France: The Intergalactic Week of Zad
The quiet, wildlife-filled countryside just outside Notre-Dame-des-Landes, north of Nantes has been a point of massive contention between various French governments and the country’s environmental direct action movement since 2008, when permission was granted to build a €580 million airport serving as “the international gateway” to Western France.
Squats and camps sprung up on fields due for the rumble of the bulldozer in the early 2010s, and it came… Continue reading
Greek anarchists hit out at Syriza crackdown and Irianna jailing
Last month a PhD student named only as “Irianna” by the press was jailed for 13 years for being a member of Greek insurrectionist group Conspiracy of Fire Cells. The case has caused uproar across the country as the 29-year-old language student, who says she has no connection to the group and is not an anarchist, was convicted on the basis of a single, partial fingerprint on… Continue reading
Book Review: The Day the Country Died — A History of Anarcho Punk 1980–1984
by Ian Glasper ISBN: 978-1-60486-516-5 PP: 496 Publisher: PM Press, 2014 £19.43
There are many great things about Ian Glasper’s The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980–1984. First, it’s convenient and persuasive to be able to read about a number of related bands in the same book. Don’t have to search here and there for information. Second, it’s solid seeing an… Continue reading
Peterborough Mayor bans public from meetings over spycop councillor protests
Having suspended a chaotic council meeting last week amid noisy protests demanding the resignation of former spycop (and current councillor) Andy Coles, Peterborough Mayor John Fox closed today’s planned meeting to the public entirely today fearing “equally disruptive” actions.
Mayor Fox, who was himself a former police officer with the Cambridge force for 23 years and only retired as a community police officer last year, serves with Mr Coles as… Continue reading
The edge of precarity: Squatting in England and emergency crisis planning
In recent decades squatting has been under near constant assault from a variety of ruling class actors. In 2012 the Conservative/ Liberal Democrat government banned squatting in residential properties for the purposes of living. Councils, Conservative and Labour alike, treat squatters as a public health issues and pressure property owners to fast track evictions. The (still) rising property market in London and other major cities has incentivised owners to use… Continue reading
Fast Forward festival details released
Some of the workshops for September’s major radical get-together have now been released by organisers Plan C, and include an intriguing mix of self-defence workshops, preparations for a Women’s Strike in 2018 and a total rethink of our broken higher education systems.
The festival, which will run at Thornbridge Outdoors Centre in the Peak District from September 1st-3rd, is in its second year and is a major gathering for the… Continue reading
