English

Press release International Press Group, 16th of May

*G8: German police declare a general ban on demonstrations in designated areas around the G8 summit
*Restrictions on the right to demonstrate are heavily criticized
*G8 summit protesters announce law suit

The special police department "Kavala", esponsible for the security of the G8 summit, has issued yesterday evening a so-called General Ban. This was formally communicated to the negotiators of one of the protest marches. In the past, "Kavala" always has denied plans of such a restriction of the right to protest. Even the website of "Kavala" has stated for months that no restrictions would be placed on demonstrations in the area of the fence. Now it is clear that no demonstrations against the G8 will be allowed in an area of several kilometers outside of the fence.

Rosatom (Russian Federal Agency on Atom Energy) is planning to build a new international center on enrichment of Uranium to city of Angarsk, which is located just 60 kilometres from Irkutsk and 120 kilomentres from lake Baikal. According to local activists, Rosatom just wants to profit by letting international nuclear industry to leave ecological costs of enrichment process to Siberians. But Siberia has already had more than its share of ecologically harmful industries and other menaces, such as clear-cutting of local forests. This is why local activists of Autonomous Action and from ecological "Lake Baikal movement" will organise a radical ecological protest camp, which is planned to start 15th of July 2007.

The Union of Khartoum University Professors has decided to stage a three-day strike as of Saturday 19 May to protest the firing of 152 faculty members.

Sanctifying our Domination over Nature
Next Sunday will witness a regional referendum in north-east Poland on the highway construction project, via Baltica, part of a highway linking Warsaw to Helsinki via the Baltic states. Thousands of residents will don their Sunday best, enter their local church, utter the Nicene Creed (without ever questioning what it means, who wrote it, or how it came about to be written), receive a Holy Communion wafer transubstantiated into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, pray their prayers whilst kneeling on uncomfortable wooden pews, then advance onwards to the polling stations to cast the final death knell of the unique Rospuda Valley. Church leaders in the region are firmly behind the government's plans - one would wonder whether they have also joined the property speculation along the route?

The Body and Blood of Christ
First Holy Communion is a Roman Catholic ritual celebrated worldwide during Pascal time. Being the first occasion whereby a child, usually around 7/8 years old, receives the transubstantiated body and blood of Jesus Christ, it is, one could fairly comment, a pretty significant symbolic and actual social and religious rite of passage for believers (that is if kids can deemed to have any concept about what it is they are supposed to believe. Afterall, adult Christians in the West would do well nowadays to recite the 10 commandments, the Nicene creed, and defend the notion of angels or even miracles).

A wafer and, ah, a helicopter
The reason I'm posting about this topic is as a result of overhearing kids I teach commenting on what they were getting for upcoming event. I was pretty amazed to hear one kid say, 'ja dostaje helikopter' - I'm getting a helicopter. "Jaysus", I blasphemed to myself, "isn't he a bit young to pilot such a machine?" But of course on further inquiry S. clarified that it was a remote control toy version that he was getting. "Phew", I uttered, wiping my brow. Yet, the truth for kids in Ireland is a little more surreal. I recently read in Angora magazine that Irish parents are actually booking helicopter rides for their kids as H.C. presents!

There has been many different, often opposite understandings in the Estonian public eye concerning the riots that took place in Tallinn and North-East Estonia at the end of April. Unfortunately, a lot of these opinions seem to rather deepen the current conflict than try to resolve it.

The main causes of what happened should not be looked for in the mainstream discourse, which tries to explain everyting on the basis of nationalist approach. We are much concerned, that this type of approach might lead to a proliferation of nationalist mentalities in Estonia – among both, Estonian and Russian communities. But it is important to understand, that the current intense situation originates from the very same nationalist and racist approach. In reality, there should not be ’us’ and ’them’ – there should be people living in Estonia.

The German police are continuing their repression of protests against the G8. A few days ago, over 40 places associated with activists were raided - people were taken in, computers stolen, etc. Now the press spokesman for the police has announced that the march for June 7 is banned.

Minister Schauble is also planning on introducing regulations which would allow "preventative arrest" on the grounds of mere suspicion.

The Inevitability of Parliamentary Skullduggery
The Polish parliament has a lot of eejits in its midst, and Artur Zawisza is certainly in the top ten. Usually it would be the reserve of extreme right-wing MP's from the League of Polish Families to come up with the most ludicrous notions for legislation, but it seems like Zawisza who recently left the governing Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (Law and Justice) party to help establish the more right-wing Prawica Rzeczypospolitej (Right of the Republic)is putting himself in pole position for the 2007 prize of political absurdity. Trying to out-right the right usually makes you look like a right fool - and Zawisza's battle against the devil in short skirts and low tops is an indication of the levels of crapology that have befallen the parliamentary scene here.

Surreality never escapes the world of news and on my cyber-browsing adventures today I noticed one quite unusual item concerning Polish immigrants in London.

Media Disservice
According to This is London news portal "Polish immigrants are coming to blows for the privilege of sleeping in public lavatories at a cost of just 20p per night."

It seems like Hackney East London has been experiencing builders with their tools making use of the local comfortable lavatories to catch up on lost sleep, revitalising their bodies before they return to the ever-booming building sites that remain a key driving force behind England's economic prosperity.

Battles for Beds
Locals have reported that scuffles break out on a daily basis between the cubicle's potential clients around 10.30pm as the homeless labourers battle for the prime positions. Allegedly, cleaners who turn up at the toilets the next morning have either been refused entry or violently reproached for daring to thread on the make-shift beds.

The Real Problems
But the reporting of this problem of course ignores the fact that rental prices are exorbitant and at times beyond the reach of labourers already being exploited by their greedy bosses. Let's gain some perspective here: people only sleep on cardboard in dirty, cramped piss holes when they are pretty fucking desperate, drunk or high. So the solution is not to write stupid articles like the one linked above from 'This is London' which lacks any analysis of 'why' people have the need to fight over such living conditions.

Wake-up Call
Civic society through NGOs, the Unions, the church, community groups, et al. should be doing all they can to ensure that employers pay their workers proper wages for their work while facilitating their safe accomodation. The city borough moreover should be proactively reclaiming derelict properties in the area to make them suitable for living in. So many properties are left idle in urban spaces so fatcats can sit and wait on their arses until the area becomes gentrified and the market prices rise to line their pockets with even more profit. More expenditure from the Labour gvt. to ensure the appropriate integration amd safety of emigrants would also go a long way to improving language skills as well as workers' knowledge on labour, health, safety and accomodation rights.

In Russia and Ukraine, anarchist organized May Day demonstrations in a number of cities, including Moscow, Kiev, Tyumen, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Tver, Rostov, Kazan and Krasnoyarsk. In other cities, including St. Petersburg, the anarchists went out in some opposition marches.

12h Reeperbahn / Spielbudenplatz, Hamburg St.Pauli

GATE TO GLOBAL RESISTANCE
for storming the summit and a entirely different entirety

At the 28th and 29th of may, the Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM) will take place in hamburg. This meeting with the EU-foreign ministers and 15 asian colleagues with 1400 bureaucratic assitants is set a few days
befor the G8-summit in Heiligendamm. During this summit the inner city will be transformed into a security zone. Hamburg is self-proclaiming as a "gate to the world" and the asian markets and it is hosting the largest conference in the FR Germany during the German EU Council
presidency.

We will disrupt this summit! We call for a demonstration aiming at the inner city and the summits location to attack the G8 and EU politics!

At least one worker fired after workers walk out to protest forced overtime.

LG is one of the biggest and most important companies operating in Poland. The group owns a wide variety of investments, most notably its TV and LCD monitor/ screen production in Mlawa and Biskupice Podgórne (near Wroclaw) and its refigerator and washing machine plant in Kobierzyce. The latter was opened thanks to a huge government / EU subsidy of hundreds of millions of euros; until 2016, LG Chem Poland, LG Electronics, LG Phillips and LG Innotek will receive free land, grants and tax exemptions. All these funds are being sunk into the development of Poland as a cheap labour manufacturing center for the European Union.

It took about an hour till 100 or so local anarchists converged in Dizengof round plaza at center of Tel Aviv. as the presence of police was too big, we moved in small groups to Meir garden, in hope to get rid of most of them. However, when we wanted to start the march from there, police blocked our way. After a while, few of us started to exit the garden around their block and they stopped their efforts. May be there was change of orders. (May be as the result of a big scandal in the media about the harsh suppression of the day before demonstration of the striking students.)
We started the march mainly on the pavement but also from time to time, when the pavement was narrow, people used the road too, while tree bicycles towing small courts with metal barrels used as drums travel in the road adjacent to us. From time to time policeman approach me and so happen to others who infringed the road, asking politely to return to the pavement....

The police averted clashes between anarchists and neo-Nazis at a rally of anarchists taking place outside the National Theatre, a journalist of FOCUS News Agency reported. The Federation of Bulgarian Anarchists said they had an official permission for the rally whereas the neo-Nazis had arrived at the site to sabotage the event. Policemen formed a human chain to keep the two groups apart. --- The neo-Nazis are dressed in red clothes and are waving black flags. Some of the anarchists hide their faces with cloths because they don’t want to be recognized by the neo-Nazis, who they consider to be killers. In spite of the attempts at sabotage, the anarchists voiced their demands for higher wages and better labor conditions.

On May 1 this year there seemed to be more small and medium-sized marches than usual in different cities throughout Poland. Anarchists organized marches in Poznan and in Warsaw.

The march in Poznan drew about 200-300 people and went from the Cegielski plant on a march through town. In Cegielski there has been a conflict between workers and the management over pay and a few days earlier there were some protests in front of the factory. Unfortunately few of the people who worked there came, probably prefering to enjoy the long weekend. Protestors demanded a self-managed republic and told the government to go to work for 600 zloties a month (150 euros). Speakers demanded a 30% wage increase for everybody.