Early this morning, activists from Oxford successfully blockaded the main bridge leading out of Crieff, one of small villages close to Gleneagles where delegates to the G8 summit are staying. There have been distributed blockades around the entire region, bringing traffic to a standstill in places.

Numerous reports from the blockades are now up on Indymedia, as are a selection of my photos from the Crieff blockade. That page will be updated with more photos later, when I can get back to my laptop.

Update: According to the end of this Guardian article it appears that another blockade to the South East of Crieff was also successful this morning, substantially increasing the impact of the blockades.

Crieff Blockage Press Release:

6th July 2005

Anti G8 Protesters block bridge in Crieff

Traffic in and out of Crieff has been brought to a standstill early this morning by a group of people protesting about the G8 summit in Gleneagles. A group of people blocked the bridge over the river Earn on the main exit road to the south of Crieff, the A822, by locking themselves onto a piece of heavy metal in the middle of the road.

Leaflets are being given to motorists disrupted by the action to explain the motives being this blockade. The aim of blocking the road at this point is to prevent American delegates to the G8, understood to be staying in accommodation in Crieff, from getting to Gleneagles.

Duncan Locke, a self-employed carpenter from the South of England said, “The G8 is an elite club intent on pursuing their agenda of free trade capitalism across the world, at the expense of people, environment or justice. We took this action to try to send a message of hope to the rest of the world that this situation will no longer go unchallenged. We are sorry to be adding to the disruption to local people caused by the G8. However, the issues we are highlighting are of such fundamental importance globally that we felt honour-bound to take action.”

The first vehicle stopped by the road block was a delegation headed for the summit. Other drivers have been sympathetic to the protesters. One lorry driver commented that the trade liberalization being rolled out by the G8 leaders has led to the situation where foreign workers now do jobs for £3 an hour that local people used to get paid £7 an hour to do.

The action was visited by some Critical Mass cyclists and some people dressed as fairies too!

At the Make Poverty History march, the speakers insisted that we are dragging the G8 leaders kicking and screaming towards our demands. It seems to me that the G8 leaders are dragging us dancing and cheering towards theirs.

George Monbiot in The Guardian today. Unfortunately he’s right, and I’ve been torn by this for the last few days. The mobilisation and awareness raising that the MPH march created throughout mainstream campaigning groups, churches, NGOs, and youth groups in the UK has been phenomenal, and I find it hard realising that getting people out into the streets saying ‘we want an end to poverty’ can be a bad thing. But there is a problem. Our very presence in Edinburgh, asking the G8 leaders to make poverty history, has legitimised the G8 as an international decision making body. By failing to shout loudly about the fundamental reasons why poverty exists - namely the power of corporations, and the neoliberal policies being shoved down the throats of African countries by eight white men - we left the entire Make Poverty History campaign completely open to co-option by the politicians responsible for perpetuating the structures that keep poverty a reality.

The G8 is not, has never, and will never be about solving the world’s problems, it is an elite club of the eight richest most powerful nations in the world getting together to further their own interests, and the interests of the global corporations to which they are puppets. That’s why thousands of activists are still here in Scotland, not content to march and then go home, but rather determined to shut down the G8 summit.

One week to go until most of the activists in the UK converge on Scotland for the G8. Yesterday evening police seized the Bristol IMC server. Anyone spot a coincidence?

Indymedia is one of the only truly independent open-publishing news forums where anyone can voice their opinions and post news as they see it, as it happens, without fear of censorship. When the world’s mainstream media almost completely fails to cover the real issues behind protests, and regurgitates police press-releases in the face of the brutal oppression we’ve seen at previous G8 protests, an outlet for real, grassroots coverage from the people on the ground is vital to preserving free speech. Like I said, anyone spot a coincidence here?

The main UK Indymedia site seems to be buckling under a slashdotting of this story, so here are the details:

On Monday, June 27th, Indymedia Bristol’s server was seized by the police. An Indymedia volunter was also arrested during the raid. Last week, police demanded access to the server to gain the IP details of a posting. The alternative media outlet is receiving advice from civil liberties organisations and the NUJ. Before being legally forced to hand over the server, Indymedia Bristol stated: “We do not intend to voluntarily hand over information to the police as they have requested”. A further statement from Bristol Indymedia volunteers is expected soon.

This is the second time that law enforcement authorities have attacked Indymedia servers in the UK in the run up to a major event. Last October, just prior to the European Social Forum, Indymedia servers in London were seized in an international law enforcement operation - prompting a wave of protests and solidarity statements from a wide range of organisations [report]. This time, events are unfolding one week before the G8 Summit begins in Scotland.

In order to provide grass-roots non-corporate coverage during the G8 protests and events, Indymedia UK needs additional http mirrors to help decrease bandwidth costs. If you would like to help, you can donate here.

On 8th July activists, students, religious groups, and concerned citizens around the world will be taking action against the root causes of climate change. It will be the last day of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, and a key opportunity to create a wide-reaching shift in climate change and energy policy worldwide.

The Bush administration is now completely isolated on climate change. A poll that came out yesterday showed 83% support in the UK for Blair confronting Bush head on on climate, and the same day the Royal Society — one of the most respected scientific institutions in Europe — gave damning criticism of the Bush administration’s refusal to budge on energy and climate change policy:

A communiqué that does anything other than clearly accept the strength of the scientific evidence that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change, and offers a firm commitment to long-term substantial cuts in those emissions, will be regarded as a failure by the scientific community and a missed opportunity of historic proportions. — Stephen Cox, executive secretary of the Royal Society

This is not some group of eco-hippies.

The international pressure on Blair, as current chair of the G8, is growing, and we have to use this momentum to drive a political wedge between Bush and Blair, isolate the U.S. administration even further, to such an extent that the U.S. public and mainstream media wake up and stop buying the ‘uncertainty’ and denial rubbish the Bush administration keeps pumping out.

What are you doing on 8th July? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the debate on climate change is over. It is time to act.

The scientific consensus is unprecedented, and evidence keeps pouring in. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment synthesis report showed us that climate destabilisation is already happening–right now–and much faster than we anticipated.

So what should we expect from our ‘world leaders’ at the G8 next month? Perhaps some visionary steps forward, towards a clean renewable-energy future? Bold targets for real at-source cuts to take us to sustainable greenhouse gas emissions levels? Well, that’s what we should expect, and it’s what we continue to demand, but it’s not what we’re getting. (California excepted.)

Our world is warming… erm… (maybe)

That’s the clear, visionary message from the ‘leaders’ of the world:

In draft international document land (somewhere I’ve spent rather too many long days) those square brackets mean something is still uncertain, disputed, and open for debate. The first leaked draft was bad enough, with no timetables or targets for emissions cuts. Now we see the reality of Blair’s ‘leadership’ on climate change: no targets, no timeframes, “zero carbon nuclear,” clean coal, and he hasn’t even managed to secure a recognition that our world is warming. It seems we have a problem.

You can download the latest leaked draft (two pdf documents) on the Channel Four News website. I’ve also mirrored it here.

Leaked Draft Communique [mirror]
Leaked Draft Plan of Action [mirror]