Ongoing road bloackade against Mining in Sweden

30 July 2013 Right now there is a bat­tle against min­ing in Sap­mi, north of Swe­den, going on. We have bar­ri­cad­ed the road lead­ing to the site where Beowulf Min­ing Plc. want to make test mines. This is the Sami peo­ples lands stolen by the Swedish state and col­o­nized since way back. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with indige­nous cul­ture and fight against the mega-machine of min­ing. The Swedish police are now on the site remov­ing obsta­cles to help the min­ing cor­po­ra­tion pro­ceed. At least 6 peo­ple have been arrest­ed already but protests are still going on. For five days the police have this spe­cial mis­sion to help the evil cor­po­ra­tion, that’s why we need peo­ple now!

This is a strate­gic bat­tle, if the resis­tance to the mine is strong enough Beowulf will not be able to sell the min­ing site to anoth­er cor­po­ra­tion (which is their plan). There is a secu­ri­ty radius of 150m from the test pits, if peo­ple are inside those the cor­po­ra­tion are not able to det­o­nate explo­sives. How far is this cor­po­ra­tion ready to go? Are they ready to blow peo­ple up to get their ore? We don’t know but we are ready to die to stop them. Sol­i­dar­i­ty protests, new war­riors, prayers, actions and what­ev­er you can imag­ine to help is/are wel­come!

For every­thing wild and free!

ALF Releases Captive Pheasants from Farm in Riverside, CA

RiversidePheasants 30 July 2013 River­side, CA: In a com­mu­nique received by the North Amer­i­can Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Press Office, the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front has tak­en cred­it for lib­er­at

RiversidePheasants 30 July 2013 River­side, CA: In a com­mu­nique received by the North Amer­i­can Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Press Office, the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front has tak­en cred­it for lib­er­at­ing cap­tive pheas­ants from four out of six pens at a River­side, Cal­i­for­nia farm on July 22nd. Accord­ing to doc­u­ments post­ed at the Wildlife Farm Data­base (“Direc­to­ry of cap­tive wildlife oper­a­tions for activists”), the Ash Grove pheas­ant farm is one of just over 60 farms in Cal­i­for­nia that breed “game birds,” includ­ing quail and partridges.The birds are slaugh­tered for sale as meat, or sold to cap­tive hunt­ing facil­i­ties to be shot at close range by so-called hunters.

This is the third raid of a pheas­ant farm in the last 18 months. In March 2012, the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front released 70 to 100 birds from a farm in Ore­gon. Sev­er­al months lat­er, the ALF released “dozens” of pheas­ants from anoth­er Ore­gon farm.

The com­mu­nique reads, in full:

On the night of July 22, the masked res­cuers of the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front entered the Ash Grove Pheas­ant Farm at 10540 Vic­to­ria Avenue in River­side, Cal­i­for­nia. As the farmer slept just feet away, the fenc­ing was torn open with wire cut­ters. Four of the six pens on the prop­er­ty were breached, giv­ing these beau­ti­ful beings a chance at free­dom.

 

Wildlife farms are every­where. Their vic­tims can be imme­di­ate­ly released, with no rehom­ing nec­es­sary. This life sav­ing action took no spe­cial­ized skill, less than twen­ty-four hours of plan­ning, and fifty dol­lars. With basic tools and deter­mi­na­tion, any­one is capa­ble of destroy­ing the bar­ri­er that stands between an ani­mal and their free­doms.

Stop frat­er­niz­ing about it. Stop fan­ta­siz­ing about it. Stop fright­en­ing your­self out of it. You know you want to – just do it. Wild non-humyns await their release from pris­ons in your neigh­bor­hoods.

‘For only a fool would cling to this world as it is,’   A.L.F

The Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front uti­lizes eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage in addi­tion to the direct lib­er­a­tion of ani­mals from con­di­tions of abuse and impris­on­ment to halt need­less ani­mal suf­fer­ing. By mak­ing it more expen­sive to trade in the lives of inno­cent, sen­tient beings, the ALF main­tain the atroc­i­ties against our broth­ers and sis­ters are like­ly to occur in small­er num­bers; their goal is to abol­ish the exploita­tion, impris­on­ment, tor­ture and killing of inno­cent, non-human ani­mals.

Arson at a New Mexico Horse Slaughterhouse

30 July 2013 Ear­li­er today, the own­er of Val­ley Meat, Co., near Roswell, NM, announced that his horse slaugh­ter­house was hit by arson. The blaze did not burn the whole fac­to­ry down, but appears to have been tar­get­ed for the refrig­er­a­tion unit.

30 July 2013 Ear­li­er today, the own­er of Val­ley Meat, Co., near Roswell, NM, announced that his horse slaugh­ter­house was hit by arson. The blaze did not burn the whole fac­to­ry down, but appears to have been tar­get­ed for the refrig­er­a­tion unit.

Accord­ing to De Los San­tos, “The fire inspec­tor was out there. He took sam­ples of the dirt and stuff just to make sure. But he said this was some­thing that was not done by elec­tric­i­ty or light­ning. He said some­thing was poured on it to light it.”

The dam­age will post­pone the factory’s start­up, since it can­not work with­out a refrig­er­a­tion unit. Chaves Coun­ty police are call­ing the blaze, “very sus­pi­cious.”

Accord­ing to AP, a passer­by noti­fied author­i­ties on Sat­ur­day after notic­ing some­one jump the fence and pour lighter flu­id on the refrig­er­a­tor.

De Los San­tos claims that oppo­nents have made var­i­ous threats to him, like “We hope the place catch­es on fire.” But it’s hard to nar­row down the oppo­nents, since the list of orga­ni­za­tions opposed to horse slaugh­ter­ing includes the Humane Soci­ety, the USDA, and oth­er groups.

It appears that the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture held up the per­mits for Val­ley Meat, but was sued by the com­pa­ny for fail­ing to act. At that point, the per­mits were giv­en, in spite of a lack of suf­fi­cient envi­ron­men­tal review.

Direct action gets the goods.

None of this would have been pos­si­ble two years ago, since Con­gress lift­ed a ban on domes­tic horse slaugh­ter in 2011. Most horse meat, how­ev­er, is like­ly to be shipped to oth­er coun­tries that eat hors­es and to zoos for ani­mal food.

 

The Great Gas Gala Day 6

30 July 2013 Pho­tos from yes­ter­day show that the police are mass­ing to get Cuadrilla vehi­cles onto the site at Bal­combe, so Cuadrilla can begin the dan­ger­ous path to frack­ing.

30 July 2013 Pho­tos from yes­ter­day show that the police are mass­ing to get Cuadrilla vehi­cles onto the site at Bal­combe, so Cuadrilla can begin the dan­ger­ous path to frack­ing.

Update (7:00pm): Rain cleared and more peo­ple com­ing down to show their sup­port.

Update (5:00pm): Very large num­bers of police being used to try to imposed frack­ing on the peo­ple of Bal­combe. Come and sup­port them!

Update (9:40am): Frack­ing truck attempt­ing to force way through block­ade with help of police. Come down and sup­port com­mu­ni­ty!

Update (9:00am): Weath­er not great today but but com­mu­ni­ty stand­ing strong against Cuadrilla’s frack­ing threat. Come sup­port them.

Update (7:00am): Break­fast begin pre­pared at com­mu­ni­ty block­ade in Bal­combe. Come down and sup­port the fight against frack­ing.


Camp is still going strong and renewed efforts are being made to defend Bal­combe. Come down and sup­port the fight against frack­ing.

Willits Action Update

 

 

July 30th

In yet anoth­er stealthy pre-dawn action, pro­test­ers against the Cal­trans bypass around Willits again snuck onto the con­struc­tion site, this time on the south end of the route, lock­ing them­selves to a giant bull­doz­er called a rip­per. The machine is tear­ing apart a hill­side and using the soil to fill in wet­lands and streams to build a free­way. For the first time, press has access to the protest site, after Willits News pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve Eber­hard was arrest­ed when he tried to cov­er a protest last week.

Two women, Kim Ban­croft and Mau­reen Kane, have locked their hands around the equip­ment in weld­ed steel tubes, which are dif­fi­cult to remove and must be sawn through. A third pro­test­er, Steve Keyes, was arrest­ed when he would not leave their side, where he was sta­tioned with water. Tem­per­a­tures have been in the nineties all week. A crowd of local cit­i­zens has gath­ered in sup­port, and CHP is on scene. Ban­croft explained: “Cal­trans put out false infor­ma­tion to jus­ti­fy a four-lane bypass. The peo­ple of Willits designed an alter­na­tive route that would not be so expen­sive or destruc­tive, and it was ignored.”  The project’s cost at this point is $210 mil­lion.

“Cal­trans is attempt­ing to mit­i­gate for the loss of wet­lands on an unprece­dent­ed scale, using an untried method with no long term man­ag­er and with­out long term fund­ing to sus­tain it”, said Ellen Drell, found­ing board mem­ber of the Willits Envi­ron­men­tal Cen­ter. “They’re replac­ing an already func­tion­ing wet­land with a spec­u­la­tive plan.”

Cal­trans pur­chased one third of the entire Lit­tle Lake Val­ley in an effort to mit­i­gate for this project, which will cause the largest loss of wet­lands in 50 years. In a scheme that they them­selves acknowl­edge to be exper­i­men­tal, Cal­trans will exca­vate 266,000 cubic yards of wet­land soils, goug­ing out unnat­ur­al depres­sions. In oth­er areas the plan calls for strip­ping off exist­ing veg­e­ta­tion and replac­ing it nurs­ery grown plants.

“The total price tag of this mit­i­ga­tion trav­es­ty to the tax­pay­ers is $54 mil­lion dol­lars,” said Drell.

 The Men­do­ci­no Con­ser­va­tion Resource Dis­trict (RDC), which Cal­trans assumed would take over man­age­ment of the mit­i­ga­tion plan, has declined to accept own­er­ship of the mit­i­ga­tion lands or respon­si­bil­i­ty for its man­age­ment, after review­ing the mit­i­ga­tion plan.  Thus the plan is mov­ing for­ward with no man­ag­er, leav­ing one-third of val­ley lands with Cal­trans as the sole own­er, and no plan for the future. While there is fund­ing for earth mov­ing, plant­i­ng and 40 miles of fenc­ing, there is zero fund­ing for land man­age­ment, includ­ing rota­tion­al graz­ing for cat­tle, over­sight, main­te­nance, and flood con­trol.

Protests over the Willits Bypass free­way have been ongo­ing since Jan­u­ary when a young woman call­ing her­self “War­bler” took up res­i­dence high in a pine tree on the route. Her tree-sit, and 5 oth­ers were end­ed after 2 months in a huge mil­i­tary-style oper­a­tion by CHP swat teams. “War­bler” returned to the trees this week, this time in a rare wet­land ash for­est at the north end of the route. Over 30 peo­ple have been arrest­ed, and ral­lies, peti­tions, protests and a law­suit con­tin­ue.

http://youtu.be/0y1vwWVTGv4

Communiqué After 50 days of Occupation in Zurawlow, Poland

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polandoccupychevron

29th July 2013: It has been 50 days since the start of the protest against Chevron’s activ­i­ties by res­i­dents in Zurawlow, Rogow and Szczelatyn, Poland. Since then, they have suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the access to the land leased by Chevron where the shale gas extrac­tion was planned to be car­ried out.

Dur­ing that time, farm­ers had arranged meet­ings with var­i­ous offi­cials, rang­ing from local munic­i­pal­i­ty admin­is­tra­tors down to Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all of the meet­ings and dis­cus­sions failed to meet demands of the pro­test­ers.

Pro­test­ers are being sup­port­ed by activists from all over the world. We are deeply appre­cia­tive of your sup­port. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, we would like to ask you for direct sup­port. At this time of the year the most impor­tant peri­od (field har­vest­ing) for farm­ers begins, thus it is cru­cial for us your pres­ence at the site of the protest. Only your sup­port, joint actions and sol­i­dar­i­ty gives us a chance to reach vic­to­ry.

http://occupychevron.tumblr.com

Climate Justice Activists Occupy Two Tar Sands Mining Sites in Utah

521886_597282230294554_359607144_n29 July 2013 In a direct action fol­low­ing the Canyon Coun­try Action Camp, hun­dreds of activists have swarmed two min­ing sites in Utah tar sands.

521886_597282230294554_359607144_n29 July 2013 In a direct action fol­low­ing the Canyon Coun­try Action Camp, hun­dreds of activists have swarmed two min­ing sites in Utah tar sands. Activists are cur­rent­ly locked down to machines, stop­ping work.

Canyon Coun­try Ris­ing Tide have joined with the Lako­ta, Dine, and Idle No More in con­demn­ing the tar sands in Utah as a defil­ing of the pre­cious Green Riv­er ecosys­tem, and an assault on fresh air and clean water in the US. The tar sands and oil shale min­ing pro­posed in Utah and neigh­bor­ing states would tra­verse more than one thou­sand square miles.

The first block­ade went up two hours ago, and is still hold­ing. Con­tract­ed Card­well, Inc. con­trac­tors attempt­ed to hit peace­ful pro­tes­tors with their trucks, but the activists were able to lock down, and unfurl a ban­ner that reads, “If you build it they will come.”

Pri­vate secu­ri­ty per­son­nel and three police cars have shown up on the scene, but no arrests have been made yet.

The sec­ond block­ade went up approx­i­mate­ly one hour lat­er, and is still hold­ing.

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TWAC Blockade Portland Transcanada Office with Tripod

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553993_672459889449077_590622421_n29July 2013 Update: The action has been declared a suc­cess as busi­ness­es were forced to lock their doors and close their blinds – appar­ent­ly the dance par­ty was just too much of them to even look at! In addi­tion, all TWAC activists have avoid­ed arrest and gear was not con­fis­cat­ed

A tri­pod has been erect­ed at the entrance of a build­ing that hous­es a Tran­sCana­da office, block­ing the entrance and caus­ing busi­ness­es inside to lock the doors. Pro­test­ers out­side have respond­ed with a very glit­tery and col­or­ful dance par­ty in front of the build­ing and a ban­ner that reads “No Tar Sands On Native Lands. Stop Geno­cide.”

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This action was orga­nized by the Trans and Wom­yns Action Camp (TWAC), a direct action group for women and trans* and gen­der-vari­ant folks. A cor­re­spon­dent from TWAC said that they took action today “to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties that are affect­ed dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly by tar sands, includ­ing every­one in Alber­ta who is forced to live in areas of tar sands oil extrac­tion, folks near the Gulf Coast affect­ed by tar sand refine­ment plants, and com­mu­ni­ties who are liv­ing on the pipeline route.” With con­di­tions on the Gulf Coast already tox­ic, high rates of asth­ma and can­cer are becom­ing the norm, and the arrival of tar sands will only wors­en these con­di­tions. In the Athabas­ka water­shed in Alber­ta, com­mu­ni­ties have seen the rise of a large num­ber of rare can­cers, and First Nations com­mu­ni­ties have been affect­ed most heav­i­ly.

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Steph Cas­ca­dia, who is sit­ting at the top of the tri­pod, said, “Extrac­tion of the tar sands is the most destruc­tive project on the con­ti­nent. It threat­ens the integri­ty of the entire bios­phere, not to men­tion the First Nations peo­ples depen­dent upon access to clean water, land, and air for the health of their com­mu­ni­ties.”’

A cor­re­spon­dent from TWAC also said that TWAC was there “to remind the employ­ees of Tran­sCana­da that the death and destruc­tion does not end when they go home to their fam­i­lies, or when they leave to take their lunch break. Lots of oth­er peo­ple have jobs and are often not able to work and pro­vide for their fam­i­lies because of the actions that this cor­po­ra­tion has tak­en, which sole­ly ben­e­fit TransCananda–nobody else wins.”

Security guard in the foreground, dance party in the back

Secu­ri­ty guard in the fore­ground, dance par­ty in the back

Yudith Nieto, a TWAC par­tic­i­pant who trav­eled from a com­mu­ni­ty in Hous­ton affect­ed by tar sands refiner­ies, said, “I am com­mit­ted to ampli­fy­ing the voic­es of com­mu­ni­ties of col­or that are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly silenced, like mine, that are being dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive indus­tries, and expe­ri­enc­ing racism and clas­sism.”

This action fol­lows a long string of actions tak­en by groups and com­mu­ni­ties all across the coun­try to stop tar sands extrac­tion, trans­porta­tion, and refine­ment – all of which put com­mu­ni­ties at risk and exac­er­bate glob­al cli­mate change. These actions can be tak­en vir­tu­al­ly any­where in the Unit­ed States or Cana­da where there are cor­po­ra­tions who invest in, con­struct, or oth­er­wise do busi­ness with tar sands infra­struc­ture. Lit­tle by lit­tle, we will stop these cor­po­rate maraud­ers.

 

100 Anti-Fracking Activists Overwhelm Injection Well Site in Ohio

BQXb9Q-CQAAoaKQ.jpg-large29 July 2013 Over 100 anti-frack­ing activists have tak­en over the entrance to an injec­tion well site in Ohio.

BQXb9Q-CQAAoaKQ.jpg-large29 July 2013 Over 100 anti-frack­ing activists have tak­en over the entrance to an injec­tion well site in Ohio. The action comes at the end of the week­end-long Don’t Frack Ohio event, which was full of train­ings and activ­i­ties.

The ral­ly is spear­head­ed by “con­cerned cit­i­zen” groups and 350.org as part of the nation­al Sum­mer Heat cam­paign. It is being labeled “Don’t Frack Ohio 2.0,” in ref­er­ence to last year’s action involv­ing more than a thou­sand par­tic­i­pants.

Don’t Frack Ohio states on their web­page: “Remem­ber Don’t Frack Ohio from last sum­mer when over a thou­sand of us marched in Colum­bus, took over the state­house rotun­da and held a People’s Assem­bly? We are doing it again this year, with a bold­er action and with more grass­roots Ohio lead­er­ship. We are focus­ing on Class 2 injec­tion wells and the infu­sion of tox­ic radioac­tive frack­ing waste brought in from oth­er states and also being gen­er­at­ed in Ohio. Last year the Oil & Gas indus­try inject­ed almost 600 mil­lion gal­lons of tox­ic waste in our state, with lit­tle regard for our com­mu­ni­ties health and wel­fare.”

The goal of this and oth­er actions are to get the gov­er­nor to ban injec­tion wells, in par­tic­u­lar, which would effec­tive­ly end frack­ing in the state.

100 Anti-Fracking Activists Overwhelm Injection Well Site in Ohio

 

 

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29th July 2013

Over 100 anti-frack­ing activists have tak­en over the entrance to an injec­tion well site in Ohio. The action comes at the end of the week­end-long Don’t Frack Ohio event, which was full of train­ings and activ­i­ties.

The ral­ly is spear­head­ed by “con­cerned cit­i­zen” groups and 350.org as part of the nation­al Sum­mer Heat cam­paign. It is being labeled “Don’t Frack Ohio 2.0,” in ref­er­ence to last year’s action involv­ing more than a thou­sand par­tic­i­pants.

Don’t Frack Ohio states on their web­page: “Remem­ber Don’t Frack Ohio from last sum­mer when over a thou­sand of us marched in Colum­bus, took over the state­house rotun­da and held a People’s Assem­bly? We are doing it again this year, with a bold­er action and with more grass­roots Ohio lead­er­ship. We are focus­ing on Class 2 injec­tion wells and the infu­sion of tox­ic radioac­tive frack­ing waste brought in from oth­er states and also being gen­er­at­ed in Ohio. Last year the Oil & Gas indus­try inject­ed almost 600 mil­lion gal­lons of tox­ic waste in our state, with lit­tle regard for our com­mu­ni­ties health and wel­fare.”

The goal of this and oth­er actions are to get the gov­er­nor to ban injec­tion wells, in par­tic­u­lar, which would effec­tive­ly end frack­ing in the state.

More updates to fol­low…