St. Gregory (Rennes), France: 50 Areva workers laid off after anti-nuclear sabotage

cette semaine

Ouest France, November 25, 2011 - A building housing offices of Areva in St. Gregory, near Rennes was vandalized on the night of Thursday to Friday.
Electricity metre fire
Layoffs today for fifty employees working in a building housing, in St. Gregory, offices of Areva, one of its subsidiaries, and a bank. Police said the building was vandalized on the night of Thursday to Friday. Outside the building, an electric metre was set on fire, interrupting the power supply of the three-story building.

On the wall of the building, a tag stating "War to nuclear and its world." "We condemn this militant action strikes the work tool," said the head of Areva's press office, who denounced the incident. Friday afternoon, police had not made any arrests.

After violent clashes between police and anti-nuclear activists, a convoy of highly radioactive nuclear waste left the rail terminal in Areva Valognes (Manche) on Wednesday bound for Germany.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3B__ovj2jU

Brasil - Mass escapes from Brasilian hellholes

AFP
November 28, 2011 - BRASILIA—More than 130 prisoners have escaped from prisons in northeastern Brazil in recent days, with 52 inmates breaking out on Sunday, officials said.
The inmates, 15 of whom were recaptured within hours, fled after assaulting two police officers during breakfast at the prison complex, a police spokesman told AFP.
The prisoners were mostly serving time for robbery or violent assault, according to officials.
The escape comes after a break-out late Friday of 82 prisoners, most were serving sentences for murder, robbery and drug trafficking, who escaped from a prison in the northeastern state of Bahia.
The inmates had fled through a hole in the roof of a building in the prison complex. Authorities were only alerted after locals saw numerous men running in disarray from the jail.
The separate incidents highlighted chronic overcrowding in prisons and slow-pace of judicial proceedings. According to official figures, Brazil has 475,000 people in detention, of whom some 43 percent are being held pre-trial.
None of the escaped prisoners from Friday’s incident had yet been recaptured, officials said.

Cuneo, Italy – Communique read by Guido Mantelli at the demonstration against Casapound

received by angrynews

After several months on the run, Guido presented himself at the preliminary hearing in Cuneo on Saturday, November 26, related to clashes that broke out in February during the contestation of the opening of a  Casapound premises.
Today he will probably be imprisoned in the prison of Cuneo but it is possible that he will be soon be transferred.
To write to him:
Guido Mantelli
C.C. via Roncata 75
12100 CUNEO
Italy

And so another season is drawing to a close and, as when one reluctantly leaves summer pastures, it is time to go home. Of course, it is not with a light heart that I offer my wrists to be handcuffed, but it is something that I had taken into account at the start of this period in hiding because the charges at stake and the projects that await me once this matter has been got out of the way would not have justified a prolonged period on the run.
In the meantime, I took advantage of these months to take care of some matters that are dear to me, I went through beautiful valleys and mountains, met exceptional people and generous hearts, and I was particularly warmed by the fire of a solidarity that I have never felt lacking.
I also dedicated the necessary time to fruitful discussions that commitments and habits would not have otherwise permitted. To be honest, I even had time to “find it long,” perhaps more than on other occasions. Now that the trial that I went into hiding about this time has begun, I feel the need to give you my point of view on the most striking feature that distinguishes this judicial story, namely that it is an indictment against antifascism.
For my part, without exaggerating given my family’s past, I would say that anti-fascism is a congenital tension and that necessarily accompanies the struggle for a world free from bullying and authoritarianism. The anti-fascism that I have always known is practical, it is that which has never got lost in futile pacification without any change or the hypocrisy of calls for unjustified tolerance towards those who, in one way or another, want to impose authoritarian and liberticidal choices on society.
But I don’t make antifascism the exclusive field for criticizing and fighting this existent based on discrimination and
exploitation. So let me offer you a short excerpt from some reading that I’ve done during these months and which I endorse fully.
“... Fascism is historically short-lived, because it is the form of government that the bourgeoisie chooses when its principal form of power, democracy, is unable to fulfill its function: to ensure the accumulation of capital and their power over the producing classes. Once the role of watchdog has been fulfilled, fascism is put aside and the bastard democracy comes back into fashion. The fascists may have the illusion of an epochal transformation, but they are just the shit of transition, thugs, organised cops. Democracy, with its cargo of newspaper gossip-style ethics, with its mechanisms of consensus-building by the entrapment of the petty-bourgeois and a redistribution of the crumbs, fits better into the domain of the Capital ...
Hannah Arendt is absolutely right: ‘evil is mundane’.
There has never been a fascist experience that has not fed off the oppression of the lower classes and the consensus of the small dealer, the small proprietor, that group of animals that trades freedom for order and discipline so that the working class or the immigrants, in other words the ugly, dirty and bad, do not disturb it. Fascism has always been defined by “small” men that graze on national and patriotic mysticism, performing their miserable tasks with dedication. Little clerks of terror committed to doing the accountancy of the enemies to be eliminated. But the forced deportations that capital imposes on the outcasts of the earth, first starving them then concentrating them in the urban web where it can exploit them better or transform them into beggars, whores or in the army of the banlieue, are unmatched. Not to mention their ability to build concentration camps as large as continents, to poison land and rivers...”*.

The trial that awaits us is this sense exemplary: it is not the “good boys” of Casa Pound that we will be facing, but the Police force of Cuneo who is trying to get us out of the way for the umpteenth time, and complacent judges who, in setting up a trial for clashes in the streets, (a situation that by definition requires two opposing sides) deliberately decide to indulge in the criminalization of anti-fascists and let the black-shirted thugs go ahead. Perhaps “Cuneo Gold Medal of the Resistance” hasn’t noticed, but the trial that is taking place opposite the balcony of [antifascist partisan] Galimberti is really embarrassing for History.
Not to mention that until we wipe out the detritus of fascism, another threat will weigh on the roads to individual and collective self-determination. So, I am going to see for myself the faces of the authorities that have been invited to condemn anti-fascism in this land of partisans ... but I can’t wait for the moment to meet up with you again to continue along paths that can damage such a disastrous and harmful social system.
A hug to all those accused in the trial and to those who have not been nor will they be lacking in solidarity!
Guido



*. From the appendix “Appunti sulla storia del FMRP”, in Ricardo
Palma Salamanca, “Il grande riscatto”, Edizioni Colibrì, Milano 2010
(pagg. 267-268).

Grigny (Essonne), France - Bus set on fire with Molotov cocktail

cette semaine

AFP, 06/11/2011 at 12:06 - A bus was set on fire with a Molotov cocktail last night in the district of Great Borne in Grigny (Essonne) by several individuals, prosecutors said today in Evry, confirming a report from Paris. 
The newspaper said the incident occurred around 22h at La Treille. Individuals, the number of whom was not specified, first made the passengers, which included a driver and night mediators whose number has not been communicated, get off the bus. They then threw a Molotov cocktail inside it before fleeing. According to Le Parisien, two fire engines were needed to get the fire under control.
 Last June, a bus was the object of an attempted arson attack in the district of Essonne.

Turin, Italy - seven city police cars on fire

cette semaine, 17 November 2011

La Repubblica, 11 October 2011 - Seven cars of the municipal police of Turin [vigili urbani] were damaged by fire last night. The fires, arson, occurred around 2 am against vehicles parked at the corner of Corso Sansovino and Molise, belonging to the 5th district police of Turin. Two were completely destroyed, while five others were damaged ... 

"This is a serious act of intimidation" said the Commander of the Municipal Police.

Sousse, Tunisia - 3 prison guards severely beaten by thirty people

cette semaine
(November 17, 2011) 
Businessnews, 11/16/2011 7:01 p.m.

Three prison guards under the General Administration of prisons returning home at night in Sousse, November 12, 2011, were violently attacked by about thirty individuals, according to TAP. 
The guards were attacked by using knives, stones and iron bars and wooden clubs, causing them serious injuries in various parts of the body. They narrowly escaped death, due to the intervention of passers-by and security forces who arrested some of the attackers.

Andenne (Belgium): Mutiny at the prison, fires and serious damage

cette semaine (November 18, 2011)
ANDENNE - Andenne Prison: "It's been long time since we had a riot on this scale." A riot broke out Wednesday around 21:30 in the prison of Andenne. More than 200 prisoners caused extensive damage to the building. Many emergency services had to intervene. Everything is back to normal around 2:00.
Shortly after 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, more than 200 prisoners from the prison of Andenne, more than half of those detained, refused to return to their cells after a range of free activities. They caused considerable damage inside the building. It took the intervention of the Directorate of Special Units of the Federal Police to get them to return to their cells. Firefighters and paramedics were also called in to assist. According to firefighters, no one was injured. About two o'clock in the morning, all prisoners were returned to the cells.
The damage in the hallways and common is significant, according to Andenne fire brigade. The prisoners set fire to a particular office, tore out radiators, hoses burned and windows broken. The water used to extinguish the fire caused extensive damage on the ground floor and three floors of the prison. "It's a smash up, breaking up for fun: radiators, doors, window pains pulled out, frames broken, computers, sometimes in the middle of the wings, furniture, everything is broken".

Beijing, China - Dozens of workers injured in massive strike at southern Chinese factory

TWN, AFP  - November 20, 2011-

BEIJING -- More than 7,000 workers went on strike at a southern Chinese factory making New Balance, Adidas and Nike shoes, clashing with police in a protest over layoffs and wage cuts, a rights group said.

Dozens of workers were injured on Thursday as police tried to break the strikers' blockade of the main road in the factory town near Dongguan in Guangdong province, China Labor Watch said in a statement late Friday.

The strike at the Yucheng factory in Huangjiang township took place in the wake of layoffs last month of 18 managers, a move seen by workers as a preparation for the factory's relocation, the New York-based group said.
One of the fired managers told the China Business News his departure was part of a plan to shift production north to Jiangxi province to save on rising costs in the Pearl River Delta around Dongguan, a key manufacturing center.
The strike was the latest in a series of incidents involving labor disputes and perceived social injustices in Guangdong, known as the workshop of the world for the tens of millions of migrant workers who toil in factories there.
Workers at the Yucheng factory were also angered by the recent elimination of performance bonuses and a ban on the overtime they said they need to meet the cost of living.

Brisbane, Australia - suspected sabotage in Qantas Airways airliner during labour dispute

AP Associated Press
2011-02 -11 - Australian police are investigating the suspected sabotage of the entertainment system on a Qantas Airways airliner during the ongoing bitter labor dispute between the airline and the aircraft maintenance union, officials said Wednesday.
Engineers noticed several wires were cut on the in-flight entertainment system of a Qantas Boeing 767 undergoing maintenance at Brisbane Airport on Australia's on east coast on Oct. 26, Qantas said in a statement.
Further investigation by the engineers revealed more cut wires had been covered up, the airline said.
"Given the nature of the incident, we immediately referred it tothe Australia Federal Police," Qantas said.
"There was no operational safety risk at any stage," it added.

Trento, Italy - Telecommunications repeaters sabotaged in solidarity with those arrested for clashes in Rome October 15

informa-azione
source: 'L'adige' 17 november 2011
Incendiary attack on Mount Calisio

TRENTO. An incendiary attack on telecommunications repeaters took place on Mount Calisio, near Trento. A box containing equipment operated by Tower Tel was destroyed in the fire. On the wall the phrase "Solidarity with the arrested in Rome" was written. The damage is yet to be assessed.

According to findings by the Carabinieri, the attackers had set off the fire with petrol.

The glow of the flames was seen by inhabitants of the village of Villamontagna, who called the firebrigade. Further investigations were made ​​by the forensic police and the Digos [political police] also started to investigate.

At first the RTTR [regional television] decided to shut down for safety reasons following the arson attack last night on Mount Calisio, near Trento, on a number of telecommunication towers. This is the second attack within a week on broadcasters of the 'circuit' that transmit the programmes of Santoro [a well known 'left wing' journalist who was censured by Berlusconi when he was with the national tv, RAI], the RTTR have made known. Last Thursday two transmitters of Telelombardia were stolen.

They later confirmed that that Santoro's programme would be broadcast in spite of the attack on the transmitters in Trentino. RTTR communicated that it will be able to transmit as usual from all the installations. The broadcaster then explained that yesterday evening's attack had seen targeted "two systems with two incendiary devices connected to timers. One belonged to the Tower Tel company, which was completely destroyed, served the channels of Radio Maria, Radio Dimensione Suono, and the telephony of Brennercom and Vodafone. The other belonged to the company Op. Im, RTTR editors, TvAlpi, RTT, Terra Trentina, RTT music tv, and was only partially damaged as the incendiary device had not ignited and was defused by the police bomb squad."

The damage, according to what has been referred, is still to be assessed and the broadcasting company confirmed that the carabinieri have cordoned off the area of the attack.