Transnational solidarity - Save Rosia Montana!

The 1st of December was chosen as a day of solidarity with the community of Rosia Montana in Romania because on the same day in Romania the press is busy with nationalist reports (being national day and all) in which the people of Rosia Montana hoped to make it in. Seeing that there is at the moment a media embargo on the issue of Rosia Montana in Romania the volunteers and locals part of the asociation of Alburnus Maior were running after the reporters that were going in live transmision around them. Such reporters that would ask the police to get the people out the frame or that would not go on live just because the new setting was not what they were allowed to show. Help break this media embargo and bring the issue of the LARGEST OPEN PIT MINE IN EUROPE planned in Romania's oldest recorded settlement on the discussion table. Modifications to an existing law that the gold corporation has pushed for in the Romanian parlament would give a corporation the right through the intermediary of the state to expropriate (that is to forcefuly remove) people off their lands, a desperate move from the transnational corporation in the front of which  a few brave are standing against.

And from these few brave we will be hearing during this program, first from Alina, a Romanian involved in the campaign to save Rosia Montana, secondly Lena living and studying in Vienna where together with Alina was involved on the 1st of December in expropriating local buildings, trying to raise awareness on the issue and finally an interview with Santiago Fischer from Commission Justice et Paix from Belgium who speaks about a similar struggle as that of Rosia Montana in Peru.

Here are some links to some of the actions during the 1st of December:
from Budapes: http://indafoto.hu/shamsara/rosia_montana_szolidaritas/slideshow
from Lisbon: http://gaia.org.pt/node/16122
from Vienna: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150408121753195.362263.595663194&type=3
from Chisinau: http://curaj.tv/reportaj/protest-pentru-rosia-montana-la-chisinau/#.TtlH5ZRDeUY.facebook
and articles from Romanian independent media:
http://totb.ro/de-1-decembrie-uniti-pentru-rosia-montana
http://www.green-report.ro/stiri/adversarii-proiectului-rosia-montana-au-fost-aplaudati-de-ziua-nationala-romanieinbsp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7tIjQ4o_48&feature=player_embedded

The 1st of December was a transnational day of solidarity but it doesn't stop here. You can also take part in tipping the scale in the favour of a democratic and respectful of basic human rights debate by sending letters to your local Romanian embasy, by doing small expropriation actions and by trying to reach the media, especially the free media such as free radios. Especially the expropriation actions are very valuable as this modification of an existing law that would get people kicked off their land would crush the most basic human rights and plunge Romania in the Dark ages.

If people make an action and have photos of it you are welcome to send them to this following address from where I will forward them to others that can make them visible: braducu@gmail.com

Here you can find all the documents needed for either documentation or "expropriation":
http://wtrns.fr/XSgs0pTk1xBjeY0

Here you will find the podcast for this program from today which you can distribute freely on all and any chanells:
http://podcast.ara.lu/?p=327

Macrobiotics - food and eating but not only!

When I left for Amsterdam I had a completely different goal in mind, and that was to interview sex workers in the red lights district for the "sustainable sex" series that I was planning for. I will still try to get those interviews for my future programs but while in Amsterdam and living with my friends I was pleasantly surprised to find out about macrobiotics and having the chance to make an interview on it I jumped at it.

Diego Ferioli has been involved in the Kushi Institute for Macrobiotics in Amsterdam for about a year learning while working there as a volunteer. He took from that what he needed and applyed it to his day to day life to the point that him and his friends would always find themselves in a cosy atmosphere cooking together and being close. On the Kushi institute you can find out more here: http://www.macrobiotics.nl/

As the local contact I got in touch with the owner of Ana Banana, the only vegan restaurant in Luxembourg which as it happens is also based on macrobiotics principles.  Ana Ruivo was kind enough to repeat the interview with me after the microphone stubornly didn't want to hand over the first file I got and was a pleasure to talk. You cna find her and lovely house/home/restaurant at http://www.anabanana.lu/

To wrap it up I will also mention the Critical Mass that will take place this Friday and should be quite massive for the first time in a long time as well as information evenings planned by ASTM (Action Solidarité Tiers Monde). On this organisation and others you can find out more from here: http://astm.lu/

Sustainable sex

How long can you endure? Last? Go on pleasuring your partner(s) without reaching the point of no return (of which scientists have been warning for years of course)? These might be the first puns that would come to mind when the two terms are associated. Sustainable sex seems to be a lethal duo fit for a 10 cents gossip magazine (or playboy at best). Still I am not going to invade the airwaves of a free radio such as Radio Ara here in Luxembourg with anything less than honest conversations and interviews on a topic that should be of a greater focus than that of green roofs, bikes and gardens since it lies at the base of our human interactions and as any natural builder could tell you, the secret of a sturdy, lasting building lies in it's foundation, it's base. So if we are to go on and march in the streets, protest and demand change why not do the exercise of acting locally first and foremost and change or reconsider the things that we can alter on a regular basis, with no politicians to hold our hand (or other body parts)? Whether it's starting a community garden, riding and learning how to fix a bike, going vegan or just as simple learning more about what makes us happy in our day to day life can be simple yet meaningful steps towards a more sustainable society.

So for this and many other reasons next week's program will focus on sex as part of this network of influences that could possibly give us more time on this planet, network that we call sustainability. We'll hear from an activist from Vancouver that came into the studios of Radio Ara to openly talk about subjects at hand. Also this week if hitchhiking will be possible there are plans for interviews in the red lights district of Amsterdam for a next program which will still focus on sustainable sex with interviews from ZEGG, a community close to Berlin from the website of which you can read "We want to encourage everyone to take responsibility for their own future.  Only a wide network of multifaceted life models can become a foundation for a new society." http://www.zegg.de/english.html

On Radio Ara from 2PM on the 7th of November, that being next Monday and on soundcloud you can hear the ending of the program that was left out because I could not actually fit it in the one hour available but also because it gives more detailed information about websites that I will also write bellow:


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367027/ - "Shortbus" movie
http://www.scarleteen.com/ - sexual education
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=10480174 - sex collumnist Dan Savage.
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/blackspot

Sepp Holtzer - inspiration for mountain farmers

Sepp Holtzer has been at the forefront of permaculture in Austria and now the world through the influence of his many books, website http://www.krameterhof.at/en and guided tours that he gives on his extended property in the Austrian Alps. And he has been doing that long before he was even acquainted with the term of permaculture. In doing so many people call his model of agriculture Holzer permaculture.

He is now working on presenting his techniques and sensitive way of working with the land to a large audience around the world and on Monday the 24th from 2PM on Radio Ara we will hear an interview of him conducted by Katy Fox and Rodrigo Vergara from the Center for Ecological Learning Luxembourg (CELL - http://cell.lu).

It will unfortunately only be in German but hopefully a small presentation in English will also be available since his model can benefit many in sensitive areas such as Rosia Montana of Romania where a gold corporation is threatening to destroy four mountain tops in the greatest ecological, social and architectural disaster in Europe after Chernobyl. Mountain tops that could very well be suited for Holzer permaculture. Take a look at the area and just imagine hundreds of species of edible leafed trees, fruit and nut trees, fruit bushes, pumpkins growing on rocks, chickens and goats running freely in certain areas and you might see Paradise where Hell is planned in Rosia Montana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m4G2wxskXE

Here is the same type of terrain transformed according to Holzer Permaculture:
http://youtu.be/Bw7mQZHfFVE

Solidarity with Rosia Montana

With so many struggles coming into public conscience these days Rosia Montana is also getting more well known and with good reason, being the biggest environmental issue of Europe since Cernobyl. In today's program on the 10th of October you can hear more about what happened in Romania during the 10 days of the Reclaim the fields camp but especially what happened during the direct action day on the 28th of September when the (dis)information office of the gold corporation was occupied by a handfull of people that managed to close it down for the day. There was no violent police intervention other than some pushing and shoving which makes you wonder if the direct actions could have went a bit further with squating some of the amazing local houses which are now abandoned. If activism was so simple everyone would do it on a daily basis so maybe we should, at least in Rosia Montana, Romania.

You can also hear about the nyleni forum that was presented outside the office of the corporation and on which you can read up more here: http://nyeleni2011.net

The local community of resistence in Rosia Montana is currently waiting the outcome of this outrageous disccussions going on in the Romanian parlament around the subject of whether the company will have the right to expropriate them or not. I will keep you updated of any developments but until than don't shy away from going into the streets to meet people that are faced with similar struggles closer to home. 15th of October is a day of worldwide direct action against big corporations and corupt governments (which ones aren't at this point?): http://www.occupytogether.org in which you can also take direct action just by going out into the streets and meeting other people from other walks of life. Take it from there. There is also the growing movement centered around establishing a free space in Luxembourg of which you can find out more at http://freespacelux.blogsport.de Briefly on the attempt to occupy an abanoned house on Friday, the 7th of October in Luxembourg city during the program.

I also dedicate this program to the struggle of this 95 braves that opposed the violent corridas in the south of France and that resited the blows of the violent corrida supporters as strongly as the Rosia Montana locals have been resisting blow after blow from the gold corporation for the last 12 years:
http://youtu.be/X_dP8_73KPM

Today's program can be downloaded and used as you see fit from here: http://dl.transfer.ro/Rosia_Montana_Program10oct-transfer_RO-10oct-ea9551.rar

Steps Beyond - crushing corporate interests (or just me?)

I´ve been alone or I felt alone on this trip since my ability of sharing and getting people to see inside my head are very limited. Although the two days spent with a friend in Mannheim probably added a lot to this travel and kept me going. Maybe from this inability to share my thoughts I get my obsession of sharing everything else of physical substance with everyone. To compensate. And maybe this is a first step towards getting better at sharing the important things, the trials and tribulations of showing something that is out of site. This gold corporation hard at work to get the mining disaster going in Romania is bent on drowning the indy media information with multimillion advertising campaigns. And is no use or point to try and rescue and present the voices of the locals or the activists by one´s self. So please do take it up on to yourself to bring up this issue to the right people. If you know nothing of this huge social, environmental and archeological planned disaster in the east of Europe, in Romania than read the following:
http://reclaimthefields.org

http://reclaimthefields.org/content/current-situation

OR better yet tell other people who would have the time and resources to come see by themselves the situation in the area during the Reclaim the Fields camp between the 21st and 30th of September.

So far I´ve hitchhiked 898 km and have 900 more to go, got to invite people to the camp on Bermuda.funk in Mannheim, on Radio Z in Nurnberg and I am looking forward to reaching out in Budapest. You could do the same and start a trip towards this Mecca of environmental importance since it would be the largest mine of it´s kind in Europe and without mentioning the cyanide pollution of waterways and the air, the dust cloud alone created in the destruction process of 4 mountains must be a monster.

Most of all please get in touch and help me combat the daily downs brought about by slow hitchhiking, nasty Bavarian cops who basically raped me searching for drugs (they found the perfect guy too, not smoking OR drinking), not getting in touch with people I had planned to get in touch with and so on. I need to feel I am not by myself on the edge of these fucking polluted roads where luxurious cars pass by in a hurry with only one passenger on board. Stuff like that gets to me more than ever.

And I truly, truly hope some of you reading this will make it to the camp. Much love from Linz from where I will head onwards to Vienna and Budapest early in the morning tomorrow.

Radu

Occupations - round two

The last program might have been a surprise to some of you here in Luxembourg waiting for a small report on what is happening in more active places such as Copenhagen and Hamburg that I wasn't able to deliver.

I at that time found out some very disturbing news, no computers seemed to work for me to edit on and I was indeed very tired by that point so I planned to send the following recoding to Luxembourg instead which I finally got the sense not to do. Still funny though and you can hear it now here:

Sad recording from Hamburg by Voluntarian

The program on Monday will deliver some good ear candy to all y'all dreamers and believers that such a thing as a free space can happen here in Luxembourg. Check it out at http://ara.lu/listen on Monday the 12th of September at 2PM.

From the last description of the program:

"just to give an idea of what people can do if left to their own I also interviewed people in Makvärket, a former abandoned ceramics factory 70 km outside Copenhagen that is now under use by a small group of young people that self organise to create workshops and concert halls. More on the place can be found here: http://makvaerket.wordpress.com but also on http://www.wwoof.dk/ and http://www.helpx.net/

During the Markvaget interview I mention the Ecological InspirationHouse in Copenhagen and also the work of Flemming Abrahamson both of which you can find out more about at the following links:
http://www.fornyetenergi.dk/enfornyetenergidk.aspx
http://www.byoko.dk/
http://www.byoko.dk/UserFiles/File/byoko_gb2006.pdf

As an unexpected bonus there will be a feature from the Gangeviertel, a squated center in the center of Hamburg that managed to stay open for two years so far. http://das-gaengeviertel.info/

 

There is also a short interview with an indigenous inhabitant of the region of Brazil where a corporation is planning their own sort of occupation through which to destroy a huge affluent of the Amazon. Of the dangers of this project more in the program.

I am also on my way to Rosia Montana for the Reclaim the Fields Camp there between the 21st and 30th of September during which time I hope to record the different alternatives and the real public oppionion to such a monstruous perspective as having 4 mountains dug out for gold. On it more in my previous post here:

http://stepsbeyond.blogspot.com/2011/09/rosia-montana-alternatives.html

But you can just join the camp there on which you can find more info here: http://reclaimthefields.org

Addi! Au revoir! La revedere!