Category: Global

Glob­al

‘Long-Live Luciano Tortuga Cell – International Conspiracy for Revenge – FAI / FRI’ attack electrical substation with incendiary device in Manado (Indonesia)

From Mem­bakar Senj[a]:

From Mem­bakar Senj[a]:

It’s always a rea­son to say that the lack of num­bers is the main rea­son. But for us the only obsta­cle is fear. The­o­ries, rea­sons and sit­u­a­tions are the walls of the labyrinth which always became a rea­son for obstruc­tion and restric­tion. As well as the accu­sa­tions that the kid­nap­ping of two mem­bers, of our com­rades Bil­ly and Eat, is a bar­ri­er to the ongo­ing actions for destruc­tion.

On August 23, at a pow­er plant in Kota­mobagu, North Sulawe­si, we put an incen­di­ary device that failed to ignite. We were dis­ap­point­ed with our­selves and the abil­i­ty of each indi­vid­ual who was involved in the attack. But on the oth­er hand, we learned that no one should regret. Tonight August 31, we re-com­mit to do the same “crimes”. Leav­ing the device in order to burn an elec­tri­cal sub­sta­tion in Tumint­ing, Man­a­do.

The goal is clear. We are angry. Real­ly angry!

This action is also as a response and as an answer to the unlim­it­ed sol­i­dar­i­ty from many rebel­lion com­rades and companer@s.

To the uncon­trolled and brave com­rades in the dark­ness of Bolivia, Chile, Mex­i­co, Greece, Argenti­na, and Eng­land as well as to oth­er places that were nev­er men­tioned.

To Olga and all the com­rades from Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire and Tasos The­ofilou who was recent­ly arrest­ed because he was an anar­chist. Also we do not for­get to men­tion The­ofi­los Mavropou­los, Gabriel Pom­bo da Sil­va, Rami Syr­i­anos, and Mar­co Camenisch who are under­go­ing a hunger strike. All of you are rebels who inspired us despite the fact that you are seized behind bars.

To Luciano Tor­tu­ga and Mario Lopez, also nev­er for­get to men­tion Ivan Sil­va and Car­la Ver­dugo in Chile. Hen­ry Zegar­run­do, Juan Aliste Vega, Fred­dy Fuentevil­la Saa, Marce­lo Vil­lar­roel Sepúlve­da also are an inspi­ra­tion. Do not for­get to dis­si­dents like Felic­i­ty Ryder, Nikos Mazi­o­tis and Pola Roupa also last­ly to K. The fugi­tive mem­ber of the Long Live Luciano Tor­tu­ga Cell, Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion / Inter­na­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Front (FAI / FRI).

But with ful­ly of shame in our face we men­tion our two broth­ers in strug­gle, mem­bers of Long Live Luciano Tor­tu­ga Cell, Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion / Inter­na­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Front; Bil­ly Augus­tan and Rey­hard Rum­bayan (Eat). Also do not for­get the brave one of Kulon­pro­go; Tuk­i­jo. For those we send our greet­ings with the lights of fire from the street. To them we are send­ing our love.

These actions are also as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of anger and dis­ap­point­ment.
Impa­tience for those rebels who after attacks returned to run and hide and spent long time to keep wait­ing, includ­ing us.

Com­rades, it is time to strike back.
Do not wait. Time to light it up!

Long Live Anar­chy!

USA: Six Arrested Blocking Road in front of Duke Energy HQ During DNC

Pro­test­ers sit­ting on a ban­ner that reads “Duke is destroy­ing our earth with tax­pay­er dol­lars” were arrest­ed Thurs­day after­noon at the inter­sec­tion of Try­on and Stonewall streets, near the Duke Ener­gy build­ing. Pho­to: Meghan Cooke

Six pro­test­ers were tak­en away in hand­cuffs ear­li­er Thurs­day near the cor­po­rate head­quar­ters for Duke Ener­gy. They had locked arms and were sit­ting on top of a ban­ner claim­ing that the ener­gy com­pa­ny was harm­ing the envi­ron­ment.

Two dozen offi­cers sur­round­ed them and even­tu­al­ly lift­ed up the pro­test­ers, who refused to move. They then put them into pris­on­er trans­port vans.

Just before her arrest, 26-year-old Christi­na Mounce of Casper, W. Vir­ginia, crit­i­cized the util­i­ty com­pa­ny for burn­ing coal and run­ning nuclear pow­er plants.

“We want Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to stop accept­ing their cam­paign mon­ey,” said Mounce, a marine biol­o­gist. “The pres­i­dent is set­ting a hor­ri­ble exam­ple by being linked with them.”

The demon­stra­tors at Stonewall and Try­on streets said they were demand­ing an audi­ence with Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Ener­gy.

The oth­ers arrest­ed were Amelia Camp­bell, 22, of Boul­der, Colo.; Audrey Camp­bell, 22, of Boul­der, Colo.; Richard French, 39, of Farm­ing­ton, N.M.; Matthew Good­sell, 56; and Michael Joseph Stew­art, 25, of Lake­wood, Colo. All were charged with imped­ing traf­fic.

Count­ing Thursday’s deten­tions, a total of 25 pro­test­ers were arrest­ed or tak­en away in hand­cuffs dur­ing the three-day con­ven­tion, which end­ed Thurs­day night.

 

Protesters chained to fence outside Inergy gas facility in New York

[UPDATE: 3 arrest­ed for block­ade.]

[UPDATE: 3 arrest­ed for block­ade.]

I am chained to a fence out­side an Iner­gy facil­i­ty near Watkins Glen, New York, and I am not alone.

We are protest­ing the gasi­fi­ca­tion of New York. We don’t want frack­ing in this state (or any state), and we don’t like Inergy’s plans to build a gas stor­age hub in Seneca Lake salt cav­erns.

We believe that:

1. Inergy’s plans are reck­less and dan­ger­ous. Salt Cav­ern stor­age facil­i­ties are more acci­dent prone than any oth­er type of gas stor­age facil­i­ty. 

2. Even if noth­ing goes wrong, there will be plen­ty wrong. The Iner­gy project will change the char­ac­ter of our rur­al area by increas­ing the lev­els of traf­fic, noise and pol­lu­tion. Just the pol­lu­tion alone will kill peo­ple, and gas devel­op­ment will sure­ly harm our exist­ing win­ery, agri­cul­tur­al and tourism indus­tries.

3. Iner­gy can’t be trust­ed. Iner­gy has been caught in so many lies and is keep­ing so many secrets that it has no cred­i­bil­i­ty what­so­ev­er. It can­not be relied on as a guardian of pub­lic safe­ty.

4. The Iner­gy project is clear­ly meant to facil­i­tate the frack­ing of New York, Ohio and Penn­syl­va­nia. We adamant­ly oppose frack­ing and con­sid­er it cat­a­stroph­ic fol­ly. We want the Iner­gy project stopped because of its own lack of mer­it, and also as part of the larg­er effort to stop frack­ing.

5. We resent the fact that, even though we live here, we have been giv­en no say in what hap­pens to our area. We know, for exam­ple, that the DEC is keep­ing secrets for Iner­gy. And we know that the DEC sent pro­posed frack­ing reg­u­la­tions to the gas com­pa­nies for review, before final­iz­ing them and releas­ing them for pub­lic com­ment. No such oppor­tu­ni­ty was afford­ed to the industry’s oppo­nents. We can­not remain silent while a demon­stra­bly biased agency makes deci­sions behind closed doors that could for­ev­er change our way of life.

Australia. Climate Change activists step up opposition to coal in Hunter Valley protests from mine to port

A ban­ner drop at a con­struc­tion site for a new coal loader ter­mi­nal at the Port of New­cas­tle in the New South Wales Hunter Val­ley end­ed when police instruct­ed the 60 metre crane be low­ered to the ground.

A ban­ner drop at a con­struc­tion site for a new coal loader ter­mi­nal at the Port of New­cas­tle in the New South Wales Hunter Val­ley end­ed when police instruct­ed the 60 metre crane be low­ered to the ground. The Pro­tes­tors say they were not giv­en warn­ing of this action and alledged it imper­iled their lives.

“We are dis­mayed with the actions of police here today.” said spokesper­son Steve Phillips. “We con­duct­ed a peace­ful protest, with trained and expe­ri­ence climbers, and safe­ty as our pri­or­i­ty. NSW Police respond­ed with gross neg­li­gence and dere­lic­tion of duty, and placed two lives at risk. Our climbers were not even warned before the crane was low­ered.”

Coal Export Terminal construction obstructed

Activists entered the NCIG coal ter­mi­nal site in New­cas­tle before dawn to peace­ful­ly stop con­struc­tion of new coal port facil­i­ties. Two expe­ri­enced climbers scaled the 60 metre high con­struc­tion crane to unfurl a ban­ner read­ing “Stop the coal rush! For health, water & cli­mate.”

The two activists were both arrest­ed and charged with ‘enter enclosed land’. They have now been released and will appear in New­cas­tle local court on 9th Octo­ber. Both activists have been report­ed as safe and well, and are hap­py with the protest today which stopped work on the coal port ter­mi­nal site for two hours.

The protest was the fourth con­sec­u­tive stop-work action against NSW coal projects this week. Activists tar­get­ed expan­sions of the three major ele­ments of the coal chain – mines, rail­way, and port infra­struc­ture – to high­light the mas­sive expan­sion of coal min­ing and infra­struc­ture tak­ing place in NSW, and its impacts on pub­lic health and the envi­ron­ment.

“NSW is in the grip of a coal rush. Pub­lic health, water­ways, ecosys­tems, and the glob­al cli­mate are under assault,” said Steve Phillips. “Local com­mu­ni­ties are resist­ing the coal rush at every step of the way, chal­leng­ing new mines and port devel­op­ments that place the prof­its of coal com­pa­nies ahead of the pub­lic good.”

Accord­ing to Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle who organ­ised today’s protest there are 34 coal mine pro­pos­als cur­rent­ly before the NSW Plan­ning Depart­ment, most of which would pro­duce coal for export through New­cas­tle. New­cas­tle is the largest coal export port in the world, and the port ter­mi­nal expan­sion will add 66 mil­lion tonnes per year export capac­i­ty if allowed to go ahead. In 2004, port through­put was around 78 mil­lion tonnes, or 10 per cent of the world’s total trade in coal

“But both State and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments have tak­en the side of the coal com­pa­nies. NSW Plan­ning Min­is­ter Brad Haz­zard and Fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Tony Burke con­tin­ue to approve every coal project that arrives on their desks. Com­mu­ni­ties are cry­ing out for help, but gov­ern­ments are ignor­ing them.”

 

“Enough is enough. We need to stop the coal rush. It’s time for State and Fed­er­al gov­ern­ments to stop kow­tow­ing to the min­ing com­pa­nies, and get behind com­mu­ni­ty demands for a clean, renew­able future.”

A spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle said the actions of police today which imper­iled the lives of two activists will be report­ed to the NSW Ombuds­man.

 

Coal Crusher occupied at Boggabri coal mine

On Mon­day two activists did a ban­ner drop in cen­tral New South Wales, where activists scaled a coal-crush­ing plant at Bog­gabri Coal Mine on the Gunnedah basin.

Accord­ing to a media release by the pro­tes­tors the NSW Gov­ern­ment has recent­ly approved a four­fold expan­sion of the Bog­gabri Coal Mine. The two pro­tes­tors dropped a ban­ner say­ing: “Stop the Coal Rush: Pro­tect Health, Water, Cli­mate”. After more than 8 hours atop the coal-crush­er two pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed and tak­en to Narrabri Police Sta­tion. The men were protest­ing against the destruc­tion of Leard State For­est, in the Gunnedah Basin, for three open-cut coal mines. A major expan­sion of the Bog­gabri coal mine was approved by the NSW Gov­ern­ment in July despite com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions alledg­ing huge eco­log­i­cal impacts and over­whelm­ing com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion.

At the same time on Mon­day activists from Quit Coal dropped a huge ban­ner over the the Vic­to­ri­an State Par­lia­ment entrance say­ing ‘Coal is the sin­gle great­est threat to civil­i­sa­tion and all life on our plan­et’ Prof. James Hansen, NASA. Why is Bail­lieu fund­ing coal?”

Tripod stops construction on coal railtrack expansion

Between today’s protest and the protest at Bog­gabri coal mine Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle also protest­ed on Tues­day the upgrad­ing of rail infra­struc­ture and build­ing a third track in the Hunter Val­ley to increase the load capac­i­ty for export­ing more coal.

The Mait­land to Min­im­bah Third Track project is being con­struct­ed by Hunter 8 Alliance, which is a con­sor­tium of engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny GHD, con­struc­tion com­pa­ny John Hol­land, and the Fed­er­al­ly owned Aus­tralian Rail Track Cor­po­ra­tion. The project aims to lift coal haulage capac­i­ty on the Hunter rail cor­ri­dor to 200 mil­lion tonnes per annum. It includes con­struc­tion of 23km of new rail track, and recon­di­tion­ing of 9km of exist­ing track. The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment grant­ed $114 mil­lion, through the ARTC, to the project.

Activists accessed a Hunter 8 Alliance site at Ruther­ford and erect­ed a wood­en tri­pod to block access to the site. Activist Ned Haughton scaled the 10 metre high struc­ture, where he remained for the next five and a half hours. Haughton was arrest­ed and charged with obstruc­tion.

Steve Phillips, spokesper­son for protest organ­is­ers Ris­ing Tide, said: “This rail­way con­struc­tion project is designed pure­ly for the ben­e­fit of coal cor­po­ra­tions, yet it is being paid for with tax­pay­ers mon­ey. Why are tax­pay­ers dol­lars being hand­ed over to rich min­ing cor­po­ra­tions, in order to prop up a pol­lut­ing indus­try that is destroy­ing human health and the envi­ron­ment?”

 

“There is a coal rush under way in NSW, and pub­lic health, water­ways, ecosys­tems, and the glob­al cli­mate are under assault. Mas­sive coal mine projects, coal haulage projects, and coal port projects are in the pipeline. If all these projects go ahead, the con­se­quences will be dev­as­tat­ing.” con­clud­ed Steve Phillips. “We call on State and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments to aban­don their infat­u­a­tion with min­ing com­pa­nies, and their addic­tion to fos­sil fuels. It’s time to take a stand and stop this coal rush before it’s too late.”

Sources:

Australia: Climate activists do Banner drops in Boggabri and Melbourne against coal rush

Activists from Quit Coal were able to get a mes­sage across this morn­ing: with a ban­ner drop over the main entrance of the Vic­to­ri­an State par­lia­ment house. The ban­ner said “ ‘Coal is the sin­gle great­est threat to civil­i­sa­tion and all life on our plan­et’ Prof. James Hansen, NASA.

Activists from Quit Coal were able to get a mes­sage across this morn­ing: with a ban­ner drop over the main entrance of the Vic­to­ri­an State par­lia­ment house. The ban­ner said “ ‘Coal is the sin­gle great­est threat to civil­i­sa­tion and all life on our plan­et’ Prof. James Hansen, NASA. Why is Bail­lieu fund­ing coal?” At the same time activists in cen­tral NSW at Bog­gabri climbed a coal-crush­er and dropped a ban­ner which said “Stop the Coal Rush: Pro­tect Health, Water, Cli­mate”

Relat­ed: Fur­ther sub­si­dies for Vic­to­ri­an coal by Vic­to­ri­an and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments | Quit Coal pho­tos: Par­lia­ment House Ban­ner Drop & Lock On

“Why is Baillieu funding coal?” demand climate activists

Four activists elud­ed secu­ri­ty and were able to climb the scaf­fold­ing at the back of par­lia­ment house to the roof to drop the ban­ner just after 9am. Two chained them­selves on the roof while two more dropped down with the ban­ner on ropes. Nine oth­er peo­ple chained them­selves on the steps of par­lia­ment house. Pro­tes­tor Dominic O’D­wyer said from the roof: “We are plan­ning on stay­ing here until the gov­ern­ment does some­thing recog­nis­ing the threat that cli­mate change pos­es. We would like the gov­ern­ment to take the threat of cli­mate change seri­ous­ly.”

 

The ban­ner was present for a few hours before police peace­ful­ly escort­ed the pro­tes­tors away. Bolt cut­ters had to be brought in to cut the chains of peo­ple on the steps. Accord­ing to a police spkeswoman no charges have been laid at this stage.

MR Bail­lieu when asked about the protest by reporters com­ment­ed “It will be a mat­ter for the pres­i­dent and the speak­er. Those peo­ple have endan­gered them­selves but they have also endan­gered oth­er peo­ple.”

Ener­gy min­is­ter Michael O’Brien called the protest a “stu­pid and dan­ger­ous stunt”.

Dominic O’D­wyer, who chained him­self on the roof, told AAP reporter and report­ed in the Her­ald Sun “We’re dis­ap­point­ed that the gov­ern­ment is not tak­ing action on cli­mate change and they’ve got their head in the sand. That’s why we’re here today, we’re not here today because we enjoy this. We’ve seen record ice melts in the Arc­tic this year, that means more bush­fires, more severe droughts, worse flood­ing, which affects mil­lions of Vic­to­ri­an fam­i­lies.”

Gavin Jen­nings, Deputy Leader of the Oppo­si­tion in the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil and Shad­ow Min­is­ter of Health, tweet­ed dur­ing the protest:

 

One of the rea­sons pro­tes­tors iden­ti­fied for the action was the State gov­ern­ment deci­sion to put $45 mil­lion into fund­ing ‘clean coal’ ini­tia­tives along with anoth­er $45 mil­lion from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Mr O’D­wyer said “For a start they should with­draw that mon­ey”.

Protest against coal expansion Gunnedah Basin, NSW

While the protest at the Vic­to­ri­an Par­lia­ment House was occur­ring there was also a protest and ban­ner drop in cen­tral New South Wales, where activists scaled a coal-crush­ing plant at Bog­gabri Coal Mine on the Gunnedah basin.

Accord­ing to the media release the NSW Gov­ern­ment has recent­ly approved a four­fold expan­sion of the Bog­gabri Coal Mine. The two pro­tes­tors dropped a ban­ner say­ing: “Stop the Coal Rush: Pro­tect Health, Water, Cli­mate”. After more than 8 hours atop the coal-crush­er two pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed and tak­en to Narrabri Police Sta­tion. The men were protest­ing against the destruc­tion of Leard State For­est, in the Gunnedah Basin, for three open-cut coal mines.

Sources:

USA: Earth First! Blockades Florida’s Dirtiest Power Plant protesting Mitt Romney’s Acceptance Speech

Apol­lo Beach, FL—In the cli­max of the 2012 Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion, pro­tes­tors with Earth First! have blocked access roads to TECO’s Big Bend coal plant on the east­ern shore of Tam­pa Bay. The envi­ron­men­tal action group is cit­ing cor­po­rate influ­ence in pol­i­tics and eco­log­i­cal impacts of fos­sil fuel depen­den­cy as rea­sons for the dis­rup­tion.

Apol­lo Beach, FL—In the cli­max of the 2012 Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion, pro­tes­tors with Earth First! have blocked access roads to TECO’s Big Bend coal plant on the east­ern shore of Tam­pa Bay. The envi­ron­men­tal action group is cit­ing cor­po­rate influ­ence in pol­i­tics and eco­log­i­cal impacts of fos­sil fuel depen­den­cy as rea­sons for the dis­rup­tion.

Report from Indy­bay IMC: A30 Earth First! Lock­down at Tam­pa’s Big Bend Coal Plant Dur­ing 2012 RNC
| Youtube video: Envi­ron­men­tal Protest in Tam­pa Bay dur­ing RNC , Pro­tes­tors chained togeth­er, Protest ends peace­ful­ly

This year’s RNC was fund­ed by an esti­mat­ed $55 mil­lion in cor­po­rate pay-offs, with cor­po­ra­tions includ­ing the Tam­pa based-TECO Ener­gy, along with Chevron, Duke Ener­gy and Exxon Mobil.

Accord­ing to a report by Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil (NRDC) last year, Flori­da is among the dirt­i­est states in pow­er plant pol­lu­tion. NRDC found TECO’s Big Bend plant to be in the state’s, “top three most pol­lut­ing smoke stacks.”

Earth First! activists chose this day for their protest in order to high­light Mitt Rom­ney’s plan to expand what the group calls the “ener­gy empire” which favors the inter­est of big donors in oil, gas and coal indus­tries.

Romney’s top ener­gy pol­i­cy advi­sor is the wealth­i­est oil­man in the coun­try and accord­ing to data ana­lyzed by the Cen­ter for Respon­sive Pol­i­tics, Rom­ney has already raised more from min­ing inter­ests than Bush or McCain raised from these indus­tries in their entire cam­paigns.

Local­ly, TECO’s Big Bend plant has a long his­to­ry of pol­lu­tion. Along with being declared Flori­da’s num­ber one dirt­i­est pow­er plant by Flori­da Con­sumer Action Net­work, they were also doc­u­ment­ed dis­charg­ing waste into Cobia Bay in Apol­lo Beach in years past.

But that’s not all. TECO has been called one of the nation’s worst offend­ers when it comes to moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing. In coal min­ing regions of the Appalachi­an Moun­tains, TECO has ruined entire com­mu­ni­ties to max­i­mize their prof­its. Ken­tucky coal­field res­i­dent Doug Jus­tice worked in the coal mines for 22 years and said “I have nev­er seen an out­fit treat a com­mu­ni­ty the way TECO Coal has done us.”

In response to the dev­as­ta­tion from floods caused be TECO’s min­ing in 2002, Granville Burke of Letch­er Coun­ty, Ken­tucky, had this to say: “I wish TECO had nev­er start­ed min­ing above our home. Pro­tec­tion for fam­i­lies like ours is sup­posed to come from the state and fed­er­al reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies, but instead they look the oth­er way as coal com­pa­nies destroy entire com­mu­ni­ties for the sake of prof­it.”

“Dirty ener­gy becomes dirty pol­i­tics. We can’t afford to stand by and watch it any­more. We have to fight back.” Said Rachel Kijew­s­ki, an orga­niz­er with the Earth First! move­ment in Flori­da.

xxx

 

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.

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 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.”

 

“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

 

Protesters Shut Down Largest Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine in U.S.

Ramp­ing up renewed efforts to end moun­tain­top removal min­ing in cen­tral Appalachia, scores of pro­test­ers staged a dar­ing action at the con­tro­ver­sial

Ramp­ing up renewed efforts to end moun­tain­top removal min­ing in cen­tral Appalachia, scores of pro­test­ers staged a dar­ing action at the con­tro­ver­sial Hobet strip mine today in Boone Coun­ty, West Vir­ginia, shut­ting down oper­a­tions through a series of coor­di­nat­ed lock downs, tree-sits and ban­ner drops. In a sym­bol­ic chal­lenge to the Oba­ma administration’s failed reg­u­la­to­ry poli­cies, the protest tar­get­ed the Hobet 45 moun­tain­top removal mine, which had been grant­ed a wide­ly denounced per­mit over two years ago.”

Twen­ty pro­test­ers were arrest­ed, and are being held for a total of $500,00 dol­lars in bail. A call for sup­port to raise funds has been issued.

View a video of the action here. Learn more at rampscampaign.org.

5,000 March Against Fracking in DC

More than 5,000 peo­ple from all over the nation, and var­i­ous parts of the world includ­ing Aus­tralia, unit­ed [Sat­ur­day, July 28] on the West lawn of the U.S. Capi­tol demand­ing Con­gress take imme­di­ate action to stop frack­ing.

More than 5,000 peo­ple from all over the nation, and var­i­ous parts of the world includ­ing Aus­tralia, unit­ed [Sat­ur­day, July 28] on the West lawn of the U.S. Capi­tol demand­ing Con­gress take imme­di­ate action to stop frack­ing. After the ral­ly that began at 2 p.m., ral­ly par­tic­i­pants marched for more than one hour, stop­ping at the head­quar­ters of the America’s Nat­ur­al Gas Alliance and Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute.

Peo­ple impact­ed by frack­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties joined forces with 136 local and nation­al orga­ni­za­tions to call on Con­gress to Stop the Frack Attack and pro­tect Amer­i­cans from the dan­ger­ous impacts of frack­ing.

Ral­ly speak­ers includ­ed, Bill McK­ibben, co-founder of 350.org; Josh Fox, pro­duc­er of Gasland; Calvin Till­man, for­mer may­or of Dish, Texas; Alli­son Chin, board pres­i­dent of the Sier­ra Club, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers from swing states affect­ed by frack­ing.

“As the increas­ing­ly bizarre weath­er across the plan­et and melt­ing ice on Green­land makes clear, at this point we’ve got no choice but to keep fos­sil fuels under­ground. Frack­ing to find more is the worst pos­si­ble idea,” said McK­ibben.

“The amaz­ing thing about this prob­lem is that there’s a solu­tion… We know that  we can run the world on renew­able ener­gy. We know that we can run the world on the wind. And today, we have a reminder that we can run the world on the sun,” said Fox. [Ed. note: While we sup­port actions to stop frack­ing, see our arti­cle cri­tiquing this per­spec­tive on so-called clean alter­na­tives]

Today’s ral­ly was part of the first nation­al event to stop the frack attack. The ral­ly is the cul­mi­na­tion of three days of train­ing to fur­ther esca­late the move­ment to stop abuse by the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Large groups from swing states includ­ing Ohio, Col­orado, Penn­syl­va­nia and North Car­oli­na attend­ed the train­ing and ral­ly to make sure that frack­ing is a key part of the upcom­ing elec­tion.

“Just weeks ago in North Car­oli­na, our leg­is­la­ture ripped up decades of ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tions for rur­al drink­ing water, in order to allow frack­ing and invite in dirty indus­try cam­paign dol­lars. So we add our voic­es to the nation­al move­ment call­ing on Con­gress to pro­tect our homes, our drink­ing water and our health by repeal­ing the 2005 oil and gas exemp­tions,” said Hope Tay­lor, a farmer near Durham and exec­u­tive direc­tor of Clean Water for NC.

Ral­ly par­tic­i­pants have three key demands: an end to dirty and dan­ger­ous frack­ing, clo­sure of the sev­en legal loop­holes that let frack­ers in the oil and gas indus­try ignore the Safe Drink­ing Water Act, Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, and full enforce­ment of exist­ing laws to pro­tect fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties from the effects of frack­ing.

“It is time for us to come togeth­er as a peo­ple and let the law mak­ers that work for us know that we are tired of being run over by the out-of-con­trol oil and gas indus­try,” said Till­man.

While at the head­quar­ters of America’s Nat­ur­al Gas Alliance, ral­ly orga­niz­ers deliv­ered six jugs of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water in haz­mat suits and then head­ed to the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute where a 20-foot-high mock oil rig was smashed to the ground.

This event was a launch­ing point for the move­ment, and will be fol­lowed by events in Albany, NY on Aug. 25, Philadel­phia on Sept. 20 and Sept. 21, and sub­se­quent events in oth­er states and regions affect­ed by frack­ing.

Daring Protesters Shut Down Strip Mine In West Virginia; 500,000 in Bail Needed!!!!

29.7.12

29.7.12

Ramp­ing up renewed efforts to end moun­tain­top removal min­ing in cen­tral Appalachia, scores of pro­test­ers staged a dar­ing action at the con­tro­ver­sial Hobet strip mine today in Boone Coun­ty, West Vir­ginia, shut­ting down oper­a­tions through a series of coor­di­nat­ed lock downs, tree-sits and ban­ner drops. In a sym­bol­ic chal­lenge to the Oba­ma administration’s failed reg­u­la­to­ry poli­cies, the protest tar­get­ed the Hobet 45 moun­tain­top removal mine, which had been grant­ed a wide­ly denounced per­mit over two years ago.

Accord­ing to RAMPS, a West Vir­ginia-based grass­roots groups that orga­nized the “moun­tain mobi­liza­tion” protest as part of a nation­wide sum­mer of actions against dev­as­tat­ing extrac­tion indus­try oper­a­tions, St. Louis-based mine own­er Patri­ot Coal has left behind a lega­cy of destruc­tion in coal coun­try for both area res­i­dents and min­ers. Patri­ot filed for bank­rupt­cy ear­li­er this month, which could also affect pen­sion and Unit­ed Mine Work­ers of Amer­i­ca union con­tracts.

“The gov­ern­ment has aid­ed and abet­ted the coal indus­try in evad­ing envi­ron­men­tal and mine safe­ty reg­u­la­tions. We are here today to demand that the gov­ern­ment and coal indus­try end strip min­ing, repay their debt to Appalachia, and secure a just tran­si­tion for this region,” said Dustin Steele of Mate­wan, West Vir­ginia, in a released state­ment. The son and grand­son of union coal min­ers, Steele took part in one of the truck lock­downs.

Cit­ing the mount­ing evi­dence of the health and human­i­tar­i­an crises in the coal­fields from tox­ic min­ing fall­out, includ­ing a rise in black lung dis­ease and links to birth defects and can­cer, the pro­test­ers also sta­tioned ban­ners on the mine site: “Coal Leaves, Can­cer Stays.”

“The coal com­pa­nies are poi­son­ing our water and air, and they’re treat­ing the work­ers no bet­ter than the land — fight­ing work­place health and safe­ty pro­tec­tions to get the most out of labor as they can,” said Junior Walk, a for­mer coal com­pa­ny employ­ee from near­by Whitesville, West Vir­ginia, who won the 2011 Brow­er Youth Award for his envi­ron­men­tal activism.

Pro­test­ers also called on the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion and region­al politi­cians to launch more sus­tain­able job train­ing and coal­field regen­er­a­tion projects.

Coal min­ing res­i­dents have plead­ed for basic civ­il rights and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion for years, with more than 20 peer-reviewed stud­ies sug­gest­ing high­er risks and links between reck­less strip min­ing and dev­as­tat­ing health impacts, includ­ing birth defects, can­cer and chron­ic heart, lung and kid­ney dis­ease. (A recent report not­ed that strip min­ers are even sub­ject­ed to unac­cept­able lev­els of black lung dis­ease.)

A bill, the ACHE Act, call­ing for an emer­gency mora­to­ri­um on moun­tain­top removal min­ing was recent­ly intro­duced into Con­gress.

For updates on the protests and arrests, fol­low RAMPS cam­paign.

Video

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