News from the class war in Greece

Occupied London has several news snippets from Greece which I deem interesting to share:

• Nazi politician threatens anarchist with gun in confronted demos in Volos (Thessaly). 12 arrested from both sides but released.
• Police threatens members of the unemployed workers' association. Just because.
• Acropolis police station suffers major damages in arson attack. Five police vehicles (two cars and three motorcycles, as well as other vehicles confiscated or of unknown affiliation) burned last night.
• Police attacks antifascist demo on motorcycles (Athens, tonight). The DELTA police corps, who rides on motorcycles themselves and are mostly members of the fascist party, seem to have taken this protest as a personal challenge. Several injured by police brutality.

Coincidently, North American communist website has an interesting article on how fascists are deeply entrenched in the Greek apparatus and are being groomed to become the replacement of the pseudo-democratic government that administers the interests of the bourgeoisie today in Greece.

Basque Country: four arrested when attempting sabotage

Four people have been arrested in Basauri (near Bilbao) when allegedly trying to sabotage a telephone repeating unit belonging to the largest Spanish company, Teléfonica. The four arrested are from Bilbao. 

A protest was called for this evening in Santutxu but I have no info on how it went.

Source: Bilboko Branka[eu].


Update (Oct 2): two days later they have been set free[es], what would not happen if the evidence of their sabotages was even half-clear. Smelling fishy.

Coup in Curaçao may want to prevent elections

Schotte

There are contradictory interpretations on whether it is a coup or a legitimate democratic act with the blessings of the colonial power (Netherlands) and the secret service but the facts on the ground of the South American island are quite straightforward:

On August 3rd PM Gerrit Schotte dissolved Parliament and called for new elections after he lost the support of the majority. 

The elections are schduled for October 19th. 

On September 29th, the dissolved Parliament gathered and deposed Schotte, appointing a new interim Prime Minister, Stanley Betrian, who was sworn not by the actual Governor General, Frits Goedgedrag, but by some acting governor Adeel van der Pluijm-Vrede (Goedgedrag is allegedly hospitalized overseas[nl] but according to Schotte, he left the country after first attempting to stage the coup himself).

Betrian

Schotte and his government have denounced this as a coup because, in agreement with the constitution, the dissolved parliament cannot gather, much less replace the Prime Minister. He has accused the secret services of being behind the coup, which he thinks is an attempt to sabotage the upcoming elections.

The Schotte cabinet refuses to abandon government buildings, while some people protests outside. They have suspended all the powers of the secret service, previously involved in other scandals.

I do not have a clear stand (not enough information yet) but I do fear and reject any attempt to prevent the people speaking out freely in elections. 

Curaçao is a country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, whose main language is Papiamentu (a distinct creole language based on Portuguese with diverse other influences, specially African ones), Dutch being co-official (but commonly spoken by a small minority only). In recent years it attained quasi-independence in all but foreign relations and defense, which are still in Dutch hands. The country is not part of the European Union but has an association treaty instead.

Sources: LINyM[es], Curaçao Chronicle, Caribbean 360, Radio Netherlands Worldwide 

.

Basque Country: occupied social center evicted

The gaztetxe (youth house, occupied social center) of the populous and popular neighborhood of Santutxu (Bilbao, Basque Country) has been forcibly evicted by police today. A wall has been erected to prevent access. 

The building had been 10 years empty and forgotten but a few weeks of popular activities are enough for our fascist bourgeois masters to intervene. Why? Because it threatens the core of the system: the absurd notion of unlimited private property - but then socialize the loses, eh?!

Sources: La Haine, Branka (photo gallery).

Huge anti-austerity protests rock Lisbon, Madrid and many other European cities

Hundreds of thousands protested today in both Iberian capitals against the brutality of the austerity measures designed to feed the banksters at the expense of the very lives of the people.

Top: Lisbon, bottom: Madrid

Lisbon

In Lisbon some 100,000 people marched through the city crying against the so-called "troika" (EC, ECB and IMF) that dictates the politics in the European Union with zero democratic legitimacy these days and against the Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, whose resignation demanded.

The main union CGTP has called for another protest this Tuesday and will probably call for a general strike soon.

Unlike in Madrid, police did not attack the protesters, so the demonstration remained peaceful.




Police violence again in Madrid

In Madrid, the neo-fascist regime attempted again to quell the protests in blood and shackles by releasing the dogs, the police, without any leash.

It was the third journey of protest in a single week in the Spanish capital and it was again full of people, as you can see in the images:

In order to prevent a complete understanding of the dimension of the protest, the regime forbade air coverage by the media. Later on the rectified, probably realizing that they would be throwing away their last remnants of legitimacy

Through the evening there were many actions of repression, including the arrest of a protester who dared to address the police as "comrades" (take note: they are not your "comrades" but dangerous mercenaries of the banksters), but the real violence began already in the night, with violent charges against those who attempted to stay in Neptuno Plaza. They obviously fear a repetition of the Plazas movement but whatever the shape it takes, they are obviously reaching the limit in their contention capability and I truly expect a most hot Autumn, Winter and Spring...

Hateful debt: referendum

Large protests also elsewhere

In Valencia, Zaragoza, Sevilla and many other cities of the Spanish state but also in the continent: in Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris or London there have been protests of greater or smaller size. The current "troika" regime is clearly less and less legitimate in the streets of Europe.

Seville

London (before the Spanish embassy)

Valencia

Sources (mostly in Spanish): La Voz, Kaos-1, Kaos-2, La Haine, La Información, Al Jazeera, Público, Caracol.

Another minor murdered by the Bahraini fascist regime

The Fascist Sunni Fundamentalist regime of Bahrain keeps murdering citizens in the name of God and with Western weaponry. The latest victim of the Theocracy has been Ali Hassan Neamah, who was killed with shotguns, usually used by the riot police of that cruel regime financed by the USA, Britain and other administrative subdivisions of the NATO Empire. 

Source and many more photos: Bahrain Center for Human Rights. 

Dublin march for the freedom of political prisoner Marian Price

Marian Price has been arrested without charges for many months now in spite of her delicate health. Being a former IRA member, she was under freedom on license but in 2011 she was accused by the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson, and jailed without trial nor apparent evidence of any sort.

Another person imprisoned arbitrarily in a similar manner is Martin Corey but Price has become more of a rally point because of her health problems apparently.

The march was opened by the flute band Pride of Erin and had banners of the four historical Irish regions and the one of Ireland, as well as couple of anarchist ones carried independently. The march was called by much of Republican (Irish Nationalist) parties and movements in both administrative divisions, as well as the anarchist organization Workers' Solidarity Movement and Troskyist Workers' Socialist Party. At least 30 Irish MPs support the liberation of Price, some of them were in the march (Thomas Pringle, Dessie Ellis and Clare Daly).

The Garda (Irish police) filmed it all and collected names and addresses of some participants in a clear intimidation tactic.

Among the speakers, Paulin Mellon proclaimed repentance of having supported the Good Friday agreement, because it is only used today to justify persistent British occupation in her opinion.

Videos:

March:

Declarations:

Source: Borroka garaia da![es]

See also: Committee for the Liberation of Marian Price.

USA: St. Louis citizens were "guinea pigs" for radioactive experiments

Research into formerly classified documents has brought both Missouri senators to demand official explanations. Apparently the US Army sprayed some working class buildings in St. Louis (Missouri) with radioactive powder, affecting their residents who were mostly black children in a cruel experiment comparable to those of the infamous Doctor Mengele.

The reports tell of great increase of lung cancers in the affected areas. 

The experiment was conducted with the help of infamous company US Radium, guilty of many other cases of radiation poisoning. 

Sources and more extensive information: Energy News, STL Beacon, KDSK-5.

The massive no-go zone in Japan

Based on the latest radiation measures by Prof. Hayakawa[jp], I estimated the following "no go" zones in Japan based on the radioactive cesium found in the "black dust" (dirt in the roadside, often hotspots of radiation):

My opinion: the red areas are a no-go zone (but many millions live in them)

No specifics strict terminology can be applied because there is no absolute rule on how radiation affects you considering only on becquerels per kilogram. But based on the notion that Japan considered, prior to the accident, that 100 Bq/kg to be radioactive waste, then I would say that the colors could mean:

• Fukushima: don't go at all: killer zone. The westernmost part of the department would be however in the red zone (still very bad).
• Red Zone: avoid it all you can, bring food and water from the outside, try not to live there, very specially not children nor pregnant women. Roadside hotspots here typically have 1000-10,000 Bq/kg, 10x to 100x what used to be considered nuclear waste, sometimes even much more. In some cases, specially in Greater Tokyo, the measures are almost as high as in Fukushima.
• Orange Zone: less dangerous, with roadside hotspots often above the 100 Bq/kg "nuclear waste" measure but nothing >1000 Bq/kg.
• Yellow areas: some >100 Bq/kg hotspots and often >30 Bq/kg ones but generally within safety levels.
• Not colored: either unknown of clearly low radioactivity.

Special acknowledgement to Ex-SKF (I don't speak Japanese so I could have missed a lot of information without his explanations in English).

Note: at the time of writing this note, I could not open the first map (radiation fallout contours for April 2011), which gave me a 404 error, but here there is another link (3.3 MB, jpg format).

Special warning on Japanese food: while these maps reflect environmental radioactive risk, the Japanese government is applying a criminal policy of forcing people to eat radioactive food, apparently because they just do not want to evacuate Fukushima so they pretend it's all alright (when it's obviously not), and often the origin of products is criminally mislabeled. Hence all Japanese food and products are suspect and potentially dangerous and you may well be unlucky enough to eat the wrong sushi snack and get radiation poisoning, while another dish may be perfectly edible. Personally, in the current conditions of lack of control, I would not eat anything Japanese if I can help it, nor seafood nor mushrooms from anywhere in all the North Pacific basin.

Uruguay: first Latin American state, after Cuba, to allow women to decide on their pregnancies

In a major landmark legal vote, the Parliament of the Oriental Republic of the Uruguay passed the law that legalizes abortion in the initial third months of pregnancy, the only requisite being to go through a minimal medical counseling phase. 

The vote was very tight, 50 to 49, because the fascist influence of Catholic Fundamentalism is still too strong in the continent.

Women's right to abortion worldwide (cc NuclearVacuum):
· Legal
· Legal with restrictions (note: Uruguay just changed to "blue" zone)

· Illegal with some exceptions
· Totally illegal
· Varies through regions

President José Mujica has the power to veto the law but he clearly will not do that, being a supporter of legalization himself.

Source: LINyM[es].

Nazi attack against Tanzanian center in Athens

From OL-FTGS:

Tanzanian Community centre by Amerikis (America) Square in Athens vandalized by neonazis; immediate response with anti-nazi demonstration by anarchists, migrants and people in solidarity

What follows is a report by 1againstracism about the events of September 24th, in Amerikis Square, Athens. The same group of racists, fascists and nazis described below had planned to repeat their gathering on the eve of Sep 26, the day of the general strike. Hundreds of antifascists, anarchists and people in solidarity gathered in Amerikis square, while no more than a handful of the fascists had gathered at the same time.

Greek original

On the evening of Monday 24 September, between 10 and 11.30 in the evening, a group of shop owners and residents of the area visited the community’s centre and asked those present to leave. Once it was established by those gathered at the centre that it  was a cultural centre, and once the relevant documents were presented,threats were fired at the members of the community organization, should they refuse to close. On the following evening, there were about 10 members of the Tanzanian community in the building, when, at around 1 past midnight, a group of 80 members of Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) visited the premises. Those gathered called the police, which promptly arrived. They then summoned the President of the community as well as the former president. The police led those gathered in the centre out of the building. A while later, at around 2.30-3.00 at night, the Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) returned and ransacked the place.

Germany boils under the surface as they face the harsh reality of the economic crisis

The Real News is one of the best video-information sites in English language surely. These days, among other excellent reports, they have a quite interesting double interview with German left-wing politicians and social activists, revealing that the German pot is boiling underneath the surface because the policies their leaders promote are self-destructive and only benefit a tiny elite of capitalist speculators.

Intros in English, interviews in German with English subtitles:

Portugal: 'austerity' may close Côa Park

Côa engravings (CC by Henrique Matos)

Côa Valley is not just a fantastic natural park in the NE of Portugal but also one of the key areas of European Prehistory, hosting the famous mural engravings the Upper Paleolithic.

The Portuguese government decided on Tuesday (Sep. 25) to suspend its existence and is considering its complete dismantling, as part of the austerity efforts imposed by the IMF and the EU. 

The cost of the park is 1.4 million euros yearly.

No cuts are known to affect the Armed Forces for example, even if Portugal has not known enemies anymore and could do with just some patrol ships. 

Source: RTP Noticias[por] (via Pileta).

Venice protests against big boats

From Struggles in Italy:

No Big Boats protest in Venice

On Sunday September 17 around 500 demonstrators gathered by foot and by boat at the San Marco basin, to protest against the transit of the big cruise boats close to the fragile Venice. The committee which called for the demonstration accuses the floating giants passing just in front of San Marco, in the Giudecca channel, of damaging the city and the lagoon environment. Angelo Marzollo, ex-UNESCO official for the preservation of Venice’s channel system and venetian lagoon, is one of the most authoritative voices who support and take part in the protest. For years he has stated that the big cruise boats cause a disaster to the lagoon environment and dig deep in its floor, causing the calm lagoon to look more and more like the sea. And this puts the delicate Venice structures in a real danger.

... continue reading at Struggles in Italy.

Brutal radioactive contamination of pregnant woman in Iwaki, Fukushima

From Fukushima Diary:

3300 Bq/Kg from a pregnant woman in Iwaki city Fukushima

3300 Bq/Kg of radioactive material was measured from a pregnant woman in Iwaki city.

If this woman weighs 50kg, it is 165,000 Bq/body.

Fukushima minpo, the original source of this information didn’t address the nuclide, but it’s probably cesium134/137.

Iwaki city has been conducting health check for internal exposure.

The test is for under 18 (on 3/12/2011) and pregnant women who received

maternity health record book from 7/2010 to 7/2011.

They have collected the result of 12,134 people, and they detected radioactive material from 620 of them.

Related article.. 20,000 Bq/body from a man in Fukushima

Iwaki is located near Fukushima Daini, the other Fukushima nuclear power plant, which also suffered some sort of ill-reported accident in March 2011. However the contamination can well have arrived via the air from Fukushima Daiichi, somewhat further North.

While there is no straightforward method to "translate" becquerels (Bq, equivalent to disintegration-per-second) into sieverts (Sv), which are the estimated units of radioactive health risk, it is clear that those amounts are brutal and the life of woman and child are in dire straits.

Madrid: second evening of protests and second night of repression

Following the call of yesterday's assembly, today there has been another massive demonstration at Plaza Neptuno with the mind set in Congress. A third demo has been called by the ad-hoc popular assembly for Saturday 29th (not sure at what hour). 

For hours the protest was without incidents (even if it was not authorized) but after it began self-dissolving at c. 22:00, police charged since c. 23:40 against the smaller groups that remained in Neptuno Plaza. Some of the victims of this belated police rampage are a group of French tourists and another one of Chinese investors who had their business dinner in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also at least on journalist was injured and his camera broken by police agents.

Among the protesters' slogans there was special emphasis in demanding the freedom of those arrested, mostly unlucky peaceful protesters picked at random. Another victim of their puns was the recently resigned President of Madrid Region, Esperanza "Espe" Aguirre, a Gestapo-style mafiosa deeply involved in the Bankia scam. My translation:

Espe we love you, Espe please stay...

we were just joking: Espe kill yourself!

The struggle is 

the only way.

From East to West,

from North to South,

the struggle continues

no matter what.

Freedom, freedom,

arrested for struggling,

if they hit one,

they hit us all.

Sources[es]: Kaos, La Haine, Público.

Night report on the Basque General Strike

This mini-report follows the previous one (morning with afternoon updates) and another one that only covered the early morning in Navarre.

Most briefly it can be said as follows: 

1. Greater than 50% following on average (greatest in Gipuzkoa, small in Southern Navarre)
2. Massive demonstrations gathering hundreds of thousands in the morning and the evening, in the capital cities and in the smaller ones (which can well be compared as a whole with the 1.5 million of Barcelona the other day for independence because the Basque Country is much smaller than Catalonia - but also the normal thing here in the Euskal Herria, a massive demand for independence and socialism that is systematically ignored or disdained)
3. Violent police aggressions, specially in Pamplona but also in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Bilbao and Atarrabia, resulting in at least five injured (one could lose an eye), important clashes in the case of Pamplona and an unknown number of arrested citizens

Images tell much more than words often:

Santurtzi

Iruñea - Pamplona

Two people injured in eyes by rubber bullets (probable loss of eye)

Solidarity demo in Zaragoza (Aragon) tonight

Bilbao

The only cut that will get us out of the crisis: Independence

Iruñea-Pamplona

Bilbao: farmers also stopped today

Trapagaran

Orereta

Barakaldo

Laudio

Barañain

Vitoria-Gasteiz

Portugalete

Irun

Legazpi

Lasarte-Oria

Zarautz

Basauri

Durango

Donostia (San Sebastian)

Vitoria-Gasteiz: police violence

Hernani

Zornotza

Beasain

Doneztebe

"Souvenir from Spain" reads in this rubber bullet shot in San Nicolás street, Pamplona (source)

Most of these and many more, as well as many videos, you can find at the Greba dedicated site or their "storify" special page.

Additionally:

• For the demo of Bilbao specifically, Bilboko Branka has created a Google+ gallery.
• In Tudela there was clear tension as a picket booed the office of the ruling party in Spain.
• Various photo galleries on the protests and incidents in Pamplona and elsewhere in Navarre can be accessed via Ateak Ireki[es].
• A short news claims[es] that the youth arrested yesterday in Iturrama protesting at a bank office will be brought to Madrid for inquisitorial probable torture and mock-trial, accused of both terrorism and attempting to rob a bank.
• The number of arrested citizens is not fully clear yet but at least 14 were in Navarre (AI[es]).
• Atarrabia-Burlata march (video)

I have read or heard many people saying that it is not enough with this strike and that a more continuous state of organization, subversion and even uprising must be achieved if we really want to make change happen. For example that's what Axier López wrote[eu] for Argia magazine and reflected in several online media. In some cases that is materializing in form of post-strike assemblies to take place this or the next week.


Spanish media ignored the strike

Also as closing note to mention how the Basque general strike has been almost totally ignored by the Spanish media, demonstrating once again that the Basque Country is NOT Spain but that we even seem to exist in different continents altogether, maybe even in different dimensional planes.

For example the "left-leaning" online newspaper Público, relegated the Basque strike to a small corner at the very bottom of a very large page with just passing mention of 18 arrests, above it not just the Greek strike and the protests and incidents of Madrid but all other kinds of stuff like: purchasing power falls 7% on tax rises, Mercadona (Barcelona distribution market) stops selling products from (Moroccan-occupied) West Sahara, appeal against the "tax amnesty", opinion articles on Gibraltar and the legal status of the Catholic Church, and many other news and opinion articles that, while no doubt interesting, do not have the relevance of a general strike that has, once again almost paralized the Basque Country.

But it is clear that the Basque Country is not Spain, certainly not for the Spanish media. Maybe we can get out of this prison of nations and they will not notice at all? Doubt it.

Mini-update: Maybe it's better that they ignore us after all, otherwise it may happen as with the Financial Times, who opens with the news of "Spanish turmoil" and illustrates it with the image of "Spanish" (sic) MP Sabino Cuadra being beaten by a "Basque" (sic) police agent.

Not sure if they mean that we Basques must be always the "bad guys" but the reality is that Sabino is a Basque MP who was beaten by Spanish National Police.

That is the reality. Somebody tell those guys please!

Otherwise, what can I say: hilarious.

Source: Ateak Ireki[eu/en/es].

Greek general strike (Sep-26-2012)

I can't really make a synthesis of what Greece has gone (is still going?) through today, focused as I have been into more nearly protests like the Basque general strike and the repeated protests in Madrid. But I will try to briefly mention what I could gather from various sources...

Occupied London - From the Greek Streets has been keeping a "live ticker" on the protests today which is anyhow just a snippet. They have also published this short video of some of the action in Athens:

..

Following them and complementing with scattered twitter reports, it seems that, since the beginning of the journey, police attacked pickets in the capital (and surely also elsewhere). Several facilities were occupied by workers.

At 13:00 there was a vast demonstration in Athens of 200,000 people or more, marching to the Parliament behind the banner of the municipal workers' union. March whose photos (retouched to prevent repression, I guess) are available at Athens Indymedia (again online). Some examples:

At 13:30 the front of the march arrived to the fence separating them from Parliament, some people attempted to overcome it, information of small groups of Nazis wanting to attack the crowd.

By 14:20 police had already charged, throwing huge amounts of tear gas, initiating yet another day of riots in Athens, one of the oldest cities of Europe.

Greece has strong networks of organized revolutionary citizens, so police were not the only ones to hit. There was organized response as you may have watched on TV. 

By 14:35 the situation was a bit calmer again and the demonstration could continue. Around that time, neighborhood assemblies called for a march against police stations in demand of freedom for arrestees, among whom there was at least on journalist arrested for carrying a gas mask (a must-have survival item these days, I'd say). 

Around 15:10, Delta police squad attacked Omonoia metro station, throwing stun grenades inside (crazy, if you ask me but that's what they did).

Since 15:25 police attacked Exarcheia, the most socio-politically dynamic neighborhood of Athens, with clashes extending for the next hours and hundreds of arrested people, who are held deprived of lawyer assistance. 

There was a demo called for 19:00 at Gardenia Square but OL-FTGS does not have data for later than c. 18:00, when the relative peace of police occupation fell on Exarcheia. 

A reasonably good Al Jazeera video-report:

... mentioning not just the protests and clashes but also the massive human tragedy behind them.

I will update if I gather more information (nothing new by 1:00am, sorry).