Sep 15 2005
Tags: ALCOA, Laws, Ólafur Páll Sigurdsson, Pollution, Trinidad & Tobago
From NoSmelterTNT
5 September 2005
US Aluminum Giant Alcoa is facing massive criticism over a proposed 340,000 metric ton smelter plant in Cap De Ville in the Caribbean Island of Trinidad. The country of Trinidad is one of the most densely populated places on earth with 249 persons per sq. kilometer and also already ranks very high in pollution levels due to ongoing industrialization. According to world bank statistics, Trinidad is #5 in the world when it comes to Carbon Dioxide Pollution. Read More
Sep 05 2005
Tags: Actions, ALCOA, Corruption, Ecology, Impregilo, India, Kárahnjúkar, Landsvirkjun, Laws, Media bias, Ólafur Páll Sigurdsson, Pollution, Repression
Corporate Watch
Newsletter 25
Direct action against the Karahnjukar hydro-electric dam project in Iceland has started in earnest. The dam will devastate Western Europe’s last pristine wilderness, solely to power an Alcoa aluminium smelter (see Corporate Watch number 23, April May 2005, page 9)
In June, three activists invaded the 10th World Aluminium Conference, Reykjavik, covering speakers from Alcoa and Bechtel (who are building the smelter) in green yoghurt during their talk on ‘sustainable’ aluminium. All three were charged with causing up to £50,000 of damage. British activist Paul Gill was held for four days. With the construction of the dam now more than half complete, an international protest camp has been set up near to the site. Over 30 people have gathered to organise direct action against the continuing devastation of global ecology in the interest of corporate profits. The 19th July saw Iceland’s first ever lock on blockade, when 25 activists shut down the site for three hours, locking on to a Caterpillar construction vehicle and a pick up truck at the main junction in the site and blocking two other access roads. Fifteen were arrested and later released without charge. Impreglio, the Italian construction firm building the dam, threatened to take civil charges against the activists but has since backtracked. Experts concur that 90% of the irreversible environmental damage will be done only when the water floods the land, so its not too late to protect Iceland’s ecology, and with Smyril Line offering a round trip on the ferry for £49 from Shetland, what better place is there to spend the rest of your summer?
ANARCHY IN ICELAND
Iceland was under attack. Violent international protestors were arriving on its shores, fresh from the G8 and bent on futher destruction. The Icelandic police were calling for the urgent tightening of border controls. Laws had just been passed allowing foreigners to have their phones tapped, their houses searched, and their possessions confiscated, all without warrants. News presenters were emitting warning gouts of Icelandic, spattered with the word ‘Anarkisti!’, alongside blown-up images of figures in IRA balaclavas. There was muttered talk, on all sides, of terrorism. Read More
Aug 29 2005
Tags: ALCOA, Barclays, Climate Change, Corruption, Ecology, Greenpeace, Greenwash, Impregilo, India, Kárahnjúkar, Landsvirkjun, Langisjór, Pollution, Repression, Saving Iceland, Skagafjörður, Skjálfandafljót, WWF, Þjórsárver
With the growing awareness of climate change, carbon emission restrictions may not be too far off. Because countries that pollute the most may well get the heaviest restrictions, rather than seeking to reduce their emissions many industrial corporations are looking to move operations abroad.
Iceland, despite modern European levels of education, welfare and wealth, has almost no heavy industry. Their carbon rations will be up for grabs. Seeing the extra pollution coming, in 2001 Iceland got a 10% increase on the CO2 limits imposed by the Kyoto treaty. The problem is that the lack of heavy industry means a lack of the major power supply needed for such things. But Iceland has glacial rivers in vast areas unpopulated by humans; land for hydroelectric dams that can be seen as carbon-neutral. Read More
Aug 28 2005
Tags: Actions, ALCOA, Century Aluminum, Kárahnjúkar, Landsvirkjun, Laws, Ólafur Páll Sigurdsson, Pollution, R & D Carbon, Repression, Rio Tinto Alcan, Saving Iceland
Did the Icelandic authorities think that their terrorizing of legitimate international protesters would stamp out all resistance against their criminal destruction of the last great European wilderness?! If so, they were wrong!
Saving Iceland are delighted to report that at noon on Friday 26. August three courageous Icelandic demonstrators climbed the roof of the head offices of the Icelandic Government and tore down the cloven flag of the Icelandic state, replacing it with a banner saying in Icelandic “NO DAMNED ALUMINIUM FACTORIES”. They then proceeded to have coffee and cakes on the roof. The demonstrators are not linked with the protests in the East and in Reykjavík this summer. Read More
Aug 21 2005
Tags: Democracy deficit, Kárahnjúkar, Laws, Repression, Saving Iceland
Click for video: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2005/08/321384.mov
A small specimen of the repression that legitimate international protesters have had to endure from the Icelandic authorities this summer.
Neither of the two civilian cop thugs ever produced any credentials or reason for the arrests. The girl was detained for several hours. The boy for 25 hours. Both arrests turned out to be completely illegal!
That same night the Icelandic cop thugs knocked unconscious a 74 year old professor of medicine who wanted to make enquires about those who had been arrested. The man was unconscious for about half an hour. The cops refused to call an ambulance for their victim.
The professor is pressing charges against the police.
Aug 21 2005
Tags: Actions, Kárahnjúkar, Laws, Repression, Saving Iceland
The police have completely over reacted in Iceland against people protesting, or people seen to be supporting them.
Marked and unmarked police vehicles followed people hitching along the south route for days and vehicles driving the north route were followed in to the middle of nowhere overnight. The national news has shown film of an undercover (not anymore!) car tailing people in Reykjavik round and round a roundabout!
The authorities are obviously scared of these new direct action tactics spreading in Iceland and are throwing all their (limited) resources at us. The police were made to look ridiculous as we outsmarted them at every move in the highlands, now they look even worse for over reacting.
Aug 18 2005
Tags: ALCOA, Kárahnjúkar, Laws, Repression, Saving Iceland
Deportation papers have been issued for 21 people involved in the blockade at the Karahnjukar dam construction site on the 19th July and an action at the Alcoa alluminium smelter plant in the Reyðarfjörður on the 4th August.
Read More
Aug 18 2005
Tags: ALCOA, Cultural, Repression, Saving Iceland
On Saturday 13th August a fun and peaceful picnic was held in Parliament Square. There was street theatre including clowns and a giant evil octopus with blue hands to symbolize the web of corruption in Iceland. We shared cake and played games with the Icelandic people. Our fun was disrupted when the forces of evil came and snatched an Icelandic street performer wearing a police jacket. They also tried to take someone wearing a home-made Alcoa jacket but he was successfully de-arrested.
