Category: Global

Glob­al

First Nations blockade Alberta tarsands highway near Fort McMurray

Decem­ber 21, 2012. FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The leader of an abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty near the Alber­ta tarsands says the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is clear­ing the way for devel­op­ment on tra­di­tion­al land.

Chief Alan Adam of the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation says Ottawa’s omnibus bud­get leg­is­la­tion weak­ens envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in Cana­da.

Decem­ber 21, 2012. FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The leader of an abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty near the Alber­ta tarsands says the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is clear­ing the way for devel­op­ment on tra­di­tion­al land.

Chief Alan Adam of the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation says Ottawa’s omnibus bud­get leg­is­la­tion weak­ens envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in Cana­da.

He says tarsands projects have already sul­lied rivers and lakes in the area and the bud­get bill — quote — “gives the green light to destroy the rest.”

Adam’s com­ments came as he joined a high­way block­ade north of Fort McMur­ray that was part of the abo­rig­i­nal Idle No More move­ment.

Protests and march­es have been held coun­try-wide in recent weeks to demand the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment reverse the leg­is­la­tion that First Nations say will affect treaties and tra­di­tion­al land use.

A nation­al protest is planned for Fri­day.

“The peo­ple are stand­ing up and say­ing enough is enough,” Adam said Thurs­day. “The Harp­er gov­ern­ment is cre­at­ing leg­is­la­tion that aims to weak­en our rights and pave the way for indus­try on our lands.

“As a leader I plan to stand with my peo­ple and reject this bill and any oth­er bill that does not have our con­sent and any such law will not apply on our reserve lands and tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries,” he added.

The Athabas­ca Chipewyan band has been rais­ing con­cerns for years about the impact of the oil­sands on the envi­ron­ment and on the health of peo­ple liv­ing in the area.

“Our Nation has been fight­ing for bet­ter pro­tec­tion of rights and lands right here in Alber­ta for over a decade. Instead of lis­ten­ing to us, they have cre­at­ed laws to try and silence us,” Adam said.

“We will not be silent any longer.”

Band mem­ber Les Car­di­nal said the issue goes beyond abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple.

“This is not just for First Nations peo­ple, Metis peo­ple, indige­nous peo­ple,” he said. “This is all of Cana­da. The gov­ern­ment is lit­er­al­ly sell­ing your democ­ra­cy away to the cor­po­ra­tions.

“And this is only the start. They’re doing what they want to do.”

Tar Sands Blockaders still in jail, and on hunger strike

Today hunger strik­ers in Hous­ton hit day 20 with­out food and the three activists who locked down inside the Key­stone XL pipe on Dec 3rd are still in jail, fac­ing exor­bi­tant bail.

While jail is oppres­sive, dehu­man­iz­ing, and bor­ing, your mes­sages of love and sup­port will help lift their spir­its. Please send a let­ter today… And start mak­ing your plans to get out to Texas next month for the TSB Mass Action camp, Jan 3rd – 8th.

For mail to Matt and Glen:

Inmate’s Full Name (1 per let­ter: Matt Almonte, or Glen Collins)
C/O Smith Coun­ty Jail
206 E. Elm
Tyler, Texas 75701

*Note: Let­ters can­not exceed 12” by 15”. Return address with full name is required. Be mind­ful that the author­i­ties will like­ly read your let­ter. Keep it pos­i­tive and avoid inflam­ma­to­ry lan­guage – oth­er­wise it might not be deliv­ered. As a gen­er­al rule: if in doubt, leave it out.

To write Isabel:

Isabel Brooks
PO Box 849
Kauf­man, TX 75142

Australia: activists scale Yallourn power station Cooling Tower in coal protest

19/12/12

19/12/12

Late last week two intre­pid cli­mate change activists scaled one of the cool­ing tow­ers at Yal­lourn coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Vic­to­ri­a’s La Trobe Val­ley. In the end they spent 30 hours on the cool­ing tow­er, the longest pow­er sta­tion occu­pa­tion of it’s kind in Aus­tralia, final­ly com­ing down vol­un­tar­i­ly to be arrest­ed and charged with var­i­ous offences. The protest high­light­ed the enor­mous mul­ti-mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion being giv­en by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to pow­er oper­a­tors for the impo­si­tion of the car­bon tax. The brown coal fired pow­er sta­tions in Vic­to­ri­a’s La Trobe val­ley are some of the dirt­i­est most car­bon emis­sions pol­lut­ing pow­er sta­tions in Aus­tralia and the world.

Relat­ed: Quit Coal | Latrobe Val­ley Coal pow­er and Cli­mate change | Fur­ther sub­si­dies for Vic­to­ri­an coal by Vic­to­ri­an and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments | Elec­tric­i­ty Demand and Emis­sions Falling in East­ern Aus­tralia | 

Yal­lourn Pow­er Sta­tion and it’s asso­ci­at­ed brown coal mine have also been beset with prob­lems this year with the major flood­ing of the mine which has reduced the oper­a­tional capac­i­ty of the pow­er sta­tion. The pol­lut­ed water from the mine, filled with heavy met­als such as mer­cury, lead, arsenic, and cad­mi­um in sus­pen­sion, is being pumped direct­ly into the Latrobe Riv­er which flows direct­ly into the Gipp­s­land Lakes, an impor­tant wet­lands area. The pol­lu­tion impacts fish­ing, tourism and farm­ing in the region, and the health of peo­ple in the area down­stream of the mine.

“Yal­lourn is a dan­ger­ous rel­ic that con­tin­u­al­ly pos­es a threat to local com­mu­ni­ties and vital ecosys­tems in the region, whilst mak­ing a huge con­tri­bu­tion to dan­ger­ous changes in our cli­mate. All of this has not stopped the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from giv­ing Chi­na Light and Pow­er, the own­er of Yal­lourn, $257 mil­lion in hand­outs this finan­cial year dressed up as “com­pen­sa­tion” for the car­bon tax” said Quit Coal spokesper­son and climber Chloe Alden­hoven accord­ing to Quit Coal

The action is the first major protest to chal­lenge the 2009 amend­ed crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture laws. Accord­ing to Quit Coal, the activists were charged with “tres­pass on crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture, affix­ing objects to crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and behav­ing in a reck­less man­ner that could shut­down crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture.”

The laws were amend­ed by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment in an effort to deter protests con­cerned about cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change and gov­ern­ment inac­tion, from under­tak­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action. Penal­ties include fines up to $45,000 plus impris­on­ment.

State Ener­gy and Resources Min­is­ter Michael O’Brien con­demned the pro­tes­tors in a state­ment, say­ing:

“These extrem­ist groups have threat­ened the gen­er­a­tion of elec­tric­i­ty on a 35 degree day, when the demand for ener­gy is typ­i­cal­ly high, and when all Vic­to­ri­ans need a reli­able sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty,” Mr O’Brien said.

“This sad­ly demon­strates the con­tempt that these groups hold for ordi­nary Vic­to­ri­an house­holds, busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties.

“These protest groups don’t care if house­holds, busi­ness­es, farms, hos­pi­tals, schools, and oth­er essen­tial ser­vices lose their pow­er sup­ply,” Mr O’Brien said.

“This action is also incred­i­bly dan­ger­ous for the pro­tes­tors them­selves, and this event will no doubt divert emer­gency ser­vices from oth­er impor­tant duties.

“These extreme envi­ron­men­tal groups have no respect for main­stream Vic­to­ri­ans and we should not be sur­prised if Vic­to­ri­ans have no respect for the views of these groups in the pub­lic debate on our ener­gy future.”

“These peo­ple are act­ing like dan­ger­ous fools. Their views will be dis­missed accord­ing­ly,” Mr O’Brien said.

But the con­ser­v­a­tive Bail­lieu state Gov­ern­ment has repeat­ed­ly failed the Vic­to­ri­an peo­ple by con­sis­tent­ly act­ing in oppo­si­tion to cli­mate action, sup­port­ing and sub­si­dis­ing the States’s brown coal indus­try, reduc­ing the solar Feed-in tar­iff and sti­fling wind farm devel­op­ment through dra­con­ian plan­ning reg­u­la­tions. Vic­to­ria has been going back­wards on cli­mate and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion since Bail­lieu was elect­ed while many Vic­to­ri­ans want the State Gov­ern­ment to take action on cli­mate change.

The recent­ly released CEDEX report shows that elec­tric­i­ty demand is falling and some of the gen­er­at­ing capac­i­ty of the largest pol­lut­ing coal pow­er sta­tions at Hazel­wood, Yal­lourn and Mor­well can be retired. Much more could be done with a pro-active Gov­ern­ment encour­ag­ing wind farm devel­op­ment and large scalle solar pow­er, as well as a more gen­er­ous solar feed-in tar­iff again.

Sources:

TEXAS JUDGE HALTS TRANSCANADA OIL PIPELINE WORK

A Texas judge has ordered Tran­sCana­da to tem­porar­i­ly halt work on a pri­vate prop­er­ty where it is build­ing part of an oil pipeline designed to car­ry tar sands oil from Cana­da to the Gulf Coast, the lat­est legal bat­tle to plague a project that has encoun­tered numer­ous obsta­cles nation­wide.

A Texas judge has ordered Tran­sCana­da to tem­porar­i­ly halt work on a pri­vate prop­er­ty where it is build­ing part of an oil pipeline designed to car­ry tar sands oil from Cana­da to the Gulf Coast, the lat­est legal bat­tle to plague a project that has encoun­tered numer­ous obsta­cles nation­wide.

Texas landown­er Michael Bish­op, who is defend­ing him­self in his legal bat­tle against the oil giant, filed his law­suit in the Nacog­doches Coun­ty cour­t­house, argu­ing that Tran­sCana­da lied to Tex­ans when it said it would be using the Key­stone XL pipeline to trans­port crude oil.

Tar sands oil — or dilut­ed bitu­men — does not meet the def­i­n­i­tion as out­lined in Texas and fed­er­al statu­to­ry codes which define crude oil as “liq­uid hydro­car­bons extract­ed from the earth at atmos­pher­ic tem­per­a­tures,” Bish­op said. When tar sands are extract­ed in Alber­ta, Cana­da, the mate­r­i­al is almost a sol­id and “has to be heat­ed and dilut­ed in order to even be trans­mit­ted,” he told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press exclu­sive­ly.

“They lied to the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” Bish­op said.

Texas Coun­ty Court at Law Judge Jack Sinz signed a tem­po­rary restrain­ing order and injunc­tion Fri­day, say­ing there was suf­fi­cient cause to halt work until a hear­ing Dec. 19. The two-week injunc­tion went into effect Tues­day after Bish­op post­ed bond.

Tran­sCana­da spokesman Shawn Howard said lat­er in a state­ment that the judge had agreed to push the hear­ing up to Thurs­day, Dec. 13.

David Dod­son, a spokesman for Tran­sCana­da, has said courts have already ruled that tar sands are a form of crude oil. The com­pa­ny said in a state­ment emailed Tues­day that work on Bishop’s prop­er­ty is under­way and that the injunc­tion will not have an effect on con­struc­tion.

“We are on track to bring this pipeline into oper­a­tion in late 2013,” the state­ment said.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists are con­cerned that if the pipeline leaks or a spill occurs, the heavy tar sands will con­t­a­m­i­nate water and land. The tar sands, they argue, are more dif­fi­cult to clean than reg­u­lar crude, and U.S. pipeline reg­u­la­tions are not suit­ed to trans­port the prod­uct. They also say refin­ing the prod­uct will fur­ther pol­lute the air in the Texas Gulf Coast. The state already leads the nation in green­house gas emis­sions and indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion.

In Feb­ru­ary, anoth­er judge briefly halt­ed work on the pipeline in north­east Texas due to archae­o­log­i­cal arti­facts on the prop­er­ty. The judge lat­er ruled the work could resume. The pipeline is being built, although the landown­er is fight­ing the con­dem­na­tion of her land.

Tran­sCana­da wants to build the pipeline to trans­port tar sands from Alber­ta to the Gulf Coast, but has encoun­tered road­blocks along the way. To cross the U.S.-Canadian bor­der, the com­pa­ny needs a pres­i­den­tial per­mit, which was reject­ed ear­li­er this year by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who sug­gest­ed the com­pa­ny reroute to avoid a sen­si­tive envi­ron­men­tal area in Nebras­ka. The com­pa­ny plans to reroute that por­tion.

In the mean­time, Oba­ma encour­aged the com­pa­ny to pur­sue a short­er por­tion of the pipeline from Okla­homa to Texas, which would help relieve a bot­tle­neck in Cush­ing. Tran­sCana­da received the nec­es­sary per­mits for that south­ern por­tion ear­li­er this year and began con­struc­tion.

But many Texas landown­ers have tak­en to the courts to fight the company’s land con­dem­na­tions in a state that has long wed its for­tunes to oil.

Bish­op owns 20 acres in Dou­glass, a town about 160 miles north of Hous­ton. He used to raise poul­try and goats on the land where he lives with his wife and 16-year-old daugh­ter, he said, but sold the ani­mals about two years ago because of the planned pipeline. Ini­tial­ly, the Viet­nam War vet­er­an said, he fought the company’s attempt to con­demn his land, but set­tled because he could not afford the lawyer’s fees of $10,000.

Bish­op said he set­tled under “duress,” so he bought a law book and decid­ed to defend him­self. Since then, he has filed a law­suit in Austin against the Texas Rail­road Com­mis­sion, the state agency that over­sees pipelines, argu­ing it failed to prop­er­ly inves­ti­gate the pipeline and pro­tect ground­wa­ter, pub­lic health and safe­ty.

Aware that the oil giant could have a bat­tery of lawyers and experts at the hear­ing lat­er this month, Bish­op, a 64-year-old retired chemist cur­rent­ly in med­ical school, said he is deter­mined to fight.

“Bring ‘em on. I’m a Unit­ed States Marine. I’m not afraid of any­one. I’m not afraid of them,” he said. “When I’m done with them, they will know that they’ve been in a fight. I may not win, but I’m going to hurt them.”

Daniel McGowan released from prison!

daniel_mcgowan_11_dec_2012_lga

daniel_mcgowan_11_dec_2012_lga

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front polit­i­cal pris­on­er and Rock­away native Daniel McGowan was released from the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Man­age­ment Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indi­ana this morn­ing. He was dri­ven by fed­er­al author­i­ties to Indi­anapo­lis Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, where he met up with his wife.

Though the two have been able to vis­it dur­ing Daniel’s impris­on­ment, today marked the first time in years that they could hug, hold hands, or make any phys­i­cal con­tact (save for a few month stint when Daniel was in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion in Mar­i­on, Illi­nois– between the CMU there and the one in Terre Haute). The two flew back to New York City togeth­er, where they were met by a small group of close friends at the air­port.

From the air­port, Daniel had one hour to make it to the halfway house, where he will be liv­ing for as long as the next six months. Though he has secured employ­ment, it is unclear when he can start work (at the dis­cre­tion of the halfway house, not his new employ­er). Until he has had time to set­tle in, there are more ques­tions than answers.

After being released from the halfway house, Daniel will be under super­vised release for three years.

Regard­less, this is great news and we’re excit­ed to see our com­rade on the oth­er side of the wall.

Please remem­ber that pris­on­er sup­port doesn’t end when a com­rade is released. Through halfway hous­es, super­vised release, parole, or pro­ba­tion, there is usu­al­ly state super­vi­sion beyond the ini­tial sen­tence. Also, prison is trau­mat­ic. And of course there is the stig­ma of being a for­mer pris­on­er that effects near­ly every aspect of one’s life. All of this adds up to the less obvi­ous, but equal­ly nec­es­sary, sup­port need­ed when our loved ones come home.

 

“Green Scare” Defen­dants

The term “Green Scare,” allud­ing to the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s, refers to legal and extrale­gal actions tak­en by the U.S. gov­ern­ment against envi­ron­men­tal and ani­mal rights activists. Like the Red Scare, the Green Scare uses new laws and new arms of the state to harsh­ly pun­ish a few indi­vid­u­als in order to repress an entire move­ment.

In Decem­ber 2005, gov­ern­ment agents car­ried out a nation­wide sweep of arrests, charg­ing four­teen indi­vid­u­als with actions claimed by the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and/or Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front in the North­west­ern U.S. dat­ing back to the mid-90’s. The actions include a 1997 fire that destroyed a horse slaugh­ter­house in Ore­gon (the plant was not rebuilt), and fires that destroyed pens and chutes at Bureau of Land Man­age­ment wild horse hold­ing com­pounds in Ore­gon, Wyoming and Cal­i­for­nia (hors­es were also freed dur­ing the actions). Despite no injury caused to any liv­ing being, a judge deter­mined that some of the arsons con­sti­tut­ed “ter­ror­ism” under Fed­er­al Sen­tenc­ing Guide­lines.

In Novem­ber 2006, Nathan Block, Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul and Joy­an­na Zach­er entered non-coop­er­a­tion plea agree­ments in which they accept­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty for their own roles in envi­ron­men­tal­ly-moti­vat­ed prop­er­ty crimes, but did not agree to pro­vide infor­ma­tion or tes­ti­fy against any­one now or in the future.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, oth­er indi­vid­u­als admit­ted guilt after their arrests and pro­ceed­ed to pro­vide infor­ma­tion to the gov­ern­ment. In order to receive reduced sen­tences, these indi­vid­u­als agreed to coop­er­ate with the state in ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions against the envi­ron­men­tal and ani­mal rights move­ments. Those indi­vid­u­als are not list­ed here.

————————————–

Nathan Block

Joy­an­na Zach­er

In May 2012, Joy­an­na Zach­er (“Sadie”) and Nathan Block (“Exile”) were released from prison and will com­plete their sen­tences at a halfway house.

In June 2007, Sadie and Exile were sen­tenced to 7 years and 8 months impris­on­ment each. For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact their sup­port cam­paign: solidaritywithsadieandexile@gmail.com.
————————————–

Daniel McGowan
Daniel was released from prison in Decem­ber 2012.

In June 2007, Daniel McGowan was sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison. Learn more about Daniel at the fol­low­ing web­sites: www.SupportDaniel.org, www.facebook.com/supportdanielmcgowan
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Jonathan Paul
Jonathan was released from prison in Jan­u­ary 2011 and com­plet­ed his sen­tence at a halfway house.

Jonathan Paul was sen­tenced to 51 months. He began his sen­tence in Octo­ber 2007. Jonathan said as he report­ed to prison, “This is way big­ger than us, this is for the ani­mals and the plan­et, we will nev­er suf­fer as much as they do.”
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Justin Solondz #98291–011
FCI Loret­to
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
P.O. Box 1000
Loret­to, PA 15940
USA

In ear­ly 2009, Justin Solondz was arrest­ed in Chi­na on local charges, more than three years after he was indict­ed on arson and con­spir­a­cy charges relat­ed to actions in the U.S. claimed by the ELF/ALF. In July 2011, Justin was tak­en into fed­er­al custody upon his expul­sion from Chi­na, after com­plet­ing a prison sen­tence. In March 2012, Justin was sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison.

Three Activists Killed Before Human Rights Day

MANILA – One farmer and two envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates have been killed in two sep­a­rate inci­dents on Decem­ber 7.

MANILA – One farmer and two envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates have been killed in two sep­a­rate inci­dents on Decem­ber 7.

Rolan­do Qui­jano, a farmer and active mem­ber of Alliance of Farm­ers Union in Zam­boan­ga Del Sur (AFUZS) was shot to death at around 12:00 noon last Fri­day at purok 4, Oca­pan vil­lage, San Miguel town in the province of Zam­boan­ga Del Sur by sus­pect­ed ele­ments of the 53rd Infantry Bat­tal­ion – Philip­pine Army, accord­ing to ini­tial data gath­ered by Kilu­sang Mag­bubukid ng Pilip­inas (KMP).

Anto­nio Flo­res, KMP spokesman, said: “Quijano’s rel­a­tives and col­leagues believe his death was due to his active oppo­si­tion to large-scale min­ing and ille­gal log­ging in Zam­boan­ga Del Sur.” KMP said 53rd IBPA has built a mil­i­tary detach­ment inside the vil­lage.

On the same day at around 6 p.m., two anti-min­ing advo­cates– Cheryl Ananayo, a mem­ber of Didi­pio Earth­savers’ Mul­ti­pur­pose Asso­ci­a­tion (Desama), and her cousin-in-law Randy Nabayay — were also killed by uniden­ti­fied assailants in Didi­pio, Nue­va Viz­caya.

Accord­ing to ini­tial data gath­ered by the Kalikasan People’s Net­work for the Envi­ron­ment (PNE), Ananayo was car­ry­ing her three-month-old baby and her four year-old child when the assas­sins attacked. Both chil­dren are unharmed.

Desama is a people’s orga­ni­za­tion opposed to the ongo­ing imple­men­ta­tion of the 17,626-hectare Didi­pio gold-cop­per project in Kasi­bu, Nue­va Viz­caya owned by Aus­tralian large-scale min­er OceanaGold Cor­po­ra­tion. The Finan­cial and Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance Agree­ment (FTAA) of Oceana Gold in Didi­pio com­menced only this Novem­ber.

“Oceana Gold’s crimes to the envi­ron­ment and the peo­ple start­ed way before its com­mence­ment this last Novem­ber, and it con­tin­ues to grow,” Clemente Bautista, nation­al coor­di­na­tor of Kalikasan PNE. “As ear­ly as dur­ing its mine devel­op­ment stage, it has already caused mas­sive sil­ta­tion that led to the dis­ap­pear­ance of aquat­ic species in some affect­ed rivers. Its cam­paign of attri­tion towards the indige­nous people’s com­mu­ni­ties includ­ed threats of bull­doz­ing homes, actu­al demo­li­tion oper­a­tions, and let­ting loose gun­fire upon civil­ians. We can think of no oth­er per­son or insti­tu­tion with a track record and motive.”

“The cli­mate of impuni­ty remains and it’s a blood-stained Human Rights Day for the Aquino admin­is­tra­tion,” Flo­res said.

Impuni­ty

“It seems that the min­ing regime per­pe­trat­ed by the Aquino gov­ern­ment is not con­tent with the death toll of envi­ron­men­tal activists this year, now pegged at 15 cas­es in 2012 alone. Is this how Aquino wants to cel­e­brate Human Rights Day, with more impuni­ty towards our belea­guered envi­ron­ment defend­ers?” said Fr. Oliv­er Cas­tor, spokesper­son of Task Force-Jus­tice for Envi­ron­ment Defend­ers (TF-JED).

“We can­not con­tin­ue turn­ing a blind eye on the killings of envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates. We have seen how destruc­tive large-scale log­ging and min­ing activ­i­ties have result­ed in the inten­si­fied dis­as­ter impacts of haz­ards such as the most recent Typhoon Pablo that hit Min­danao. If we allow this impuni­ty towards the likes of Ananayo to con­tin­ue, who will be left to ensure the integri­ty of the envi­ron­ment that nur­tures and pro­tects us?” Bautista said.

Mean­while, KMP’s Flo­res not­ed that Quijano’s death occurred while 74 farm­ers and Lumad from Min­danao are here in Mani­la for Mani­lak­bayan (Jour­ney to Mani­la) to protest the unabat­ed killings linked to the large-scale min­ing in the South.”

Aida Seiesa, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of KMP-South­ern Min­danao, expressed out­rage over the killing of Qui­jano.

“While we are here call­ing on gov­ern­ment agen­cies to stop the killings in Min­danao, state secu­ri­ty forces killed one of our col­leagues,” Seiesa said in Fil­ipino in an inter­view with Bulatlat.com.

She said she and Qui­jano attend­ed a Con­gres­sion­al inquiry on the spate of extra­ju­di­cial killings held in Davao City a few months ago. “We came face to face with the mil­i­tary high­er-ups,” she said.

Oplan Bayani­han

The KMP attrib­uted the killing of Qui­jano as part of the Aquino administration’s counter-insur­gency oper­a­tion plan Bayani­han.

“Oplan Bayani­han enjoy the bless­ings of the hacien­dero pres­i­dent because it con­ceals the esca­lat­ing ter­ror and human rights abus­es per­pe­trat­ed by the mil­i­tary against farm­ers with the very same anti-peas­ant peace and devel­op­ment projects by the gov­ern­ment,” Flo­res said.

Accord­ing to the yearend report of Kara­p­atan, of the 129 vic­tims of extra­ju­di­cial killings since July 2010 to Octo­ber this year, 71 were peas­ants and 25 were indige­nous peo­ples.

“Aquino’s human rights record is taint­ed by the blood of the Fil­ipino peas­antry,” Flo­res said. “We hold Aquino as com­man­der-in-chief of the armed forces respon­si­ble for the death of Qui­jano and all oth­er farm­ers killed under his admin­is­tra­tion.”

Accused Environmental Warrior Rebecca Rubin Surrenders at US-Canada Border

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A 39-year-old woman accused of eco-sab­o­tage in three West­ern states turned her­self in to U.S. author­i­ties at the Cana­di­an bor­der on Thurs­day morn­ing.

Rebec­ca Jeanette Rubin, a Cana­di­an, had been on the run for a decade before sur­ren­der­ing in Blaine, Wash. She is accused of mul­ti­ple counts of arson as part of a con­spir­a­cy with 12 oth­er peo­ple from 1996 to 2001 in five West­ern states.

The charges against Rubin include a Nov. 30, 1997, arson at the U.S. Bureau of Land Man­age­ment Wild Horse and Bur­ro Facil­i­ty in Har­ney coun­ty near Burns and the Dec. 22, 1998, attempt­ed arson at the offices of the U.S. For­est Indus­tries, Inc., in Med­ford. She’s also accused of involve­ment in the Oct. 19, 1998, arson attack that destroyed the Two Elk Lodge and oth­er build­ings at the Vail ski resort in Eagle Coun­ty, Col­orado.

 

Rubin faces fed­er­al charges in Cal­i­for­nia as well in the attack Oct. 15, 2001, of the Bureau of Land Man­age­ment Wild Horse and Bur­ro Cor­rals near Susanville, Calif.

Fed­er­al author­i­ties say Rubin was part of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front, both under­ground move­ments that the gov­ern­ment has labeled ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions. She was indict­ed on fed­er­al charges in Ore­gon along with 12 oth­ers in Jan­u­ary 2006 in con­nec­tion with a coor­di­nat­ed cam­paign that caused an esti­mat­ed $23 mil­lion in dam­age between 1996 and 2001 in Ore­gon, Cal­i­for­nia, Wash­ing­ton, Wyoming and Col­orado.

When the indict­ment was issued eight had already been arrest­ed in a nation­wide sweep in the most exten­sive bust of sus­pect­ed eco-sabo­teurs in U.S. his­to­ry.

The group took oaths of secre­cy and called itself “The Fam­i­ly.” They built fire­bombs, scout­ed their tar­gets, took dry runs then dressed in black, donned masks and car­ried two-way radios dur­ing attacks.

Rubin shares a name with an 18-inch Amer­i­can Girl doll, pro­duced by a Mid­dle­ton, Wis., com­pa­ny which was released in 2009. The FBI hoped pub­lic­i­ty from the doll would help bring Rubin to jus­tice, accord­ing to a sto­ry in The New York Times.

“Any pub­lic­i­ty that gets the word out that our Rebec­ca Rubin is want­ed on var­i­ous charges is cer­tain­ly ben­e­fi­cial,” said Beth Anne Steele, a spokes­woman for the F.B.I. in Ore­gon.

In August 2007, 10 oth­er defen­dants were sen­tenced to prison terms from about three to 13 years after plead­ing guilty in U.S. Dis­trict Court in Eugene to con­spir­a­cy and mul­ti­ple counts of arson. Two defen­dants — Joseph Mah­moud Dibee and Josephine Sun­shine Over­ak­er — are still at large.

Rubin will make an ini­tial court appear­ance in U.S. Dis­trict Court in Seat­tle and then will be trans­ferred to Ore­gon to face tri­al.

First Nation Leaders Enter Parliament and Scuffled by Security

Decem­ber 4, 2012….Traditional ter­ri­to­ry of the Algo­nquin Peo­ples (Ottawa, Ontario)…Okimaw (Chief) Wal­lace Fox lead a pro­ces­sion of over 300 First Nation Chiefs, lead­ers, elders, women, youth and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers dur­ing an impromp­tu ral­ly on Par­lia­ment Hill today. The First Nations move­ment is a result of frus­tra­tion over the Cana­di­an government’s cur­rent leg­is­la­tion. Bill C‑45 is being debat­ed in the house and Chiefs want­ed to take part in the dis­cus­sions of what will ulti­mate­ly affect the future of their Peo­ples.

“We put Cana­da on notice today that we are a Sov­er­eign Nation and that we won’t be inti­mat­ed by them cause we know who we are and the Rights we have as Indige­nous Peo­ples. We are dis­gust­ed by this gov­ern­ments lack of respect shown to us today when try­ing to enter into the House. We were pushed and shoved by secu­ri­ty and told we weren’t wel­come there. When a pipe is present in which it was today, no force is intend­ed or appro­pri­ate. We are assert­ing our voic­es as Indige­nous Peo­ples.”

This warn­ing comes after an inci­dent at Par­lia­ment today when MP Char­lie Angus (Tim­mins-Kapuskas­ing) invit­ed Chief Fox and nine oth­er First Nations lead­ers to enter into Par­lia­ment to call out Min­is­ter of Indi­an Affairs, John Dun­can and Min­is­ter of Nat­ur­al Resources, Joe Oliv­er to lis­ten and respond to their con­cerns over C‑45 and the debate that was tak­ing place in the house today.

“We tried to enter into the house in order to deliv­er our mes­sage to all Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er in a peace­ful way that our Inher­ent and Treaty Rights aren’t nego­tiable. We weren’t con­sult­ed on C‑45 which out­lines a new leg­is­la­tion on land sur­ren­der and want­ed to be includ­ed in these dis­cus­sions. These actions have strained a already frag­ile rela­tion­ship. We have no oth­er choice now but to take a course that will have impacts on all Cana­di­ans, ” stat­ed Oki­maw Wal­lace Fox.

Onion Lake Cree Nation is an Indige­nous Nation which believes in Sov­er­eign­ty and the Pro­tec­tion of Inher­ent & Treaty Rights. The Cree Nation has over 5000 mem­bers and is gov­erned by their own Cree Gov­er­nance Struc­ture. Onion Lake Cree Nation is locat­ed 30 min­utes north of Lloy­d­min­ster on high­way 17 and is in Treaty No.6 ter­ri­to­ry.

 

Two People Barricade Themselves Inside Keystone XL Pipe To Halt Construction

WINONA, TX – MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 7:30 AM – Sev­er­al pro­tes­tors with Tar Sands Block­ade sealed them­selves inside a sec­tion of pipe des­tined for the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline to stop con­struc­tion of the dan­ger­ous project. Using a blockad­ing tech­nique nev­er imple­ment­ed before, Matt Almonte and Glen Collins locked them­selves between two bar­rels of con­crete weigh­ing over six hun­dred pounds each. Locat­ed twen­ty-five feet into a pipe seg­ment wait­ing to be laid in the ground, the out­er bar­rel is bar­ri­cad­ing the pipe’s open­ing and nei­ther bar­rel can be moved with­out risk­ing seri­ous injury to the block­aders.

The bar­ri­cad­ed sec­tion of the pipeline pass­es through a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood in Winona, TX. If Tran­sCana­da moves ahead with the trench­ing and bury­ing of this par­tic­u­lar sec­tion of pipe, it would run less than a hun­dred feet from neigh­bor­ing homes. Tar sands pipelines threat­en East Texas com­mu­ni­ties with their high­ly tox­ic con­tents, which pose a greater risk to human health than con­ven­tion­al crude oil. TransCanada’s exist­ing tar sands pipeline, Key­stone XL’s pre­de­ces­sor, has an atro­cious safe­ty record, leak­ing twelve times in its first year of oper­a­tion.

“Tran­sCana­da didn’t both­er to ask the peo­ple of this neigh­bor­hood if they want­ed to have mil­lions of gal­lons of poi­so­nous tar sands pumped through their back­yards,” said Almonte, one of the pro­test­ers now inside the pipeline. “This multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion has bul­lied landown­ers and expro­pri­at­ed homes to fat­ten its bot­tom line.”

Recent­ly, over 40 com­mu­ni­ties world­wide planned actions with Tar Sands Block­ade dur­ing a week of resis­tance against extreme ener­gy extrac­tion and its direct con­nec­tion to the cli­mate cri­sis. A grow­ing glob­al move­ment is ris­ing up against the abus­es of the fos­sil fuel indus­try and its increas­ing­ly des­per­ate pur­suit of dan­ger­ous extrac­tion meth­ods.

“I’m bar­ri­cad­ing this pipe with Tar Sands Block­ade today to say loud and clear to the extrac­tion indus­try that our com­mu­ni­ties and the resources we depend on for sur­vival are not col­lat­er­al dam­age,” said Collins, anoth­er block­ad­er inside the pipe and an orga­niz­er with Rad­i­cal Action for Moun­tain Peo­ples Sur­vival (RAMPS) and Moun­tain Jus­tice, grass­roots cam­paigns in Appalachia work­ing to stop moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing.

“This fight in East Texas against tar sands exploita­tion is one and the same as our fight in the hollers of West Vir­ginia. Dirty ener­gy extrac­tion doesn’t just threat­en my home; it threat­ens the col­lec­tive future of the plan­et.”

“At this late stage, doing noth­ing is a greater dan­ger than the risks of tak­ing direct action to stop destruc­tive projects like Key­stone XL,” said Ron Seifert, a spokesper­son for Tar Sands Block­ade. “That’s why folks work­ing with groups like RAMPS, the Unist’ot’en Camp fight­ing a nat­ur­al gas pipeline in British Colum­bia and Tar Sands Block­ade are will­ing to use every­thing includ­ing their own hands and feet to ensure we all have a safe cli­mate and healthy, thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ties.”

Today also marks day 5 of the Hous­ton Hunger Strike in which Gulf Coast activists with Tar Sands Block­ade are going with­out food to demand that Valero divest entire­ly from the Key­stone XL pipeline and invest in the health and well­be­ing of the com­mu­ni­ties it’s poi­son­ing.

UPDATE: 7:30 am – Work­ers arrive. Con­struc­tion is effec­tive­ly halt­ed.

Twen­ty-two trucks and over thir­ty work­ers are on the scene with noth­ing to do.

UPDATE: 8:45 a/m – Sher­iffs arrive on site and are con­sult­ing with work­ers and talk­ing into the pipe.

UPDATE: 9:00 am – Police warn block­aders to leave the pipe or face arrest.

Police are demand­ing that the block­aders leave the pipe or be arrest­ed. The block­aders refuse to com­ply.

UPDATE: 9:20 am – Police threat­en to use tear gas on peace­ful pro­test­ers

Sev­er­al sher­iffs are shin­ing flash­lights into the pipe and threat­en­ing to use tear gas on the peo­ple inside. The block­aders are stand­ing strong and remain bar­ri­cad­ed inside the pipe. Hold­ing fast to their prin­ci­ples of non­vi­o­lent resis­tance, Matt and Glen respond: “we will not be deterred by threats of vio­lence.”

UPDATE: 9:50 am – Offi­cers are threat­en­ing to send a police dog into the pipe

Police are say­ing that they will send a canine unit into the pipe after the pro­test­ers. There are no dogs on scene but the police claim that they are hav­ing them brought to the scene.

UPDATE: 10:40 am – Police threat­en to lift pipe and dump out Glen and Matt

Police are con­tin­u­ing to threat­en tear gas and canine units. They are also say­ing that they could raise the pipe and dump out the block­aders. Doing so would cause seri­ous harm or even death; Matt and Glen are locked between two bar­rels of con­crete which weigh over six hun­dred pounds each.

UPDATE: 10:55 am – Crowd gath­ers to sup­port block­aders inside Key­stone XL pipeline

Peo­ple dri­ving by the scene are show­ing their sup­port by honk­ing and stop­ping to talk to pro­test­ers about the dan­gers of tox­ic tar sands. Despite threats of vio­lence, spir­its are high; the crowd and Glen and Matt are singing togeth­er.

UPDATE: 11:20 am – Police attempt­ing to block view of pipe and move sup­port­ers fur­ther from scene

Police have moved sev­er­al trucks and vans in order to obstruct the view of the pipe in which Glen and Matt are locked. They have threat­ened arrest and forced sup­port­ers off the prop­er­ty imme­di­ate­ly adja­cent to the pipeline ease­ment, despite the fact that the home­own­er gave pro­test­ers explic­it per­mis­sion to be in her yard. Police are also forc­ing pro­test­ers to move fur­ther along the pub­lic road along which they were stand­ing.

 

Dozens Wounded in Mayanmar Coppermine Protest

Secu­ri­ty forces used water can­nons, tear gas and smoke bombs to clear pro­test­ers from a cop­per mine in north­west­ern Myan­mar, wound­ing vil­lagers and Bud­dhist monks in the biggest use of force against demon­stra­tors since the reformist gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Thein Sein took office last year.

Secu­ri­ty forces used water can­nons, tear gas and smoke bombs to clear pro­test­ers from a cop­per mine in north­west­ern Myan­mar, wound­ing vil­lagers and Bud­dhist monks in the biggest use of force against demon­stra­tors since the reformist gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Thein Sein took office last year.

Monks and oth­er pro­test­ers had seri­ous burns after the crack­down at the Let­padaung mine near the town of Mony­wa. Pro­test­ers who oppose the mine’s impact on vil­lagers and the envi­ron­ment had occu­pied the area for 11 days.

The police action risks becom­ing a pub­lic rela­tions and polit­i­cal fias­co for Thein Sein’s gov­ern­ment, which has been tout­ing its tran­si­tion to democ­ra­cy after almost five decades of repres­sive mil­i­tary rule.

Pho­tos of the wound­ed monks showed they had sus­tained seri­ous burns on parts of their bod­ies. It was unclear what sort of weapon caused them, or whether the burns were caused by their shel­ters catch­ing fire from what­ev­er devices police used.