Marine Deaths of harbour porpoise, dolphin, pilot whale, seals and other protected species following last August’s seismic blasting looking at the geology of the Irish Sea for a deep sub-sea nuclear dump have prompted calls for a halt and an investigation.
The CEO of West Cumbria Mining is providing advice to Govnt on “investigation techniques” including seismic blasting and deep boreholes for a deep nuclear dump next to his coal mine.
NUCLEAR DUMP SEARCH’S SEISMIC BLASTING AND MARINE DEATHS PROMPT CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION AND HALT INTO ANY NEW NUCLEAR DUMP TESTS.
A legal challenge has been threatened by campaigners against further seismic blasting in the search areas which include the Irish Sea and Allerdale’s Solway Firth area.
The Copeland seismic blasting went ahead for 20 days from the 1st August 2022 despite a petiton of over 50,000 signatures. The testing of the Copeland Irish Sea area centred off Sellafield was contracted by Nuclear Waste Services in their quest to find a place to dispose of high level nuclear wastes in a Geological Disposal Facility.
Seismic Airgun Blastings are so loud that they disturb, injure and kill marine life, travelling for hundreds of kms. Surveys for Sea Mining, navy sonar and map-making damage commercial fisheries and disrupt coastal economies. Blasts are repeated every ten seconds, 24 hours a day, for days to weeks injuring and killing hundreds of thousands of whales and dolphins .
Environmental Lawyers Leigh Day acting for Lakes Against Nuclear Dump, a Radiation Free Lakeland campaign have now written to the Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey and to the Marine Management Organisation.
The letter includes an Appendix of “Events” beginning with strandings of protected species including dead seals and harbour porpoise at Drigg on the 8th August and includes deaths of dolphin, pilot whale and jellyfish (food for protected turtle species).
Nos encontramos ante una profunda crisis, que va en aumento, cuyos orígenes están en nuestra forma de producir, procesar y distribuir los alimentos. El bienestar del planeta, la salud de sus habitantes y la estabilidad de las sociedades sufren la amenaza severa de una agricultura globalizada e industrial que se rige por la avaricia y la rentabilidad. Las presiones de un modelo ineficaz, irracional y no sostenible de producción de alimentos están llevando a la destrucción al planeta, sus ecosistemas y las diversas especies que lo habitan. La comida, cuya finalidad principal es proporcionar salud y alimento, constituye hoy en día el mayor problema de salud que hay en el mundo: casi mil millones de personas son víctimas del hambre y la desnutrición, dos mil millones padecen enfermedades como la obesidad y la diabetes y un sinfín de ellas sufren otras —incluido el cáncer— ocasionadas por los agentes tóxicos que…
El capitalisme continua avançant dia a dia, apropiant-se cada cop de més esferes de la nostra vida. Ens roba el temps i la vida a canvi d’un salari, amb el que cada dia és més difícil viure de forma digna.
Ens roba desmantellant i precaritzant els serveis públics, ens roba apropiant-se, privatitzant i monopolitzant cada cop més recursos bàsics per al sostén de la vida, com l’habitatge, l’energia, l’aigua, la terra o els aliments.
Ens roba rebaixant les pensions i allargant la vida laboral, mentre la joventut pateix un atur crònic. Al capitalisme li sobren diners per augmentar el pressupost militar per l’OTAN i diu que no en te per la sanitat.
Un capitalisme neocolonial que no conforme amb extreure els recursos naturals del sud global, explota a les migrants que venen fugint de la violència i devastació, al treball de la llar i les cures, al treball sexual, al treball agrícola i a tota sort d’oficis informals sense dret a l’atur, a pensió o a qualsevol tipus de garanties laborals.
Amb un govern mentider que no s’atreveix ni a derogar la Llei mordassa, que no retira les parts més lesives de les reformes laborals, tal com va prometre.
Amb un govern agenollat als poders econòmics, que aprova una llei d’habitatge més en clau electoralista, que no pas a garantir l’accés a un habitatge digne. I amb la lluita del poble francès contra la reforma de les pensions gravada a les retines, ens plantegem que ja n’hi ha prou de retrocedir davant els embats del capital.
És per això que volem passar a l’ofensiva, per recuperar terreny al capitalisme i recuperar tot allò que ens està robant. I ho farem engegant lluites allà on hi hagi injustícies. Empresa a empresa recuperant drets i millorant les condicions laborals.
Sector a sector unint plantilles i millorant convenis. I ho farem carrer a carrer, combatent el discurs neoliberal i individualista, barri a barri, poble a poble construint comunitats de lluita.
Ho farem articulant una lluita comuna entre treballadores i usuàries en defensa d’uns serveis públics de qualitat.
Per això és necessari enfortir les organitzacions de la classe treballadora, ELS SINDICATS. Els sindicats de classe i autònoms de tot poder polític o econòmic i independents de les subvencions estatals.
Enfortint el sindicalisme que no creu en la concertació social de les poltrones, que sap que per negociar amb el capital s’ha de trencar la pau social i pressionar.
Per tot això és necessari la confluència de les lluites i les organitzacions de classe que planten cara als diferents fronts de la despossessió capitalista.
La confluència amb el moviment per l’habitatge, amb el moviment migrant, amb el moviment pensionista, amb el feminisme de classe, amb l’ecologisme radical, amb l’economia social i solidària, i amb totes aquelles organitzacions que ens vulguin acompanyar en aquesta ofensiva de lluita.
Per això aquest primer de maig la Taula Sindical de Catalunya, fem una crida a la classe treballadora a iniciar una ofensiva contra la classe capitalista que ens vol cada dia més empobrits i agenollats.
Fem una crida a les organitzacions anticapitalistes a fixar-se més en el que ens uneix que no en el que ens separa, i a engegar un nou cicle de lluita per a organitzar la indignació, i construir un contrapoder que ens permeti recuperar terreny al capital.
Derogació de la reforma laboral
Derogació de la llei mordassa i la llei d’estrangeria
Per unes pensions dignes i la reducció de l’edat de jubilació
Barcelona, May 1st: ‘Class Offensive’, May 1st Demo of Alternative Trade Unionism / Catalan/ English
Published on April 25, 2023 / by KaosEnLaRed
Capitalism continues to advance day by day, appropriating more and more spheres of our lives. It steals our time and life in exchange for a salary, with which every day it is more difficult to live in a dignified way.
It steals from us by dismantling and making public services precarious, it steals from us by appropriating, privatizing and monopolizing more and more basic resources to support life, such as housing, energy, water, land or food.
It steals from us by lowering pensions and extending working life, while the youth suffer from chronic unemployment. Capitalism has money left over to increase the military budget for NATO and says it doesn’t have any for healthcare.
A neo-colonial capitalism that is not satisfied with extracting the natural resources of the global south, exploits the migrants who come fleeing violence and devastation, in domestic and care work, in sex work, in agricultural work and in all kinds of informal trades with no right to unemployment, pension or any type of employment guarantee.
With a lying government that does not even dare to repeal the Gag Law, that does not remove the most harmful parts of the labor reforms, as it promised.
With a government on its knees to the economic powers, which approves a housing law more in an electoral key, than to guarantee access to decent housing.
And with the fight of the French people against the pension reform etched on our retinas, we consider that it is time to stop the retreat before the onslaughts of capital.
This is why we want to go on the offensive, to regain ground from capitalism and recover everything that it is stealing from us.
And we will do it by starting fights wherever there are injustices. Company by company recovering rights and improving working conditions. Sector by sector joining templates and improving agreements.
And we will do it street by street, fighting the neoliberal and individualist discourse, neighborhood by neighborhood, village by village, building communities of struggle.
We will do this by articulating a common struggle between workers and users in defense of quality public services.
That is why it is necessary to strengthen the organizations of the working class, THE TRADE UNIONS. Class and autonomous unions of all political or economic power and independent of state subsidies.
Strengthening unionism that does not believe in the social concertation of the armchairs, that knows that in order to negotiate with capital you have to break the social peace and put on pressure.
For all this, the confluence of the struggles and class organizations that face the different fronts of capitalist dispossession is necessary.
The confluence with the housing movement, with the migrant movement, with the pension movement, with class feminism, with radical environmentalism, with the social and solidarity economy, and with all those organizations that want to accompany us in this fighting offensive.
That’s why this first of May, from the Taula Sindical de Catalunya (Trade Union Platform of Catalonia) we call on the working class to start an offensive against the capitalist class that wants us to be more impoverished and on our knees every day.
We call on the anti-capitalist organizations to focus more on what unites us than on what separates us, and to start a new cycle of struggle to organize outrage, and build a counter-power that allows us to regain ground in capital.
Repeal of the labor reform
Repeal of the gag law and the foreigner law
For decent pensions and the reduction of the retirement age
After decades of struggle, the Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek First Nation (Grassy Narrows) has secured a major win in their fight to stop clear-cutting on their lands.
This month, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry notified the first nation that they are abandoning plans to open a portion of the forest to commercial logging, placing a 10-year logging ban on the land. The decision follows years of blockading logging roads on the territory, marching on the Ontario legislature, and taking legal action against the Ontario government.
Indigenous warriors have continued to hold it down at Camp Morgan Harris near the Brady Landfill outside Winnipeg. Folks have been intermittently blocking access to the landfill, and are holding strong in their calls to have the landfill searched for missing and murdered Indigenous women. On April 10th, the body of Linda Beardy, a woman from Lake St. Martin First Nation, was found at the site. Folks at the camp have called for others to join them, donate, or drop off supplies.
The Montreal Autonomous Tenants Union held a demonstration in the Mile End neighbourhood against the notorious Cucurulls, a family of landlords known for its history of evictions and for recently aggressing two renters who were delivering a petition. They have also planned a demonstration in opposition to the potential eviction of a tent city underneath the Ville Marie underpass in Montreal on April 25th.
This month the City of Vancouver once again intensified its war on the poor. Beginning April 5th, the City undertook a multi-day police-led decampment of those living along Hastings Street in the downtown eastside. A document leaked the day before the decampment began details the City’s strategy, including allusions to escalating police violence. The plan states that unlike previous initiatives, police will “no longer disengage when tensions rise or protesters/advocates become too disruptive.” The plan maps Hastings Street into ‘higher’ and ‘lower-risk’ areas, based on resident responses to previous encampment clearings and the re-establishment of tents in those areas. The plan also describes ongoing enforcement in the area, first daily and then regularly.
The first days of the decampment included a large police presence and escalated enforcement, including the use of an exclusion zone, rooftop surveillance, the closure of several city blocks, and seemingly the disabling of local traffic cameras. As police pushed back residents and supporters and controlled movement in and out of the area, Vancouver city workers dismantled people’s shelters and cleared the area of all personal belongings. Multiple people were detained or arrested throughout the day.
One account from local organizers details the weekly community meetings held by Hastings Street encampment and SRO residents and preparations for the coming evictions: “We spent the meeting talking about what to expect, how to avoid getting hurt by police, and where people would go after the eviction. Nobody knew.” At the end of the first day of the evictions, there were reportedly no shelter beds available in Vancouver.
The past few weeks have been full of frustrating developments in the struggle against Coastal Gaslink Pipeline. Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and community members attempted to attend the RBC Annual General Meeting to speak to shareholders about CGL and, despite having valid credentials to participate, they were segregated in a separate room with other racialized attendees and prevented from participating. RBC is a major funder of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline and has been the target of divestment campaigns for a long time. It is not the first time RBC has gone out of its way to prevent Wet’suwet’en delegates from speaking at their shareholders meetings, but this time the sweeping refusal to allow for critical speakers also involved the exclusion of Black activists who had traveled to speak about the health impacts of fossil fuel projects on communities of colour on the Gulf Coast.
In the days following the AGM, a coalition of environmental groups published a report outlining the top fossil fuel funders in the world. All five major Canadian banks rank in the top 20 funders of fossil fuel development globally. Topping the list, however, is RBC. In 2022 it contributed over $42 billion US in funding, eclipsing all other banks and securing itself the top spot. It is unsurprising that a bank with this level of investment in the industry would attempt at all costs to prevent its shareholders from being confronted with the life threatening impacts of its business.
Some of those impacts were made clear mere days later, when Coastal Gaslink announced that their drilling under Wedzin Kwa had so far resulted in two spills of lubricant, one on land and one in a tributary of the river. This is of course one of the fears that Wet’suwet’en have had all along, despite empty industry assurances that the drilling was occurring far underground and would have no environmental impact.
In the midst of all of this, CBC ran a story parroting RCMP propaganda related to their investigation into an attack on a Coastal Gaslink worksite in February 2022. The article uncritically shared the cops’ story on their investigation thus far and promoted a ridiculous and tired narrative that anarchist “outside agitators” had infiltrated and taken control of Wet’suwet’en resistance. The classic “outside agitator” line has always been intended to break down solidarity, decrease public support, and sow distrust and paranoia. It goes without saying that cops are not to be trusted, either in their racist, simplistic, and divisive analyses of Indigenous-led anti-colonial movements, or in their specific comments stating what they do or don’t know about ongoing investigations. May the struggle against CGL continue, and all those participating stay safe and stay solid.
Prison News: Hunger Strikes and Impacts of Labour Actions
Over 180 prisoners at Hamilton’s Barton Jail are on hunger strike as of April 20. A report from the Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project explains:
This past Wednesday, April 19, 2023, we received word that prisoners on all the ranges on the fourth floor of the Barton Jail had coordinated to begin a hunger strike. At the same time and without knowing about what was going on upstairs, prisoners on the third floor had drafted and circulated a five-page letter outlining their issues with conditions in the prison. It was signed by all prisoners on several ranges and was delivered to the superintendant. Once the prisoners on 3 learned about the strike, they joined in the next day, on April 20.
The prisoners all felt that conditions inside the 700-person prison had degraded to a point where they needed to take action. The hunger strike coalesced around four main demands: faster mail delivery (it routinely takes months), an end to lockdowns (prisoners are frequently locked in their cells three days a week over the weekend), daily access to the yard (prisoners have been going months at a time without going outside), and, perhaps most importantly, for the jail to let them keep all the current TV channels.
On April 21, a public solidarity demo was held:
The demo went off beautifully. Lots of noise, lots of banners and signs, and a great speech from a BAPSOP member: “I look forward to the day that the prisoners and guards all take off their uniforms, burn them all in one pile, and then walk out the door together.” Special thanks to the harm reduction crew that showed up with costumes and signs and then threw a mini tailgate party at the end of the demo. The amount of noise coming from the jail was very impressive — it was like every person in the building was banging on the walls at once.
Prisoners at the Niagara Detention Centre are also on hunger strike as of this week. This information was released by the Ministry of Solicitor General, who would not share any detail about the prisoners demands.
As prisoners take action to fight for their basic rights, other prisoners are dealing with the repercussions of the ongoing PSAC nation-wide strike. The strike does not include guards or prison health care stuff, but does include administrative support and facilities staff, as well as parole board staff. Families of prisoners have been warned of potential disruptions to visits. There has been at least one instance of the strike impacting timely meal delivery prisoners, and another of a support worker being denied access when attempting to visit a prison. The strike also has the potential to impact prisoners’ access to programming, disrupting their ability to follow their ‘correctional plan’ and delaying their release.
Withholding labour is a powerful way to pressure employers to come to the table and negotiate with workers. In most cases, labour actions deserve public support, and the blame for inconveniences caused by strikes should fall squarely on employers. However, a line of work that holds power over others and their ability to meet their basic needs is a choice. When the impacts of withholding labour lands on society’s most marginalized, who have been forced into a position of relying on the labour of others, workers put themselves in an unsupportable position.
With the Covid excuse wearing impossibly thin, it seems that the global governance is reverting back to “anti-terrorism” as a principal pretext for removing our rights and our freedom.
Just a month ago, I felt the need to distance myself from a dystopian future I had once described in a fictional work.
I explained, rather apologetically, that at the time I had envisaged the post-9/11 “terrorism” bugbear still being the system’s fear-weapon of choice, rather than viruses or the weather, as was now the case.
However, I think I may have spoken too soon!
With the Covid excuse wearing impossibly thin, it seems that the global governance is reverting back to “anti-terrorism” as a principal pretext for removing our rights and our freedom.
French interior minister Gérald Darmanin has this month been describing opposition to the widely-detested Macronist regime as “intellectual terrorism”.
Moreover, last week I reported from a protest in the Hérault department of France at which the authorities used “anti-terrorist” laws to ban the banging of saucepans, though it didn’t really work!
A similar decree, again based on “anti-terrorist” legislation, was used by the Loir-et-Cher department to outlaw protest and noise-making around Macron’s visit on Tuesday April 25.
This is clearly a strategy that has been decided at a higher level than the merely regional.
Meanwhile, on Monday April 17, Ernest Moret, a young French publisher, was detained by UK police on arriving by train at St Pancras station in London under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
He was questioned for six hours, had his phone and laptop seized, and was then arrested for alleged obstruction in refusing to disclose the passcodes to his devices.
The justification for all this was that he “had participated in demonstrations in France”.
Schedule 7 makes it a crime not to provide information to an officer if the questions are intended to investigate ‘terrorism’.
But a fellow campaigner and I refused to comply, insisting that the police’s questions were, instead, targeting political dissent.
The use of Section 7 against protesters has been going on for while, as this 2006 report illustrates.
“Is It Really About Terrorism?” asked the heading to the article, and the answer is clearly still “no”.
The common factor to all these cases is, in fact, protest – protests against the global money-power, its gatherings and its stooges.
The term “terrorism” has been deliberately twisted out of all recognition in order to smear political dissent and to judicially enable police-state repression of protest.
We have been covering this issue for some time on the Winter Oak site.
Madrid 1º de Mayo. CNT: “Toca organizarnos, volver a las calles, a las redes de solidaridad y confianza”
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CNT
Madrid, 24 de abril de 2023
1 de Mayo. Manifestación desde Puente de Vallecas
Todas sabemos que el 1º de mayo es festivo. «El día del trabajo», nos dicen. Nosotras no estamos de acuerdo, vamos a ver lo que significa este día en realidad:
La cosa viene de hace casi 140 años y tiene que ver con la jornada laboral de 8 horas, y con la solidaridad.
En el S. XIX y XX las trabajadoras se organizaban para mejorar sus condiciones de vida, no se limitaban a pedir que se cumpliera la ley, pedían lo que consideraban justo: poder disfrutar de una vida que no fuera miseria y trabajo. Una de las reivindicaciones más extendidas exigía la jornada laboral de 8 horas, así el 1º de mayo de 1886, en…
(…..) It is selfish, simpleton human thinking to believe this grain of sand called Earth is the end all and be all for life in the universe – But government and mainstream media suddenly pushing alien and UFO narratives is cause for skepticism as to what’s unfolding now.
The term “UFO” or unidentified flying object, has been bastardized over the decades. You cannot speak of UFOs without being labeled a conspiracy theorist or just flat-out crazy. Thus the U.S. government officially ditched the term on July 15, 2022, and replaced it with UAP, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.
The Department of Defense also renamed the Airborne Object Identification and Management Group (AOIMSG). NASA changed the UAP name again to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
All of the nomenclature maneuvering in 2022 indicates that this UFO propaganda (a term we will continue using) in 2023 was either pre-planned, already known about and kept secret, or both.
UFOs are innately conspiracy and conspiracy theory. So we’re going to stick to the pure, boring facts here, and allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
We could go all the way back to the ancient Egyptians for a complete history of aliens and UFOs. But a better starting point is October 30, 1938.
Orson Welles broadcasted Episode 17 of his CBS Radio show The Mercury Theater on the Air. He narrated an adaption of British author H.G. Wells’ (no relation) 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. The novel is about Martian invaders who aim to exterminate humans and take over planet Earth.
This blogger heard the broadcast for the first time (on a reel-to-reel in a public library) shortly after the Phoenix Lights incident.
Welles caused [debatable] widespread panic across the U.S. Many Americans believed the alien invasion was real.
President Ronald Reagan said in a September 21, 1987 United Nations address that it would take an alien invasion to unite humanity across the world, particularly the U.S. and (at the time) the Soviet Union. https://www.bitchute.com/embed/nY6nEgqgPkwW/
The foregoing three incidents provide a roadmap to where we are today. The Welles broadcast happened before television was widespread. People had limited access to “information” in those days.
Reagan floated the alien boogeyman idea 50 years later, less than four years before President George H.W. Bush started openly talking about The New World Order. The Blair Witch happened prior to mainstream internet usage, still a time of limited access to information.
The point is that any well-presented story can pass as real to the masses. But now in the information age, if you will, it’s more difficult to pull off a modern War of the Worlds/Blair Witch. That is unless the masses are already trained and conditioned to accept said narratives.
Fast forward to December 27, 2020. President Donald Trump signed H.R. 133, a $2.3 trillion appropriations bill, into law. Attached to the bill was a comment from the Senate Intelligence Committee ordering the Director of National Intelligence to:
“in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the heads of such other agencies as the Director and Secretary jointly consider relevant, to submit a report within 180 days of the date of enactment of the Act…
A detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or held by the Office of Naval Intelligence [and a] detailed analysis of data of the FBI, which was derived from investigations of intrusions of unidentified aerial phenomena data over restricted United States airspace.”
That deadline passed in June 2021. Haim Eshed, the former Israel Defense Ministry space programs director for three decades, told newspaper Yediot Aharonot in December 2020 that Trump knows all TPTB’s secrets about UFOs and aliens. But Zionist leaders ordered Trump to keep quiet to avoid “mass hysteria.”
At least three UFOs and one “Chinese spy balloon” have allegedly been shot down in the U.S. and Canada since February 4. The strangest phenomenon of all is mainstream media’s reporting on all this in unison.
The Free 