, bring your chil­dren and your par­ents, join the mer­ry sounds of the Crit­i­cal Mass.

Why?

There is a grow­ing cycling cul­ture in Glas­gow that is not being addressed by the Glas­gow city coun­cil. Although the bike is by far the quick­est, most effi­cient and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly means of get­ting around in the city, there are hard­ly any bike facil­i­ty, bike lanes are paired up taxis and bus­es and the list goes on.

Although the city coun­cil claims that there are up to “375km of iden­ti­fied cycle route” (www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/GettingAround/Cycling/) the major­i­ty of them are no longer than a cou­ple of hun­dred meters before they get cut by a road, a build­ing, or a park­ing lot.

Who?

Crit­i­cal Mass, Urban Play­ground, Glas­gow Kiss, The Weird Bike Show, and more

What to expect?

Well you should expect a safe and peace­ful bike ride with oth­er jol­ly cyclists, spon­ta­neous inter­ven­tions and a safe look into expe­ri­enc­ing the city on a self pro­pelled vehi­cle. As well a, a Giant Priest, a sound sys­tem on wheels, some weird bikes, a rick­shaw, and much much more.

The What?

There is also a fan­cy dress par­ty orga­nized by Bed­lam Boudoir and their incred­i­ble cos­tumes. We will have the bicy­cle stamp on the ride which will allow you a spe­cial dis­count for the par­ty lat­er on. Spe­cial points for com­ing as a reli­gious fig­ure to bless bike and dance at par­ty.

www.critical-mass.org
www.urban_discomfort.com
www.the-swarm.co.uk
www.glasgowkiss.org.uk

http://www.glasgowcriticalmass.org.uk

Virgin spoil-sports — TAA exhibition obstructed

19.05.2007
The Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art event tak­ing place in a squat­ted venue once used by Reuters was today obstruct­ed by a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm appar­entl­ty employed by the Vir­gin Media Group who alleged­ly own the build­ing which has been left emp­ty for sev­er­al years until occu­pied by the TAA ear­li­er in the week.

TAA exhibition London 1TAA exhibition London 219.05.2007
The Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art event tak­ing place in a squat­ted venue once used by Reuters was today obstruct­ed by a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm appar­entl­ty employed by the Vir­gin Media Group who alleged­ly own the build­ing which has been left emp­ty for sev­er­al years until occu­pied by the TAA ear­li­er in the week.

Today was the last day of the exhi­bi­tion which opened on the 16th May and involves the work of over a dozen artists from around the coun­try. The secu­ri­ty were assault­ing peo­ple attempt­ing to enter the site and the police were called. Over the course of sev­er­al hours the police attempt­ed to fig­ure out where the law stood on hav­ing secu­ri­ty guards obstruct­ing the pub­lic foot­path in order to pre­vent peo­ple from enter­ing a build­ing which was law­ful­ly occu­pied by some­one oth­er than the own­er instruct­ing the secu­ri­ty firm.

While the first police to turn up instruct­ed that it was a civ­il mater until the point of assault or obstruc­tion, the secu­ri­ty con­tin­ued as before as soon as the police left. The sec­ond set of police to arrive took a more prag­mat­ic approach. They said they’d do noth­ing until giv­en advice from high­er up and while they were there the secu­ri­ty were forced to step back from pulling peo­ple off the fences when they climbed over.

Mean­while, inside, kids played on a boun­cy cas­tle in the sun­shine and peo­ple wan­dered around look­ing at the wide vari­ety of art dec­o­rat­ing the large com­mer­cial build­ing. Work­shops were also tak­ing place around the build­ing and there was a sched­ule of films and exper­i­men­tal per­for­mances.

Short­ly before I left, high­er rank­ing police had arrived and were express­ing con­cern that they would be an unli­censed rave tak­ing place in the build­ing that evening as that’s what they were being told by the secu­ri­ty firm. The police asked if they could have a look around but after a peri­od of dis­cus­sion those inside said no.

As I left at around 6pm, the sit­u­a­tion remained that peo­ple want­i­ng to enter the prop­er­ty had to climb over a lad­der tied to the fence and could do so with­out obstruc­tion from either secu­ri­ty or police. It was not clear what would hap­pen next but the exhi­bi­tion is well worth a vis­it.

See also http://www.taaexhibitions.org/ and http://www.randomartists.org/

======================
update:
======================

Sat­ur­day 19th May 9pm

Has Lon­don gone anti-arts and cul­ture?
The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police have today launched a major oper­a­tion, which includes the cor­don­ing of two pub­lic roads and involv­ing the use of a con­sid­er­able num­ber of police offi­cers and vehi­cles. Result­ing in a stand off last­ing over 12 hours so far, (at 8pm), the police oper­a­tion has man­aged to pre­vent any­one enter­ing on the last day of a high­ly suc­cess­ful and inspi­ra­tional art exhi­bi­tion.

Yes, read that again … an Art Exhi­bi­tion …

Launched on Wednes­day the Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art exhi­bi­tion has attract­ed a large num­ber of tal­ent­ed artists from all over Britain and Europe to pro­duce one of the most excit­ing and inno­v­a­tive exhi­bi­tions that Lon­don has seen, achiev­ing almost unan­i­mous acclaim from every­one who has vis­it­ed.

Run­ning for four days from mid­day to mid­night one would have thought that such a qual­i­ty mul­ti­cul­tur­al event would be cel­e­brat­ed by the author­i­ties, but no, they insist that the place is going to turn in to some kind of rave and used it as an excuse to pre­vent the law­ful access to local pub­lic high­ways and the build­ing itself.

The build­ing is full of high qual­i­ty art, pro­duced by ded­i­cat­ed artists and the very con­cept of a rave is enough to hor­ri­fy any­one involved. The very thought of hun­dreds of works of art trashed in an ille­gal rave in incom­pre­hen­si­ble, so the ques­tion must arise as to why?

Has the Met lost it’s sens­es? On a Sat­ur­day night when the under­staffed, over­stretched police force is hav­ing it’s busiest night of the week they are sent out in force to pre­vent an art exhi­bi­tion!

Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art is (was) being held at 15–25 New North Road, Lon­don (Nr Old St) and is appar­ent­ly the most dan­ger­ous event in town

more info 07722044788

Earth First! summer gathering — Wednesday 18th July until Sunday 22nd July 2007 — location & programme announced

What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

EF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

Explor­ing alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of greed, lies & exploita­tion -

The Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is the place where peo­ple involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action — or those who want to be involved — get togeth­er for five days of time and space to talk, walk, share skills, learn, play, rant, find out what’s going on, find out what’s next, live out­side, strate­gise, hang out, incite, laugh and con­spire.

The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of non-hier­ar­chi­cal low-impact liv­ing in action.

We are a diverse com­mu­ni­ty with a wide range of approach­es to our action, so there should be plen­ty to inter­est and inspire every­one whether you have been active for years or are com­plete­ly new to it all.

More info at earthfirstgathering.org.uk

Climate Activist Glues Herself To The Front Door Of Leeds Bradford Airport

18th May: A woman cli­mate activist blocked the entrance to Leeds/Bradford Air­port today, by super­glu­ing her­self in front of the revolv­ing door. The protest was against gov­ern­men­t’s fail­ure to curb the growth in air trav­el, in spite of the fact that it is the fastest grow­ing source of CO2 emis­sions from the Unit­ed King­dom.

18th May: A woman cli­mate activist blocked the entrance to Leeds/Bradford Air­port today, by super­glu­ing her­self in front of the revolv­ing door. The protest was against gov­ern­men­t’s fail­ure to curb the growth in air trav­el, in spite of the fact that it is the fastest grow­ing source of CO2 emis­sions from the Unit­ed King­dom.

The activist hand­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment to mem­bers of the pub­lic and air­port staff:-

“This is a peace­ful act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. It is my inten­tion to dis­rupt the nor­mal work­ing of this air­port because it is an envi­ron­men­tal haz­ard. In so doing, I am stand­ing up for the poor­est of the world’s peo­ple, and for future gen­er­a­tions, who will bear the brunt of cli­mate chaos, caused by the afflu­ent lifestyles and fos­sil fuel addic­tion of the rich.

The planned three­fold increase in air flights is envi­ron­men­tal luna­cy. If run­away cli­mate change is to be avert­ed, glob­al car­bon emis­sions need to peak this decade, and decline rapid­ly there­after. There is no way that this can be achieved with­out halt­ing the explo­sion in air trav­el. Leeds/Bradford Air­port is plan­ning to expand to 8million flights a year, and if the pub­lic author­i­ties refuse to curb this envi­ron­men­tal men­ace, then respon­si­ble local cit­i­zens must act.

I AM SUPERGLUED IN POSITION PLEASE DO NOT HURT ME BY ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE ME!

I am not a ter­ror­ist. The real ter­ror­ists are the peo­ple who are destroy­ing the plan­et for prof­it.”

The activist was in posi­tion for about an hour, giv­ing her plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty to edu­cate those going in and out of the air­port. The police again showed a remark­able tol­er­ance for the crimes of Leeds Brad­ford air­port by arrest­ing the activist and stop­ping her from per­form­ng this vital pub­lic ser­vice. What are they like?

www.climatecamp.org.uk

Eviction & Injuction Against Squatted Garden? Reading Resists!

17.05.2007
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den is due to open to the pub­lic for the first time this Sat­ur­day 19th May, with a BBQ, children’s dance exhi­bi­tion and live acoustic music. Through four months of hard vol­un­tary work, some local res­i­dents and activists have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful green space from land left as a derelict junk­yard by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil. We’ve cleared rub­bish, secured the area, laid lawn, grown plants and built tables and bench­es. We have recy­cled and re-used and cre­at­ed some­thing pos­i­tive for oth­ers and our­selves. Through­out this time we have been occu­py­ing the for­mer Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, left emp­ty after the coun­cil cut their fund­ing.

17.05.2007
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den is due to open to the pub­lic for the first time this Sat­ur­day 19th May, with a BBQ, children’s dance exhi­bi­tion and live acoustic music. Through four months of hard vol­un­tary work, some local res­i­dents and activists have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful green space from land left as a derelict junk­yard by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil. We’ve cleared rub­bish, secured the area, laid lawn, grown plants and built tables and bench­es. We have recy­cled and re-used and cre­at­ed some­thing pos­i­tive for oth­ers and our­selves. Through­out this time we have been occu­py­ing the for­mer Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, left emp­ty after the coun­cil cut their fund­ing.

Today, we have found out that derelict land and build­ings are not left to rot by the coun­cil through sheer lazi­ness, but that they actu­al­ly pre­fer them this way. A coun­cil offi­cial has informed us this morn­ing that they are apply­ing to the court for our evic­tion and the evic­tion of the new Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den. Refus­ing to allow this pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty project to flower (excuse the pun!) or allow­ing Kates­grove res­i­dents a chance to decide the future of this area, the coun­cil is seek­ing an injunc­tion to pre­vent the planned open day and cel­e­bra­tion events this Sat­ur­day from tak­ing place.

We intend to car­ry on regard­less. This project is a source of pride for us, and we hope it can be the same thing for all our neigh­bours. We believe it to be a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the area and we sin­cere­ly hope you will feel the same. With this in mind we would like to extend an invi­ta­tion to all our friends, neigh­bours and those who sup­port us to vis­it the gar­den at any­time from now onwards. We also restate our invi­ta­tion to join in our cel­e­bra­tion of the open­ing day, this Sat­ur­day 19th May.

The entrance to the gar­den is through the alley­way next to the Women’s Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre at the bot­tom of Sil­ver Street, Kates­grove, Read­ing.

Against their injuc­tion and evic­tion is our stub­born deter­mi­na­tion — resist!

Love n Rage,
Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Col­lec­tive
rgacollective(AT)hotmail.co.uk

Christiania under attack and Copenhagen-Update

15.05.2007
The police entered chris­tia­nia yes­ter­day to evict and demol­ish a house, that part­ly burned down a cou­ple of years ago. The evic­tion lead to a night of street fight­ing in the area. Time­line is trans­lat­ed from modkraft.dk

Christiania May 07 house eviction 115.05.2007
The police entered chris­tia­nia yes­ter­day to evict and demol­ish a house, that part­ly burned down a cou­ple of years ago. The evic­tion lead to a night of street fight­ing in the area. Time­line is trans­lat­ed from modkraft.dk

Yes­ter­day’s attack on chris­tia­nia has to be seen in con­nec­tion with the attack on Ung­domshuset the 1st of march which lead to a week of riots all over Copen­hagen. Again the police is now attack­ing a free space in Copen­hagen that has been under attack from both police and gov­ern­ment sev­er­al times the last cou­ple of years

The rea­son was offi­cial­ly that there had been made new con­struc­tions on the house which against the new admin­is­tra­tion “rules” for chris­tia­nia that for­bids any con­struc­tion at all, which also lead to anoth­er major police raid in sep­tem­ber 2006. Unof­fi­cial­ly it is said that the evic­tion might be a test from the police to see the reac­tion to evic­tions on chris­tia­nia, pri­or to the promised evic­tion of all “ille­gal­ly” build hous­es in the area..

From sev­er­al politi­cians and the opin­ion in gen­er­al among left rad­i­cals the offi­cial rea­son for the attack has been critized as being point­less. The house was offi­cial­ly asked to be removed by Chris­tia­nia them­selves back in 2006 and there has­n’t been any rea­son stat­ed why it had to be removed just now a month and a half after Ung­domshuset and a week before the court decides whether or not 3 hous­es on Chris­tia­nia should also be evict­ed.

To many it seems like the police is train­ing for these evic­tions of hous­es that are still in func­tion and also this might be an attempt to shift the pub­lic opin­ion AGAINST Chris­tia­nia by cre­at­ing and pro­vok­ing sev­er­al riots in the area week after week.

How­ev­er, the riots and fight­ing yes­ter­day also shows that the police isn’t always the strongest force. Peo­ple were caught by sur­prise this morn­ing when they attacked Chris­tia­nia but by evening the demon­stra­tors proved to be a much more pre­pared and stronger force than the police seem to have been pre­pared for.

Even though Copen­hagen might have seemed to dis­ap­pear again in the inter­na­tion­al news the city has been the cen­ter for huge polit­i­cal mobi­liza­tions time after time and there has been more and more focus on police bru­tal­i­ty in the dan­ish news.
At the same time sen­tences has been decid­ed by the city court against some of those peo­ple arrest­ed around 1st of march. Most of them have been con­fes­sion tri­als and might there­for not give any hint about future tri­als but in one or two tri­als peo­ple have been sen­tenced for long jail pun­ish­ments even though there was more civ­il wit­ness­es sup­port­ing them than police wit­ness­es against them.

——-
From modkraft.dk:

Kl. 01.51

The police has bloked Prins­essegade (main road to chris­tia­nia) and has parked a big amount of vans and offi­cers on the main square in the area Chris­tian­shavns Torv

The sit­u­a­tion seems unchanged.

Modkraft.dk is end­ing tonights reportage

Kl. 01.39

A police attack has­n’t begun any­way. Four police vans are parked across Prins­essegade with a num­ber of offi­cers in gas masks in front of and behind the vans.

Fur­ther up the street clos­er to Chris­tia­nia molo­tov cock­tails and tear­gas granats are thrown in each oth­ers direc­tion but with­out any real move­ment.

The police has all equip­ment ready but noth­ing is hap­pen­ing

Kl. 01.28

A wit­ness reports that the police has tak­en on gas­masks and is stand­ing next to their vans by the church half way between the square Chris­tian­shavns Torv and the entrance to Chris­tia­nia

The wit­ness thinks it looks like the prepa­ra­tion for a final attack on the demon­stra­tors.

Kl. 01.24

There has just been new clash­es between demon­stra­tors and police around Prins­essegade and Båd­mandsstræde.

The police moved for­ward in vans and had rocks thrown after them. The police then retreat­ed and fired tear­gas at the demon­stra­tors.

In return the demon­stra­tors threw at least 3 molo­tov­cock­tails at the police

It seems as if the clash­es does­n’t lead to any changes in posi­tion. The police has again retreat­ed.

Kl. 01.05

The fight­ing between demon­stra­tors and police seems to stop just as slow­ly. There aren’t as many demon­stra­tors on the street as ear­li­er in the evening.

There is still a lot of clash­es with the police where paint­bombs and molo­tovs are thrown at the police

A wit­ness has esti­mat­ed the num­ber of demon­stra­tors to be around 100 but there is more inside chris­tia­nia.

Kl. 00.55

After demon­stra­tors have been retreat­ed to chris­tia­nia they have now start­ed run­ning out in dif­fer­ent loca­tions in the area. There is fight­ing in a street next to Prins­essegade. The police is slow­ly retreat­ing.

There are still huge amounts of gas in the streets but the wind keeps spread­ing it out.

Kl. 00.41

There is still fight­ing between police and demon­stra­tors in Prins­essegade. Also there is still a lot of gas in the streets but the demon­stra­tors are just mov­ing accord­ing to the amount of gas, retreat­ing when there is too much. Molo­tovs are fre­quent­ly being thrown at the police

The demon­stra­tors are pour­ing water on the tear­gas bul­lets (?), mov­ing from one to anoth­er with water bot­tles.

The area is cov­ered with a huge police­force.

Kl. 00.24

The police has fired extreme­ly much tear­gas in the streets. A wit­ness says taht the demon­stra­tors are cry­ing and vom­it­ting. But peo­ple still havent giv­en up but are instead very aggres­sive. A lot is retreat­ing from the gas but sev­er­al demon­stra­tors are stay­ing.

Water and lemons are hand­ed out among the demon­stra­tors.

The wind in the area is con­tin­u­ing and the demon­stra­tors are moing towards the police as soon as the gas is gone.

Tear­gas has just been fired into chris­tia­nia over the musik­place Lop­pen (www.loppen.dk)

Kl. 00.18

There are burn­ing bar­ri­cades sev­er­al places in the area. In a par­al­lel street to Prins­essegade a larg­er bar­ri­cade is on fire

Kl. 00.13

Every­thing is qui­et on Sankt Hans Torv where a demon­stra­tion was sup­pose to start at mid­night. 15–20 demon­stra­tors are hang­ing out there and there isn’t any sign of dis­tur­bance.

Kl. 00.11

A clash is being pre­pared in Prins­essegade. The police has fired huge amounts of gas in the street but a wind is spread­ing it out. That makes the demon­stra­tors move for­ward as soon as the worst amount of gas is gone

The police seems to be hes­i­tat­ing, accord­ing to a source

Kl. 23.59

The police moved towards the demon­stra­tors a moment ago. They were met with rocks and the like.

One van was set on fire which is out again by now

A minute after the attack the police retreat­ed again and regrouped.
They fired gas at the demon­stra­tors

The demon­stra­tors have retreat­ed a bit but are very dis­ci­plined. They are yelling “Hold the line” to each oth­er. A wit­ness calls them “ready for bat­tle”

Kl. 23.55

The sit­u­a­tion is tense. Bar­ri­cades are build in Prins­essegade

By Båd­mandsstræde a small­er clash is hap­pen­ing. Oppo­site ear­li­er the police is hes­i­tat­ing a bit. At oth­er attacks the police has answered to demon­stra­tors’ attacks with pow­er­ful attack on them.

It is the demon­stra­tors that are offen­sive now.. They are yelling out paroles against police bru­tal­i­ty

The house the police evict­ed this morn­ing has been rebuild.

Kl. 23.47

SMS-mes­sages has called for a demon­stra­tion at Nør­re­bro at mid­night. As the demon­stra­tions on chris­tia­nia and in the area ear­li­er it is to protest the evic­tion of a house on chris­tia­nia ear­li­er today

Kl. 23. 42

There are two large burn­ing bar­ri­cades in Prins­essegade. One of them was attacked by a police 15 min­utes ago.

A new fire is being made between the two bar­ri­cades. The mood is tense & bat­tle-pre­pared.

The area has been blocked by police. No one can enter or leave the neigh­bour­hood. Even the metro has been stopped.

Wit­ness­es describe the sit­u­a­tion as silence before the storm

Kl. 23.33

Police has just start­ed a mas­sive and vio­lent attack on the entrance to Chris­tia­nia. This is after demon­stra­tors again has made attacks on the police. A sin­gle demon­stra­tor did­n’t make it away and has been arrest­ed and car­ried away

Kl. 23.23:

The police attacked the entrance to chris­tia­nia five min­utes ago. The demon­stra­tors replied with molo­tovs, rocks and bot­tles.

The police has retreat­ed again and a new attack is expect­ed.

There are sev­er­al burn­ing bar­ri­cades in the area

The riots start­ed short­ly after 22 o’clock where a demon­stra­tion on the main square in the area start­ed by sms’s start­ed a larg­er fire and build bar­ri­cades. The police attacked the demon­stra­tion after about 10 min­utes and at least 25 peo­ple were arrest­ed.

The demon­stra­tors spread out in the area after­wards and start­ed build­ing burn­ing bar­ri­cades around the entrances to chris­tia­nia.

Politiken.dk writes that at least 42 per­sons had been arrest­ed at 22.30

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Pic­tures & video: http://indymedia.dk/article/1153
http://politiken.dk/poltv/?ExtID=1646
http://politiken.dk/poltv/?ExtID=1646

More video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImOBGgLEBHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpse1ohja4g
playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D96F3A4AD2D6B746

Activists Occupy Downtown West Palm Beach Billboard protesting Florida Power and Light

West Palm Beach, May 14 — This morn­ing local activists from Project Aware­ness and Ever­glades Earth First! hung ban­ners and locked them­selves to a down­town rooftop bill­board to call for a sus­tain­able future for west­ern Palm Beach Coun­ty. They oppose FPL’s pro­posed West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter, cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing, Ever­glades pol­lu­tion, and overde­vel­op­ment; and the Callery-Judge “Town Devel­op­ment,” which would jump­start urban sprawl in the Lox­a­hatch­ee area. Their mes­sages high­light the enor­mous water con­sump­tion cllowances already approved for each project, and pro­mote pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in two forums ñ tomorrow’s 2pm coun­ty com­mis­sion meet­ing and the FPL’s Share­hold­ers meet­ing to take place at FPL’s Juno Beach head­quar­ters on May 25.

West Palm billboard actionWest Palm Beach, May 14 — This morn­ing local activists from Project Aware­ness and Ever­glades Earth First! hung ban­ners and locked them­selves to a down­town rooftop bill­board to call for a sus­tain­able future for west­ern Palm Beach Coun­ty. They oppose FPL’s pro­posed West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter, cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing, Ever­glades pol­lu­tion, and overde­vel­op­ment; and the Callery-Judge “Town Devel­op­ment,” which would jump­start urban sprawl in the Lox­a­hatch­ee area. Their mes­sages high­light the enor­mous water con­sump­tion cllowances already approved for each project, and pro­mote pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in two forums ñ tomorrow’s 2pm coun­ty com­mis­sion meet­ing and the FPL’s Share­hold­ers meet­ing to take place at FPL’s Juno Beach head­quar­ters on May 25.

Their col­or­ful ban­ners showed an alli­ga­tor chomp­ing a pow­er plant and read:

“Got Water? They would: FPL’s West Coun­ty Plant ->18 mil­lion gal­lons a Day;

“Callery-Judge Town -> 5 mil­lion gal­lons a day. Keep it Rur­al, Keep it Wild. No new FPL Plant”

For over a year envi­ron­men­tal groups have been fight­ing the West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter (WCEC), a nat­ur­al gas plant that FPL hopes to con­struct 1000 feet away from the Arthur R. Mar­shall Nation­al Wildlife Refuge in Lox­a­hatch­ee. As the alter­na­tive to fos­sil fuel plans, activists are pro­mot­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy & renew­able ener­gy, which FPL claims is imprac­ti­cal, despite the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for Ener­gy Efficiency’s recent report on the poten­tial for effi­cien­cy and renew­able sources to meet Florida’s ener­gy demands.

“When it comes to renew­able ener­gy, the sci­ence has been there for years,” says local activist & physi­cist Lynne Purvis. “Why does FPL con­tin­ue to use old, dirty tech­nolo­gies? The answer can only be greed.”

The cur­rent drought and water short­ages spawn fur­ther con­cerns about FPL’s pro­posed WCEC water require­ments of 18 mil­lion gal­lons a day and the unknown water con­sump­tion of the hun­dreds of thou­sands of units of devel­op­ment enabled by the project, includ­ing Callery-Judge’s 5 mil­lion gal­lons a day.

“These projects are direct threats to Ever­glades Restora­tion,” declared Ever­glades Earth First! mem­ber Peter Shultz. “What we need is con­ser­va­tion, not more con­struc­tion.”