Sao Paolo: Brazil poverty vs super stadia

From mainstream press – update on World Cup occupation

Since Sao Paulo’s Itaquerão stadium was built, residents living in its vicinity, including retirees and families with children, told Al Jazeera their rent jumped between 20-35 percent, and new costs associated with living near the stadium were now too hard to manage.

On May 2, a group of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto (MTST, Homeless Workers Movement) took action on behalf of about 4,800 homeless people living near the $350-million stadium, where the first game of the World Cup will take place on Thursday, and set up camp. Residents call it the “People’s Cup” and they have flown the red MTST flag to protest billions of dollars spent on the stadiums, rather than housing.
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Norway: Brakkebygrenda evicted

Brakkebygrenda, previously under threat has now been evicted.

Here’s a short update: The police came on Wednesday June 6th and evicted everybody, towing away most wagons and demolished a treehouse and three barracks. Squatters are currently looking for a new spot.

[For more infos: Brakkebygrenda website.]
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Refugees in Calais: the hunger strike has begun

As agreed, the refugees occupying the food distribution center had breakfast together this morning. They formed two groups, those who will continue to eat and those who are fasting. Those fasting had slightly larger portions. They sat in the middle of the courtyard. Yesterday, they made a list of 53 people willing to get involved. By late morning, there were more than thirty of them waiting for those who had tried to cross that night to join them – something they will no longer be able to do during the fast. This afternoon, we should know more precisely how many will participate in the hunger strike. [Read More]

Another illegal eviction in Calais

After Natasha Bouchart, Senator-Mayor of Calais, presented her new anti-squatting law in the senate last week, the illegal evictions continue in Calais.

A new house was opened in Calais on the weekend of May 31st to 1st June. After a week of going unnoticed (to avoid possible eviction without a trial in the first 48 hour), the occupation was made public on Sunday, June 8 (despite some confusing information announcing it as “the next opening” published on the website of La Voix du Nord on Saturday, June 7th ), and the first contact was made with passersby, neighbors and the bar newsagent opposite. Some of them considered the occupation of this house, which has been empty for three years, totally legitimate. Another house on the street about fifty yards away is already squatted. [Read More]

Athens: Shots Fired at K*VOX Squat

In the early hours of Tuesday, June 3rd, at about 02:30, unknown people fired at least 5 shots at the main entrance of the squatted social centre K*VOX. Two of the bullets pierced the outer metal blinds, shattering the glass front entrance door. [see photo] Luckily, at the time, no comrade was inside the squat.

Lately, the K*VOX —along with residents, collectives and fighters from the neighbourhood— has taken a series of initiatives to act against the mafia gangs and the drug trade in Exarchia, which is carried out with the police’s tolerance and cover-up.
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UK: Why #ACAB? One person’s experience of Political Policing

Given all the media attention on Police malpractice recently, and the constant, repetitive wheeling out of the “few bad apples” analogy, it seemed timely to explain why Anticapitalists hate the Police so much. Rather than present some dry, academic thesis full of depressing facts and figures (there are plenty of those about at the moment!) we have decided to simply post one local Anticapitalist’s experience of dealing with the Police as a “Political Activist” and homeless person.
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Berlin: Squatting memories

When, for a short time at the beginning of the nineties, the underground was in charge of East Berlin’s centre, activist and photographer Ben de Biel was there: at Kunsthaus Tacheles, at I.M. Eimer, and as the founder of MARIA Club. Today, de Biel has moved on from organizing events and now works as the press relations officer for the Piraten Partei. In this monologue, part of a series of artists and other key cultural figures speaking openly about their artistic experience in the city, de Biel told us about his own Berlin experiment.
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East London: Illegal eviction

On Monday June 2nd, at around 6pm, a squatted building in on New North Road, East London was illegally evicted by security, bailiffs and police, resulting in a thirteen hour stand-off. The building, an old car wash, is completely abandoned and going to be demolished. It is owned by Royal Mail and due to be the site of a new post office, since the old one nearby is being closed down to build luxury flats.
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Den Haag: Council wants to evict and demolish the Vloek

On May 30th, De Vloek (Pirate Bar) received a letter from the city of the Hague indicating that there are construction plans for their location. The city wants to demolish the building and sell the land to a developer who wants to build a top sailing center.
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Ankara (Turkey): New squat

Anarchists have occupied a house in Ankara, Turkey. It is thought to be the first political squat in the city. It is called Atopya.

Twitter

More news in Turkish:
http://sosyalsavas.org/2014/05/atopya-ankara-da-isgal-evi/

Barcelona: Can Vies re-occupied! Rebuilding Begins!

The morning demo on Day 6 was a huge success. After 5 nights of rioting Barcelona Council had declared the ‘demolition of Can Vies suspended’.

In reality the protestors had already stopped demolition work by burning the machinery on day 2. However when we arrived on Saturday morning the 1ooo’s of riot police were nowhere to be seen.
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Barcelona: And on the seventh day fires subside

What happened in Barcelona this past week isn’t over. In the present circumstances it would not be a cliché to say that the fires that were set from the 26th to the 31st of May, and they numbered in the hundreds and several of them were as large as the wide avenues they built to prevent our revolts, live on in our hearts. Tens of thousands of people have won transformative experiences. When they see a cop, an intersection, a construction site, a dumpster, a bank, a surveillance camera, a journalist, new meanings and new possibilities appear unbidden before their eyes.

Though it isn’t over, the struggle here has entered another phase. If things kick off again in the next days, if streets are wrested away from the forces of order and columns of smoke pour skyward once more, it will be different people who have taken the initiative, and for different reasons.
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