Indymedia Oaxaca, the network in the UK of Zapatista solidarity groups along with anticapitalist collectives launch a tour of information and debate on the issues surrounding the people of Oaxaca's rebellion. The Tour will be visiting Birmingham on 16th May 16th, Liverpool on the 17th, Bradford on the 18th, Manchester on the 19th, Edinburgh on the 20th, Bristol on the 22nd, and finally in London's Rampart Social Centre on the 24th before jumping over to Europe. There will be films, talks and discussions with a guest from Indymedia Oaxaca.

The right to rebel is sacred, as exercising it is indispensable to break the obstacles that oppose the right to life. (Ricardo Flores Magon)

Our guest for the tour is a member of the Indymedia Oaxaca collective, and a free radio maker for the communities in the mountains north of the state. He is also a collaborator of Radio Jenpoj (Wind of Fire ). Playing the role that independent media does in the popular struggle in Oaxaca means living alongside a constant threat of targeted repression.

Click at the Full article link for background information on the current situation in Oaxaca, and see IMC-UK Oaxaca topic page for reports on the Oaxaca Uprising.

The Shepard Group annual conference on Electronic Warfare was successfully disrupted by activists on Tuesday 15th by a surprise action. The Olympia Conference Centre in central London hosted the event that, under the title of "First in Defence - First to Counter", arms dealers converged to sell 'high tech' weaponry and assorted murder equipment to each other. People who are involved in campaigning against the arms trade were not going to let it go unnoticed.

Protesters managed to get onto the roof and drop a banner that said "Smart Bombs- Stupid Wars" whilst other demonstrators in suits managed to infiltrate the conference. After a tour of the place they were able to disrupt events with shouts of "Murderers! War Criminals!" before being thrown out by large men in ill-fitting suits.

Meanwhile as this was happening a Samba band turned up as protesters with megaphones and flyers told passers by and staff at the Olympia Conference Centre about the war crimes committed by the delegates present at the conference. A US officer was spotted walking away from the conference and was hounded by demonstrators. The action lasted over two hours, and there were no arrests. [Read full article and Photos]

For related reports see the IMC-London Antimilitarism and IMC-UK Antimilitarism topic pages.

Related links: Smash Edo Campaign | Disarm DSEi | Campaign Against The Arms Trade

About 50 people gathered at the Kempinski Hotel in London on Friday 11th May, to show their solidarity with the victims of the G8 raids in Germany last week, and to express their opposition to the upcoming G8 Summit of early June [call]. Kempinski is the hotel group hosting this year's Summit of the world's eight most powerful states in Heiligendamm, Germany.

The Met had 'designated' a pen on the opposite side of the street, but protesters refused to be penned in and stayed by the hotel, without entirely blocking the pavement. Some leaflets were given out whilst, as it has become the norm in London, the FIT kept harrassing protestors by trying to get good shots of their faces.
Photos: 1 and 2 | Video

Many more solidarity demonstrations have taken place throughout the world, including one in Edinburgh where the German consulate was also attacked with paint. Next G8 UK mobilisation meeting in London May 17th.

May 1st swings around again with a diverse bunch of activities to check out; from Maypole picnic parties, to migrant rights benefits, to shirking the 9-5 by dancin' in the streets!.

Mayday is also known as International Workers' Day, or more recently as EuroMayday throughout Europe, will see this years annual workers march leaving Clerkenwell Green at 1pm to Trafalgar Square, along with the more radical Autonomous Workers Bloc.

For London Indymedia, it is a Birthday, 8 years of reporting, growing and evolving. London Indymedia is a successful alternative to the corporate mainstream 'press' due to volunteers who post, maintain, code, write, support, promote, video, photograph -If the Indymedia project is to survive another 8 years, we need to continue share and disseminate the message that another media - our media - is possible.

So whether you decide to demonstrate, mischief make, party, do it with respect and support those who create spaces for tolerance, freedom of expression, and positive debate. Happy May Day and Happy Birthday London Indymedia!!.

Click at the Read more link for an overview of what took place in London throughout the day.

London Mayday07 Links: Space Hijackers - Suited & Booted | Autonomous Workers Bloc | Camberwell Squatted Social Centre - Maypole Picnic | Union March and Rally

Rest of UK and World Mayday: The Agitator Blog - compilation of Global Mayday 2007 events | Nottingham May 5th | Glasgow | Edinburgh | Euro Mayday Portal | USA Immigrant Solidarity Network

So reads the splurge on the Mark Thomas website. Today's efforts alone totalled 2294, breaking, according to Mark, the challenge set by records administrators.

Over 100 people held a lively protest in Crawley, West Sussex, on 21 April, 2007, against a new planned detention centre nearby. The protest, called by the No Borders network in the UK, aimed to show opposition to the new purpose-built Immigration Removal Centre (as it's called by the government) which is being built at Gatwick Airport. The new prison for asylum seekers will have a capacity of 420 places for male and female detainees and is another step in the Labour government's efforts to meets its target of 4,000 places in detention centres throughout the country.

The demonstration, which was mainly made of two large groups from Brighton and London, marched through Crawley town centre in the high of Saturday's shopping spree. Many leaflets were given out, informing locals about the reasons for the demonstration, whilst pointing out the fact that a new concentration camp for innocent people is about to be built on their doorsteps. Policing was relatively low but the level of surveillance and 'information gathering' was incredibly high and intimidating.

Report and pics | Pics in IMC-Barcelona | Video

Update: The RTF4 building was illegally evicted and a meeting cancelled on Thursday, 5 April, by private security backed by police.

Four months after the acquittal of the Coronet Five, police again sealed off Holloway Road and provoked a pointless confrontation with people attending a major event on the social calender of the anarchist movement. [Pics: 1 | 2 | video]

The setting this time was Reclaim The Future 4, a networking event which combined workshops, info stalls, cinema screenings, a vegan cafe and party, and was attended by hundreds and hundreds of people [Pics]. The event was held in a squatted building on the Holloway Road, which was formerly a workshop and salesroom for London Taxis.

On Saturday 24th March, the London's collective of Anarchitects called Space Hijackers invited the Whitechapel local community to a 'East End Knees Up' against the fact that the corporate chain Starbucks recentlty opened a new store in the area. Starbucks has a long history of undercutting and closing down local independent cafes, of treating their staff badly, and their coffee growers even worse.

The tea party in "defense of our area, and to show off the lovely culture we have" lasted for about 4 hours. At 1pm a small crowd turned up outside Starbucks to set up a stall and a sound system, and to give out maps of the area which listed alternative local places to buy coffee and keep money within the local community. From then on, many local people that just came across to it joined in for a hot drink or a plate of hot food provided by the group Food Not Bombs. Police eventually stepped in and threatened to arrest those gathering around the stall for obstruction of the highway, although no one was finally arrested.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3
Related Links: Space Hijackers' Projects Archive | Starbucks - The Faulty Logo | I Hate Starbucks

On Saturday, 24th March, England played Israel in a Euro 2008 qualifying match. A group of activists picketed the Football Association in Soho Square calling for a Sporting boycott of Apartheid Israel [Newswire Report].

Prevous boycott actions and campaigns include:
Agrexco: 1 | 2 | video | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Text of Letter to Carmel Agrexco | Apartheid and Agrexco in the Jordan Valley | War on Want's Report - Profiting from the Occupation
Caterpillar: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
Caterkiller Shutdown | Jewish Voice for Peace - Rachel Corrie (1978-2003) | Caterkiller
Supermarket protests: Marks and Spencers Stencilled | Repression of M&S Protesters
Academic boycott: AUT Boycott | NAFTHE Boycott | CUPE Ontario | COSATU (South Africa).

"We fix, we build!! Occupied against speculation, against gentrification"

A group of local south londoners have opened up a building in Camberwell, and are fixing it up to run it as a social space. It aims to be a centre open to the local community, and right now lots of work is going on fixing and repairing the space so to open it with regular events, including a caffe every Friday and film nights every Wednesday.

The Camberwell Squatted Centre is at:
192 Warham St, off Camberwell New Rd
Camberwell SE5
Buses: 36, 436, 185 - Tube: Oval [Map]

Related Links: IMC-UK 'Free Spaces' Topic Page | UK Social Centres Network | Wikipedia on Social Centres | Advisory Service For Squatters | Wombles' Social Centres Pages

To find out more about the background, read MMC: an explanation for patients [parts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]. Other sites of interest include the MTAS debacle, as witnessed by the junior doctors of the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, and various artistes of the blogosphere such as Dr. Rant, Professor Scrub and Junior Doc. Maybe there will be an NHS in 10 years time, after all.

Early in the morning of March 6th, high court bailiffs and police moved in to evict the Vortex Occupied Social Centre. The old Jazz bar on Stoke Newington Church Street, North London, had been occupied since the beginning of the year and had been open for numerous and varied community events [ 1 | 2 | 3 ].

On Saturday 10th, a solidarity demonstration against the eviction took place in Stoke Newington [Pics]

Called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in conjunction with Stop the War Coalition and the British Muslim Initiative, tens of thousands marched in London on 24 February, 2007, to protest against the Trident and against the imperial wars in the Middle East, including Iraq and the looming one on Iran. People were there to express their opposition to militarism, the 'war on terror' and demand justice for Palestine. Scotland for Peace's "Bin the Bomb Roadshow" also ran between 16 and 24 February, culminating in a march and rally on 24 February in Glasgow.

There was a small autonomous block on the demo [photos], but was apparently the focus of most of the policing and 'intelligence gathering' (see this Met leaflet).

Reports: 1 | 2 Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 Audio: 1 | 2 | video

Links: Trident Vote Day | CND | Stop the War Coalition | Block the Builders | Greenpeace | Trident Ploughshares | Faslane 365 | Background: BASIC | Acronym | Indymedia UK's Faslane topic page

On Thursday 22nd February the EDO Corporation released their report on the fourth quarter of 2006. The Corporation, of which the embattled Brighton based arms dealers EDO MBM are a wholly owned trading unit, has announced that it is operating below targets, (See EDO's Fourth Quarter Report)

Below is an 'Alternative Report' from the Smash EDO campaign. Brighton based EDO MBM has been the target of sustained protest and direct action since 2003. On Friday 16th Feb a group of protesters occupied EDO's car park and foyer blowing claxon horns and scattering photos of the carnage in Iraq. This was the second such action in the last month ( reports: (1) | (2) ). On Monday 19th Feb 8 students from Sussex University locked themselves to EDO's fence and gates delaying the opening of the factory and preventing deliveries ( see: Press Release | Photo Report ). On Wednesday 21st Feb protesters held a funeral procession and vigil for the victims of the US bombing of Somalia at the factory ( see: Press Release | Report ).

For the third time in less than two years, a 'charter flight' left the RAF Brize Norton military base in Oxfordshire today, carrying a number of Iraqi Kurds to Erbil, Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). The 38 'failed asylum seekers' had been arrested and detained from across the UK.

Some 60 protesters gathered at the gates of Brize Norton this morning, in a protest called by the Campaign to Close Campsfield. It followed other protests over the weekend in London, Leicester and Manchester [reports from Harmondsworth demo 1 | 2 | pics 1 | 2 | 3 | video]. But neither these protests nor the repeated warnings from national and international human rights organisations [UNHCR | Amnesty] managed to convince the Home Office of halting forced removals to unsafe Iraq.

Related: No Deportations to Unsafe Iraq | No Deportations to Iraq | New Labour's War on the Kurds

The weekend of 10-11 February, 2007, saw two actions against Carmel-Agrexco, the largest exporter of flowers from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The lead up to Valentine's Day is one of their busiest times as their Middlesex depot delivers a large amount of Israeli flowers to UK supermarkets.

On Saturday, 120 Activists from the Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign blocked the gates of the depot for most of the afternoon. Then, in the early hours of Sunday morning, 13 activists shut the depot down again for several hours by locking themselves to the factory gates.

Reports from Saturday's Picket: 1 | 2 | video | Reports from Sunday's Blockade: 1 |

Previous actions: 1 | 2 | 3

Local Indymedia groups (IMCs) exist all over the UK. Some have existed longer than others and some are more active than others, but they all have one thing in common: they need your help. If you're interested in working on independent media on a local level, or if you have technical skills, why not become involved? Help organise film screenings, benefit events, or report on local issues, compile features and do admin work on the websites. There is a lot to be done!

Local IMC kollectives have regular meetings which are open to anyone interested. These include:
Bristol: Monday 19th Feb, 8pm at the Hillgrove Pub, Kingsdown, Bristol
Cambridge: Monday 19th Feb, 7:30pm at 3 Fletchers Terrace Cambridge (more on meetings)
Manchester: Wednesday 14th Feb, 7.30pm at Basement Social Centre, 24 Lever St, Manchester, M11DZ

Click at the 'Full article' link above to know more about the local kollectives and how to get involved.

Over the weekend of 3-4 Feb 2007, actions up and down the country and beyond targeted dangerous 'greenwash' being desperately pushed by corporations and politicians. The actions came in the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released on Friday, which warned of world temperature rises of over 6C by the end of the century. The report indicated that a 4 degree rise would mean a 10% loss in global food production due to draught, flooding, water shortages. While the world slowly wakes up to the magnitude of climate chaos, Shell and Exxon Mobil last week announced record breaking profits. With the figures laid out so clearly, the nauseating hypocrisy spouted by corporations and politicians has spurred action from Paris to Aberdeen.

Links Press release for oil spill action | action report, photos & video | another video | Shell sponsorship background
Other actions Glasgow | Edinburgh | Plane Stupid | Greenpeace
Coming up Protest against ESSO, 9th Feb | Spring into Action
Climate Camp 2006 indymedia page | website | 2007 Camp 14-21st August | next organising meeting 17-18th Feb

Updates 2nd Feb: Social Centre Eviction update | No Starbucks in Stokey

The Vortex Jazz Bar in Stoke Newington's Chuch Street, famous for its vibrant music scene and a venue popular in the local community, was occupied by local activists on the 6th January. In its new incarnation as a social centre, the building has once again been filled with the voices of the community. Already happening are busy café nights, cinema and jazz nights, exhibition space, a parent/baby group and regular benefits.

The development plan for the old Vortex, by notorious landlord Richard Midda, is to make way for a Starbucks with luxury apartments above. This planned development highlights once more the continued erosion of the 'the Street' as community space soon to be identifiable only from one corporate logo to the next. A court proceeding against the occupation took place on the 24th Jan to take repossession of the building, with an unlawful eviction attempt by Midda and private baliffs on the 26th Jan. This was repelled [Photos and Video] by activists with the help of local people. The occupation of the Vortex continues, but the threat of eviction is still imminent.

Links: London Social Centre | UK Social Centre Network | Wikipedia on Social Centres | Advisory Service for Squatters

To mark the 5th anniversary of the transportation of the first prisoners to the US concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a series of demonstrations took place around the world.

In London, over 300 people followed a call by Amnesty International to protest [Photos 1 and 2 | Videos 1 and 2 | Slide show] and to stage a vigil outside the US embassy. A break away group of protestors later targeted the arms manufacturers company Lockheed-Martin for profiteering from Guantanamo Bay [Video]. Another vigil [Photos] by London and Oxford Catholic Worker communities took place in solidarity with 90 anti-Guantanamo US activists that were arrested in an occupation of the U.S. Federal Court House in Washington DC [Report | Photos] A further candle-lit vigil was set outside Downing Street [Video]

In Birmingham around 80 people gathered in front of Hiatt, a UK company that makes shackles and other torture equipment used by the US military in Guantanamo Bay over the last five years [Report and Photos]. In Edinburgh there was a protest outside the US Consulate, and a meeting in the Scottish Parliament [Report and Photos]

To read more about facts and the mistreatment of prisoners in Guantanamo click at the Full Article link above.

Links: National Guantanamo Coalition | AI's Close Guntanamo campaign | Cage Prisoners