Author: earthfirst

UK Coal win the battle but not the war… campaigners fight on

Today (Fri­day 19th July 2013) it has been announced that UK Coal will be allowed to have a re-run of the Inspector’s inquiry into the bit­ter­ly dis­put­ed appli­ca­tion to mine at Bradley, Co. Durham. Last time round the Inspec­tor’s Inquiry took three weeks. Local res­i­dents still don’t know the fate of the val­ley they love. Cam­paign­ers await new inquiry dates.

Today (Fri­day 19th July 2013) it has been announced that UK Coal will be allowed to have a re-run of the Inspector’s inquiry into the bit­ter­ly dis­put­ed appli­ca­tion to mine at Bradley, Co. Durham. Last time round the Inspec­tor’s Inquiry took three weeks. Local res­i­dents still don’t know the fate of the val­ley they love. Cam­paign­ers await new inquiry dates.

Six years ago the local com­mu­ni­ty began to fight the coal com­pa­nies plans to extract 556,000 tonnes of coal. Today the Judge is allow­ing that bat­tle to re-run. For more infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign and the his­to­ry of the appli­ca­tion see here.

Local res­i­dent Car­ol Rocke said “I am dis­mayed and sad­dened by the deci­sion, it’s such a waste of pub­lic mon­ey to re-run the argu­ments. The inter­est­ed and active par­ties in the com­mu­ni­ty are up for the fight, we wont let this val­ley go.” The Pont Val­ley Net­work has gone from strength to strength increas­ing the amount of activ­i­ties in the val­ley, there are now more rea­sons why this appli­ca­tion should­n’t be giv­en the go-ahead.

The Pont Val­ley Net­work have been fight­ing this appli­ca­tion for 6 years. Now the whole appeal to the orig­i­nal plan­ning appli­ca­tion will have to go back to an Inspector’s inquiry, which will cost the coun­cil large amounts in legal bills. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly self­ish of UK Coal at a time of coun­cil cut backs and the argu­ments have already been made.

Eleanor Baylis, from The Coal Action Net­work says, “Today’s deci­sion about the Bradley open­cast appli­ca­tion in Co. Durham is a dis­ap­point­ing one. It means that the com­mu­ni­ty which first won the plan­ning hear­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2011 still has no knowl­edge of whether a place they know and love will be destroyed. Des­per­ate UK Coal clear­ly have no respect for how this affects local peo­ple. How­ev­er, it does not mean that the area will be mined. It means that there will be anoth­er Inspec­tor’s inquiry with a dif­fer­ent Inspec­tor. The new Inspec­tor will decide for them­selves whether the com­mu­ni­ty are cor­rect and that the mine will not over­all ben­e­fit the area.

UK Coal can­not hon­our its oblig­a­tions to it’s min­ers and so the Pen­sion Pro­tec­tion Fund has had to bail it out. Beyond the sit­u­a­tion around Daw Mill Col­liery, where min­ers lost 10% of their pen­sions, noth­ing seems to have changed. UK Coal are clear­ly not a com­pa­ny to be trust­ed to in any­way restore sites, oth­er sites remain bar­ren years after so called restora­tion. Sure­ly no-one wants to be a neigh­bour to a com­pa­ny which fails to pay its work­ers pen­sions and cred­i­tors. Lets hope that the next Inspec­tor agrees with the first, as it is clear to every­one else that UK Coal’s plans are bad for the area.”

Mapuche, Human Rights Activists Slam Argentina’s Chevron Deal

18 July 2013 The Argen­tine government’s long-sought deal with Chevron Corp.

18 July 2013 The Argen­tine government’s long-sought deal with Chevron Corp. to exploit shale oil reserves in Patag­o­nia was strong­ly crit­i­cized Wednes­day by Mapuche Indi­ans, human rights activists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists and left­ists who called it a sell­out to the U.S. that could drain and pol­lute the nation’s resources.

The $1.5 bil­lion joint ven­ture with Chevron was made pub­lic in a brief announce­ment by the state-owned YPF oil com­pa­ny Tues­day night. Pres­i­dent Cristi­na Fer­nan­dez said the deal will pro­mote ener­gy inde­pen­dence for Argenti­na, but many of her one-time allies warned that it would do the oppo­site.

“It’s an irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty and a lack of con­scious­ness that the nation­al gov­ern­ment hands over these resources to Chevron,” said Nilo Cayuqueo, who leads a Mapuche com­mu­ni­ty in Neuquen province, where the Vaca Muer­ta shale oil basin is. “We’re talk­ing about mon­ey here, noth­ing else. They don’t talk about the envi­ron­ment, or of future gen­er­a­tions.”

Mapuch­es say the land belongs to them and con­tend they weren’t con­sult­ed about the deal in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al treaties cov­er­ing indige­nous peo­ples. YPF denied that claim Tues­day.

Adol­fo Perez Esquiv­el, an Argen­tine rights activist award­ed the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, said the deal would hurt the coun­try.

“We Argen­tines,” he said, “are giv­ing our resources to the Unit­ed States and con­vert­ing YPF into a high­ly pol­lut­ing com­pa­ny that will use this method known as frack­ing,” which requires mil­lions of gal­lons of fresh water pumped at high pres­sure to extract oil and nat­ur­al gas from oth­er­wise unpro­duc­tive wells deep under­ground in shale deposits.

Perez Esquiv­el said he would file suit demand­ing to see envi­ron­men­tal impact stud­ies and try to block the oil devel­op­ment. But he said he had lit­tle hope of suc­cess since the court sys­tem recent­ly over­turned an injunc­tion seiz­ing any Chevron prof­its in Argenti­na if the com­pa­ny didn’t pay a $19 bil­lion dam­age judg­ment won by plain­tiffs in Ecuador, where the Tex­a­co oil com­pa­ny since bought by Chevron was judged to have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed parts of the Ama­zon.

The deal reached with Chevron is the biggest for­eign invest­ment that Argenti­na has attract­ed since expro­pri­at­ing YPF from con­trol of the Span­ish com­pa­ny Grupo Rep­sol last year. Rep­sol is demand­ing $10 bil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion and threat­ens to sue any oil com­pa­ny that takes over the wells.

Protest call out! Vedanta AGM, 1st August, London.

1st August, 2pm. The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP.

Please spread the word and join us for this year’s Vedan­ta AGM demo (fly­er attached). Affin­i­ty group actions/street theatre/banners etc encour­aged.

1st August, 2pm. The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP.

Please spread the word and join us for this year’s Vedan­ta AGM demo (fly­er attached). Affin­i­ty group actions/street theatre/banners etc encour­aged. This will be an inter­na­tion­al day of action and is usu­al­ly well cov­ered in Indi­an and UK news­pa­pers.

We will bring the defiant energy of the Dongria Kond tribe to London, as they fight the final stages of their 10 years battle for survival against Vedanta’s planned mega mine.

Parallel demonstrations are already planned in Odisha and Delhi in India on this international day of action.

Bring drums, placards, banners and lots of energy!

JOIN OUR GRASSROOTS SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT TO STOP THIS KILLER CORPORATE!

Vedan­ta Resources is a FTSE 100 British-Indi­an min­ing com­pa­ny guilty of thou­sands of deaths, envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion, anti union action, cor­rup­tion and dis­dain for life on earth. They have become one of the most hat­ed and con­tentious com­pa­nies in the world.

In Odisha, India they are try­ing to mine a moun­tain inhab­it­ed by an ancient tribe – the Don­gria Kond – who have suc­cess­ful­ly fought them off for more than 10 years. Their fight is in its final stages, and we need to mobilise all our ener­gy to ensure Vedan­ta is kicked out of the Niyam­giri moun­tains for­ev­er.

Vedan­ta is now diver­si­fy­ing into oil and gas, and expand­ing into Africa, Sri Lan­ka and pos­si­bly even the Arc­tic. They cur­rent­ly oper­ate in Zam­bia, South Africa, Liberia, Namib­ia, Aus­tralia, Sri Lan­ka, and across India.

Cov­er­age of last year’s AGM demo in the Guardian news­pa­per

Since last year’s AGM Vedan­ta are guilty of a major tox­ic gas leak affect­ing thou­sands of peo­ple at their Ster­lite sub­sidiary cop­per smelter in Tuti­corin, Tamil Nadu. At their Jhar­sug­u­da Alu­mini­um com­plex they released fly ash over farm­land pol­lut­ing rivers and vil­lages. In Zam­bia they tried to fire 2000 work­ers from their Konko­la Cop­per mines and smelter before being stopped by the Zam­bian Gov­ern­ment. One Zam­bian employ­ee was shot dead at the plant.

At Niyam­giri, Odisha, Vedan­ta with it’s cronies in the Odisha state gov­ern­ment are try­ing to force their mega baux­ite mine through at any cost. They are using police harass­ment, manip­u­la­tion, threats and dis­tor­tion of the legal sys­tem to pre­vent the Don­gria Kond from vot­ing against the project in the com­ing weeks. Forces have even opened fire on women and chil­dren threat­en­ing them not to oppose the mine. But the Don­gria are stronger than ever and pre­pared to fight tooth and nail to save their moun­tain in these final stages.

Vedan­ta are sup­port­ed by the British gov­ern­ment, as well as our banks, pen­sion funds and finan­cial insti­tu­tions. Vedan­ta is 64.9% owned by CEO Anil Agar­w­al and his fam­i­ly via var­i­ous tax havens. Top share­hold­ers include Stan­dard Life, Black­rock inc. and JP Mor­gan – the same financiers of South African min­er Lon­min who shot and killed 34 protest­ing mine work­ers in August 2012.

 

Last year’s AGM demo

Foil Vedan­ta is a sol­i­dar­i­ty move­ment work­ing direct­ly with those affect­ed by Vedan­ta in India and else­where. We are cur­rent­ly try­ing to get Vedan­ta de-list­ed from the Lon­don Stock Exchange.

Please join activists who will be ral­ly­ing in Odisha, Goa and Del­hi on 1st August as part of an inter­na­tion­al day of action to stop this killer cor­po­rate and it’s sup­port­ers.

We will be ral­ly­ing out­side Vedanta’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Don­gria Kond tribe of Odisha.

Tanks Move in Around Earth’s Most Threatened Tribe

Brazil’s mil­i­tary has moved in to stop ille­gal log­ging around the land of Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.
© Exérci­to Brasileiro

Cross Post­ed from S

Brazil’s mil­i­tary has moved in to stop ille­gal log­ging around the land of Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.
© Exérci­to Brasileiro

Cross Post­ed from Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al has received reports that Brazil’s mil­i­tary has launched a major ground oper­a­tion against ille­gal log­ging around the land of the Awá, Earth’s most threat­ened tribe.

Hun­dreds of sol­diers, police offi­cers and Envi­ron­ment Min­istry spe­cial agents have flood­ed the area, backed up with tanks, heli­copters and close to a hun­dred oth­er vehi­cles, to halt the ille­gal defor­esta­tion which has already destroyed more than 30% of one of the Awá’s indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries.

Since the oper­a­tion report­ed­ly start­ed at the end of June, 2013, at least eight saw mills have been closed and oth­er machin­ery has been con­fis­cat­ed and destroyed.

Little Butterfly, an Awá girl. The Awá have pleaded for all illegal invaders to be evicted from their forest.
Lit­tle But­ter­fly, an Awá girl. The Awá have plead­ed for all ille­gal invaders to be evict­ed from their for­est.
© Sarah Shenker/Survival

The oper­a­tion comes at a crit­i­cal time for the Awá, one of the last nomadic hunter-gath­er­er tribes in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, who are at risk of extinc­tion if the destruc­tion of their for­est is not stopped as a mat­ter of urgency.

But while the oper­a­tion is mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for log­gers to enter Awá ter­ri­to­ry and remove the valu­able tim­ber, the forces have not moved onto the Awá’s land itself – where ille­gal log­ging is tak­ing place at an alarm­ing rate and where quick action is cru­cial.

Amiri Awá told Sur­vival, ‘The invaders must be made to leave our for­est. We don’t want our for­est to dis­ap­pear. The log­gers have already destroyed many areas.’

Tanks, helicopters and close to a hundred vehicles have been deployed to protect the forest.
Tanks, heli­copters and close to a hun­dred vehi­cles have been deployed to pro­tect the for­est.
© May­con Alves

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple world­wide, includ­ing many celebri­ties, have joined Sur­vival International’s cam­paign urg­ing the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to send forces into the Awá’s ter­ri­to­ries to evict the ille­gal invaders, stop the destruc­tion of the Awá’s for­est, pros­e­cute the ille­gal log­gers and pre­vent them from re-enter­ing the area.

Survival’s Direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘Brazil has tak­en a promis­ing first step towards sav­ing the world’s most threat­ened tribe, and it’s thanks to the many thou­sands of Awá sup­port­ers world­wide. This is proof that pub­lic opin­ion can effect change. How­ev­er, the bat­tle is not yet won: the author­i­ties must not stop until all ille­gal invaders are gone.’

ELF target car dealer, Germany

July 17, 2013 — Ger­many

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

July 17, 2013 — Ger­many

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“The last night we vis­it­ed a Ford store in Berlin, we left a pack­age with a fake bomb and a mes­sage ‘This sick infat­u­a­tion with life’s destruc­tion, this grotesque embod­i­ment of decay, a new world will rise from this dis­func­tion, when the insti­tu­tions of oppres­sion are laid to waste’ and wrote ELF in one of their vans. This multi­na­tion­al is noth­ing more than anoth­er sym­bol of our dis­gust­ing civ­i­liza­tion, with their oil, wars, destruc­tion of the plan­et and ani­mals habi­tats, enslave­ment of human-ani­mals and pure cap­i­tal­ism. For Wal­ter Bond, Marie Mason and all the vic­tims of The Green Scare

-Ani­mal and Earth Lib­er­a­tion”

New Blockades in Guangdong, Third Major Protest This Week

Blockade via dumptruck17 July 2013 Author­i­ties in the south­ern Chi­nese province of Guang­dong have promised to halt pro­duc­tion at two fac­to­ries near Sihui city after demon­stra­tors blocked the gates, clash­ing with work­ers in the third mass e

Blockade via dumptruck17 July 2013 Author­i­ties in the south­ern Chi­nese province of Guang­dong have promised to halt pro­duc­tion at two fac­to­ries near Sihui city after demon­stra­tors blocked the gates, clash­ing with work­ers in the third mass envi­ron­men­tal protest in the region this week, activists said on Tues­day.

Local res­i­dents said vehi­cles con­tin­ued to come in and out of the main gates of an ink-mak­ing plant and a print fac­to­ry on Tues­day, how­ev­er, rais­ing sus­pi­cions that pro­duc­tion may still be going on.

The promise from local gov­ern­ment offi­cials came after hun­dreds of res­i­dents of Sihui’s Baisha vil­lage con­verged on the Nanyue Screen Print­ing Fac­to­ry and the Pre­ci­sion Ink. Co. Ltd. plant, which they claim are pol­lut­ing the local envi­ron­ment.

“We blocked up their gates using cement,” one pro­test­er sur­named Lu said on Tuesday.”We demand­ed that the work­ers on the pro­duc­tion floor stop work, but they closed the door on us and wouldn’t let us in.”

“A group of peo­ple got overex­cit­ed and forced their way onto the shop floor, and got into a fight with some of the work­ers there,” Lu said. ”A num­ber of vil­lagers were injured in the fight, and had to be tak­en to hos­pi­tal.”

Mount­ing anger

A sec­ond Baisha res­i­dent sur­named Liang said anger had been mount­ing over alleged pol­lu­tion from both fac­to­ries among local peo­ple for a num­ber of years.

“In recent years, peo­ple have been get­ting sick, and it’s get­ting worse and worse,” Liang said. “A lot of vil­lagers have devel­oped res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases like asth­ma and pneu­mo­nia.”
“A lot of peo­ple have con­stant sore throats and inflam­ma­tion, too, while some of the old­er peo­ple in the vil­lage have lung can­cer,” he said.

“The kids all have upper res­pi­ra­to­ry tract inflam­ma­tion, asth­ma and even pneu­mo­nia.”
Lu said vil­lagers were still sus­pi­cious that the promise to halt pro­duc­tion hadn’t been car­ried out, because both fac­to­ries pro­vid­ed high lev­els of income to local gov­ern­ment through tax­a­tion

“These two fac­to­ries are class A tax­pay­ers to the Sihui munic­i­pal gov­er­ment,” he said. “They are very large, and they pay huge amounts in tax­es.”

“They are big cus­tomers around these parts, and they hire a lot of work­ers, so of course the gov­ern­ment is going to be on their side.”

‘Run­ning nor­mal­ly’

An employ­ee who answered the phone at the neigh­bor­hood com­mit­tee of the rul­ing Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty in Sihui’s Chengzhong dis­trict declined to com­ment. “I don’t know about this,” the employ­ee said.

Repeat­ed calls to the dis­trict envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion depart­ment went unan­swered dur­ing office hours on Tues­day.

An employ­ee who answered the phone at the Nanyue Screen Print­ing Co. said admin­is­tra­tive staff were oper­at­ing nor­mal­ly on Tues­day, but declined to com­ment on the protest, or on the report­ed halt in pro­duc­tion.

“We are all at work, and things are run­ning nor­mal­ly,” the employ­ee said, in ref­er­ence to the office staff. “I don’t real­ly know about it, because the top-lev­el lead­er­ship is deal­ing with it.”

Third protest

The Sihui con­fronta­tion on Mon­day marks the third mass envi­ron­men­tal protest in Guang­dong this week.

On the same day, thou­sands of peo­ple marched in Huadu dis­trict of the provin­cial cap­i­tal Guangzhou in protest over plans to build a waste incin­er­a­tor plant on their doorstep.
And the Huadu protest came just one day after res­i­dents of Jiang­men won an appar­ent con­ces­sion from local offi­cials, who said they would can­cel plans to build a nuclear fuel pro­cess­ing plant near the city after three days of demon­stra­tions.

Wors­en­ing lev­els of air and water pol­lu­tion, as well as dis­putes over the effects of heavy met­als from min­ing and indus­try, have forced ordi­nary Chi­nese to become increas­ing­ly involved in envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and protest.

Honduran Army Kills Indigenous Leader of COPINH Who Resisted Dam in Rio Blanco

16 July 2013 On Mon­day July 15th, while the Lenca com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, in Hon­duras, marked 106 days of resis­tance to the build­ing of Agua Zarca hydro­elec­tric dam, the Army indis­crim­i­nate­ly shot at the demon­stra­tors killing one of the l

16 July 2013 On Mon­day July 15th, while the Lenca com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, in Hon­duras, marked 106 days of resis­tance to the build­ing of Agua Zarca hydro­elec­tric dam, the Army indis­crim­i­nate­ly shot at the demon­stra­tors killing one of the lead­ers of the resis­tance, Tomas Gar­cia, and seri­ous­ly injur­ing his son (pho­to).

Tomas was a Lenca indige­nous leader who was part of his community’s Indige­nous and Aux­il­iary Coun­cil and of the Nation­al Coun­cil of the Civic Coun­cil of Pop­u­lar and Indige­nous Orga­ni­za­tions of Hon­duras (COPINH).

The Hon­duran activist was shot dead while he was walk­ing with oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to the project’s facil­i­ties owned by Desa and Sino­hy­dro com­pa­nies, while his son, who was seri­ous­ly injured by a high-cal­i­bre bul­let, is in hos­pi­tal and his life is in dan­ger, Berta Cac­eres, leader of COPINH, told Real World Radio.

Berta described the act as “a des­per­ate and crim­i­nal reac­tion” by the com­pa­nies that want to build a dam on Riv­er Gual­caeque, seri­ous­ly affect­ing the com­mu­ni­ties liv­ing there. The Hon­duran army sup­ports the com­pa­nies, said Berta, and they even pay for the trans­porta­tion and main­te­nance of troops deployed by the Hon­duran gov­ern­ment in Tegu­ci­gal­pa in Rio Blan­co.

On Mon­day night, COPINH report­ed of more mil­i­tary troops being deployed in Zaca­pa, San­ta Bar­bara, and there were fears of new shoot­ings against civil­ians dur­ing the wake of the mur­dered indige­nous leader.

“The com­mu­ni­ty is out­raged. We are in great sor­row, also because we believe we have to con­tin­ue our strug­gle”, said Berta dur­ing a phone inter­view. “As the elec­tions approach (in Novem­ber) they want to teach COPINH a les­son”, she explained and said the com­mu­ni­ty decid­ed to con­tin­ue occu­py­ing the access to the dam.

A few hours after the inci­dents, COPINH had report­ed that since Fri­day 12, top exec­u­tives of the com­pa­ny Desar­rol­lo Energéti­co Sociedad Anón­i­ma (DESA)- which is in charge of the project togeth­er with the orig­i­nal group Sino­hy­dro – trav­elled to meet with local hit­men, who are respon­si­ble for direct threats against sev­er­al mem­bers of the indige­nous coun­cil, includ­ing Tomas Gar­cia.

Before they start­ed shoot­ing at civil­ians, the mil­i­tary made no attempt to talk with the activists, said Berta.

The leader of COPINH was ille­gal­ly arrest­ed in May and sub­mit­ted to a tri­al for pur­port­ed­ly hav­ing an ille­gal weapon, some­thing that the court could not prove and the case was final­ly dis­missed.

The leader high­light­ed that in the new cas­es of repres­sion against res­i­dents of the com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co, we urgent­ly need inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty to report the civic and mil­i­tary author­i­ties and both com­pa­nies for mur­der.

“We are aware that we are con­front­ed with an impuni­ty strat­e­gy in a con­text that seems to be wors­en­ing”, said Berta. She said the com­mu­ni­ties’ deter­mi­na­tion to defend their ter­ri­to­ry is strength­ened in these sit­u­a­tions of state and pri­vate vio­lence.

In fact, riv­er Gual­car­que is con­sid­ered an essen­tial part of the Lenca spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and the com­mu­ni­ties are con­fronting the busi­ness projects as a trib­ute to their culture’s sym­bol­ic fig­ure: Lem­pi­ra.

“We con­tin­ue fight­ing, we are not afraid, we will not be prey to fear and we will con­tin­ue this peace­ful but strong bat­tle for life”, she con­clud­ed.

Daniel McGowan Loses Lawsuit Against Bureau Of Prisons

16 Jult 2013 A fed­er­al court has dis­missed an envi­ron­men­tal activist’s claims against the U.S.

16 Jult 2013 A fed­er­al court has dis­missed an envi­ron­men­tal activist’s claims against the U.S. Bureau of Pris­ons over a restric­tive prison wing he was housed in, but a law­suit filed by oth­er pris­on­ers against the gov­ern­ment over its restric­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion man­age­ment units con­tin­ues.

Daniel McGowan, 39, served sev­en years in fed­er­al prison for arson con­nect­ed with the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front, four of them in the secre­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion man­age­ment units, or CMUs, dubbed “Lit­tle Guan­tanamo” by crit­ics.

Along with dozens of oth­er most­ly Mus­lim inmates, McGowan’s phone calls with the out­side world and phys­i­cal con­tact with his fam­i­ly were severe­ly lim­it­ed. Even after he was released to a halfway house, McGowan was briefly tossed back into prison this year for writ­ing a Huff­in­g­ton Post blog entry detail­ing his case.

McGowan’s lawyers at the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights had argued that his re-jail­ing proved he was still at risk for re-incar­cer­a­tion in the CMUs. But the judge over­see­ing the law­suit dis­agreed, cit­ing a 1990s-era law that severe­ly restricts the rights of fed­er­al pris­on­ers to chal­lenge cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.

McGowan’s lawyers at the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights said in a state­ment that they were “deeply dis­ap­point­ed” by Senior Judge Bar­bara J. Rothstein’s deci­sion, but that they would push on with the larg­er law­suit.

Residents raise sinkhole warning signs over Shell tunnel

sinkhole_1.jpgYes­ter­day (14th July), local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers raised signs on Sruwad­da­con estu­ary, warn­ing of the sink­holes that con­tin­ue to appear over Shel­l’s tun­nel.

sinkhole_1.jpgYes­ter­day (14th July), local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers raised signs on Sruwad­da­con estu­ary, warn­ing of the sink­holes that con­tin­ue to appear over Shel­l’s tun­nel. Res­i­dents first noticed the sink­holes begin­ning to appear in the spe­cial area of con­ser­va­tion on the 20th May and numer­ous sink­holes have appeared along the tun­nel route since then.

The warn­ing signs which read “Dan­ger Sink­holes: Keep Back” were erect­ed in order to warn users of the estu­ary of pres­ence of the sink­hole, which have been up to 8 foot deep. Res­i­dents were forced to put up the warn­ing signs after both Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil and the Depart­ment of Ener­gy & Nat­ur­al Resources, despite being con­tact­ed, have failed to take any action.

The Nation­al Parks & Wildlife Ser­vice are also believed not to have inves­ti­gat­ed thus far the pos­si­ble dam­age that may be occur­ring to the ben­th­ic life in the estu­ary, despite the area being both a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion and a Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way stat­ed “When Shell experts were giv­ing evi­dence in the oral hear­ing, there was­n’t a word about sink­holes and the bub­bling up of pos­si­ble con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed mate­r­i­al to the sur­face of the spe­cial area of conservation”.[1]

Shell have pre­vi­ous­ly sent up to 10 work­ers with shov­els out on the estu­ary in a failed attempt to fill in the sink­holes.

Mr Con­way con­tin­ued “We can cur­rent­ly fol­low the path of the tun­nel by the trail of sink­holes that have appeared on the strand. Fail­ure to reg­u­late has caused alot of suf­fer­ing in Ire­land, yet the Gov­ern­ment are still allow­ing Shell to do what­ev­er they want. The sink­holes are fur­ther proof that the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to aban­don their respon­si­bil­i­ty to reg­u­late Shell.”

Links

[1] YouTube Video: What’s hap­pen­ing in Shel­l’s Tun­nel? — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hvz2l27Ooc

[2] Reports of sink­holes above Cor­rib tun­nel inves­ti­gat­ed
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/reports-of-sinkholes-abo…54717

[3] Mid­west Radio Clip about third sink-hole in Sruwad­da­con estu­ary
http://www.shelltosea.com/content/midwest-radio-clip-ab…tuary

 

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Bubbling in the water in the foreground while people raise warning signs in the background of photo
Bub­bling in the water in the fore­ground while peo­ple raise warn­ing signs in the back­ground of pho­to

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Anti-nuclear Power Protesters ‘Drop Dead’ on 700th day of Kudankulam Stir

15 July 2013 On the 700th day of their protest against the Kudanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Project (KNPP), vil­lagers of Idinthakarai in Tamil Nadu “dropped dead” on the roads in a sym­bol­ic ges­ture, an anti-plant activist said Mon­day

15 July 2013 On the 700th day of their protest against the Kudanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Project (KNPP), vil­lagers of Idinthakarai in Tamil Nadu “dropped dead” on the roads in a sym­bol­ic ges­ture, an anti-plant activist said Mon­day.”

Sev­er­al vil­lagers who were walk­ing on the roads sud­den­ly fell down ‘dead’. After some time, they got up. A pub­lic meet­ing was also held today (Mon­day),” S.P. Udayaku­mar, coor­di­na­tor of the People’s Move­ment Against Nuclear Ener­gy (PMANE) told IANS over phone from Idinthakarai.

The ‘drop dead’ ges­ture was an enact­ment of the impact the pow­er plant would have on peo­ple. The protest was held against the clear­ance grant­ed by the Atom­ic Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Board (AERB) to KNPP’s first 1,000 MW unit to start nuclear fis­sion.

On Sat­ur­day night, the KNPP’s first reac­tor attained crit­i­cal­i­ty or began nuclear fis­sion.
The vil­lagers in the vicin­i­ty of the KNPP have been protest­ing against the nuclear pow­er plant for the past 700 days, fear­ing for their lives in the wake of the nuclear acci­dent in Fukushi­ma, Japan, in 2011, under the PMANE ban­ner.

The Nuclear Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion of India Ltd (NPCIL) is build­ing two reac­tors of 1,000 MW each. The reac­tors are sup­plied by Rus­sia.

Refut­ing rumours that the protest would take a vio­lent turn, Udayaku­mar said: “Ours is a peace­ful protest. We don’t believe in vio­lence. We will not coop­er­ate. A plant of this nature would need the coop­er­a­tion of the locals.”

“It is a gen­uine strug­gle of the work­ing class. But it is not being recog­nised. We had knocked sev­er­al doors — gov­ern­ment, experts, courts — but no door was opened to us,” M. Push­parayan, anoth­er PMANE leader, told IANS.

Udayaku­mar ques­tioned the urgency for giv­ing the “first approach to crit­i­cal­i­ty” clear­ance even before the apex court had the time to go through the reports filed by AERB, Nuclear Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion of India Ltd (NPCIL) and the union min­istry of envi­ron­ment and forests.

He said the fight against KNPP would con­tin­ue — legal­ly, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly and polit­i­cal­ly.
Udayaku­mar said a case had been filed in the Madras High Court Mon­day, chal­leng­ing the AERB’s clear­ance for the first KNPP unit to go crit­i­cal.