Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

Massive convoys of test frack equipment arrive at West Newton

3rd July

3rd July

Rath­lin Ener­gy yes­ter­day, Wed 2nd July, brought mas­sive con­voys of equip­ment on to the West New­ton test frack site near With­ern­wick.

 
This is in fla­grant breach of 2 key Plan­ning Con­di­tions- they need to give 2 week’s writ­ten notice before activ­i­ties on site (Con­di­tion 2) and there must be no con­voys of vehi­cles, with at least 10 min­utes between vehi­cles. (In the Traf­fic Plan referred to in Con­di­tion 7)

There were mul­ti­ple large con­voys, totalling 64 vehi­cles. The well pad was extreme­ly crowd­ed with vehi­cles and equip­ment.

There was a very heavy police pres­ence with numer­ous vans and riot vans, around a hun­dred police through the vil­lages of New Eller­by, Mar­ton and West New­ton.
High Fos­ham road was closed to pedes­tri­ans and traf­fic.

West New­ton has had anti frack­ing Pro­tec­tors camp­ing at the site since May 9th. There is anoth­er camp at Rath­lin’s oth­er well site in East York­shire, Craw­ber­ry Hill.

Louise Cas­tro, a pro­tec­tor camp­ing at the site said, “It’s chaos and may­hem here- local vil­lagers were forced to trail across the fields just to see what was going on, and were dev­as­tat­ed- some burst in to tears when the scale of it hit home. Rath­lin have rid­den roughshod over the traf­fic plan worked worked out with the vil­lagers.”

Ian Crane, a for­mer oil exec­u­tive also liv­ing at the anti frack­ing camps said, “Today the locals got a taste of what is to come on a dai­ly basis if the uncon­ven­tion­al oil and gas indus­try is allowed to go ahead with frack­ing in this area”.

Pauline Hak­e­ny, a res­i­dent of near­by Skir­laugh said, “I’m real­ly shocked at the amount of vehi­cles- they promised us this would nev­er hap­pen- and also the amount of police- there were loads of vans and offi­cers in all the sur­round­ing vil­lages.”

Grapes of Rathlin

3rd July from Scc­NEWS Con­voys of trucks car­ry­ing equip­ment descend­ed on West New­ton yes­ter­day, where Rath­lin Ener­gy are com­menc­ing their explorato­ry

3rd July from Scc­NEWS Con­voys of trucks car­ry­ing equip­ment descend­ed on West New­ton yes­ter­day, where Rath­lin Ener­gy are com­menc­ing their explorato­ry frack­ing drilling. As the first major activ­i­ty at the East York­shire site kicked off, a hand­ful of pro­test­ers and many more anx­ious locals could only watch in hor­ror as the frack­ing trucks made their way along the long sin­gle track lane towards the well.

The con­voys were pro­tect­ed by hun­dreds of police and riot vans, while local res­i­dents were blocked from access­ing their own homes and one elder­ly res­i­dent burst into tears at the scale of what was hap­pen­ing.

West New­ton is one of two loca­tions in East York­shire that Rath­lin are attempt­ing to frack. At both West New­ton and Craw­ber­ry Hill, Rath­lin have had plan­ning per­mis­sion for explorato­ry drilling since 2012. Ear­li­er this year they also got Envi­ron­ment Agency per­mits that last until Sep­tem­ber, in the case of Craw­ber­ry Hill, and longer in the case of West New­ton. “We knew they were due to do the tests at either site at any time”, says our source from cam­paign group HEY Frack Off.

Small protests camps were set up at both loca­tions in May. Craw­ber­ry was the larg­er, with num­ber aver­ag­ing at 20: Not only was it look­ing like­li­er that Rath­lin would hit there first as the per­mits ran out soon­er, but it’s near­er urban cen­tres like Bev­er­ley and Hull. Cru­cial­ly, it is in the area of the mas­sive under­ground aquifer that is relied on for drink­ing water for much of the pop­u­la­tion of Hull and East York­shire: “If that were to be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed it would be an absolute cat­a­stro­phe”. So far, Craw­ber­ry Hill has yet to see any sig­nif­i­cant activ­i­ty.

Over at West New­ton, the pro­tec­tion camp has been tiny but dogged­ly per­sis­tent. The vil­lagers in the very rur­al area have been slow on the uptake but now seem to be wak­ing up to what’s about to hap­pen on their doorsteps. At first, they’d been bizarrely anx­ious about the camp and upset about the pro­test­ers’ pres­ence, rather than their vil­lages sur­round­ing a hell­mouth of the envi­ron­men­tal armaged­don.

“It’s an unbe­liev­ably con­ser­v­a­tive area. Some peo­ple did­n’t even want to con­tact HEY Frack Off because of our ‘con­tro­ver­sial’ name!”, says our con­tact. “Most of the local res­i­dents have swal­lowed Rath­lin’s line and their PR hook, line and sinker.”

But recent well-attend­ed pub­lic meet­ings, and indi­vid­ual con­ver­sa­tions, have shown aware­ness is slow­ly start­ing to sink in. Maybe the locals are slow­ly start­ing to organ­ise?

Just to show how much they respect the local res­i­dents, when the con­voys came onto site at West New­ton yes­ter­day, they “ran roughshod” over the plan­ning con­di­tions that had been agreed between the local coun­cil (East Rid­ing of York­shire) and Rath­lin Ener­gy to sweet­en the frack­ing pill for local res­i­dents.

First­ly, they failed to give the stip­u­lat­ed 14 days notice before any activ­i­ty com­menced. Sneaky, but not sur­pris­ing giv­en the momen­tum the anti-frack­ing move­men­t’s been gain­ing. Sec­ond­ly, they spec­tac­u­lar­ly flout­ed the traf­fic man­age­ment plan which promised local res­i­dents no more than one truck every ten min­utes. Yes­ter­day saw two mas­sive con­voys of lor­ries – around 65 vehi­cles enter­ing the site. Need­less to say, the well pad was crowd­ed.

In terms of polic­ing, our con­tact reports: “Police have said they have learned from the mis­takes of Bar­ton Moss and Bal­combe where they allowed peace­ful protest in the form of slow walk­ing in front of vehi­cles down pub­lic high­ways. It’s been made quite clear in East York­shire that any­one who gets in the way of a vehi­cle on the pub­lic high­way will be arrest­ed imme­di­ate­ly.”

Police have even admit­ted to cam­paign­ers that it’s a “game of num­bers”, and that if there were as many pro­test­ers as police they’d have to review their tac­tics.

The loca­tion of the West New­ton site is so rur­al that keep­ing up com­mu­ni­ca­tions – from sim­ple phone calls to live stream­ing – is dif­fi­cult. The cam­paign is encour­ag­ing any poten­tial pro­tec­tors to get in touch. The camp phone num­ber is 07773739937.

Protests in Nigeria After Mobil Spills 600,000 Barrels of Oil

oil_theft_7-300x1991st July Youths in Eket and Esit Eket in Akwa Ibom on Mon­day staged peace­ful protests against fresh oil spills in Nkpana com­mu­ni­ty from a Mobil facil­i­ty i

oil_theft_7-300x1991st July Youths in Eket and Esit Eket in Akwa Ibom on Mon­day staged peace­ful protests against fresh oil spills in Nkpana com­mu­ni­ty from a Mobil facil­i­ty in Ibeno.

The youths num­ber­ing more than 500 protest­ed on major streets in Eket, includ­ing the Mari­na and Ter­mi­nal roads.

The pro­test­ers, under the ages of Core Youth Forum, car­ried plac­ards with inscrip­tions: “Oil spill is killing our aquat­ic life’’, “No com­pen­sa­tion for oil spill” and “Enough of this oil spillage,’’ among oth­ers.

Mr God­win Peter, the spokesman of the pro­test­ers, said the spill occurred on Sat­ur­day and occu­pied com­mu­ni­ties along the spill line on Sun­day.

He said the spill had dev­as­tat­ed aquat­ic life and destroyed fish­ing equip­ment, among oth­ers.
Peter appealed to Mobil to urgent­ly clean up the envi­ron­ment.

The youths threat­ened to dis­rupt Mobil activ­i­ties if their demands, which includ­ed imme­di­ate clean up and com­pen­sa­tion, were not met.

Also react­ing, Mr Inyang Ekong, the Sec­re­tary of the Arti­sanal Fish­er­men Asso­ci­a­tion of Nige­ria, Akwa Ibom Branch, not­ed that fish­ing had been sus­pend­ed in the area as a result of the spill.

He said that fish would be scarce in the state and appealed to Mobil to replace its old pipes to fore­stall fur­ther occur­rence.

Ekong said the spill would cause untold hard­ships to the peo­ple of Ibeno.

When con­tact­ed, Mr Akaninyene Esiere, the Man­ag­er of Pub­lic and Gov­ern­ment Affairs at the Qua Iboe Ter­mi­nal of Mobil, con­firmed the inci­dent.

“We have con­firmed a liq­uid release from our Qua Iboe ter­mi­nal on Sun­day, June 29, fol­low­ing seri­ous weath­er con­di­tions and light­ning strikes over the area at the week­end. We have acti­vat­ed our emer­gency response sys­tems to con­tain the release. All rel­e­vant reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers have been notified.We will con­tin­ue to work with the com­mu­ni­ty to allow progress in the effort by Mobil to con­tain the spill,’’ he said.

Esiere said that Mobil was com­mit­ted to safe envi­ron­ment dur­ing its oper­a­tions.

anarchists claim string of fires in east bristol

Just before sun­rise this morn­ing we launched a tar­get­ed arson spree along Glebe Road — which meets the main east Bris­tol thor­ough­fare of Church Road — and burned out cor­po­rate, lux­u­ry, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and hunt-scum vehi­cles.

Just before sun­rise this morn­ing we launched a tar­get­ed arson spree along Glebe Road — which meets the main east Bris­tol thor­ough­fare of Church Road — and burned out cor­po­rate, lux­u­ry, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and hunt-scum vehi­cles. Wild­fire in the arter­ies of the city-prison! To break the lie of social peace and inten­si­fy the hos­til­i­ties!

Emer­gency ser­vices were too slow to catch the respon­si­ble as the emp­ty street was bright­ened from end to end as by torch­es. In a few words, the select­ed vans and cars were active com­po­nents of the life they rep­re­sent and also enforce.

Vir­gin Media sup­ply tele­vi­sion and also inter­net, and a nation­al fibre optic cable net­work. To keep us enmeshed in the mod­ern infor­ma­tion econ­o­my and the spec­ta­cle of celebri­ties, video games and adver­tis­ing is their busi­ness. Destroy what domes­ti­cates and stu­pe­fies us!

A car as fan­cy as a Quat­tro is an extra spit in the face for the prop­er­ty-less as well as the earth. In wealthy areas or parts under­go­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion they’re com­mon­place, in Eng­land as in Argenti­na, Syd­ney as in Berlin, and there to be picked off at our leisure.

BWS’s secu­ri­ty vehi­cle in ash­es is one less to aid their task across the UK of keep­ing the haves from the have-nots by threat or force and of expand­ing the matrix of sur­veil­lance cam­eras we pass under hun­dreds of times in a day. Min­ions of the estab­lished order have cho­sen their side! Insur­rec­tion­al action against the con­structs of author­i­ty above us, around us, with­in us.

Either an active fox hunter or a sup­port­er and pro­mot­er of killing wild ani­mals sole­ly for enter­tain­ment — either way, own­er of a heavy-duty 4x4 bear­ing pro-hunt stick­ers — got their incen­di­ary gift too. Some call blood­sport uncivilised, but it’s real­ly per­fect­ly reflec­tive of the dis­dain for the non­hu­man, upper class enti­tle­ment and also cross-class col­lab­o­ra­tion which is the basis and con­tent of civil­i­sa­tion. Let’s make the rich and their ter­ri­er-boys the hunt­ed, let’s harass them in city or coun­try­side.

This deed coin­cid­ed with the call for col­lec­tive action in sup­port of our caged broth­er G. Pom­bo da Sil­va (Spain), who’s resist­ing his forced trans­fer to a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty mod­ule. Hope­ful­ly our flam­ing regards will also make it through the prison bars to the wan­der­ing she-wolves A. Trudeau and F. Rouiller along with com­pa C. ‘Chi­vo’ López (Mex­i­co) — they all face charges over Molo­tov attacks against State and Cap­i­tal­ism. We’re also think­ing of the unnamed ani­mal lib­er­a­tion fight­er who pros­e­cu­tors have tried to link to the anar­chist paper Upprors­Bladet (Swe­den) and the co-con­vict­ed who also had the sense to stay silent before the cops. While A. Cospi­to and N. Gai, G. Iaco­v­ac­ci and A. Antonac­ci will all be tried next on July 4th, we take aim to light up their jail cells with the warmth of our sol­i­dar­i­ty. Pris­on­ers to the streets, run­ning wild and free!

ABOUT THE ACCUSED IN BRISTOL
We learned from the scum-press news­pa­pers that ear­ly on June 12th an indi­vid­ual was stopped in their vehi­cle by police in the Bradley Stoke area and sus­pect­ed of going equipped to com­mit a crime, then arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of four counts of arson. This was in the con­text of four coor­di­nat­ed sab­o­tages in the days before which took down many phone sig­nals and also radio ser­vices — all of which had already been claimed by Live Wires, FAI/ELF, as report­ed in the scum-press and car­ried by anar­chist counter-infor­ma­tion pages (although hid­den once again by the mod­er­a­tors of Bris­tol Indy­media).

After the resound­ing silence so far from the local anar­chist move­ment, the first thing we want to state is that — although none of our­selves, our wider net­work or fleet­ing affini­ties know who this per­son is or any­thing about their sym­pa­thies or com­plic­i­ties — the repres­sive move by the State aims to dis­cour­age sim­i­lar actions and we will not stand com­pla­cent. Either police made an uncon­nect­ed arrest in efforts to shed some of the crit­i­cism they’ve come under in the region­al and nation­al media for fail­ing to stem the flow of anar­chist attacks in their area, in which case it was a fruit­less provo­ca­tion as action con­tin­ues, or that indi­vid­ual real­ly did set out to some­how fight the sys­tem that night — sin­gu­lar­ly, in the con­text of decen­tralised infor­mal groups open to any­one such as FAI or ELF, or anony­mous — in which case they’re a poten­tial com­rade and we would defend them as such.

It seems for now that police have lit­tle inter­est in the arrest­ed indi­vid­ual as accord­ing to the scum-press they’re out on bail after ques­tion­ing, but we call on any­one with more infor­ma­tion to release it if they see fit. Mean­while, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the live wires and who­ev­er shares their moti­va­tions to do the same!

Infor­mal anar­chist federation/Earth lib­er­a­tion front
Rogue fire brigade.

Summary of Repression from ZAD

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 12.46.24 PM 30th June Sum­ma­ry of arrests and tri­als since the demo in Nantes, Feb­ru­ary 22nd, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion found by the anti-repres­sion com­mit­tee (CARILA)

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 12.46.24 PM 30th June Sum­ma­ry of arrests and tri­als since the demo in Nantes, Feb­ru­ary 22nd, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion found by the anti-repres­sion com­mit­tee (CARILA)

Feb­ru­ary 22nd: 14 arrests, two released with­out charge. Of the 12 peo­ple charged, 5 had imme­di­ate tri­als the next day, and the 7 oth­ers will have tri­als lat­er (3 on June 19th, 2 minors in children’s court, and no news for the 2 oth­ers).

Feb­ru­ary 24th: 5 imme­di­ate tri­als, 4 of them judged for “vio­lence against some­one with pub­lic author­i­ty”, and “par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group”. They were all con­vict­ed.
- 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice
- 5 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence
- 5 months of prison
- 5 months of prison and 1 month pro­ba­tion
- 6 months of prison and 6 months of pro­ba­tion + 500 euros for the under­cov­er cops sup­pos­ed­ly injured

Of all those con­vict­ed this day, no one went direct­ly to prison. This means that they can nego­ti­ate a lighter sen­tence.

March 31st: First wave of arrests after the demo: 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed at home (in Car­que­fou, St. Herblain, Nantes, and Ille-et-Vilaine).

- 2 were released with­out charges
- 4 were judged the next day in imme­di­ate tri­als
- 2 minors: one accused of throw­ing fire­works at the police judged in juve­nile court, placed under house arrest until their tri­al in 2015, the oth­er we don’t think they were charged but we have no con­fir­ma­tion
- 1 per­son had a tri­al lat­er but we don’t have con­tact with them

April 1st: Imme­di­ate tri­als for those arrest­ed the day before

- P: 4 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence, for­bid­den to car­ry weapons for a year, for­bid­den to protest in Notre Dame des Lan­des and Nantes for a year
- J: 5 months of prison, for­bid­den to car­ry weapons for 2 years, for­bid­den to protest in Nantes for 2 years
- G: 2 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 2 months prison (sus­pend­ed sen­tence from last arrest), aquit­ted for van­dal­ism
- E: 1 year of prison, start­ing imme­di­ate­ly after the tri­al, for­bid­den to protest for 3 years, for­bid­den to have explo­sives or flam­ma­ble mate­ri­als for 3 years. The judge dou­bled the sen­tence that the DA asked for!

May 14th: G arrest­ed in Paris under a war­rant for van­dal­ism Feb­ru­ary 22nd. He refused an imme­di­ate tri­al, fuzzy pho­tos were the only evi­dence. He was placed in pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion, but got out a month lat­er because of a pro­ce­dur­al error. His tri­al is July 16th.

May 27th: R. arrest­ed in the street in Rennes by under­cov­er cops, trans­ferred to Nantes. He refused imme­di­ate tri­al, and was put under house arrest, and for­bid­den from the Loire-Atlan­tique region until his tri­al, June 19th.

June 13th: Addi­tion­al tri­al for some­one con­vict­ed Feb­ru­ary 24th to decide how much they should pay in dam­ages to the under­cov­er cops. No infor­ma­tion on the ver­dict for the moment.

June 18th:
- O. arrest­ed at home in Rennes, accused of van­dal­ism, he has an imme­di­ate tri­al the next day.
- Some­one from the ZAD arrest­ed in Nantes, who had a war­rant out for vio­lence against the police and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group.

June 19th:
- Tri­al for 3 peo­ple arrest­ed dur­ing the demo ‑K: con­vict­ed of throw­ing paving stones towards the police and arrest­ed in pos­ses­sion of a ham­mer and an iron bar, 4 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence, 18 months pro­ba­tion (forced to find a job or go to voca­tion­al school, and for­bid­den to car­ry weapons) + 105 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice ‑C: con­vict­ed of par­tic­i­pa­tion in an armed group and throw­ing a beer can at the police, sen­tenced to 2 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence ‑G: arrest­ed in pos­ses­sion of a ham­mer, sen­tenced to 1 month sus­pend­ed sen­tence
- Hear­ing for O. (arrest­ed in Rennes the day before): he refus­es his tri­al and is put under house arrest until his tri­al, July 10th
- Tri­al of R. (arrest­ed in Rennes, May 27) for van­dal­ism and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group. Sen­tenced to 8 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 1 month sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 5218 euros in dam­ages for the city of Nantes+ for­bid­den from Loire-Atlan­tique region for 2 years.
- Hear­ing for 5 peo­ple arrest­ed 2 days before by under­cov­er cops while dri­ving: ‑one per­son (a hitch-hik­er) accept­ed the imme­di­ate tri­al, con­vict­ed to pos­ses­sion of 1 gram of hash + refus­ing fin­ger­prints and DNA. No sen­tence 3 peo­ple refused imme­di­ate tri­als and are put under house arrest until their tri­al, July 18th 1 per­son refused an imme­di­ate tri­al and is in prison await­ing tri­al (July 18th)

“They were arrest­ed tues­day after a “ran­dom” iden­ti­ty con­trol by under­cov­er cops on the ring road in Nantes. Amoung them was R., who had a tri­al Thurs­day and was on their way to Nantes to see their lawyer with their friends. After 48 hours of police cus­tody, 4 of them were charged with “pos­ses­sion of stolen goods”, sus­pect­ed of hav­ing stolen… a head lamp. Also they refused to give fin­ger­prints and DNA. More seri­ous­ly, they are accused, based on some fly­ers in their car and a tool­box, of “asso­ci­a­tion of wrong-doers”, and “intent to com­mit an armed assem­bly in front of the cour­t­house in Nantes”. They risk up to 5 years in prison.”

June 20th: Hear­ing for S., who lives on the ZAD. He was arrest­ed 2 days before in Orvault, accused of hav­ing stolen 2 books. He had a war­rant out for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Feb­ru­ary 22nd demo. He is accused of theft (with pri­or con­vic­tions), refus­ing fin­ger­prints and DNA (with pri­or con­vic­tions), and par­tic­i­pat­ing with a weapon in an armed group, and vio­lence against the police. He refused an imme­di­ate tri­al and has been put in jail await­ing his tri­al on July 7th.

2 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly in pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion, await­ing tri­al.

Climate Activists Blockade Oil Terminal, Demand Halt to Crude-by-Rail Traffic in Pacific Northwest

10501739_771642884850_4820811503256859328_n 30th June This morn­ing, cli­mate jus­tice activists with Port­land Ris­ing Tide shut down the ArcLo­gist

10501739_771642884850_4820811503256859328_n 30th June This morn­ing, cli­mate jus­tice activists with Port­land Ris­ing Tide shut down the ArcLo­gis­tics crude oil ter­mi­nal in North­west Port­land.
Port­land res­i­dent Irene Majorie, 22, locked her­self to a 55-gal­lon bar­rel filled with con­crete that was placed on the rail­road track lead­ing into the facil­i­ty.

Train cars enter from a near­by yard to offload oil into 84 stor­age tanks, before it is piped onto ocean­go­ing ships bound for West Coast refiner­ies. Majorie’s arm was locked to a piece of met­al rebar embed­ded in the con­crete, stop­ping trains for four hours before being cut out by police.

Attempts by law enforce­ment to move her and the bar­rel simul­ta­ne­ous­ly risked grave injury; like­wise, any train traf­fic threat­ened her life.

“This is about stop­ping the oil trains,” said Majorie. “But beyond that, it is about an indus­try and an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that places the pur­suit of prof­it before the lives and rela­tion­ships of human beings seek­ing sur­vival and nour­ish­ment, and before the com­mu­ni­ties, ecosys­tems, and plan­et of which we are a part.”

Oil trains are com­ing under increas­ing scruti­ny recent­ly owing to their propen­si­ty to derail in fiery explo­sions. Port­land Ris­ing Tide, how­ev­er, dis­putes the notion that an oil train is ever safe, since crude oil is only trans­port­ed to be burned. What­ev­er the risk of explo­sion, the guar­an­teed result is a wors­en­ing of the cli­mate cri­sis, which is already wreak­ing eco­log­i­cal hav­oc and claim­ing human lives.

10435835_754308524591923_4842444232067517220_n

US crude oil pro­duc­tion has risen from ~5 mil­lion bar­rels per day in the late 2000s to ~7 mil­lion bar­rels per day cur­rent­ly. Increased extrac­tion is North Dakota’s Bakken Shale has result­ed in a dra­mat­ic rise in oil train traf­fic, with 250 per­cent more oil trains trav­el­ing Ore­gon rail lines in 2013 than in the pre­vi­ous year.

Gov­er­nor Kitzhaber has expressed “deep con­cern” about oil trains but thus far done noth­ing to stop them. “Soci­ety should be engaged in a rapid, rad­i­cal decline in fos­sil fuel use,” said David Ben­nett. “Instead, policymakers—even those who claim to under­stand the mag­ni­tude of the cli­mate crisis—are forc­ing us to engage in an absurd con­ver­sa­tion about cre­at­ing ‘safe’ oil trains and build­ing more fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture.”

The ArcLo­gis­tics ter­mi­nal, which began oper­a­tion in Jan­u­ary, is one piece of infra­struc­ture facil­i­tat­ing increased oil pro­duc­tion. When ongo­ing con­struc­tion is com­plet­ed, the facil­i­ty will have the capac­i­ty to trans­port 16,250 bar­rels of oil per day.

In April, Port­land Ris­ing Tide entered the Ore­gon Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Quality’s offices in down­town Port­land, issued ter­mi­na­tion let­ters to employ­ees at their desks, and announced the for­ma­tion of a new People’s Agency, which would car­ry out DEQ’s man­date free of cor­po­rate influ­ence. This is the first enforce­ment action of the nascent agency.

“If our pol­i­cy­mak­ers lis­tened, we would demand an imme­di­ate halt to oil train traf­fic in Ore­gon and the clo­sure of all crude oil ter­mi­nals,” said Emma Gould. “Since they don’t, we’re halt­ing oil trains our­selves.” High res­o­lu­tion pho­tos are avail­able for down­load and may be used with attri­bu­tion

Today’s action saw activists from across the con­ti­nent join­ing togeth­er to say no to oil trains, show­ing that oil trains are an inter­na­tion­al issue of con­cern for peo­ple and non­hu­man ani­mals every­where.

Blockade Halts Old-Growth Logging in Mattole Forest

10496184_1431644777121536_4907229880304137323_o30th June A for­est defend­er has tak­en to the trees to defend an impor­tant area of the Mat­tole Riv

10496184_1431644777121536_4907229880304137323_o30th June A for­est defend­er has tak­en to the trees to defend an impor­tant area of the Mat­tole Riv­er water­shed in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Going by the name “Skunk,” the block­ad­er is stop­ping the con­struc­tion of a new log­ging road into old-growth for­est.

Skunk is sup­port­ed by res­i­dents of Hum­boldt coun­ty and allies who have worked for months to stop Hum­boldt Red­wood Company’s plan for 1,000 acres of log­ging in the Mat­tole For­est.

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In April, activists hung a ban­ner across from Hum­boldt Red­woods State Park to protest the log­ging in the Mat­tole.

While Hum­boldt Red­wood Com­pa­ny claims they are not log­ging old-growth, their def­i­n­i­tion restricts log­ging only areas with more than 8 old-growth trees in the span of an acre. They also define old-growth as exist­ing in the year 1800, cut­ting out any trees younger than exact­ly 214 years.

Skunk insists, “Our main demands to Hum­boldt Red­wood Com­pa­ny are very simple—don’t cut unlogged for­est, and don’t cut old-growth. This road threat­ens to destroy for­est that has nev­er been logged before, and will pave the way for log­ging even more impor­tant habi­tat if the com­mu­ni­ty does not rise up to stop it.” 

The Mat­tole pro­vides shel­ter to Gold­en Eagles and Spot­ted Owls, among oth­er rare species, and has long been the home of old-growth Big Leaf Maple, Dou­glas Fir, Tanoak, and Madrone.

This area of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia has a long his­to­ry of for­est defense against Maxxam/Pacific Lum­ber through­out the 1990s. What we are per­haps see­ing is just the begin­ning of a new chap­ter.

 

Villager Wins Court Battle Against Hydroelectric Plant Construction

Screen Shot 2014-06-26 at 12.29.06 PM 26th June An admin­is­tra­tive court in the Black Sea province of Rize has ruled to halt the con­struc­tion of a hydro­elec­tric pow­er plant (

Screen Shot 2014-06-26 at 12.29.06 PM 26th June An admin­is­tra­tive court in the Black Sea province of Rize has ruled to halt the con­struc­tion of a hydro­elec­tric pow­er plant (HES) that was being built on the Andon Riv­er, which pro­vides fresh water to at least 3,000 peo­ple in the vil­lage of Küçükçayır.

Küçükçayır vil­lage was declared an envi­ron­men­tal­ly pro­tect­ed site in 2011. The village’s res­i­dents held a protest in Feb­ru­ary against a HES being con­struct­ed near the riv­er, clos­ing the main road of the vil­lage for hours as part of their protest and not allow­ing con­struc­tion equip­ment to oper­ate at the site.

Accord­ing to a Cihan news agency report on Wednes­day, Kezım Delal, one of the vil­lagers, sold a cow and took a loan from a bank in order to file a law­suit against the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny. Empha­siz­ing that he has been strug­gling in court against the con­struc­tion plan, which is like­ly to harm the envi­ron­ment, Delal said the injunc­tion to halt con­struc­tion stands as an impor­tant step towards pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment from oth­er upcom­ing pow­er plant con­struc­tion projects that might destroy the country’s nat­ur­al beau­ty.

“I have been liv­ing in this vil­lage for 70 years. I was born here. This is my home. I am so hap­py that court ruled in favor of our future. Now, I just want to see the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny leave us alone right away,” he told the press.

Empha­siz­ing that they have been keep­ing watch for almost eight months in order to pre­vent the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny from doing any dam­age, Delal thanked all his friends who did not leave his side dur­ing the protest. “This vic­to­ry belongs to all of us. Now we can move on with our lives,” he added.

Stat­ing that they were tak­en into cus­tody by gen­darmes many times due to the their protests, Yusuf Esir, anoth­er vil­lager, said that he was hap­py to take a stand against the con­struc­tion plans. “In order to intim­i­date us, gen­darmes took us into cus­tody many times. But nobody can deter us. If any­body should leave this vil­lage, it’s the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, not us. Because this is our vil­lage,” Esir stat­ed.

Indigenous boy protests on pitch during World Cup opening ceremony

An indigenous Guarani boy held up a banner reading 'Demarcation Now!' at the World Cup's opening ceremony. 16th June One of the three Brazil­ian chil­dren who released

An indigenous Guarani boy held up a banner reading 'Demarcation Now!' at the World Cup's opening ceremony. 16th June One of the three Brazil­ian chil­dren who released white doves dur­ing the World Cup open­ing cer­e­mo­ny used the occa­sion to demand recog­ni­tion of Indi­an land rights – but his protest was cen­sored by FIFA.

Imme­di­ate­ly after releas­ing a white dove, Jeguaká Mir­im, an indige­nous Guarani boy, held up a red ban­ner read­ing ‘Demar­ca­tion Now!’ But his coura­geous protest was not broad­cast, as the TV cam­eras swift­ly cut away.

Jeguaká’s father, Guarani author Olívio Jekupe, said that the act “showed the world that we are not stand­ing still… My son showed the world what we need the most: the demar­ca­tion of our lands.”

The Guarani are Brazil’s most numer­ous tribe and they live in five states. Much of their land has been stolen from them and is being used for cat­tle ranch­ing and sug­ar cane pro­duc­tion, whilst many Guarani are forced to live in over­crowd­ed reserves or in road­side camps where mal­nu­tri­tion and dis­ease are rife. Some, like Jeguaká’s com­mu­ni­ty known as Kruku­tu, live near urban areas like São Paulo on almost no land.

As a result of the loss of their land, the Guarani-Kaiowá of Mato Grosso do Sul state suf­fer the high­est sui­cide rate in the world, and their lead­ers are tar­get­ed and killed when they attempt to reoc­cu­py patch­es of their ances­tral land.

The Guarani, Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions are call­ing on the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to uphold its own con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al law, and map out the Guarani’s land for their exclu­sive use.

Coca-Cola, one of the World Cup’s main spon­sors, has recent­ly become embroiled in the Guarani land scan­dal by buy­ing sug­ar from US food giant Bunge, which sources sug­ar cane from their ances­tral land. The Guarani are urg­ing Coca-Cola to respect their rights and stop this pur­chase imme­di­ate­ly.

Coca-Cola and FIFA's image has been contrasted with an angry Indian man demanding, 'Let the Guarani live!'

To high­light the deep irony of Coca-Cola and FIFA pro­mot­ing the World Cup with an image of a hap­py Indi­an man with the words ‘Wel­come to the World Cup for Every­one’, Sur­vival has cre­at­ed a spoof ad fea­tur­ing Nixi­wa­ka, a Yawanawa Indi­an wel­com­ing the view­er to ‘The Dark Side of Brazil’ and demand­ing ‘Let the Guarani live!’.

See Survival’s web­site on the ‘Dark Side of Brazil’ for more exam­ples of Brazil’s assault on indige­nous rights.

Argentina: Activists Arrested & Brutal Police Repression After Monsanto Law is Approved

14th June The leg­is­la­ture of Cor­do­ba approved a con­tro­ver­sial Mon­san­to Law yes­ter­day. Pro­test­ers from Malv­inas Lucha por la Vida, Madres de Itzuzaingó, and oth­er social orga­ni­za­tions held a peace­ful protest to con­test the law.

14th June The leg­is­la­ture of Cor­do­ba approved a con­tro­ver­sial Mon­san­to Law yes­ter­day. Pro­test­ers from Malv­inas Lucha por la Vida, Madres de Itzuzaingó, and oth­er social orga­ni­za­tions held a peace­ful protest to con­test the law.

The police inter­vened vio­lent­ly repress­ing the pro­test­ers and arbi­trar­i­ly detain­ing any­one who looked like a pro­test­er. 26 peo­ple total were arrest­ed includ­ing Sofia Gat­i­ca and many were injured. Sofia Gat­i­ca told Argenti­na Inde­pen­dent the law was cre­at­ed so Mon­san­to can legal­ly move into the province.

The new law has been passed after a 9 month block­ade on con­struc­tion of a new GMO seed pro­cess­ing plant. You can read archives of cov­er­age from Rev­o­lu­tion News of this epic bat­tle against the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion here.

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