Counter Information is a free news-sheet - 14,000 copies of the paper edition are distributed round the world. Issue no 56 went to press 23rd May 2001. This online version includes some EXTRA information not included in the paper version.
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Climate change is causing extreme and dangerous weather. Those in power are privatising our atmosphere and climate. What can we do to change things?
Imaginative and brave resistance confronts extreme police violence at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec in April.
Reclaiming Mayday in Glasgow and London.
International Women's Day on 8 March saw the Global Womens Strike and actions in over 60 countries.
A postal worker exposes the strategy of the Royal Mail bosses as posties again take action against mangagement harassment.
Community resistance greets the brutal efforts of sheriff officers
and police to evict blind woman Vicky Haylott from her home in
Dalkeith, Midlothian.
Includes EXTRA material not in paper
version.
McLibel defendant and single parent Dave Morris fights eviction - solidarity needed.
Struggles behind bars and solidarity through the bars. News on prisoners in England, Turkey, the USA, Slovakia and the Spanish state.
TALES OF RESISTANCE - CINCINNATI UNREST
When Cincinnati police shot and killed the unarmed, 19-year-old,
African-American Timothy Thomas the city broke into spontaneous
revolt.
Includes EXTRA material not in paper
version.
OCCUPY TO KEEP COMMUNITY FACILITIES
Local people from Govanhill in Glasgow are occupying the Calder St swimming pool to stop the Council from closing it down.
A new series debating just what kind of society we are battling to create....
Resistance from round the globe, short reports to inspire....
EXTRA shorts which we couldn't fit in the paper version
Contacts for groups and movements fighting back
What's the response? The international group of scientists, the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change), state that carbon dioxide emissions must be immediately reduced by 60-90 per cent to stabilise the warming. The solution backed by most governments and corporations is the 'Kyoto protocol', an agreement to cut emissions by 5.2% by 2012 from a 1990 'baseline'. Kinda inadequate even before the US government pulled out.
Why bother with such a pathetic 'solution'? Many of these people are genuinely concerned (even the rich ultimately can't escape the weather!), many also see a chance for enormous profits. Within a free-market capitalist ideology, all solutions, even if they can't deal with the problem, must come from within this ideology: the Kyoto protocol is an attempt to create a 'free market' for carbon, which is seen as the most 'efficient' way of reducing emissions.
Under Kyoto the global commons that is our atmosphere and climate is to be commodified and privatised. Private companies will generate profits, where none were possible before, by trading in bits of the atmosphere. This is a major extension of capitalism. Profit, as ever, is the driving force, not meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. This is why BP and Shell, for example, actively support Kyoto.
How have people taken this? With confusion. The public relations folks have been out in force, whether governments (John Prescott's valiant attempt to 'save the world' anyone?), corporations (BP, now Beyond Petroleum), and many so-called green NGO's, all are keen to be seen as 'green'. Also, much of what's currently called the 'anti-capitalist movement' have ignored developments, as traditional socialist and anarchist groups have not re-cast their ideologies in the light of new global ecological problems and struggles.
Grassroots resistance is increasing, for example groups within the Chikoko movement in Nigeria fighting Shell, Chevron and the rest in the Niger Delta talk about climate change, putting their struggle in a global context, as do the U'wa Indians of Colombia, and Innuits in the Arctic. These groups attended the first meeting on 'climate justice' in November 2000 to coincide with the latest round of Kyoto protocol negotiations in Den Haag.
Globally, the 'Rising Tide' international network is planning further action at the next round of Kyoto negotiations, in Bonn in July 2001. In the UK, the '90% for 90% campaign' is rolling, where participants refuse to pay 90% of their fare on public transport as a start towards the 90% cuts in carbon dioxide emissions required for sustainability and global equality.
Autonomous action
The latest round of UN climate change negotiations, in Den Haag, Netherlands in November 2000, was met with dozens of autonomous actions including: Fifty people evaded security to gain entry to the conference and occupy the delegates meeting on 'compliance'; head US negotiator Frank Loy was 'pied'; 5,000 people attended a Friends of the Earth event to surround the conference centre with a 2 metre dyke; the launch of carbon brokers CO2e.com was stopped by an occupation and the sabotage of their website.
www.risingtide.nl - for global grassroots network information
www.risingtide.de - for actions against COP6.5, July, Bonn, Germany.
www.risingtide.org.uk - for UK information including '90% for 90%'
A 30,000 demonstration led protesters away from the venue of the summit. Black blocs had been organised to contest the Police defence of the 34 Pan-American leaders. Despite imaginative tactics such as a 'mediaeval' launcher hurling soft toys in the direction of the conference venue, the Police had organised to be repressive and cleared space in jails some 6 months previously. A 10 foot wall had been erected along a 2.4 mile security perimeter.
Gary Morton , a Toronto based participant recorded that "Protesters ran through the smoke with endless energy tossing the [tear-gas] canisters back at police. the crowd drummed and pounded on everything...sending out an eerie din of war that reached its peak in the night below the underpass..where a huge crowd danced wildly as the battle continued at the top of the steep ravine. When the cop columns halted cheerleaders faced them at the front, creating the odd scene of smoke and riot cops preparing to rush girls dancing in tartan skirts. You can only dance with teargas in your eyes".
The police kidnapped targeted spokespeople such as Jaggi Singh of La Convergence des Luttes au Capitalisme and members of the Germinal collective. Solidarity actions erupted: the Detroit [USA]/ Windsor[Canada] tunnel border was briefly disrupted by 200 American direct action protesters on 21 April without warning to the State. By co-oinciding a solidarity protest in New Orleans, Louisiana with a French Quarter festival, local police were distracted and failed to prevent a 150 participant procession against the Free Trade Agreement which is encouraging environmental disaster and the forcing down of wages. A black & red flag was hoisted on an ITM corporate flagpole with 4 TV stations publicising the event.
THE MAYDAY Carnival in Glasgow saw 1,000 people - young and old, as our photo shows - take over city centre streets. Illegal - but the polis made no effort to stop it. see Glasgow Mayday group. In London a massive police operation couldn't prevent huge disruption to "business as usual" as around 10,000 defied the clamp-down, with reportedly a bigger than usual representation of black people and people beyond the activist scene. www.indymedia.org.uk
INTERNATIONAL WOMENS Day and the Global Womens Strike were both marked in over 60 countries on 8 March. In South Africa 2000 women gathered to talk and then 1,500 took to the streets as a mass demonstration of women in black blocking a dual carriageway as armed police looked on.
In Bogota, the capital of Colombia, men stayed indoors at night whilst women went to women only concerts, cycle rides, film shows etc. Male members of the police and fire brigade were also barred from the streets and the frequently violent streets were transformed into a carnival atmosphere. Men who ventured out were pelted with flour and eggs and told to go home.
Remembering the impoverished New York garment workers who originally called for International Womens Day, GAP stores across the world were targeted for their exploitation of largely female sweatshop labour. In Dundee technopunx padlocked doors of the local GAP shut.
In Chhatisgargh - India, Puno - Peru, and Kuabong - Uganda, rural women fron different indigenous and ethnic gropus and castes were able to mobilise in different villages with no telephones or transport. Some women walked for three days with a baby on their back without any food to join their demonstration for the Global Women's Strike.
http://womenstrike8m.server101.com
* An international day against male violence/rape in war was held on April 25th. See www.ainfos.ca
A postal worker writes :
The wild-cat actions came to an end with the typical, tried and tested, Communication Workers Union procedural get-out of an official strike ballot; no doubt to be conducted with little publicity, no propaganda and even less promotion, with a yes-vote being left unexercised. However certain developments in this dispute hint at things to come.
Firstly, Royal Mail took a blatantly lenient disciplinary course against an expendable minion, when staff had clearly telegraphed their determination to take industrial action if the offending manager wasn't removed from the Delivery Office.
Royal Mail then purposefully diverted blacked mail to a previously unaffected office in full knowledge that such a tactic would lead to the strikes spreading. More importantly perhaps there was a reluctance on Royal Mail's part to sign the return-to-work agreement, which has always provided protection from victimisation and selective sackings. Add to this, current rumours circulating that the CWU leadership have accepted a conduct code with Logistics which facilitates the eventual dismissal of workers who take unofficial action (if true, effectively, a no strike contract!).
Also, for the first time, a management letter to staff speaks of "punitive" measures against wildcat strikers. Further, there has been extensive deployment of agency casuals, and an understandable but deplorable slow rise in the number of scab posties and Royal Mail tacit approval of the Postal Regulator's threat to lift the monopoly and commandeer Post Office buildings, sorting machinery and vehicles for the use of private firms, in the event of any disruption to the mail service.
The likelihood is that postal workers now face a Royal Mail management intent upon taking advantage of the divisive consequences of the "Way Forward" agreement and the weakening position of postal workers militancy, to engage its workforce in a "do or die" confrontation over intensified "performance" levels and the probable job losses.
Watch this space.....
A local activist writes:
The full horror of just how much the law promotes and protects barbaric acts against our class and gender was acted out on 2 May in Whitehill Grove, Dalkeith, Midlothian. At 7am Vicky Haylott was asleep in bed when 8 Sheriff's Officers, protected by at least 15 police, used sledge hammers to smash down her back door and her bedroom door. Their aim? To evict Vicky from her home on behalf of her abusive ex-partner Brian Sutherland. This despite the fact that Vicky, who is blind, had already received the keys to move to a new council house.
Vicky and her partner Robbie hit the alarm buttons of a system they had set up and sirens sounded from loudhailers on the outside of the building. That and phone calls brought neighbours, members of her local SSP branch, her family and other supporters - who had thwarted 2 previous eviction attempts - to her aid. Heavy-handed police, threatening arrest, kept her supporters back. However, Vicky won a victory in that she refused to go until she and her family had time to gather together her belongings and move them out.
In the end the finale was Vicky's. She left the house high on the shoulders of her supporters. She was moving to a much better place and she had won a moral victory. We organised and mounted a campaign which challenged the local council, the law and her abusive ex-partner. The Vicky Haylott campaign continues, because, as Vicky has always maintained, this isn't just about her. It's about everyone who suffers domestic abuse, and everyone who suffers at the hands of Sheriff's Officers. We will not be victims.
Info on the campaign for justice in housing provision for people suffering domestic abuse - 0131 663 3345
A 60 strong crowd, including a samba band and many from the local Tower Gardens council estate, successfully defended McLibel defendant Dave Morris' Haringey home from eviction on 22 May. Bailiffs, police and council officials turned tail after a 2 hour stand-off. However single parent Dave, his 12 year old son Charlie and the McLibel office are still under threat. Solidarity needed!
Info 020 7713 1269 & < mclibel@globalnet.co.uk>
MAY 10, Madrid saw 10,000 march in support of the workers of SINTEL, a subsidiary of the state telecom company, sold to the private sector in 1996 for a fraction of its estimated value. In June 99 the company suspended payment of wages and in Dec. of that year, sacked 1200 of its workforce with the 7 months´wages unpaid. An anti-corruption investigation was opened at the workers´ insistence but their demands of reinstatement and payment of wages was met by government indifference.
In January they highlighted their campaign by setting up camp in the heart of the capital. As well as regular marches, attracting up to 20,000, they´ve received much practical support from ordinary people.
With the Sintel workers being amongst the most unionised in the Spanish State (86%) and the parent company making massive profits last year, their struggle is seen as crucial in the fight against neo-liberalism.
(fitted up with a 12 years sentence in 1994) was moved once again in February, this time to Wakefield, a high security prison and one of the toughest in UK. Last year on 19 December, 16 campaigners were arrested after occupying the Crown Prosecution Service office in Sheffield, in solidarity with Mark.
Friends of Mark Barnsley made a lot of noise outside Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire on 24th March. On 20th January a protest was held outside the MPs Surgery held by Government Minister Paul Boateng in West London. A mass phone and fax-in to Wakefield prison is held on the last Monday of each month. For more info contact: JFMB-POBox 381, Huddersfield, HD1 3XX or barnsleycampaign@hotmail.com Contact Mark Barnsley WA2897 HMP Wakefield, 5 Love Lane, Wakefield, WF2 9AG, England.
Fatima Polattas, serving 18 years in prison, charged with being part of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), now faces a further 6 years sentence for denouncing police rape. 21 people (mostly women) invited to a conference on sexual torture suffered in custody, organised by the Women Workers Union, face jail terms of up to 30 years.
In December 26 prisoners died during a four-day siege in 20 Turkish prisons initiated by the security forces in order to end a two-month hunger strike. This was held as a protest against new plans to transfer prisoners from large dormitories into small cells. This would facilitate more abuse and torture by the screws. 22 people occupied two capsules of the London Eye in a solidarity action.
Since last year more than 200 prisoners in the FIES (Isolation Units in Spanish prisons) have been demanding the end of their isolation, dispersion and the release of prisoners with incurable illness, through hunger strikes and other actions including support from outside. From April 2001 a monthly day-fast is carried out in different prisons of the Spanish state. More info *
were arrested in Spain last November, framed in connection with 7 parcel bombs sent to different news papers. Estefania was released without charges but Eduardo was re-arrested and charged with terrorism, after being released on parole. Since then Eduardo has been kept in prison despite there being no proof of his involvement. Several actions have been taken by supporters in various Spanish cities in solidarity and more events are to come. More info *(no name) Apdo 1235, 43080 Tarragona, Spain.
(death row political prisoner in the USA)
On 12 May an international day of support was organised in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal. Demos were held in San Francisco, Cuba, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Canada, France, Spain and Germany .
Mario Bango, an anticapitalist gypsy activist from Slovakia (Bratislava), is threatened with a jail sentence of 5 to 12 years.
On 10 March Mario went by bus with family members to a market. His brother Edo got out of the bus and was attacked by a fascist, Brano Slamko. Mario defended him against this attack.The fascist died in hospital after 2 weeks.
The Slovak establishment mounted a racist campaign against Bango despite the fact that he acted in self-defence. A gypsy was later killed in a fascist attack.
Info <freemario@post.sk>
"Hey. This ain't about no race. It ain't about race at all. Because if it was about race, you're talking to a black man with a mask on his face next to a pretty, white woman. If it was about race, she wouldn't be standing next to (inaudible).
It's about these crooked police, been doing this since we was little. Taking us in alleys, jumping on us, doing things, putting attacks on us. ..... I mean it's not a white and black thing. Even though, some people have been hit, they wanted to change it around like this, and for a minute, they was doin' it. They was start crashing cars with white people in it. That wasn't right. ..... But, we started crashing cars with the police in it. That's right. I wish we could of turned it over. For real.
But it's not a white and black thing at all. That's farther from the truth. The media tries to make it out to be a white and black thing. It ain't a white and black thing. It's about civil rights. Our civil rights.
(I wear a mask) because I don't want them to know me, who I am. 'Cause if they know me and who I am, once this is all over with, everybody gonna catch shit. They gonna get us eventually, know what I'm saying? If they can't get us out here by shooting us and killing us right here, they'll put us in the penitentiary. Plain and simple. They will do this, they have did it. So that's why I wear a mask, it aint' that I'm out here trying to loot, please, I ain't even on that; I'm ready for the revolution. That's what I'm on.
Kim, a local resident,reported :" .....we had a City Council meeting the Monday after Timothy Thomas was shot and lots of people were there and pretty much just took over City Chambers and made a real scene. Councilman Cranley who was leading it was hammering on his gavel and he was screaming things like "Order! Order!" And people would just start chanting, "Put the police in order!" It was one of the most beautiful things. "The mayor actually got up and left the meeting.
The mayor said that he needs to protect the streets and private property, and to do this he wants to put on a curfew... This is all about intimidation... We've been told to stay in our houses and not leave. The mood and climate that the police are creating is creating way more racial tension... having a predominantly white police force completely intimidate and put fear into the entire Black population of Cincinnati has been creating a strange dynamic.
Most of the injuries we've been seeing in the last couple days (have been from) people getting hit with the rubber-tipped bullets.. They took a nine or ten year old boy to the emergency room yesterday; he got hit twice in the head... (and) he's not an exception at all.
Over the Rhine is predominantly Black but it's also the poorest neighborhood in all of Cincinnati. 90 percent of all the residents.. live under the poverty level... Over the Rhine blew up and it blew up for a good day and a half. The reports about everyone just being hoodlums and this just being people who have no cause or have nothing really to say is bullshit.. These are the people who've been experiencing this every single day, like we all are. There's a lot of poor white Appalachian people who live in Over the Rhine also and people who want affordable housing. That this became a race thing is (because) the media has shifted the foucus and taken the responsibility off the police"
from New York City Indymediawww.nyc.indymedia.org
ON 21ST March Govanhill Pool in Glasgow was occupied by local people and a 24 hour picket established outside. The Occupation was a direct response to Glasgow City Council's decision to close this facility, which serves a diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and mixed class community. From an initial public meeting, a democratic grass roots group has developed which includes people of different age, gender, class and ethnic backgrounds, fighting to win this campaign for their community.
Glasgow City Council have banned the use of the word "community" (Sunday Herald 15.4.01), because they "don't like the word community it makes the area sound like a ghetto". Perhaps what they don't like is local communities (ghettos?) taking direct action and realising that they have the power to challenge a Council which has got away with ignoring and patronising the people it supposedly represents and serves.
The campainers' complaints include accusations of institutionalised racism because the lack of privacy in the new pools means they are unable to meet the requirements of members of the Muslim and Jewish communities for bathing.
The Campaign continues to strengthen through collective struggle. Pickets have withstood intimidation and attempts to enter the pool by the Polis and a private security firm. On another occasion the Polis assisted the Council to smash in the side door to the building so that contractors could drain the pools and turn off the heating, water and electricity. They then instructed the security guards to prevent sleeping bags, blankets, food and drinking water being taken inside.
A direct show of determination on the picket, together with lobbying and media coverage, thwarted a Council plan to raid and strip the occupied building on 9 May. Now, New Labour has again shown its true colours as ruling class lackies by serving an interdict on the occupiers, threatening eviction.
The anniversary of the occupation is celebrated each week with a vigil. On the picket there are babies of 7 days old to grannies in their 70s, black and white, united in struggle. Direct actions have formed part of a grass roots campaign that Labour Party fat cats and parasitic autocrats have been unable to ignore or dismiss as the work of a few disaffected trouble makers.
Send messages of support to: Southside Against Closure, Outside Govanhill Pool, Calder Street, Glasgow G42, Scotland.
LATE NEWS
7 arrests of Pool protesters on 17th May as Labour leader Charlie Gordon is pelted with eggs at Glasgow City Chambers.
THE UK general election has highlighted deep disillusionment with so-called democracy. X marks the spot, then we switch off our brains and our glorious leaders do our thinking for us for the next 5 years. At work there is not even the facade of electing your boss.
But what's the alternative?
We are part of a movement seeking a revolution whereby people take power into our their own hands. In the workplace, in the community, in all areas of life decision making power should rest with all affected by that decision.
The few existing genuine workplace co-operatives prove that people can work together well, without bosses. However todays co-ops are severely distorted by the profit economy.
Without money, markets, or exchange, things would be different. People could freely decide together what work was needed, how it should be organised, what technology to use, working hours, etc..
Decisions could be taken through discussions, at all levels of the workplace, aiming at consensus. Once general principles were agreed by all, groups and individuals would be delegated specific responsibilities. People carrying out such tasks, including specialised skills and coordinating roles, would have no privileges. If the majority thought they were doing things wrong, they could be recalled from their position at any time.
Structures would allow people in the local community to have a say about how workplaces developed, for example to ensure against industries causing ecological damage.
Such grass-roots control would extend throughout society. Decentralisation would be a major principle. But some questions - eg those affecting climate change - affect everyone so would be coordinated world-wide, probably using E mail and computers. Instead of repressive States taking and enforcing decisions from above, a web of connections and gatherings would coordinate and collectively manage society from below.
That's not to say we'd spend our whole lives in meetings! Creative work, meeting human needs and enhancing the environment would be agreed priorities, and most of the time we could just get on with it.
In services like health care, change would involve the empowerment of "patients" who would actively participate in creating a healthy way of life, rather than being passive recipients of "cures" not even understood, far less chosen. In education students of all ages would be respected partners in learning, encouraged to think for themselves.
With women's liberation and the overthrow of racism and other forms of oppression, real equality in shaping society could extend to all.
This vision is not just our ultimate goal - it's vital for how we organise today, in our organisations and in struggles big and small. The sterile hierarchies of the parliamentary parties, trade unions and Leninist groups reproduce the leaders and led of capitalism. The means creates the ends. Only a community of equals in struggle can create a world where people cooperate and control their own lives.
A growing movement is demanding the repeal of New York State's draconian Rockefeller drug laws. Of 21,000 drug prisoners most are small-time dealers or addicts. 94% are Black or Latino - despite 82% of drug sellers being white. A 2,000 strong march in Albany on 27 March was one of many ongoing activities to "Drop the Rock". www.nyc.indymedia.org
McDonalds workers at Clunny, Paris struck for 2 weeks in December, and also occupied their store. Workers have defied McDs to unionise at Rawdon and Montreal, Canada.
Unionisation in Weisbaden, Germany led to McD's declaring the store "ungovernable' and shutting it down on 31 December. But the workers are resisting this, demonstrating at McDs Munich HQ.
20 workers at McDs Moscow hamburger plant have joined an independent union. McD's workers paper McSues is being distributed globally and has been translated into Slovak and Greek.
McSues - <mwrposse@yahoo.co.uk> www.mcspotlight ..org/campaigns/current/mwr.html
Following their caravan from Chiapas to Mexico City, the Zapatistas have denounced the Mexican government's new law which supposedly granted rights to indigenous people. On 29 April they broke off contact with the government, declared that they would continue to resist and appealed for national and international solidarity .
Drawing attention to the role the Lufthansa airline has in enforcing deportations of refugees by the German State, an On-line demo has been called for 20 June. The move towards internet bookings has given the anti-racist group the opportunity to devise "user-friendly protest-software, which will make it possible to keep the computers of Lufthansa busy by using an automaticized inquiry." online-demo@gmx.net or tel +49177 5029083.
Greater coordination of anarchist activity in Bolivia is likely to arise from a conference held 24/25 March in Cochabamba. Literature requested: contact Kolelibertaria@latinmail.com
An angry group of Edinburgh parents are opposing the closure of 5 creches in sports centres & swimming pools. The money 'saved' has been diverted by Councillors towards the cost of "human resource management jobs" within the Council owned business, Edinburgh Leisure.Info 0131 622 0297
Atherden Rd. Nursery in Hackney, London has been squatted and run as an alternative community centre. The bankrupt Council wants to sell the land to private developers. Meanwhile local workers and residents continue to resist the Council's attacks on workers' conditions and vital services. Hackney Heckler: 07939 373580 <hackneyheckler@yahoo.com.au>
A short-crust banana turnover made facial acquaintance with Government Minister Clare Short during her March visit to Bangor University. On 19 Jan, Polish PM Buzek was pied in Wroclaw.
In late November anti-surveillance protestors surrounded a Metropolitan Police Football match in London with cameras and loud amplified commentary from comedian Mark Thomas.
Chris Harman, Socialist Worker editor, was pied on 7 Feb. at Leeds University by black clad anarchists. The perpetrators were intent on exposing the cynical strategy of the SWP to promote Global Resistance as a tool to divert anti-captalist activity into their Party, while electioneering within the Socialist Alliance & SSP
A "carnival against ALCA capitalism" involving 1500 in Sao Paulo, Brazil in April was disrupted by party-poopers [police], hospitalising 20 of the anarcho/punk/student assembly.
Sweden's 'velvet glove' image was uncovered on 21st April when a 2000 strong demonstration against the EU Finance Minister's Meeting in Malmo was broken up by a brutal police assault with 229 arrests. This has heightened the tension in the lead up to Gothenberg in June www.motkraft.net/gbg2001
In retaliation for the Police brutality at the 21 April demo, the Swedish Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark was attacked on 24 April. www.gbg2001.dsk
SEOUL BROTHERS
Thousands of heavily armed riot police evicted 600 Daewoo car workers near the South Korean capital on January 19th after a 4 day sit-in against forced redundancies.
Pepe Rei, editor of Ardibltza a radical /anarchist magazine in the Basque country has been unlawfully imprisoned since 18 Jan. A Judge who had been exposed by the mag as colluding in the torture of 200 Basque nationalists & other radicals ordered the mag's closure. www.euskalinfo.f2s.com
Alarmed at continued worldwide protests at their 75 offices, Fidelity Investments sold off their 18 million shares in Oxy, the company planning oil expoloration in the UWA homeland in northern Colombia. Attention now switches to largest shareholder Sanford C.Bernstein of New York & their worldwide Alliance Capital offices. www.ran.org
A march against bus fare increases in Panama City turned into a riot in mid-May with 67 arrests and 100 injuries..
Workers in the Kazakhstan oil and gas fields are contesting exploitation and shocking conditions. www.ainfos.ca
On 4 April, 2000 people including "illegal" immigrants, Sintel workers and locals marched in support of El Laboratorio, a squatted social centre in Madrid which had been under threat, before the centre´s users lodged an appeal, preventing an eviction in the near future.
30,000 braved a heavy downpour on 25th March in Budapest to protest against new 'flexible' Labour laws which will give firms ther right to move workers within Hungary.
The transport of nuclear waste from France to Germany in late March provoked sustained railtrack protests. 40,000 German troops were deployed at Dannenburg and Gorleben.
120 asylum-seekers rioted at Port Headland, a detention Centre in Western Australia on 21st January. 6 months previously,700 detainees at the Woomera detention Centre in South Australia had broken out to protest against grim conditions.
Ramin Khaleghi,aged 27, an Iranian asylum-seeker committed suicide after hearing his asylum request had been rejected, in a run-down hotel in Leicester on 18th January. ifir@ukonline.co.uk
On 9th December, in Salonika, Greece anarchists made loudspeaker protests in the Navarinou Square, and on 19th December in Athens against the detention of anarchist & other prisoners. Radio stations were occupied in an Athens suburb & Salonika. Night-time arson attacks on Banks continue in Athens & Salonika
Demos in Sheffield and London took place on 14th March against the Itioz Dam in solidarity with eight members of Solidari@s given 5 year jail sentences by the Spanish State. www.ilisu.org.uk
129 hard hat wearing construction workers demonstrated on 27th February to symbolise the death's of building industry workers in the past 2 years as the bosses, unions & Labour cronies held an exclusive 'A Safety Summit' nearby.
A protestor was arrested at the Washington Navy Memorial for unveiling a black flag during President Bush's inaugeration.
100 cleaners in Wellington, New Zealand were'locked out' and replaced by scab workers by the Australian union-busting firm Spotless. However, daily pickets and solidarity from hospital staff caused Spotless to to relent, restoring the workers and giving them a 4% wage rise.
A student father of 5 who broke a window and chained himself to a pillar in November 2000, was discharged after having acted out of "extreme provocation". After receiving no student allowance for a month, and unable to feed his family or pay bills David Gibb took action against WINZ the student funding authority.
Collusion between the Teamsters and an inland shipyard,Jeffboat on the Ohio River, Indiana has resulted in the remaining workers calling an indefinite wildcat strike for reinstatement from April 30th.
A picket of a Liberal Party Fundraising dinner in Montreal was planned for May 3rd. Empty saucepans were brandished in defiance of the fat cats.
A womens camp by the Falcon gate at Aldermasten in Berkshire commenced on May 10th. On Monday 14th a blockade was planned of the weapons establishment up to 2pm. Arrests were expected.
Garment Workers Federation members in Dhaka and other Bangladesh cities took place in 'silent processions' in the lead up to MayDay.
Supporters are battling to stop the deportation of Edinburgh resident Bakkari Adoui to Tanzania, where he has faced persecution from the state authorites. Stop the Deoportation of Bakkari Adoui, c/o Wester Hailes Rep Council, 22 Hailesland Place, Edinburgh EH14 2SL Tel 0131 442 3201 omola@waitrose.com
More than 1,200 poor Brazilian farmers and their families stormed a Monsanto biotechnology plant in opposition to genetically modified food, in late January. The action, organised by the MST Landless Workers Movement, was linked to a 10,000 strong counter summit in Porto Alegre, coinciding with, and in opposition to, the World Economic Forum in Davos.
FOOT 'N MOUTH FESTIVAL OF RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION
In Edinburgh. Sat 14 July - street action. 21/22 July - gathering
& discussions. F'N'M, c/o 17 W Montgomery Pl., Edinburgh EH7 5HA
0131 557 6242
www.mouthoff.org.uk
info@mouthoff.org.uk
* Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh/Edin.Claimants/Womens Info
Collective c/o 17 W. Montgomery Pl., Edinburgh EH7 5HA
0131-557-6242 Open tues 12-4pm (with Edin Claimants) & sun
2-6pm
ace 'at' autonomous.org.uk
www.autonomous.org.uk
Womens Info
Coll.
www.monochrom.at/eloquence/wic
* Glasgow Mayday grp/Global Action
Scotland
mayfirst@scotmail.co.uk
www.mayfirst.fsnet.co.uk
discussion
listglobalactionscotland@yaho
ogroups.com
* Glasgow CI & CW 07932 543074
* Grampian Earth First! PO Box 248, Aberdeen AB25 1JE
grampianearthfirst@hotmail.com
*Teknopunx
www.teknopunx.co.uk/
Regular news :
* Earth First! Action Update, POB 487, Norwich NR2 3AL Tel
01603 219811
www.eco-action.org/efau
* Resistance - AF, PO Box 375, Knaphill, Woking, Surrey
GU21 2XL (Anarchist Fed. 07946 214590
www.afed.org.uk)
* SchNEWS, PO Box 2600, Brighton BN2 2DX 01273-685913
www.schnews.org.uk
www.ainfos.ca
www.indymedia.org.uk
* THE AGITATOR pamphlet - excellent source for addresses of
groups and centres in Britain, Ireland and round the world - £1
+ 30p p&p from Haringey Solidarity Group PO Box 2474, London
N8.
Also on the Web at the Haringey Solidarity Group's site
http://hsg.cupboard.org
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