News
Jan 18 2006
Actions, ALCOA, Bechtel, Century Aluminum, Greenwash, Heavy Industry, Kárahnjúkar, Landsvirkjun, Laws, Ólafur Páll Sigurdsson, Repression, Rio Tinto Alcan, Saving Iceland
Two of the activists who took part in the June 2005 Hotel Nordica ‘skyr’ action at the International Aluminium Conference, have recently been sentenced in Reykjavik municipal court to two months in prison suspended for two years and a £6000 “cleaning up bill”, fines and expences.
Hotel Nordica is frequently host to international heavy industry conferences. According to the owners of Hotel Nordica it cost over £5000 to hire a carpet cleaner for two hours! The original claim of Hotel Nordica (owned by Icelandair) was £55.000. ‘Skyr’ is a perfectly harmless jogurt like substance and nobody was hurt during the incident.
The action was a prelude to the Saving Iceland international protest camp which took place in the Icelandic higlands near the building site of Kárahnjúkar dams. The Kárahnjúkar dams are being built to provide bogus “green energy” for a 360.000 tons ALCOA owned aluminium smelter which is now being built by war profiteers Bechtel in the east of Iceland. This project alone threatens to destroy the largest pristine wilderness of Europe.
The protest camp was heavily persecuted by the Icelandic police through out the summer and exposed the repressive nature of the Icelandic government. The actions invigorated the Icelandic environmentalist movement and the opposition to the Kárahnjúkar dams and numerous other similar dam projects planned all over the Icelandic highlands, just to create energy for foreign aluminium corporations. These “developments” will destroy some of the most ecologically sensitive and beautifully preserved wildernesses in Europe. Read More
Jan 14 2006
1 Comment
ALCOA, Cultural, Ecology, Economics, Heavy Industry, Kárahnjúkar, Landsvirkjun, Saving Iceland
The interview was conducted at the time of the Stop the dams! gig in January 2006. Björk is an internationally acclaimed musician and has often spoken out against the heavy industry policy of the Icelandic government. Björk will be joining the international protest camp near Kárahnjúkar this year.
Josie Demuth: What, for you, makes Icelandic nature so special that you want to stop it’s destruction and participate in this concert?
Björk: It is the largest untouched area in Europe and I feel it is not only my duty to speak out as an Icelander but as a European. The situation has reached a cross roads, Iceland’s economy which was 70 per cent fish went down, so what instead? The attention went from the sea to the land. Fifteen years ago they stopped building a dam in the 1970s because people spoke out and there were artistic protests. But now in 2005 there is this industrial revolution and this way of thinking to sacrifice nature for progress. They are not long term benefits and we can do so much more with nature. We can work with nature, for example, hotels have been put up all over Iceland, and there are tourist centres to tell tourists about the nature. We will not be able to rewind this natural destruction and as I’ve travelled I’ve begun to realise that this is not a modern way of thinking. 50 years ago were independent but what are we gonna do in 100 years now? We are not making progress with this. Read More
Jan 13 2006
ALCOA, Cultural, Saving Iceland
21-22nd January 2006 Read More
Jan 06 2006
India, Repression
Dear Friends – Narendra Modi (CM, Gujarat) has called a meeting of CMs of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh on 7th January 07 (tomorrow) to seek consent on erecting the gates on the Sardar Sarovar Dam wall, which is already raised to 122 mts height when thousands of affected families are yet to receive land and get resettled and rehabilitated. If the gates are erected and height is raised to 138.68 mts, it will lead to a watery grave, unjust and illegal. This must not happen after 21 years of struggle by the people, adivasis and farmers, who raised basic questions related to development. Please therefore get into action here and now. Read More
Dec 19 2005
1 Comment
ALCOA, Century Aluminum, Cultural, Democracy deficit, Impregilo, Kárahnjúkar, Landsvirkjun, Pollution, Rio Tinto Alcan, Þjórsá
SOLD OUT
BJÖRK * ZEENA PARKINS * MÚM * DAMIEN RICE * LISA HANNIGAN * GHOSTIGITAL * DAMON ALBARN * EGÓ * MAGGA STÍNA BAND * MUGISON * RASS * SIGUR RÓS * KK * HAM * HJÁLMAR + SURPRISE GUESTS
Read More
Nov 10 2005
Economic Collapse, Economics, Kárahnjúkar, Landsvirkjun, Ólafur Páll Sigurdsson, Pollution, Repression
“It’s just as if they wanted to ban a religion”
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Icelandic government faces difficult criticism from Left-Greens over heavy-industry policy.
Yesterday MP’s of the Left Green Party criticised severely the government’s aluminium policy, saying that Stalin himself couldn’t have done better in creating a mass-production industrial hell and likened Landsvirkjun, the National Power Company, to the Fenrir of Iceland (Fenrir, in Norse mythology, is a gigantic and terrible wolf that according to a prophecy will be responsible for the destruction of the earth).
In his reply the Prime Minister, Mr. Asgrimsson, implied that opposing the destruction of nature for multinational aluminium corporations amounted to “wanting to ban a religion”.
Mr. Ásgrímsson’s answer may explain why most MP’s and ministers don’t listen to scientists’ and other professionals’ warnings and ignore the outcries of people who are losing their jobs and companies which are going bankrupt as a result of the unhealthy expansion of the small Icelandic economy, directly caused by the gargantuan Kárahnjúkar project.
But now we know, it’s a question of faith!
Oct 25 2005
Actions, Ecology, India, Landsvirkjun, Langisjór, Pollution, Repression, Rio Tinto Alcan, Þjórsárver
25 October 2005
Five people locked together using lock-on tubes blocking the only access road and denying entry to vehicles supplying equipment essential in the infrastructure and operation of the ALCAN smelter at Fort William, Scotland. The blockade started at the beginning of the morning shift change and lasted for almost five hours.
Read More
Oct 14 2005
ALCOA, Amazon, Australia, India, Landsvirkjun, Surinam, WWF
NACIÓN CONDENADA
“Con un coste de más de 1 billón de dólares, el
proyecto de la presa hidroeléctrica de Karahnjukar en Islandia, es un proyecto enormemente controvertido.”
(Mark Lynas/The Ecologist v.33, n.10, 1. Enero 2004)
Mark Lynas viajó hasta el meollo de la cuestión,
esperando descubrir por sí mismo la verdadera cara de este monstruo industrial.
“Sólo llevaba tres días en Islandia y todo iba mal. Estaba allí para investigar el gigantesco proyecto de la fundición de aluminio de Karahnjúkar, una enorme presa hidroeléctrica que está actualmente siendo construida en un lugar remoto de las tierras altas del este. Muy polémico durante el periodo de planificación, Karahnjúkar desencadenó manifestaciones nacionales, campañas internacionales de envío de e-mails y faxes e incluso una huelga de hambre llevada a cabo por la madre de la cantante Björk. Ya había visto otros proyectos de presas destrozar paisajes naturales y sociedades humanas en sitios como India y Brasil.Para mí era bastante claro que las grandes presas son generalmente algo nefasto. Aun así, me encontré sentado en la oficina de Mr Thorsteinn Hilmarsson, agente de prensa de la compañía eléctrica nacional Landsvirkjun, que me estaba convenciendo de que Karahnjukar era, en realidad, beneficioso. Read More
Oct 06 2005
ALCOA, Bechtel, Ecology, Kárahnjúkar, Landsvirkjun, Laws, Norsk Hydro, Pollution, Repression
Iceland Review
06/10/2005
Supreme Court invalidates environmental assessment of Alcoa smelter.
Site of the illegal smelter
Yesterday the Supreme Court of Iceland invalidated the decision of the Minister of the Environment to waive the requirement for Alcoa to undergo an environmental assessment before obtaining a license to operate the smelter currently under construction at Reyðarfjörður on the East Coast. Read More
