Author: earthfirst

Angry Environmental Protesters Occupy Government Office, Smash Computers in China

28.7.12

Angry demon­stra­tors occu­pied a gov­ern­ment office in east­ern Chi­na on Sat­ur­day, destroy­ing com­put­ers and over­turn­ing cars in a vio­lent protest against an indus­tri­al waste pipeline they said would poi­son their coastal waters.

28.7.12

Angry demon­stra­tors occu­pied a gov­ern­ment office in east­ern Chi­na on Sat­ur­day, destroy­ing com­put­ers and over­turn­ing cars in a vio­lent protest against an indus­tri­al waste pipeline they said would poi­son their coastal waters.

The demon­stra­tion was the lat­est in a string of protests sparked by fears of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and high­lights the social ten­sions the gov­ern­ment in Bei­jing faces as it approach­es a lead­er­ship tran­si­tion this year.

About 1,000 pro­test­ers marched through the coastal city of Qidong, about one hour north of Shang­hai by car, shout­ing slo­gans against the plan pipeline that would emp­ty waste from a paper fac­to­ry in a near­by town into the sea.

 

Demon­stra­tors reject­ed the government’s stand that waste from the fac­to­ry would not pol­lute the coastal waters.

“The gov­ern­ment says the waste will not pol­lute the sea, but if that’s true, then why don’t they dump it into Yangtze Riv­er?” said Lu Shuai, a 25-year-old pro­test­er who works in logis­tics.

“It is because if they dump it into the riv­er, it will have an impact on peo­ple in Shang­hai and peo­ple in Shang­hai will oppose it.”

Sev­er­al pro­test­ers entered the city government’s main build­ing and were seen smash­ing com­put­ers, over­turn­ing desks and throw­ing doc­u­ments out the win­dows to loud cheers from the crowd.

Reuters wit­nessed five cars and one minibus being over­turned. Over 1,000 police – some para­mil­i­tary – guard­ed the city gov­ern­ment office com­pound in lines.

At least two police offi­cers were dragged into the crowd at the gov­ern­ment office and punched and beat­en enough to make them bleed.

On Fri­day, in an effort to stave off the protest, the Qidong city gov­ern­ment announced it would sus­pend the project for fur­ther research.

But many pro­test­ers said on Sat­ur­day that post­pone­ment was not enough.

“If the gov­ern­ment real­ly want­ed to stop this project, they should have done it right from the begin­ning. At this point they are too late,” said Xi Feng, a 17-year-old pro­test­er.

Local offi­cials took steps to ward off the demon­stra­tion and res­i­dents received text mes­sages and let­ters warn­ing that any pub­lic demon­stra­tion would be ille­gal.

Envi­ron­men­tal wor­ries have stoked calls for expand­ed rights for cit­i­zens and greater con­sul­ta­tion in the tight­ly con­trolled one-par­ty state.

The out­pour­ing of pub­lic anger is emblem­at­ic of the ris­ing dis­con­tent fac­ing Chi­nese lead­ers, who are obsessed with main­tain­ing sta­bil­i­ty and strug­gling to bal­ance growth with ris­ing pub­lic anger over envi­ron­men­tal threats.

The protest fol­lowed sim­i­lar demon­stra­tions against projects the Sichuan town of Shi­fang ear­li­er this month and in the cities of Dalian in the north­east and Haimen in south­ern Guang­dong province in the past year.

In Shi­fang, the gov­ern­ment halt­ed con­struc­tion of a cop­per refin­ery fol­low­ing protests by res­i­dents that it would poi­son them. It also freed most of the peo­ple who were detained after a clash with police.

The lead­er­ship has vowed to clean up China’s skies and water­ways and increas­ing­ly tried to appear respon­sive to com­plaints about pol­lu­tion. But envi­ron­men­tal dis­putes pit cit­i­zens against local offi­cials whose aim is to lure fresh invest­ment and rev­enue into their areas.

London Critical Mass kettled and arrested

27.7.12

27.7.12

Coin­cid­ing with the Olympics open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, peo­ple are tweet­ing that over 100 cyclists are being put on coach­es and arrest­ed, after being ket­tled and some CS/pepper sprayed for cycling in Olympic-only lanes and break­ing an imposed Sec­tion 12 for­bid­ding going north of the riv­er.  Cops ensured David Beck­ham could get through at one point by punch­ing cyclists. 

Video (dur­ing).  Video (arrest­ed onto bus­es after).  2 reports below, and pre-CM ‘why I’m going’ (& this link to updat­ed report):

More than 100 cyclists were arrest­ed by police close to the Olympic Sta­di­um on the open­ing night of the Games.

There were scuf­fles between police and cyclists on the out­skirts of the Olympic Park, at about 22:30 BST.

Peo­ple tak­ing part in a month­ly mass bike ride held in Lon­don said they were “ket­tled” near the sta­di­um.

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police said they had made arrests for Pub­lic Order offences but have not respond­ed to the ket­tling claim.

The force said two groups had been detained — the first on Bow Fly­over and the oth­er in Warton Road, Strat­ford.

A spokesman for Scot­land Yard said: “A num­ber of peo­ple in breach of reg­u­la­tions imposed on a month­ly cycling event have been arrest­ed.”

In a state­ment, the force said the con­di­tions on the cycle ride had been put in place “to pre­vent seri­ous dis­rup­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty and the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Olympic Games”.

Ker­ry-Anne Men­doza, 31, who describes her­self as a cam­paign­er and writer, said: “We were cycling down the Bow Road [in Strat­ford] and the police direct­ed us down a cul-de-sac.

“Then they ket­tled us in there. There is a line of police cars and vans behind that.”

She added: “They have not com­mu­ni­cat­ed with us or told us why we are being held here or when they will let us out.”

The reg­u­lar Crit­i­cal Mass ride is a pro-cycling event.

Joel Ben­jamin, who has been on a num­ber of Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides pre­vi­ous­ly, said there were 400–500 cyclists who met on the south side of Water­loo Bridge.

“Usu­al­ly there is a light police pres­ence,” he said. “Today there were far more police than I’ve seen before.”

‘Cel­e­bra­tion of cycling’

He said police used a sound sys­tem to tell cyclists there were restric­tions placed on the ride but not what it meant.

“Basi­cal­ly, they did­n’t want us to go north of the riv­er. The police had put a road­block stop­ping all traf­fic going north.”

He said police took a “heavy-hand­ed stance”.

Scene close to Olympic Park
“I saw sev­er­al cas­es of the police being aggres­sive and phys­i­cal, drag­ging peo­ple off their bikes to the ground.

“I did­n’t see any arrests, but my friend, a solic­i­tor was arrest­ed.

“I left at about 8.30pm and man­aged to not get arrest­ed, but I think around 100 peo­ple have been arrest­ed.

“I guess there were peo­ple there who are against the Olympics, but Crit­i­cal Mass is real­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of cycling, there was no need to get so heavy hand­ed. ”

The Met Police said a num­ber of the arrest­ed cyclists had been removed from the area near the Olympic Park.

The arrest­ed cyclists have been detained under Sec­tion 12 of the Pub­lic Order Act.

———————–

The Olympics has start­ed and it seems cycling has become a crim­i­nal offence, wor­thy of police bru­tal­i­ty – I hope the Olympic cyclists are okay tomor­row.

Hang on a minute: this is the same Olympics that politi­cians have been try­ing to brand as the green­est Olympics ever? Also, they did say how this would encour­age peo­ple to get fit and into sport, didn’t they?

Crit­i­cal mass met as it does on a month­ly basis to cycle as a swarm, for com­mu­ni­ty reclaim­ing of streets in Lon­don. It met near Water­loo Bridge, at the South­bank Cen­tre. From reg­u­lars’ accounts, as it is not a “protest”, this is nor­mal­ly free from police sup­pres­sion and it fol­lows the whims of the mass, with no clear direc­tion end­ing its route on the Roy­al Mall.

On this gath­er­ing, the police were there on mass too: an author­i­tar­i­an mass. They announced that under a sec­tion 12 no cyclists were allowed to cross the rivers and go to any of North Lon­don. Like oth­ers there, this was where I live, and haven’t I been bom­bard­ed with Olympics posters encour­ag­ing me to get on my bike.

The over a thou­sand peo­ple assem­bled, did not move for a while. Then we set off first try­ing to cross Water­loo Bridge. The police blocked this route.I moved with the mass and we had sim­i­lar prob­lems at Black­fri­ars, our way blocked by a police line, which was also block­ing the traf­fic. Then we head­ed to try South­wark Bridge, again this was blocked.

Inci­den­tal­ly, it was noticed amongst the crowd that David Beck­ham was stuck the oth­er side of the road­block in a dark SUV head­ing south. His pres­ence stirred rip­ples of excite­ment, although the focus was more about how to head over the riv­er.

As passers­by start­ed to pay a bit more atten­tion, to take pic­tures and look at him, the police react­ed. Or in my inter­pre­ta­tion, unlaw­ful­ly over­re­act­ed a lit­tle like the impo­si­tion of the Sec­tion 12. I saw cyclists thrown off their bikes, hit and man­han­dled for stand­ing still. If the police had not blocked the road, this would not have hap­pened. I report­ed this, moments lat­er, to a senior offi­cer; explain­ing that one of the offi­cers had com­mit­ted assault – he was not inter­est­ed.

I even­tu­al­ly crossed a bridge, as many oth­ers did, and made my way towards Strat­ford; fol­low­ing a pro­ces­sion of riot vans. In Strat­ford, these vans were lined the streets, with offi­cers ket­tling a group of cyclists who had done bet­ter exer­cis­ing their rights to free move­ment.

When I arrived the police had ket­tled around one hun­dred cyclists, also I heard there were oth­er ket­tles else­where and fur­ther arrests and assaults by police offi­cers. These cyclists were tak­en away by the bus load, hand­cuffed with an offi­cer per per­son. I over­heard a senior police­man remark that they were going to var­i­ous police sta­tions, and their bike tagged and tak­en to a depot.

———————–

Why I’m going to the Crit­i­cal Mass this fri­day

Here’s my rea­son why; back in 2005, we found out the news that Lon­don was going to host the Olympic games, lots of peo­ple in the media make com­ments about how much of a shit hole Strat­ford is, but truth is, its not real­ly that shit, it’s just an easy tar­get for the devel­op­ers, there’s no one to defend it. Any­way since 2005 the amount of rede­vel­op­ment with yup­py flats and Tescos pop­ping up all over the town is out of con­trol, the locals have been pushed to once side. I’m mates with a local Tory cam­paign, fun­ny cause he’s a tory, and all his con­stituents hate the Olympics, and he agrees. I’m assum­ing that after the Olympics like the Mil­le­ni­um Dome and Iraq, the top politi­cians will admit it was a bit of sham. Every­where I go I hear peo­ple moan­ing about the Olympics, and then when I turn on the TV, I see noth­ing but smil­ing faces. Even my par­ents who are mis­er­able, Dai­ly Mail types want to see the VIP lanes blocked. We got taxis dri­vers moan­ing, dairy farm­ers out on strike, now its times for the oppo­site end of the spec­trum to join in with the crit­i­cal mass. When I heard about the crit­i­cal mass, I thought it was time to give ‘them’ a her­nia with stress. 130 quid fine for cycling in the VIP lane? that’s an insult to the nor­mal peo­ple who are stuck in Lon­don. Any­way over the years I’ve was part of the Sum­mit Hop­ping move­ment, but no-one in Lon­don has realised all the Olympics is anoth­er polit­i­cal sum­mit, and it should of been treat­ed as such, with mas­sive direct action, ban­ner drops, etc etc. Any­way if your com­ing to the mass on fri­day, expect the police, GCHQ and they’re oth­er resources to real­ly treat us like shit. On sat­ur­day a face­book event was blocked with in one-hour of its cre­ation, I hope the girl who made the event does­n’t use her own ip address. GCHQ are def­i­nite­ly going to watch this one. Prob­a­bly a mas­sive Copen­hagen ket­tle on one of the bridges, or south­bank, so keep your wits about you, ride a blue bar­clays bike, and ditch it if shit gets heavy lets not for­get, the psy­cos of our Armed Forces are in Lon­don in num­bers, and they can’t tell the dif­fer­ence between an Afghan wed­ding and ter­ror­ist camp. Keep telling your mates, and invite them along. See you in the streets.

sabotage to save Khimki forest, Russia

report­ed by activists in Rus­sia:

“Rus­sia. Khim­ki for­est (north of Moscow). Con­struc­tion vehi­cles torched, tree-cut­ter assault­ed, his arm bro­ken.

report­ed by activists in Rus­sia:

“Rus­sia. Khim­ki for­est (north of Moscow). Con­struc­tion vehi­cles torched, tree-cut­ter assault­ed, his arm bro­ken.

Unknown activists have torched sev­er­al con­struc­tion vehi­cles and assault­ed tree-cut­ter at the new toll high­way con­struc­tion site in Khim­ki for­est. These news appeared in joint dec­la­ra­tion, pub­lished by state enter­prise “Avtodor” and “North-East­ern con­ces­sion” (sub­sidiary of Vin­ci). The acci­dents hap­pened on nights of 19.07 and 21.07.
“Avtodor” rep­re­sen­ta­tives stat­ed that an assault on tree-cut­ters took place on 19.07: one of the work­ers tried to pre­vent eco-activists from enter­ing the con­struc­tion site. In the fol­low­ing fight his arm broke.
On the night of 21.07 spe­cial con­struc­tion vehi­cles were torched: sev­er­al brand new har­vesters and hydraulic exca­va­tor were com­plete­ly destroyed by fire. Mate­r­i­al dam­age is esti­mat­ed to be over $ 2 000 000.
Ear­li­er the same com­pa­nies filed a com­plaint about unknown peo­ple open­ing fire on con­struc­tion vehi­cles (sup­pos­ed­ly from “Saiga”, a civ­il 12-mm car­bine) and torch­ing work­ers sheds with molo­tovs.
Eco-activists present at the site of eco-camp near the con­struc­tion failed to pro­vide police with evi­dence or ideas about the nature of per­pe­tra­tors.”

report­ed on From Rus­sia With Love:

“On the night of 20–21 july, after hav­ing received news of new tree-cut­ting activ­i­ty in Khim­ki for­est, we decid­ed to vis­it the work­ers. We aimed for 2 trucks and exca­va­tor parked on the clear cut. They were com­plete­ly destroyed.

Our sol­i­dar­i­ty goes out to eco-activists who broke the arm of pri­vate guard who was guard­ing the clear cut (this piece we learned from news).

Enough of pseu­do-legal­ism!

Do like us, do bet­ter than us.
- Autonomous autonoms

video footage of the action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P51k3CrtF20&feature=youtu.be”

Aristocrat landlord’s garden opencasted!

18.07.2012 Ear­li­er today activists from Take Back the Land! vis­it­ed Lord Home’s man­sion in the Dou­glas Val­ley and open­cast­ed his gar­den, hop­ing to bring the issues clos­er to home for him.

18.07.2012 Ear­li­er today activists from Take Back the Land! vis­it­ed Lord Home’s man­sion in the Dou­glas Val­ley and open­cast­ed his gar­den, hop­ing to bring the issues clos­er to home for him. Lord Home owns Main­shill and all of Glen­tag­gart East which is cur­rent­ly being occu­pied by an action camp. Of course only some of the things that impact com­mu­ni­ties so much would have been felt because of this open­cast, such as see­ing a big mess. He won’t have to put up with the health impacts from dust and diesel fumes, the dan­ger on the roads, the noise, con­tempt from South Lanark­shire Coun­cil – the list goes on.

COAL ACTION SCOTLAND MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE USE 18th July

Lord Home’s gar­den open­cast­ed by anti-coal activists

At 10:30 this morn­ing 20 envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice pro­test­ers entered the grounds of Lord Home’s state­ly home at Castle­mains in the Dou­glas Val­ley and began dig­ging up his front gar­den. The protest brought home to Lord Home how much of an eye sore an open cast next to your res­i­dence is. A ban­ner held up in front of his home which read “Com­mu­ni­ty Health not Lord Home’s Wealth!” Police attend­ed the scene but no arrests were made.

Rob Hearne, one of the activists dig­ging up the Lord’s gar­den said: “Lord Home is mak­ing mil­lions off open­cast coal min­ing in the Dou­glas Val­ley. He owns land cur­rent­ly being mined at Main­shill, and owns the entire Glen­tag­gart East site, next on the list to be mined. There is no com­mu­ni­ty con­sent for open­cast in this area, with 70% of peo­ple in Dou­glas oppos­ing Main­shill and over 650 let­ters of objec­tion sent to the coun­cil against it. Yet because of his aris­to­crat­ic and hered­i­tary priv­i­lege, he can do what he wants and walk all over the wish­es of the com­mu­ni­ty. We’re dig­ging up his gar­den to bring the issues clos­er to home.”

Local res­i­dent David Grey said: “The Lord owns every­thing around here and makes loads of mon­ey but gives vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty. He gets mil­lions but we get can­cers, asth­ma and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases. He is essen­tial­ly a par­a­site, suck­ing the wealth out of the area and con­sol­i­dat­ing it into his pri­vate estate.”

Clare Reed, anoth­er of the dig­gers at Castle­mains, added: “Lord Home doesn’t even live in the val­ley despite his mas­sive house and huge land own­er­ship. He lives in Lon­don, sits in the House of Lords and is Chair­per­son of Coutts Bank. He is total­ly com­plic­it in the destruc­tion caused by open­cast min­ing in the val­ley and all the health impacts inflict­ed on com­mu­ni­ties, but suf­fers none of the impacts him­self. In fact, he makes a killing – we esti­mate he’ll make up to £7 mil­lion off Glen­tag­gart East alone.”

Today’s protest fol­lows Monday’s block­ade of Bro­ken Cross Open Cast Coal Site and Saturday’s inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day. These actions are part of a week-long action camp and occu­pa­tion of Scot­tish Coal’s intend­ed new mine in the area, Glen­tag­gart East. The camp called “Take Back the Land!” has attract­ed activists from across Scot­land, the UK and Europe to take direct action against the blight of open­cast coal min­ing.

Coal Action Scot­land
contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk
http://takebacktheland.org.uk/

Broken Cross Open Cast Site blockaded – police act as Scottish Coal security

This morn­ing Bro­ken Cross open­cast site in the Dou­glas Val­ley was block­ad­ed for an hour and a half before Scot­tish Coal work­ers lift­ed three peo­ple in heavy con­crete lock-ons out of the road, all over­seen by Inspec­tor Whip (pho­tographed) of Strath­clyde Police. This isn’t the first time that Inspec­tor Whip has hurt peo­ple by lift­ing them out of the road. He’s reck­less and delib­er­ate­ly put people’s safe­ty at risk, all to pro­tect the prof­its of Scot­tish Coal.

COAL ACTION SCOTLAND MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE USE 16th July 2012

Activists dis­rupt coal haulage and police take unac­cept­able risks of injury at Lanark­shire mine

At 6:00 this morn­ing a group of 20 envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice activists block­ad­ed the only entrance to Scot­tish Coal’s Bro­ken Cross Open Cast Coal Site [1] in the Dou­glas Val­ley. This pre­vent­ed all access to the site by coal lor­ries for one and a half hours before police ordered work­ers to dan­ger­ous­ly car­ry activists out of the road. Con­crete “lock-on tubes” were used to pre­vent three activists from being removed.

In an act of extreme reck­less­ness, Inspec­tor Whip of Strath­clyde Police ordered Scot­tish Coal employ­ees to drag pro­test­ers out of the access road, while they were still attached to their lock-on tubes, each weigh­ing around 50kg. One of those moved was injured in this inci­dent. The three have been arrest­ed and are cur­rent­ly being held in cus­tody.

Rob Hearne, one of the activists sup­port­ing the protest at the mine said: “This is not the first time that Inspec­tor Whip and Strath­clyde Police have shown such utter dis­re­gard for the safe­ty of anti-coal activists. This kind of behav­iour is total­ly unac­cept­able, where untrained work­ers are allowed to assault peo­ple in such a way, break­ing all health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and com­mit­ting crim­i­nal offences. Strath­clyde Police are act­ing as Scot­tish Coal’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty.”

The protest was intend­ed to stop coal from being trans­port­ed from the mine to rail­heads and to oppose Scot­tish Coal’s exten­sion to the mine as part of their “for­ward strat­e­gy” [2]. In par­tic­u­lar, it aimed to stop coal HGVs from being rout­ed through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, an issue of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance for local com­mu­ni­ties.

Gle­spin res­i­dent David Grey said: “A top traf­fic police offi­cer has been quot­ed in the past as say­ing that some­one will have to be killed on Lanarkshire’s roads before some­thing is done about the haulage of coal in this area. HGVs pass right through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, past two pri­ma­ry schools with no lev­el cross­ings, some­thing that Scot­tish Coal, South Lanark­shire Coun­cil and Scot­tish Min­is­ters all said would nev­er hap­pen. And now Inspec­tor Whip endan­gers the lives of peo­ple try­ing to make the roads safer for local res­i­dents! It’s out­ra­geous. Inspec­tor Whip should be ashamed for putting the prof­its of coal above the safe­ty of peo­ple in the val­ley.”

Today´s protest fol­lows Saturday’s inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site [3] where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day. This is part of a week-long action camp and occu­pa­tion of Scot­tish Coal’s intend­ed new mine in the area, Glen­tag­gart East [4]. The camp called “Take Back the Land!” [5] has attract­ed activists from across Scot­land, the UK and Europe to take direct action against the blight of open­cast coal min­ing.

Coal Action Scot­land are prepar­ing a for­mal com­plaint to Strath­clyde Police about this inci­dent.

For inter­views and com­ment please con­tact:

Roger Wilkins on 07917141720 or email  contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk

Pho­tos can be emailed upon request.

Notes to edi­tors:

[1] Bro­ken Cross is the larg­er of Scot­tish Coal’s two oper­at­ing open cast coal mines in the Dou­glas Val­ley, South Lanark­shire, pro­duc­ing around 15,000 tonnes of coal a week

[2] South Lanark­shire Coun­cil approved Scot­tish Coal’s North (East) Exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross, the third such exten­sion, despite huge com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to it. The exten­sion will see the life of the mine extend­ed until 2024, way beyond what Scot­tish Plan­ning Pol­i­cy con­sid­ers an accept­able cumu­la­tive impact and some­thing that local res­i­dents find total­ly unac­cept­able.

[3] Main­shill Wood was occu­pied by the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp on 12th June 2009. It was even­tu­al­ly evict­ed on 25th Jan­u­ary 2010 in an evic­tion that last­ed 5 days. It involved 45 arrests and was the largest protest site evic­tion in the UK since Man­ches­ter Air­port 11 years pre­vi­ous­ly. There was huge com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to the mine local­ly, with 654 objec­tions being lodged against the appli­ca­tion. Despite Lord Home, the land own­er, telling local res­i­dents that he’d safe­guard the area from min­ing, he did the oppo­site and is now being paid by Scot­tish Coal for lease of the land. Since the start of coal­ing oper­a­tions at the site in Feb­ru­ary 2010 local res­i­dents have com­plained of noise and dust impacts and dan­ger on the roads as coal HGVs are rout­ed through Dou­glas and Gle­spin.

Lord Home owns Dou­glas & Angus Estates. He is the son of the for­mer prime min­is­ter Alec Home, a peer in the House of Lords and chair­per­son of Coutts Bank. He lives in Lon­don but has a state­ly home at Castle­mains in the Dou­glas Val­ley.

Scot­tish Coal cur­rent­ly have two oper­a­tional sites in the val­ley, Main­shill and Glen­tag­gart, down from 5 in 2010.

[4] Scot­tish Coal have been giv­en approval by South Lanark­shire Coun­cil despite 232 let­ters of objec­tion to mine 4 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the Glen­tag­gart East site, adja­cent to the exist­ing Glen­tag­gart site which was in oper­a­tion between 2001 and 2011. RSPB object­ed to the appli­ca­tion because of the eco­log­i­cal­ly impor­tant blan­ket bog and pro­tect­ed bird breed­ing habi­tats on the 350 hectare site. The mine will be 1.5km away from two pri­ma­ry schools and con­tin­ue the encir­clement of Dou­glas Val­ley vil­lages with open­cast mines.

Glen­tag­gart East is part of Scot­tish Coal’s “For­ward Strat­e­gy”, unveiled in Sep­tem­ber 2011. It includ­ed 3 new open­cast mine appli­ca­tions. One of these, Auld­ton Heights, was with­drawn fol­low­ing a sub­stan­tial cam­paign against it. A fur­ther exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross, an exist­ing site, was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the coun­cil, despite oppo­si­tion from local res­i­dents.

[5] for more infor­ma­tion about Take Back the Land! please see the fol­low­ing web­site:  http://takebacktheland.org.uk/

Residents Blockade Injection Well One Week After 1,000 Gallon Fracking Waste Spill

16.7.12

[For updates check ohiofracktion.com]

16.7.12

[For updates check ohiofracktion.com]

Con­cerned res­i­dents blocked access to an injec­tion well in Trum­bull Coun­ty this morn­ing, protest­ing the fail­ure of Ohio reg­u­la­tors to ade­quate­ly test and mon­i­tor dump­ing of tox­ic frack­ing waste. At least one pro­tes­tor has been arrest­ed and at least two oth­ers have been detained.

Trum­bull Coun­ty res­i­dents, along with support­ers from Frack Free Mahon­ing and Ohio Frack­tion, are gath­er­ing at the well site on Sodom Hutch­ings Road in Vien­na Town­ship, to express con­cerns about the con­tents of the 1,000 gal­lons of frack­ing waste­water that spilled along five miles of road in Fowler Town­ship, a near­by res­i­den­tial area on July 7.They are demand­ing that Ohio’s Divi­sion of Nat­ur­al Resources (ODNR) begin sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly test­ing out-of-state frack waste that is inject­ed into over 170 wells through­out Ohio. One sup­port­er has locked him­self to the gate to pre­vent all trucks car­ry­ing frack­ing waste from enter­ing the site.

Accord­ing to spokesper­son Mike Set­tles, emer­gency respon­ders from Ohio’s Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) con­duct­ed only a sim­ple pH test of the spilled frack waste lin­ing the roads of Fowler Town­ship. As far as fur­ther test­ing for radi­a­tion, heavy met­als, and oth­er chem­i­cals, Set­tles explained that EPA doesn’t “have the resources” to per­form test­ing unless there is a “legit­i­mate con­cern” of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age. Thick, rust col­ored residue was still vis­i­ble on the road over a week after the spill.

Lib­er­al Town­ship Trustee Jodi Stoy­ak expressed her frus­tra­tion with EPA’s response in a July 12 let­ter to Mr. Set­tles, not­ing “many of the chem­i­cals used in [frack­ing] and con­tained in the waste are offi­cial­ly clas­si­fied indi­vid­u­al­ly as haz­ardous…. This, in my opin­ion, is a huge envi­ron­men­tal con­cern.”

ODNR offi­cials have ignored numer­ous writ­ten and oral requests from Ohio res­i­dents to order test­ing of the count­less gal­lons of out-of-state frack waste inject­ed under­ground into Ohio each year. In response to a recent pub­lic records request ask­ing ODNR to release all test­ing rel­e­vant to frack­ing waste, ODNR Geol­o­gist Tom Tomas­tik pro­vid­ed no results tak­en after 1989.

Mainshill Open Cast Coal Site shut down for the day!

July 14th, 2012

July 14th, 2012

At 10:00 this morn­ing a group of 45 activists invad­ed Scot­tish Coal’s Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site near Dou­glas, South Lanark­shire, and occu­pied machin­ery and pre­vent­ed coal­ing oper­a­tions on the site and shut it down for the day. Machines includ­ing a “prime mover” were occu­pied and all work was stopped com­plete­ly. This is the first action at Take Back the Land! - the action camp in the Dou­glas Val­ley will be up and run­ning until the 18th July. Updates and pho­tos to fol­low

 

Olkiluoto Blockade Sat 11 Aug and Nuclear Camp 6–13 Aug, 2012 in Finland!

From uranium mining to nuclear waste storage, nuclear power poses a health

risk to current and future generations alike. We refuse to be part of this

costly and dangerous experiment which mainly serves the interests of big

industry. We therefore demand a nuclear power phase-out.

On August 11, people are going to block the roads to Olkiluoto nuclear



From uranium mining to nuclear waste storage, nuclear power poses a health
risk to current and future generations alike. We refuse to be part of this
costly and dangerous experiment which mainly serves the interests of big
industry. We therefore demand a nuclear power phase-out.


On August 11, people are going to block the roads to Olkiluoto nuclear
power plant in Eurajoki. Previous years have seen people blocking the
roads using banners, drumming, performances and non-violent direct action.



You can join the demonstration in any way you like, with no obligation to
participate in civil disobedience. Make sure not to bring with you
anything that could be classed as a weapon. No alcohol or drugs in the
demonstration. Everyone is asked to refrain from any form of violence,
sexism, racism and provocations.



This year the action day is preceded by an international anti-nuclear
camp, held at a local farmhouse. The camp program includes practical and
informative workshops, such as the current situation of Japan's nuclear
disaster and introducing the movement against mining in Finland. The guest
speakers, documentaries and workshops during the week will illustrate the
international anti-nuclear movement and provide skills and tools for local
campaigning.



There will be a special program for children, and babysitting help
available. As well as yummy vegan food, sauna, crafting, live bands and
sharing struggles for a nuclear free future!



Welcome!



See full program here: http://olkiluotoblockade2012.wordpress.com/english/



Sign up for the camp at olbcamp (at) riseup.net
You will get driving instructions upon signing up.
Ask more from the info number: + 358 40 461 9154



Recommended prices:
Whole camp 7 days: 30-60 EUR
Includes three meals per day, program and basic accommodation in
tents/indoors



Alternatively
1 day: 5-8EUR
1 meal: 3-5EUR
Children under 10 years for free.



Shared rides:



We also recommend to take your own car/bike/minibus to the camp and
demonstration. If you need a ride or can offer one, notify us at:
olkiluotoblockade (at) riseup.net



From Tampere: a minibus leaves to the camp on Monday Aug 6 at 18.00 and on
Friday 10 Aug at 12:00. You can reserve seats at olkiluotoblockade (at)
riseup.net



From Helsinki: The Union of Conscientious Objectors organises a bus on
Friday Aug 10, starting at 11.30. from Rauhanasema, the Peace Station in
Pasila. Reserve seats at toimisto (at) akl-web.fi or by calling +358 (0)40
836 27 86.
More info on the bus from Helsinki:
http://akl-web.fi/tapahtumat/olkiluotoblockade2012



From Turku this same bus leaves on Aug 10 at 14.00 in front of the Railway
station.  Reserve seats from toimisto@akl-web.fi or call  +358 (0)40 836
27 86 More info: http://akl-web.fi/tapahtumat/olkiluotoblockade2012



                        ****** SEND THIS FORWARD! ******

Take Back the Land: site taken, Glentaggart East occupied!

11/7/2012

Yes­ter­day evening we occu­pied Scot­tish Coal’s new open­cast mine site in the Dou­glas Val­ley, South Lanark­shire, for Take Back the Land! – a week of action against the destruc­tion of open­cast min­ing.

11/7/2012

Yes­ter­day evening we occu­pied Scot­tish Coal’s new open­cast mine site in the Dou­glas Val­ley, South Lanark­shire, for Take Back the Land! – a week of action against the destruc­tion of open­cast min­ing.

The camp will run until the 18th July and there will be a mass action on Sat­ur­day 14th July. There’s detailed direc­tions to the camp here  http://takebacktheland.org.uk/?page_id=6 and the web­site here  http://takebacktheland.org.uk/ has all the infor­ma­tion you’ll need to par­tic­i­pate. Come and get involved – take action against cor­po­rate greed, fat-cat land­lords and cor­rupt local gov­ern­ment!

Fracking On Trial: call out

THE TRIAL

The tri­al for the first frack­ing rig occu­pa­tion in Lan­cashire last Novem­ber kicks off next week. Start­ing Tues­day 10th July and sched­uled to last till Fri­day 13th July… so four full days at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court.

THE TRIAL

The tri­al for the first frack­ing rig occu­pa­tion in Lan­cashire last Novem­ber kicks off next week. Start­ing Tues­day 10th July and sched­uled to last till Fri­day 13th July… so four full days at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court.

If you’re against frack­ing and want to see it stopped, it’d be great to have your sup­port, both inside and out­side the court room! If you can’t make it down you can still help out by spread­ing the word (see below for social media details), and sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are always wel­come.

Three pro­test­ers have been charged with aggra­vat­ed tres­pass and are plead­ing not guilty based on ‘neces­si­ty’; assert­ing stop­ping frack­ing is nec­es­sary in the con­text of run-away cli­mate change and the dam­age it will cause the envi­ron­ment and local com­mu­ni­ties. Defen­dants will also be chal­leng­ing the ‘law­ful­ness’ of the extrac­tive process.

The defen­dants will be backed up by a num­ber of wit­ness­es, both ‘experts’ and from the local com­mu­ni­ty, who will tes­ti­fy about the con­se­quences of cli­mate change and hydraulic frac­tur­ing, the dam­age it caus­es to water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, air pol­lu­tion, severe health risks, earth­quakes etc. The defence aim to total­ly rebuke indus­try claims that frack­ing is a harm­less ‘envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly’ way to extract fos­sil fuel… and instead put the indus­try on tri­al.

THE ACTION

Pro­test­ers stormed the gas rig in Banks, Lan­cashire on 2nd Nov 2011, with one team climb­ing the der­rick (drill) and a sec­ond team scal­ing the pipe han­dling sys­tem, occu­py­ing the rig and stop­ping work at the site for a day, dec­o­rat­ing the slimy machin­ery with anti-frack­ing ban­ners while they were at it.

The occu­pa­tion of the rig was timed to coin­cide with an indus­try spon­sored “Shale Gas Envi­ron­men­tal Sum­mit” in Lon­don, a far­ci­cal event where indus­try and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tors meet to col­lab­o­rate on green­wash­ing PR to cov­er up the dam­age done by the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

The rig occu­pa­tion also coin­cid­ed with the release of a report by Cuadrilla admit­ting that the hydraulic frac­tur­ing of its first well had caused sev­er­al earth­quakes.

Since frack­ing came to the UK last year there have been mobil­i­sa­tions of local com­mu­ni­ty groups and envi­ron­men­tal activists across the coun­try ris­ing up against the indus­try. Includ­ing anoth­er occu­pa­tion of the site in Decem­ber 2011 [1] and a block­ade at PR Mar­riot Drilling in Chester­field, where the rig was being ser­viced, last month. [2]

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Halt­ing the extrac­tion of more fos­sil fuels is essen­tial at a time when the plan­et is warm­ing expo­nen­tial­ly. Com­pared to 100 years ago the cli­mate is 0.75 degrees warmer and now, in 2012, the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency warn we are on a tra­jec­to­ry to warm by 6 degrees Cel­sius in the next 100 years. [3]

For the younger gen­er­a­tion this means the world will become large­ly unin­hab­it­able in their life­time, cer­tain­ly for their kids, if emis­sions are not cut. The imme­di­ate peri­od, now, is regard­ed as a tip­ping point and despite a lot of rhetoric about ‘tack­ling cli­mate change’ from gov­ern­ments, finan­cial insti­tu­tions and indus­tries alike, in recent years we have seen the high­est emis­sions ever. [4]

Extract­ing resources on this scale to feed the indus­tri­al sys­tem is destroy­ing the envi­ron­ment that our lives depend on.

As con­ven­tion­al oil and gas pro­duc­tion peaks, gov­ern­ment and indus­tries con­tin­ue to steam roll ahead devel­op­ing destruc­tive prac­tices that will pro­vide prof­itable new mar­kets to line their pock­ets.

Frack­ing is part of a recent boom in more extreme meth­ods of extrac­tion, described as ‘uncon­ven­tion­al ener­gy sources’; Tar Sands, Moun­tain Top Removal, Deep Water Drilling, Coal Bed Methane, Under­ground Coal Gasi­fi­ca­tion and Nuclear expan­sion.

Extrac­tive indus­tries noto­ri­ous­ly deny dam­ag­ing the envi­ron­ment and neg­a­tive­ly effect­ing humans, ani­mals or the envi­ron­ment. How­ev­er there is a long his­to­ry of these indus­tries caus­ing wide-scale destruc­tion, and also long his­to­ry of cov­er ups.

Its time to put frack­ing on tri­al!

You can keep up to date with pro­ceed­ings on Twit­ter @frack_off or
#frackingon­tri­al, on Face­book http://www.facebook.com/frackoffuk or at
http://frackingontrial.org (avail­able soon).

NOTES

[1] [http://risingtide.org.uk/node/428]

[2] [http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-protesters-lay-siege-to-cuadrilla-drill-rig]

[3] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/world-on-track-for-nearly-11-degree-temperature-rise-energy-expert-says/2011/11/28/gIQAi0lM6N_story.html]

[4] [http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1959]