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On Friday the 6th of July a group of anarchists squatted an old “cinema” building in the city of Iasi, close to the ukrainian/moldavien borders. This first Romanian squat is named “Rebil” as an anagram for “liber” meaning free in Romanian.

Since 4 (?) years the building in the center of Iasi is abandond, belonging to the Ministry of Culture and Cults (means the orthodox and catholic churches), at the same time under the maintainance of RADEF (Autonomous Society for Movie Distribution and Commercialization), both situated in Bucharest.

In 2007 the ministry announced a new law, which supports the selling out of the state cinema spaces to private businesses under the direction of using it for “somekind of art or cultural event”. RADEF announced that under this law it will probably dissolve itself by the end of 2007.

At the time of squatting people had the information that there are two cases in court claiming for the right to use the building.
One, in court since 12 years, is between the ministry and the orthodox priest Merticarie, who claims that the building was originally builded on the grounds of the church.

The second one, in court since 2 years, is between the ministry and an 80 years old guy Carol Theitler, living in Israel and claming that the property belonged to his family, before the communist rule took it away.

During some Food Not Bombs actions the squatting group got in contact with some ‘non-political squatters’ (socially and economically excluded families squatting for having a roof over their heads) who already since 1 ½ years squat a nearby building.

The Greek paper Kathimerini is reporting a group of about 20 people threw petrol bombs and rocks at a building that belongs to the Economy and Finance Ministry, near Syntagma Square in central Athens, late on Sunday. Nobody was injured in the attack but the building, which houses the General Secretariat for Investment and Development, suffered extensive damage. No arrests were made but police are linking the incident to a recent spate of arson attacks by self-styled anarchists carried out in support of alleged bank robber Yiannis Dimitrakis (seen here) who was convicted yesterday.

During his trial Yiannis Dimitrakis testified that the raid on a bank in central Athens in which he took part last year was a “social robbery” and a strike against “the extortionate banking system.” He insisted that he shot only once, into the air, during the robbery. Three people were injured as the police and the so-called “Robbers in Black” exchanged shots in crowded streets in the city center. Dimitrakis, was seriously injured when shot by the cops 3 times.

In July 2008, heads of the states that monopolize two thirds of earth’s wealth will gather at Toya Lake in Hokkaido Japan. Although the so-called Group of Eight does not have any legitimate right for deciding planetary affairs, they have self-appointed themselves world ruler. Thus
the G8 has driven neo-liberal globalization at the same time as spreading poverty, violence, hatred, segregation, and environmental destruction.

At a very critical moment of world capitalism during the 1970s, the G8 was established to form a consensus among the imperialist nation-states.
Ever since it has become the cornerstone of the neo-liberalist globalization that we are confronting. The ‘consensus’ signifies nothing
short of finding out the most convenient means of driving global financialization, privatization, commercialization, and militarization
and camouflaging these processes as if they were for the public well-being.

Preparing to Kill, Preparing to Die
Fresh from his Afghan investigation mission to find out just where did the keys and steering wheels of them Polish humvees finally end up, the Polish Minister for Defence, Aleksander Szczyglo, announced on Saturday that the Polish army are currently preparing their 10th contingent for the Iraqi theatre of war. Of course, there has been no gvt. approval for a 10th deployment as of yet, but if the conservative pro-war government decides to prolong their role in the abysmal occupation and continue to lick U.S. Administration ass then, the army logic goes, the boys (and one or two girls I presume)have got to be ready.

The second anarchist summer camp in Austria will begin in less than three weeks from now (20. - 29.7.2007). You can now find details on travel to the camp from Vienna or Prague on the website www.a-camp.info. The camp will take place near Kautzen in the northern part of Lower Austria (near the Czech border). The closest sizeable town is "Waidhofen an der Thaya", from which there are a few buses a day travelling to Kautzen. There will also be an info telephone number +43 (0)664 4895196 to coordinate a shuttle service from Waidhofen to Kautzen (for Sundays or other times when there are no buses).

Construction workers building a dam near Heyuan, were attacked after demanding payment, having gone four months without wages.

Some 300-400 workers at the site, currently building a hydro-electric power station, went on strike last Friday in protest at the massive wage arrears. Some 200 hired thugs then attacked the workers. Lei Mingzhong, is reported to be in a coma and brain dead and acccording to doctors has no chance of recovery. Many other workers were injured in the clashes.

The Doctor’s Strike and the Nurses’ Occupation

Poland is entering the sixth week of a very serious doctors’ strike. Thousands of doctors around the country have been protesting the state of the health care system and one of its main problems: low wages for health care professionals and long working hours, usually compounded by the fact that most people work extra shifts to make ends meet. Many doctors also have handed in their notice as a direct action, saying they’d rather quit than work under these conditions.

The strike was called by some doctors and did not relate to all health care workers, which irritated some other members of the medical profession, most particularly nurses, who also wanted to take action. In former strike actions, it has typically, for whatever reason, been nurses, not doctors who have taken part in and organized more radical direct actions, and this time the same happened. About one month into the strike, the nurses organized a mass demonstration to Warsaw and started a protest action that is finally breathing some life into the struggle.

South Africa’s success in winning the 2010 bid for the World Cup has been announced with great fanfare. The World Soccer Cup is the second biggest international sports events in the world, second only to the Olympics.

Maxim Gubski, a 17-year old activist from Minsk got three years hard labour in a Belarussian work camp. The sentence was the result of charges pressed by fascists who were trying to blackmail Max, a local Food not Bombs activist.

Max had been active in the Minsk radical scene for 3 years. At the end of last year, a fight broke out between some skinheads and some antifascists. As is often, unforunately, the case in Russia and, it seems, Belarus, the boneheads, who feel above the law and are not likely to get into any trouble with the police, asked for money from Max in exchange for not pressing charges. They demanded 1500 USD, which Max refused to pay.

During the G8 Summit protests in Germoney, a group of Australian activists ran into Bono and tried to have a chat with him. They wonder why he decided to liase with loan sharks instead of grassroots activists.

Ronald: Poland's new Messiah
Poor Ronald feels persecuted. A modern day Christ, if you will. McDonalds don't like competitors pissing on what they deem their territory. So when their arch nemesis Burger King reentered the market in Poland recently they jumped right up to the challenge to combat Corporate Enemy No. 1. Complaining customers have now taken a back seat to position no.3, that is after employees, who capture second place and get the silver medal of necessary annoyances for the McProfiteering Industry.

I hope this article will be of interest to all grassroots activists in Poland who believe the growth of the Green Party in Poland can only mean a good thing. As the recent experience in Ireland proves, you are only setting yourself up for a big fall if you rely on parliamentary politics to make our planet more nonviolent, ecologically sustainable, socially just and democratic.

On Lice and Fleas

Observations Starting from the Conflict Between Iran and the USA

“Johnson, for sport perhaps, or from the spirit of contradiction, eagerly maintained that Derrick had merit as a writer. Mr. Morgan argued with him directly, in vain. At length he had recourse to this device. ‘Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you reckon Derrick or Smart the best poet?’ Johnson at once felt himself rouzed; and answered, ‘Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea’.” (James Boswell, Life of Johnson, 1791)

1.

Within the catalogue of absurd actions, values, goods, entertainments, aspirations, emotions and ideas that the society of the spectacle ubiquitously parades before us as a summation of all that has been said and done, and all that can be said and done, the dispute between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran has of late obtained a certain intermittent prominence.

2.

The possibility of an armed conflict between the United States and Iran is perhaps a fairly remote one. If and when an attack occurs, however, it will do so because that ever-shifting admixture of blind self-interest, shrewd strategic insight and deluded ideological delirium that characterizes the thought of the Bush administration and its global allies has come to conclude that the political and economic interests of the national and international capitalist systems they oversee would best be served by such a course of action. The ends pursued by such an attack would doubtless include the preservation of American and Israeli military hegemony within the region; the curtailment of an Iranian regional influence that has only been enhanced by the elimination of the hostile regime of Saddam Hussein and its replacement by a Shi’ite dominated government sympathetic to Iran; the opening-up of the vast Iranian oil reserves to less fettered use by the West; and the intimidation of present and potential opponents worldwide and those local governing regimes who have to date been dilatory in their submission to the dictates of the Western powers.

FAIRFORD FIVE LATEST: JOSH RICHARDS ACQUITTED, NEXT TRIAL 2 JULY

In March 2003 peace activist Josh Richards was arrested at RAF Fairford, reportedly heading towards the B52s stationed there, carrying a can of fuel and a box of matches with the intention of setting fire to them. After four years and two trials he was finally acquitted of the arson charge this Wednesday (6 June). Last month, Toby Olditch and Phil Pritchard were similarly acquitted of trying to break into RAF Fairford on the eve of the Iraq invasion with the intention of disabling the planes (see www.b52two.org).

Only one trial now remains, that of Margaret Jones and Paul Milling: from 10am, Monday 2 July, Bristol Crown Court, The Law Courts, Small Street, BS1 1DA. See http://tinyurl.com/2zpszn for background.

The Collective of “El Libertario”, Venezuelan anarchist newspaper, makes public its reasoned out position in the debate generated by the case of RCTV, in where the current government imposes a solution where we pass from the meanness that the capitalistic private oligopoly of TV to the dreadful that could be the monopoly of a bureaucratic and authoritarian state.