Frustrated as mine won’t meet their demands
HONIARA, Solomon Islands (Solomon Times, March 27, 2009) -Land owners of the eastern side of Guadalcanal are planning to set up a road block, frustrated with the inaction of Gold Ridge Management to look at their grievances, one of which is the removal of the current General Manager.
A land owner and former employee of Gold Ridge Mining, Mr. Robert Pepeu told Solomon Times that they are having a meeting soon to plan a date for the road block.
Mr. Pepeu stated that they are frustrated "because the management of the company is still denying the cyanide issue."
He said that the planned road block will "put some sense in these peoples mind." "We really want the management of the company to change, especially their attitude towards us."
He said that villagers will not be affected by the road blocks "the road block will only target company vehicles." Pepeu said that the road blocks will be peaceful so long as they are not forcefully removed.
The Guadalcanal Provincial Police Commander, Chief Supt. George Ghuna said that the Tetere Police is already aware of the road block.
"There were several patrol operations at the Gold Ridge area and other near by communities. However, there were no road blocks...but patrolling will continue," said Chief Supt. Ghuna.
"I wish to remind those planning the road block that such actions are illegal, and we will deal with them accordingly," Chief Supt. Ghuna said.
Management of Gold Ridge did not wish to comment on the issue.
3/30/09
SOLOMONS GOLD MINE LANDOWNERS THREATEN ROAD BLOCK
Press release: Hezbollah leader to speak in London
IUPFP-Britain will be launched in the British Houses of Parliament on Tuesday 31st March
London, March 29, 2009
Amidst growing speculation that Britain has taken steps to initiate dialogue with Lebanese Hezbollah, one of Hezbollah’s most prominent leaders, MP Hussein Al Hajj Hassan, is due to speak at a meeting in the Houses of Parliament in London this Tuesday 31st March.
Relations between the British government and the Lebanese party and resistance movement deteriorated after Britain added the military wing of the party to the list of terrorist organisations in July of last year. Therefore this meeting may come as a surprise for some.
This meeting is the launch of the British branch of the International Union of Parliamentarians for Palestine (IUPFP). The IUPFP is an international organisation with a membership of some 300 MP’s worldwide. The IUPFP works to focus the world’s parliamentary community to the justice of the Palestinian cause and the cruelty of the “Israeli” occupation. This is especially necessary after the latest onslaught against Gaza and the war crimes that were committed there by “Israel”.
The meeting will be hosted by Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, and is also supported by Respect MP George Galloway. The deputy speaker of the Palestinian Parliament MP Hassan Khreishe was also due to attend the meeting but has been prevented from leaving the West Bank by the “Israeli” occupation authorities.
Next to Hajj Hassan and Corbyn, the International Director of the IUPFP, Dyab Abou Jahjah, will be outlining the policy of the organization. The meeting will be chaired by Sukant Chandan, Britain’s IUPFP Branch chairperson.
The speakers have a speaking engagement this Monday at a rally of the Stop the War Coalition in central London before speaking in Parliament on Tuesday.
For more information please consult the following details below:
Dyab Abou Jahjah, International Director, IUPFP
Sukant Chandan, Chair, IUPFP - Britain
Meetings Details
1. Stop the War rally
Central London: Public meeting - international speakers: 30 March
Solidarity with the struggle for Peace and Justice in the Middle East
Organised by the Stop the War Coalition
Come and hear elected representatives from the resistance
Speakers:
HUSSEIN EL-HAJJ HASSAN MP
Hezbollah
JEREMY CORBYN MP
Stop the War Coalition
JOHN REES
Vice President (Europe) Cairo Conference
DYAB ABOU JAHJAH
International Director of the International Union of Parliamentarians For Palestine
SUKANT CHANDAN
English Chair of IUPFP
Time: 7pm
Date: Monday 30th March
Place: Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London (nearest tube, Euston or Euston Square)
Entrance £2
2. Meeting in Parliament with Mr Hussein el-Hajj Hassan & Mr Hasan Khreishi
Dear Friend,
As the Chairperson of the English branch of the International Union of Parliamentarians for Palestine (IUPFP), I am pleased to invite you to our launch meeting in Parliament on 630pm Tuesday 31st March under the title 'Solidarity with Palestine after the Gaza onslaught'.
We are honoured to have speaking at this meeting guests who are leading elected representatives of the Palestinian and Lebanese people in the persons of Mr Hussein el-Hajj Hassan MP from the Loyalty to the Resistance Parliamentary Bloc in Lebanon, and also Mr Hasan Khreishi the Vice President of the Palestinian Parliament.
We also have esteemed guest speakers Mr Jeremy Corbyn MP and Mr Dyab Abou Jahjah the International Director of the IUPFP.
To confirm your attendance please RSVP to me via replying to this email and you will receive a confirmation of your attendance. Please also let me know if you are bringing any other person(s) with you.
Yours sincerely,
Sukant Chandan
Chair, UK Branch of the IUPFP
3/29/09
Ashanti Alston : Anarchist Black Panther
Dec 2008
Meet the anarchists plotting to overthrow capitalism
Thursday lunch time at the City of London headquarters of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and at the stroke of one o'clock, 200 people arrive on the pavement outside. Some are wearing red nooses around their necks, others are parading around in top hats and City-boy pinstripes, a few are carrying placards that read, "Storm the banks". A pedal-powered sound system is cranked up and The Fall's anthem to grinding poverty, "F'oldin' Money", blares out across the street.
This is a flash-mob demonstration, mobilised through a Facebook event called "Give us our money back". It's a protest against the Government pouring billions of pounds into the banking industry and the ?16.9m pension pot awarded to the former RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin. A man picks up a megaphone. "Congratulations, people," he says. "After the biggest bailout from the poor to the rich that this country has ever seen, this bank now belongs to us. The time has come to claim what is rightfully ours." The protesters applaud wildly. "Whose money?" they chant over and over, "Our money."
Armoured police vehicles are scattered up and down Bishopsgate and the grand glass-fronted entrance to the RBS building is guarded by a phalanx of the Met's finest. From within, a few bemused RBS workers look nervously out at the street. It's probably not the best day to be slipping out for a boozy banker's lunch.
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Standing cackling on the sidelines is Ian Bone, a self- confessed "lifelong enemy of the state" and member of the Whitechapel Anarchist Group (WAG). "This is just a taste of things to come," he says. "That was the spring offensive. Next up is the summer of rage." Bone is referring to a wave of mass demonstrations planned for the capital which kicked off yesterday with the Put People First march, organised by a coalition of trade unions and environmentalists. On Wednesday, 1 April or "Financial Fools Day"? thousands more are due to take to the streets of the City for the biggest show of public anger since the
credit crunch began. And Thursday, dubbed G20 Meltdown, is when protesters will descend on the Excel Centre in London's Docklands ? the day that world leaders arrive in the capital for the G20 summit.
According to media reports, police are gearing up to deal out terrifying levels of violence to unprecedented numbers of protestors.The G20 Meltdown campaign posters show a besuited mannequin being hanged. City staff are being advised to dress down and cancel all non-essential meetings.
"People are in an incendiary mood," says Bone. "1 April will see the biggest ructions on the street since the poll-tax riots and possibly even the Gordon riots of 1780. I don't think politicians realise quite how angry we are. In the past six months, this country has been turned upside-down. A deep recession has been created by a few greedy bankers and as a result, thousands have lost their homes and jobs. A dam of resentment has built up and 1 April is when all these pissed-off people march on the City to take what's theirs. Capitalism itself is on the ropes."
Bone believes the anarchists' moment has finally come. With the banking system on its knees and capitalism ' floundering, a window of opportunity for real change has arisen. "We need to seize the moment," he says. "There was a moment in May 1968 and another in the 1980s under Thatcher when the miners were on strike, but we failed to grasp either. This
one is different. No one's ever seen what we are seeing now with the economy and it's the economy that drives people to the streets."
Bone's own particular brand of anarchism is extreme. "I'm full of class hatred," he tells me cheerfully over a pint in the local Wetherspoons pub after the demonstration. "I just want to overthrow the ruling classes." He was radicalised from an early age: his father was a butler for one Sir Gerald Coke, and the young Bone spent his formative years
witnessing him bowing and scraping to his superior. By the age of 15, he was a regular on the Aldermaston CND marches and in 1983 he set up the anarchist journal Class War, "Britain's most unruly tabloid", which still runs to this day.
Although there are no membership figures ? anarchists don't deal in such administrative formalities ? Bone claims the numbers of people joining the movement has risen significantly in the past six months. But what makes him more convinced that the anarchists' moment has come is that the types of people joining are entirely different.
"Traditionally, anarchism appealed to young, inner- city types," he says. "Now we've got people coming into the anarchist movement we've never seen before. There's older people, whose pensions or savings have been wiped out, as well as people from the suburbs ? the aspirational working-class who voted Tory, bought their own council flats and moved up in
the world. These are people who were sold all that stuff about the free-market dream and now are being repossessed or made redundant. Capitalism has failed them and they are angry as hell. In the past we've needed to create rage. We don't need to do that now because the rage is already there."
Despite his own hardline stance, Bone is astute enough to realise that not all of these "anarchists" want actual revolution. Some simply want to voice their anger at the greed and recklessness of the City, others want peaceful protest, and some just want a ruck with the police. But if there is one uniting consensus among them, it's the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with a capitalist system that has allowed the rich of the world to carry on getting endlessly richer.
Chris Knight, a professor of anthropology at the University of East London, and one of the co-ordinators of G20 Meltdown, describes himself as moderate. "I'm the kind of anarchist that adheres to some form of organisation," he says. "I'm not into throwing bricks through windows; what I'm talking about is something closer to revolutionary, or anarcho, communism."
Since the economic crisis began, Knight has regularly taken to the streets brandishing a placard reading, "Eat the bankers". "We haven't got any secrets," he tells me. "On 1 April, we fully intend to overthrow the Government. ' Gordon Brown is on his last legs, this is his last throw of the dice. The revolution starts here."
Knight adds that 1 April is a date that is highly pertinent to the anarchist calendar: it's exactly 360 years to the day that the Diggers, the English civil-war revolutionaries and arguably the UK's first anarchistic group, set up an independent commune and issued a call for equality.
"If we succeed," Knight continues, "and New Labour falls, we say let's immediately nationalise all banks and redistribute the wealth. In other words, we take the power and we don't let the bankers dictate to us any more. We stop the money pouring into bankers' pockets, where it disappears, and start giving it to the people who will spend it ? students, single mums, the unemployed. We need to spend money to stop this country going bankrupt: well, that is a solution.
"It's seismic," Knight concludes. "There has already been a whole balance-of-power shift and the world has been turned upside-down, but it's all happened peacefully. There is going to be a velvet revolution. Not a violent one."
Commander Bob Broadhurst of the Metropolitan Police doesn't seem to think so. He has 7.2m earmarked for the police operation from Wednesday until the conclusion of G20 and believes there to be "unprecedented" planning between protest groups, which are now using technology such as Twitter to organise themselves. What further worries him is that
certain groups Reclaim the Streets and the anarchist group the Wombles, for example that have lain dormant for much of the boom years of the noughties, are showing signs of remobilisation. Groups such as these are the ones that gave the authorities such an enormous headache throughout the 1990s from the poll-tax riots in 1990 to the protests over the Criminal Justice Bill in the mid-1990s and finally the violent Reclaim the Streets protests at the end of the decade.
Alexander Callinicos, professor of European Studies at King's College, London, who is speaking at this week's demonstration, backs up Broadhurst's belief that new allegiances between protest groups are being forged. He went to an anti-capitalist demonstration on Halloween last year at Canary Wharf following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. "It was an unusual event," he says, "because for the first time there was an unlikely alliance between anarchists, Marxists and other groups that don't usually get on terribly well. Whatever our disagreements, we are all united in the belief that the blind hunt for profit
leads to catastrophe. That is what has brought us all together."
Like his fellow protesters, Callinicos is feeling buoyant about the situation. "I have high hopes for this week," he says. "The economic crisis has exposed the bankruptcy of capitalism and the dire need for an alternative. Anyone who feels there is something fundamentally wrong with capitalism is entitled to feel this is their moment."
But is this all just talk? Is the country really ready for revolution? Tim Harford, Financial Times journalist and author of The Logic of Life (just published in paperback) doesn't think so. "The last time we had a really bad economic depression, we got National Socialism and I'm sure this isn't the alternative these guys have in mind. We have to ask the question, is it really all that bad? Unemployment is clearly terrible but it's nothing like America in the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1981, it was also bad, it was a rotten time. But was that the end of capitalism as we know it? People have a tendency to engage in wishful thinking. Journalists want it to be really appalling because it makes an exciting story; anarchists want it be the end of capitalism because that's what they've spent their lives hoping for; and economists think that it's nothing really that remarkable."
Nor does Harford think it's time for capitalism to be brought to its knees. "Clearly the free market has its faults, but no one could argue we haven't all done very well out of it in the West," he says. "It's lifted an awful lot of people out of poverty. Generally, the
places in the world that have not been successful in letting the market take off tend to be the places that are poorer. Capitalism has had a fairly good track record. I hope it's not on its last legs because I doubt it could be replaced by anything more effective."
Meanwhile, back at the flash-mob gathering, Madonna's "Material Girl" has started up and the obligatory crazy dancing has broken out. Tamsin Omond, one of the five who were arrested after climbing on to the roof of the House of Commons in a protest against the expansion of Heathrow, and the current poster girl for climate change, is right in the thick of it. "What shall we chant?" she asks her friend breathlessly. "Something about banks, maybe?"
"Stupid twat," says Ian Bone. "Listen to her accent. She's just one of those climate-change lot who do a bit of environmental action to get it on their CV before going back to live in their big house with mum and dad. You watch: she'll be an overpaid
environmental consultant before you know it."
If this is the unity Commander Broadhurst is so worried about, perhaps he can relax a little. It's hard to tell if anything really has changed; today, it looks like the same old faces doing the same old thing. Should we really be in fear of revolution? We'll have
to wait until Wednesday to find out.
Here comes trouble: A brief history of anarchy
1649
The Diggers, a group of agrian communists, are formed. They believe man can be free only in a society without government interference, wherein all products are shared
1780
Anti-Catholic riots are led by Lord George Gordon; 60,000 people proclaiming "No Popery" march on Parliament. Homes are burned, churches attacked and prisoners freed. Nearly 300 are left dead
1840
In "What is Property?", the French political writer Pierre-Joseph Proudhon coins the slogan "Property is theft". He is the first person to define himself as an anarchist
1868
Mikhail Bakunin founds the Social Democratic Alliance with the doctrine of Collectivism and the belief that anarchy is possible only through violent revolution
1876
Prince Peter Kropotkin of Russia renounces his royal title and develops the theory of anarchist communism. He also helps found the London-based Freedom Magazine, still published today
1911
The Siege of Sidney Street between the police and two Latvian burglars. The stand-off ends in death for the Latvians, who have become anarchist heroes for resisting the authorities
1936
During the Spanish Civil War, anarchist militias gain control of much of eastern Spain. Autonomous libertarian villages are set up, money is abolished and the land is tilled collectively
1972
The Angry Brigade, also known as the Stoke Newington Eight, a British libertarian militant group, is responsible for bomb attacks between 1970 and 1972. Strongly influenced by anarchists, their targets include banks, embassies and the homes of Tory MPs.
1976
"Anarchy in the UK", the first single by the Sex Pistols, is released on 26 November. The three-and- a-half minute song reaches number 38 in the UK charts. Its lyrics espouse a nihilistic concept of anarchy
1983
Class War, a cobbled-together tabloid newspaper that has become the voice of the movement, is founded by Ian Bone. The cover, right, refers to the birth of Prince William
1994
The anarchist Zapatista army declares war on the Mexican state and seizes part of their Chiapas homeland, and in the process kickstarts a resurgence in the global anarchy movement
1999
J18, an international day of anti-capitalist protest on 18 June, coincides with the G8 summit. A battle breaks out as 5,000 people converge on the London International Financial Futures Exchange
2008
A young schoolboy is shot dead by police in Athens, resulting in four weeks of rioting across Greece. Anarchists seize control of government buildings. Similar riots kick off in other parts of Europe
Anarchy in the EU: How one boy's death sparked riots across Europe
The demonstrations that took place in cities across Europe last December, as protesters took to the streets in solidarity with Greek rioters, were a stark indication that anarchism is alive and kicking throughout the EU. In Athens, it was the shooting of
15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos by police that triggered weeks of violent clashes between the authorities and youths frustrated by government corruption, crony capitalism and high unemployment. Almost immediately, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Denmark saw unrest and, in some cases, similar outbreaks of serious violence, sparking fears that mass
insurrection was the shape of things to come.
While many of the protestors were quick to identify themselves with a unified anarchist scene, political commentators agree that in reality, the European picture is ideologically and strategically fragmented, composed of more or less self-contained groups. In each country, individual factions are engaged in their own specific battles with the political
establishment, from economic to environmental issues, linked only by a broad anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist stance. Although overlaps with the ultra-Left exist, leading to widespread confusion between the two, what ultimately separates anarchist
groups is their belief in practical, militant action.
Not surprisingly, the European countries in which the anarchist movement tends to be strongest are those in which a capitalist status quo exists, as is the case in Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia. In Greece, Italy and Spain, the situation is aggravated by a deeply felt divide between the Right and Left, and ? in the case of the latter two relatively fresh memories of right-wing dictatorships.
Nevertheless, recent events suggest that anarchist activity is on the rise in nations where it has not previously been a major concern. In France, for example, where a strong far-Left has traditionally stifled any anarchist movement, the Interior Minister Michle Alliot-Marie has spoken of a serious threat from "ultra-Leftist" and "anarchist" terrorists. In November, nine members of a group of young men and women living in a commune in southern France were arrested in connection with sabotaging the power supply to high-speed train lines and "associating with wrong-doers with terrorist aims". All but one of the "Tarnac Nine" has now been released, amid accusations of absurd heavy-handiness on the part of the authorities.
3/28/09
UK police criticized over handling of protests
Legislators have accused British police of being heavy-handed in dealing with demonstrators, just days before expected violent protests at next week's G20 summit of world leaders in London.Parliament's Joint Select Committee on Human Rights said police were misusing counter-terrorism laws and anti-social behavior legislation to deal with protesters. The criticism follows complaints about police handling of a climate-change demonstration in southeast England last year. Press TV's Uzma Hussain reports.
3/22/09
Robbie Thorpe on Indigenous Freedom fighters Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner
DUMB GEORGE BUSH WOOS NUMB CANADIANS IN CALGARY
MNN. Mar. 18, 2009. Former U.S. President, George W. Bush, was in Calgary with “cowboy” hat in hand on March 17 to seek the affection of the men and women attending the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association meeting CEPA. It was sponsored by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and law firms Ernst and Young and Bennett Jones. 1,300 corporate business types paid $400 a plate. One Bush fan cooed, “He must be intelligent to be so witty”. Doesn’t he know that a team of speech writers carefully crafted every word he said?
Bush came to “Texas North”, as Calgary is called, to help his international andAmerican cohorts scoop out more Indigenous resources such as water, gas and oil. He wants the corporations to stay in private hands so they can grab 6 trillion cu. ft. of natural gas; 950 million barrels of liquid hydrocarbons; lay 100,000 km. of pipe over our territory; and pocket $67 billion from exports of our resources while polluting all our territories and waters.
His topic appeared to be “Listen to George Bush on how to destroy and bankrupt countries, businesses and the people”. The enthralled audience heaped praise on this braggart who demolished countries through brutal wars, killing millions, doing away with civil liberties, breaking international laws, circumventing the Geneva accords and tearing down the global economy. He and his friends know how to take the cream when the economy melts down and the taxpayers are left holding the bag.
Gale Davidson of Lawyers Against the War of Vancouver crafted a legal position that under Canadian law Bush could be arrested for being a suspected war criminal.
Over 700 protesters stood outside the Telus Convention Center. 75 heavily armed, especially bulky, RCMP and private “Blackwater-type” security were there to guard Bush. They pointed guns at the crowd. Who knows how many others were in the crowd, on the rooftops, maybe even behind cameras and in the sky? Splitting the Sky, a Mohawk from Six Nations, evoked international law by asking the RCMP to arrest Bush. They refused. He told them, “I am serving you notice that you are protecting a war criminal and an international terrorist. You can be tried, convicted and executed as a collaborator before a Nuremberg-type tribunal”.
At the same time he tried to deliver a letter from Ramsay Clark, the former U.S. attorney general, who supports the broad coalition of peace, human rights, labor, law, environmental and other organizations that are seeking U.S. prosecution for Bush’s crimes. The U.S. people are responsible for Bush’s crimes against peace and humanity by failing to stop him. There is universal jurisdiction over such crimes, mentioning especially the crimes of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. [Bush’s Calgary rally to business interests will continue the usurpation of our resources and the environment.] Bush proclaimed himself to be the “decider” by seizing dictatorial powers. He deceitfully declared that national security was threatened and signed into law many unconstitutional Acts of Congress. He enriched favored corrupt predators by giving to them contracts for security services, war relief and reconstruction. At home mortgage lenders, banks, insurance companies and corporate executives exploited Bush policies to enrich the rich. He radically increased the national war debt and military spending which led to the collapse of the global economy. Corrupt Bush appointees committed crimes in various Executive Departments, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior.
Splitting the Sky broke through the police line and advanced alone to arrest George Bush. He got 2 to 3 feet into the Center. He pushed his way through the police line with his hands over his head yelling, “I am not touching anyone”. They surrounded and pounced on him. He was brutalized, arrested and beaten over and over again in the police van and jail cell. He was kept for 24 hours and released on $500 bail. He sustained serious bodily injuries, including a partial concussion and a massive hernia.
Splitting the Sky is charged with three counts of assault and obstruction of justice. He must return to Calgary court on March 25th at 9:30 a.m. He plans to launch a legal campaign to indict the RCMP, Mayor of Calgary and others for complicity in war crimes for allowing Bush to enter without arresting him. These “banksters” better remember that all these resources they plan to steal and destroy are going to be defended by the Indigenous caretakers and our supporters. [Contact splitting_the_sky@yahoo.com or www.splittingthesky.blogspot.com; Lawyers Against the war law@portal.ca; Calgary Defence Tavis Ford 403-606-7034].
MNN Staff Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com Note: At this time your financial help is urgently needed and appreciated for the lawsuit against the Canadian government for assault of Indigenous women at the Cornwall border. Please send your donations to PayPal at www.mohawknationnews.com, or by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN “World” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois
Calgary/Alberta [Bound] Douche Bags: Kim “Environmental-War-Criminal-Beneath-Contempt” McCuaig, CEO, Canadian Energy Pipeline Assn., www.cepa.com, 403-221-8770; Calgary Cop Shop, 403-266-1234 www.calgarypolice.ca has an online report system; RCMP calgarydivision@hotmail.com; Alberta Premier Ed “Devastator-of-Athabaska-Basin-and-the-homeless” Stalmach, 780-427-2251 Fax 780-427-1349; www.premier.alberta.ca; Mayor of Calgary Dave ”Frozen-between-the-ears” Bronconnier www.calgarymayor.ca the mayor@calgary.ca 403-268-5622 Fax 403-268-8130. Calgary Chamber of Commerce, 403-750-0400 chinfo@calgarychamber.com www.calgarychamber.com; Prime Minister Stephen “Whose-father-worked-for-Imperial-Oil-in-Calgary” Harper pm@pm.ca;
Clients of Bennett Jones law firm are Husky Oil, Petro Canada and the Trans Canada Pipeline, which is owned by the Texas-based Terasen Gas, which owns B.C. Hydro, which has a pipeline from B.C. to southern Alberta and a vested interest in the Tarsands with Ormat, an Israeli oil firm.
Bennett Jones, Calgary 403-298-3100 www.bennettjones.com; BC Hydro www.bchydro.com 604-224-9376; Petro Canada 403-296-8000 www.petro-Canada.ca; Trans Canada Pipelines Ltd., Calgary 1-800-661-3805; Terasen Gas 604-576-7000 www.terasengas.com; Ormat Industries Ltd, 1Szydlowski Rd., Yvavne, Israel 972-8-9433-777 ormat@ormat.com; Husky Oil, Calgary 403-298-6111/7464www.huskyenergy.com; Ernst & Young Global Ltd. [Toronto] 416-864-1234 www.ernstyoung.com;
3/20/09
NZ Military Building Paint Bombed on Sixth Anniversary of Iraq War
We chose to target the NZ military to highlight its role it has played both in the Iraq war and in the broader “War on Terror”. NZ has openly sent engineers to Iraq under the pretext of reconstruction, however much of the work carried out was on strengthening US military bases. It is our belief that in addition the NZ army has also been sending its elite unit the SAS to carry out covert operations in Iraq. New Zealand plays a small but important role supporting US aggression: from the Waihopai spy domes to sharing of so-called intelligence with US agencies.
The NZ government's contribution to the war machine is unacceptable, and this small act of resistance is to show that we are watching and we won't forget its acts of terrorism on ordinary people today and throughout history.
No matter how long this war lasts and how many more are waged, there will always be resistance.
click 4 a larger image
3/18/09
Caught on film and stored on database: how police keep tabs on activists
from the guardian, 11 March 2009:
Police footage obtained by the Guardian has revealed the crude monitoring methods deployed across the country against protesters, thousands of whom have their personal details stored on criminal intelligence systems for up to seven years...
* Paul Lewis and Marc Vallée
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 March 2009 19.30 GMT
[original article]
Shocking footage shot by police, accompanied by their own critical commentary, shows how their officers monitored campaigners and the media – and demanded personal information – at last August's climate camp demonstration in Kent.
At 11:37am on August 8 last year (2008), two police surveillance officers sat in a patrol car in Kent and switched on their Sony digital video camera.
When the tape started to roll, they stated they were "evidence gatherer" surveillance officers and explained the purpose of the operation. A lead surveillance officer and his assistant, they were on duty to help police the Climate Camp demonstration, an environmental protest against the nearby Kingsnorth coal-fired power station.
What the pair did not know when, 20 minutes later, they stood on a grass verge at the entrance to the camp and started work, was that their surveillance footage would be obtained by the Guardian. It would provide evidence of the crude monitoring methods used to glean information about campaigners and would prove that journalists are being targeted by police surveillance units.
This was no rogue operation. An investigation by the Guardian has established that surveillance footage such as that shot by the Kent officers is routinely uploaded onto a police database. In fact it seems that thousands of activists – from campaigners against Heathrow's third runway to anti-racism marchers – have their personal details stored on criminal intelligence systems for as long as seven years.
The Metropolitan police's Forward Intelligence Teams (FITs) and Evidence Gatherers (EGs) have over the last decade pioneered the controversial use of "overt surveillance", a technique now widely used by forces across the country at political demonstrations. It is designed to "record identifiable details" of protesters who may commit crime or anti-social behaviour and gather intelligence that could help police a public order event.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) recently commissioned the National Police Improvements Agency (NPIA) to establish a "national standard" for overt surveillance, to which all forces in England and Wales have signed up.
Surveillance officers receive briefings before protests about key targets and are handed "spotter cards" containing the images of individuals police want to monitor.
The operations are normally carried out by regular police officers who have received additional training in surveillance. The human rights watchdog Liberty – which did not know about the database – is challenging police surveillance tactics in a judicial review at the court of appeal.
Privacy rights
However police appear not to have disclosed to the court they were transferring the private details of campaigners to a database. Lawyers believe the transfer makes it more likely the technique is in violation of privacy rights under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.
"The time is now 11.57 hours," said the lead officer. "We're up at point three, the front entrance to the climate camp site." The camera panned to show officers from West Yorkshire police, among thousands drafted into Kent from across the country in the £5.9m policing operation, searching activists as they entered the camp.
Kent police, which was in command of the operation, had activated an order under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, authorising officers to search anyone in the area for dangerous weapons. The film shows how police zoomed in on virtually any protesters in the area, noting down items of clothing or other distinctive features. They also appeared to have knowledge of some activists' past political activity, on one occasion noting that a protester had "spent a lot of time" at a different part of the camp. Others seemed to have been targeted for standing beside, or near, prominent environmental campaigners.
But whenever journalists were in the area, the lens was almost exclusively pointed at them. In total 10 journalists were monitored emerging from the camp, where they had been interviewing protesters.
The officers zoomed in to pick out the logo on the back of a Sky News cameraman's jacket, monitored several photographers and followed an ITV Meridian news crew, including the anchor of the evening show, Ian Axton.
"A lot of press officers aren't there. Just think they can bloody wander in and out of the field. It's wrong, I think," the lead officer remarked when the ITV crew was in shot. "I trust them less than the protesters."
Later, referring to ITV cameraman Pete Lloyd Williams, he said: "The time is now 13:19 hours. Same date. Same location. Press cameraman here. Being awkward a little. Being asked to stand back by officers on at least two occasions and then asked to stand by the inspector. Or asked by the inspector to stand out of the road. Coming out with witty comments."
After spotting a videographer and photographer across the road, the assistant officer said: "Inquisitive, ain't they – these two, by the pole."
The lead added: "He don't like having his photograph taken – that one there with the bald head."
The surveillance lens returned to the ITV crew after the pair overheard a discussion between an officer and Lloyd Williams.
"He's giving him a ticket if you want to record any of that? As to whether or not he wants to give his details," the assistant officer said.
The officers walked closer, to within earshot. "Did he give details?" asked the assistant officer. "Don't know if he did or not," replied the lead. "Think he just said he was from ITV Meridian. Don't know if he gave personal details." This was not a one-off event; the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has documented eight occasions over the last year when, it says, police surveillance officers photographed and filmed journalists.
In May the general secretary of the NUJ, Jeremy Dear, alerted the Home Office that journalists – particularly photographers – were "routinely and deliberately" watched by police surveillance teams.
The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, replied that the government "greatly values" the free press, but "decisions may be made [by police] locally to restrict or monitor photography in reasonable circumstances". Senior police officers in turn also assured the NUJ that journalists were "not being targeted unfairly".
Moments after the camera stopped rolling at the Climate Camp, a group of journalists, including some of those caught on the surveillance footage, were followed by a team of surveillance officers to a McDonald's restaurant several miles from the camp.
Police filmed the journalists, who were using wireless computer networks to file their material, through the restaurant window. Kent police later apologised after complaints about the McDonald's surveillance incident and the use of the Section 60 order to subject journalists in the area to intensive searches.
Heavy-handed
Assistant chief constable Allyn Thomas, Kent police's commander of the operation, said in November his officers had not been properly briefed about actions they could "reasonably take when engaging with members of the press".
The forces's heavy-handed approach to the Climate Camp demonstration received widespread criticism, including in parliament.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker, who initially claimed Kent police's approach had been "proportionate and appropriate", was forced to apologise to MPs after the Guardian revealed the 70 police officers he claimed had been injured in clashes with protesters had actually suffered from unrelated ailments such as bee stings and toothache.
Many of those captured in police surveillance footage – which is filmed at all types of political demonstrations – will want to know what their images are being used for. The raw data gleaned through police surveillance material is stored on marked CD-Roms in a warehouse, and is not searchable by the names of activists.
However, disclosures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the law firm Hickman and Rose, representing the NUJ, document how in the case of the Metropolitan police the surveillance material is "added to a corporate intelligence database". They continue: "If names are known, they will be included" and: "generally, records are retained for seven years".
Superintendent David Hartshorn, a senior officer from the Metropolitan police public order branch, told the Guardian the database in question was CrimInt, a general intelligence system used to catalogue details about criminal activity.
"In relation to what we can keep on databases, we are governed quite strictly on that," he said. "Obviously you've got the Data Protection Act but also, in terms of intelligence, we have to justify what we are able to keep on our systems.
"So for example, if we've got someone who is a known activist for a particular group, and we keep their images live on that intelligence database, along the side of that intelligence there will be a report justifying why that image is being kept." He added: "We can't just randomly take your photograph and hold it on a database. There has to be a reason for it."
Reasons, Hartshorn said, include if a person has a criminal record for activity relating to a demonstration or is an outstanding suspect for an offence.
He added a third category. "There are people we have seen on a regular basis involved but may not have been charged or arrested – but believed to be on the periphery." That might include people "bordering on civil disobedience" or "doing something more than attending a rally".
He said the data was reviewed annually to ensure it remains "valid". "Just because someone did something 10 years ago and they might, off chance, do it again in the future, that is unlikely to justify keeping them on the database."
Asked why law abiding citizens should be held on a database because of their political activity, he replied: "We have to be able to say: this person has been seen at this event. They've been dealing with a person who was arrested at this event. It's not just: we've seen them floating around, don't know who they are, we'll keep them."
Hartshorn conceded that police can use the database to search which political events an individual may have attended. Although surveillance teams attend hundreds of events each year, Hartshorn claimed not to know how many political activists have their details stored on CrimInt.
However lower rank surveillance officers have indicated in open court testimony that officers can search the database for "thousands" of protesters.
In trials of Jeff Parks, an activist from London twice convicted for blocking police cameras at protests, surveillance officers revealed, according to solicitors' notes of proceedings, that one reason they were monitoring him was to gather information for the database.
In December PC Dan Collins told the City of Westminster magistrates court that his material was uploaded onto a central "intelligence system" which enabled police to search the political history of Parks, as well as "thousands" of other protesters.
Last month at Tower Bridge magistrates PC Hall and PC Pritchard accepted that there was a general police database that would include records of surveillance material relating to Parks.
"From the evidence of police officers in these cases, it is becoming clear that the police are maintaining a systematic record, including photographs, of those who attend demonstrations or even political meetings," said Parks's solicitor Raj Chada, who is appealing against his client's convictions. "Our cases suggest if you attend an anti-war meeting or other political meetings, your photograph will end up stored on some database."
3/12/09
Save Sealord Workers
Put people before profits!
More than 160 workers at Sealord’s fish processing plant in Nelson are to lose their jobs through restructuring.
The announcement came within days of the Job Summit called by NZ Prime Minister John Key to work out how to save jobs!
3/11/09
Camp Sovereignty Anniversary
3/8/09
3/7/09
THEY CANT TAKE OUR MANA
http://hawaiiankingdom.org
LEARN & SHARE
Huge Mahalo to
MANA !!!
3/6/09
Some upcoming Events in the Kulin Nation
Please contact me if you have any suggestions or can help out with money or know of a bus or help organise fund raising event and with publicity for those events. Limited dates available (see below). Libby - libaty@gmail.com
Saturday March 21 - Main Fudraiser for the Groote Island Elders Trip - Venue & time TBC
Friday & Saturday March 27 & 28 @ 7:30pm - Blak Nite Cinema - Treasury Gardens.
City of Melbourne 9658 9658
A Free event. The films shown will be: Bastardy - about Uncle Jack Charles - by Amiel Coutrin Wilson. And Lionel -About Lionel Rose - by Eddie Martin. There will also be music, filmmaker introductions & Welcome to Country.
April
Thursday April 9 - Barbara Shaw arrives in Melbourne
.....ADD MORE THINGS AS THEY COME!!!!