Demonstration Against High-speed Railway Link

[Steve]

DEMONSTRATION AGAINST HIGH-SPEED RAILWAY LINK
Bussoleno (Turin), Nov. 16 - A demonstration started at about 10am in Bussoleno, in the province of Turin, to protest against the construction of the high-speed railway link in the Valle di Susa. Thousands of protesters gathered since 8.30am displaying banners and flags of, among the others, the Refounded Communists and environmental organization Legambiente. A number of MPs of the Refounded Communists are taking part in the demonstration, including Vittorio Agnoletto and Marilde Provera. Other protesters include: the leader of the movement 'Disobedient' Francesco Caruso and the mayors of most of the municipalities of the area on which the new tracks are supposed to be built. "We will keep fighting and we are confident that we will succeed in the end because the European Union has not yet made any decision on the funds to be assigned to this high-speed link. We believe that the works will destroy the whole Valley" said Bussoleno's mayor, Giuseppe Joannas. Most of Bussoleno's 7,000 inhabitants joined the demonstration earlier this morning. "We will move on with our peaceful but determined protest" Joannas explained. "The valley is packed with police forces and the situation has become unbearable". A money rising was started some days ago to support the protest: so far, some 3,000 euro have been collected.

[dario]

The demostration (NO TAV) against the Lyon-Torino link has a tail on the Italian Tuttotreno Forum. While Italian Railfans are practically all in favour of the line (SI TAV), two guys insist on convincing everybody that the asbestos and the uranium dug from the tunnel would kill everybody up to Turin! This thread has degenerated so much it is unreadable, and other threads in favour have been started in a much more polite manner. Not all environmentalists are against the line, and political parties are also split about it. Test diggings have started for the moment, and decisions will be made upon the results. I'll tell you more as I have further news. Bye from Dario

[dario]

Ms Loyola de Palacio, the Commissioner in charge of the Turin-Lyon HSL, formerly the European Commissioner for Transport, has met the Mayors of the Susa Valley communities and other concerned institutions.
She has guaranteed that the European Commission has not overlooked the safety issues regarding asbestos and uranium, and setting the year 2010 to start work.
All the time up to then is for preliminary work.
Any work is in any case to be done, not to loose Eur.Comm.n contributions to the project.
The communities have not been convinced and still oppose the project (a 35-mile main tunnel plus many more tunnels).
Anger has aroused over the passage in her report that the communities are on the pay-book of private-transport lobbies.

[dario]

Today work has started on the HSL station in Turin, to be completed by 2009.

[klordger1900]

An interesting update to this thread:-

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...N%26start%3D21

Sorry this link is a bit long!!