anti-shell protest at awards

9.11.11

9.11.11

tomor­row marks the six­teenth anniver­sary of the killing of ken saro-wiwa and eight oth­er activists in nige­ria. today, shell, com­plic­it in their exe­cu­tion, was pol­ish­ing its image by spon­sor­ing an awards event for young entre­peneurs at the cen­tre­point build­ing in cen­tral lon­don. ris­ing tide organ­ised a reminder of shel­l’s bloody his­to­ry out­side the event, involv­ing grim reapers, som­bre drums, and hun­dreds of leaflets.

after meet­ing and dress­ing just round the cor­ner, a dozen or so activists arrived out­side the cen­tre­point build­ing, cre­at­ing quite a stir with a mor­bid beat from two huge sur­do drums, sev­er­al ghost­ly shell logo skull-faced grim reapers, and an excel­lent ban­ner using the shell and livewire logos and the slo­gans “shell livewire — sup­port­ing bright young busi­ness, shell deathrope — hang­ing out­spo­ken young nige­ri­ans”.

cen­tre­point secu­ri­ty at first over­stepped the mark, push­ing peo­ple and try­ing to snatch the ban­ner, but they retreat­ed indoors and closed off the entrance when they realised they were being filmed, allow­ing the protest to con­tin­ue right out­side.

hun­dreds of leaflets were hand­ed out to inter­est­ed passers-by, and police, who arrived after around 40 min­utes, wait­ed for instruc­tion up the com­mand chain before decid­ing to leave the protest alone.

after about 90 min­utes, with leaflets run­ning out, and the young entre­peneurs appar­ent­ly led out of the build­ing via an under­ground car park, it was off to the pub for a well-deserved drink for the activists.

it was on the 10th novem­ber in 1995 that the niger­ian gov­ern­ment hanged ken saro-wiwa and eight oth­er young activists who were cam­paign­ers against the dev­as­ta­tion caused by shell and oth­er oil exploiters in their home­lands. shell was lat­er shown to have been com­plic­it in the mur­ders. to this day, shell still attacks com­mu­ni­ties (like ross­port in north­ern ire­land, as well as con­tin­u­ing abus­es in the niger delta) and destroys the plan­et through oil extrac­tion, and to off­set their destruc­tive image they put tiny amounts of their prof­its into high pro­file spon­sor­ship events like ‘livewire’, a youth busi­ness enter­prise.
 

VIDEO
Thanks too to ‘You and I Films’ for pro­duc­ing a video of our (S)Hell DeathROPE action, and to Kevin Smith of Plat­form for the infor­ma­tive interview/voiceover, which you can watch online at:

• ‘Shell Death Rope — In Mem­o­ry of Ken Saro-Wiwa’, at vimeo
» video, 2:29 – http://vimeo.com/31879898

BLOGS
Thanks to Ben Amunwa at Plat­form, there are also two blog post­ings about our (S)Hell DeathROPE action:

• ‘Protest Expos­es Shell’s Grim Record on Human Rights’
» http://blog.platformlondon.org/2011/11/10/protest-exposes-shells-grim-record-on-human-rights/
» http://remembersarowiwa.com/protest-exposes-shells-grim-record-on-human-rights/

FUTURE ACTIONS
If you are also inclined to acknowl­edg­ing that the cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate chaos caused by anthro­pogenic glob­al warm­ing is the most seri­ous social/economic/political issue humankind has ever faced, and want to join in tak­ing grass­roots direct action to influ­ence our civil­i­sa­tion toward cli­mate jus­tice, then do please con­sid­er join­ing Lon­don Ris­ing Tide (or your local Ris­ing Tide group).

• Ris­ing Tide, Lon­don
» http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
• Next action plan­ning gath­er­ing: Thu 17 Nov 2011, 19:30–21:00 (and after­wards (option­al­ly) down t’pub), at the Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, 62 Fieldgate Street, Whiechapel, Lon­don E1 1ES
» LARC – http://www.londonarc.org

• Ris­ing Tide, UK and around the world
» http://risingtide.org.uk
• see left hand col­umn for links to Ris­ing Tide groups all around the world

How to use a bikelock to save the Great Barrier Reef — protest halts Gladstone dredging

9 Novem­ber 2011

9 Novem­ber 2011

Derec Davies used a bicy­cle U lock to attach him­self to a dredger in Glad­stone Har­bour this morn­ing. The direct action was tak­en to pro­tect the Great Bar­ri­er Reef against the devel­op­ment of Glad­stone har­bour liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas facil­i­ties on Cur­tis Island to export Coal Seam Gas. Mas­sive Dredg­ing of the Glad­stone har­bour is occur­ring which fish­er­man and envi­ron­men­tal­ists say is caus­ing tur­bid­i­ty in the water and caus­ing ill­ness of fish effec­tive­ly clos­ing down the local fish­ing indus­try. Devel­op­ment is endan­ger­ing the World Her­itage sta­tus of the Great Bar­ri­er Reef.

Relat­ed: In 2010 Con­ser­va­tion­ists crit­i­cised gov­ern­ment over coal ship ground­ing on Great Bar­ri­er Reef near Glad­stone | Capri­corn Con­ser­va­tion Coun­cil: The LNG inva­sion of Cur­tis Island | ABC TV Four Cor­ners: Great Bar­ri­er Grief | Get­up! peti­tion to Save the reef

Derec Davies, a Friends of the Earth cam­paign­er, was whisked out to a dredger about 9.30am this morn­ing by a fast inflat­able boat. He unfurlled a ban­ner on the dredge, which read “Save the reef, halt dredg­ing” and chained him­self. All dredg­ing stopped when he locked onto equip­ment. The police were called and attend­ed to cut him free. Dredg­ing was stopped for over 2 hours.

Derec Davies was released from cus­tody at 3:40pm today with three charges under the Trans­port Oper­a­tions and Mar­itime Safe­ty act. The charges car­ry a total max­i­mum penal­ty of $74000 or one years impris­on­ment.

“The Great Bar­ri­er Reef is worth a lot more than $74 000, so I think that it was worth­while,” said Mr Davies. “We should­n’t have to take action like this, but our Envi­ron­ment min­is­ters Vicky Dar­ling and Tony Burke are let­ting us all down. Hope­ful­ly the judge will see that peo­ple need to have the right to protest, oth­er­wise this destruc­tion of the reef will go unchal­lenged.” said Mr Davies.

Drew Hut­ton, a spokeper­son for Friends of the Earth said that the pur­pose of the protest was to call for a halt to all dredg­ing in the har­bour until a gen­uine inde­pen­dent enquiry was held into the caus­es of the appar­ent ecosys­tem col­lapse in the har­bour.

The ABC TV Four Cor­ners cur­rent affairs Pro­gram on Mon­day night did an in depth report on port devel­op­ments in Queens­land and their impact on The Great Bar­ri­er Reef Marine Park and World Her­itage Area. (Watch Great Bar­ri­er Grief)

In the 12 hours fol­low­ing the air­ing of the pro­gram some 19,000 peo­ple signed an online Get­up! peti­tion to Save the reef.

There are six major port devel­op­ments already planned or under­way along the Queens­land coast to export coal and coal seam gas.

“ABC has report­ed that the chair of the Great Bar­ri­er Reef Marine Park Author­i­ty expressed ‘extreme con­cern’ to the Gov­ern­ment about the dredg­ing and its unac­cept­able impacts on marine life with­in the World Her­itage area,” said Sen­a­tor Laris­sa Waters from the Greens.

“We now have a huge spike in marine ani­mal deaths up and down the coast, a fish dis­ease epi­dem­ic in Glad­stone har­bour and the fish­ing indus­try on its knees, after just 1.5 mil­lion of the 46 mil­lion cubic metres have been dredged. The tur­bid­i­ty con­di­tions imposed by the fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter for the dredg­ing are being con­tin­u­al­ly breached, and now we learn that three heavy met­als – alu­mini­um, cop­per and chromi­um – are exceed­ing the nation­al safe­ty guide­lines. And still the dredg­ing con­tin­ues.” Sen­a­tors Waters said in a media release.

Mr Hut­ton said the dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of marine ani­mal deaths and dis­eased fish in Glad­stone har­bour reflect­ed an ecosys­tem under extreme stress and his organ­i­sa­tion had no faith in the Queens­land Gov­ern­men­t’s pre­pared­ness to look seri­ous­ly for the caus­es.

“This is an issue of con­cern to all Aus­tralians who believe the Great Bar­ri­er reef should not be sac­ri­ficed for fleet­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. The coal seam gas indus­try, once again, has demon­strat­ed what a detri­men­tal impact it is hav­ing on rur­al and region­al Queens­land.” said Drew Hut­ton.

Accord­ing to Drew Hut­ton in a report on Lock the Gate, nei­ther the Queens­land gov­ern­ment nor the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment were trust­ed by most peo­ple to get to the bot­tom of the prob­lem because they had too strong a vest­ed inter­est in see­ing these projects go ahead.

“So far all we have seen from the Bligh gov­ern­ment is flawed water qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing, con­stant asser­tions that the prob­lems of marine species’ deaths and fish dis­ease have noth­ing to do with devel­op­ments in the har­bour and the desire to see devel­op­ments pro­ceed at break­neck speed.”

“The Glad­stone Port Corporation’s dredg­ing pro­gram is one of the biggest in our his­to­ry and we need to know if dredg­ing up his­toric lay­ers of indus­tri­al pol­lu­tants as well as the acid sul­phate soils that are known to be in the area are linked with this cat­a­stro­phe.”

Drew Hut­ton has high­light­ed the links between the reck­less pace of devel­op­ment in Coal Seam Gas wells, with the port expan­sion threat­en­ing major impacts to fish­eries and tourism indus­tries asso­ci­at­ed with the Great Bar­ri­er Reef.

“Coal seam gas is, in all like­li­hood, linked with the prob­lems in Glad­stone har­bour but you can fol­low the trail of destruc­tion and pos­si­ble cat­a­stro­phe back to the tens of thou­sands of hectares of bush­land being cleared for gas pipelines and the long-term destruc­tion of under­ground water.” he said, “It is only peo­ple pow­er that will force recal­ci­trant gov­ern­ments to act respon­si­bly to bring the coal seam gas indus­try under con­trol and to act to pro­tect the Great Bar­ri­er Reef from high-impact devel­op­ment..”

Friends of the Earth is call­ing for a dredg­ing halt, inde­pen­dent test­ing in Glad­stone har­bour, and the cur­rent enquiry announced by Fed­er­al and State Gov­ern­ments to widen its terms of ref­er­ence to include all aspects of indus­tri­al devel­op­ment in the region.

Aus­tralia failed to noti­fy the World Her­itage Com­mit­tee ear­li­er this year regard­ing the port devel­op­ments and their pos­si­ble impact on the World Her­ti­age sta­tus of the Great Bar­ri­er Reef. They have called for a strate­gic assess­ment of all coastal assess­ments impact­ing on the reef. The reef may be in dan­ger of los­ing its World Her­itage sta­tus.

“Aus­tralians have to ask right now – are we pre­pared to lose one of our great­est nation­al assets so we can turn the Great Bar­ri­er Reef into a coal and gas high­way?” con­clud­ed Sen­a­tor Waters.

EXCAVATORS VANDALIZED, SET ON FIRE, SWEDEN

report­ed anony­mous­ly to Öre­bro’s ALF/DBF Press Office:

“The night to the 7th of Novem­ber we van­dal­ized 3 exca­va­tors in Ladugård­sän­gen Öre­bro. We crushed the win­dows of all of them and set one on fire with two explo­sive devices.

We did it for main­ly three rea­sons:

report­ed anony­mous­ly to Öre­bro’s ALF/DBF Press Office:

“The night to the 7th of Novem­ber we van­dal­ized 3 exca­va­tors in Ladugård­sän­gen Öre­bro. We crushed the win­dows of all of them and set one on fire with two explo­sive devices.

We did it for main­ly three rea­sons:

1. For ALL the ani­mals that get killed direct­ly by these hell­ma­chines– worms, snakes, ants and snails, and all the oth­er liv­ing beings.

2. They are build­ing a big road through the Wild ani­mals habi­tat. They not only clearcut the for­est and bush, they also crush the so often for­got­ten life under the ground.

3. For all the ani­mals that could get killed on this road if we did­nt do any­thing– and for the total suf­fer­ing fol­low­ing glob­al warm­ing that roads con­tribute to.

This is for every­one that sim­ply wants to live and not get crushed by a killing machine of mass destruc­tion.

For all beings

ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT SWEDEN

DBF”

http://www.youtube.com/embed/67jNXebCUP8

10.11.11
anony­mous report received by Öre­bro’s ALF/DBF Press Office:

“I saw anoth­er exca­va­tor in Öre­bro city van­dal­ized. It was stand­ing near the store Lidl on the west side.

Thanks alot! They mess up my home!

An obser­vant rab­bit”

Protests Continue Against Iron Mining in Armenia

9.11.2011

9.11.2011

Oppo­si­tion politi­cians and envi­ron­men­tal activists joined on Wednes­day about two hun­dred res­i­dents of the cen­tral Armen­ian town of Hraz­dan in protest­ing against the open­ing of an iron mine which they believe would have grave eco­log­i­cal con­se­quences.

The crowd ral­lied in Hrazdan’s cen­tral square before head­ing to a near­by hill rich in iron ore in a con­voy of bus­es and cars.

Boun­ty Resources Arme­nia Lim­it­ed (BRAL), a com­pa­ny part­ly owned by a Chi­nese firm, plans to launch open-pit oper­a­tions there and in two oth­er, larg­er iron deposits else­where in the coun­try in the com­ing years. A team of geol­o­gists hired by BRAL is cur­rent­ly work­ing there to ascer­tain iron reserves hid­den under­ground through test drilling.

Envi­ron­ment pro­tec­tion groups are strong­ly opposed to iron min­ing in the area, say­ing that it would pol­lute air, agri­cul­tur­al land and the Hraz­dan riv­er, the main sup­pli­er of irri­ga­tion water to the fer­tile Ararat Val­ley in the country’s south.

Many Hraz­dan res­i­dents share these con­cerns. Some of them already demon­strat­ed against the project late last month.

“There is a ghost town in Chi­na near a sim­i­lar­ly exploit­ed mine,” said one woman tak­ing part in the protest. “We would have the same sit­u­a­tion here.”

Mias­nik Malkhasian, a geol­o­gist coor­di­nat­ing test drilling at the site, dis­missed such con­cerns as he and his work­ers were con­front­ed by the angry crowd. “There is no dan­ger what­so­ev­er,” he said.

The pro­test­ers remained uncon­vinced. Some of them smashed wood­en box­es con­tain­ing drilling sam­ples. Police offi­cers mon­i­tor­ing the demon­stra­tion did not inter­vene.

“Such crim­i­nal deci­sions are not made in Hraz­dan,” Karine Hako­bian, a leader of the oppo­si­tion Zha­rangutyun (Her­itage) par­ty, told the pro­test­ers before the march. “They are made in Yere­van, at the pres­i­den­tial palace and the gov­ern­ment build­ing. They have turned us into slaves in our own coun­try.”

Sasun Mikaelian, a Hraz­dan-based for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an affil­i­at­ed with the oppo­si­tion Armen­ian Nation­al Con­gress (HAK), sin­gled out for­mer Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Var­tan Ayvaz­ian for blame.

The Hetq.am news ser­vice report­ed last Jan­u­ary that by Ayvaz­ian and his fam­i­ly at least part­ly con­trol BRAL. The ex-min­is­ter, who now chairs one of the stand­ing com­mit­tees of the Armen­ian par­lia­ment, did not deny that.

The Hetq report fol­lowed the announce­ment by the Chi­nese com­pa­ny For­tune Oil that it has paid $24 mil­lion to acquire a 35 per­cent share in BRAL. For­tune Oil has the option of rais­ing the stake to 50 per­cent for an addi­tion­al $16 mil­lion.

Ayvaz­ian had con­sid­er­able reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ty over the min­ing indus­try when he served as envi­ron­ment min­is­ter from 2001–2007.

http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/24386103.html

Earth First! Winter Moot 2012 — 24–26th February 2012. Updated: location & what to expect

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

See earthfirstgathering.org.uk for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about loca­tion,  pro­gramme and con­tact details

Update:

Where — this years Earth First Win­ter Moot will take place in Gle­spin Vil­lage Hall, South Lanark­shire. Gle­spin is a small vil­lage about 14 miles south of Lanark, and 35 miles south of Glas­gow. South Lanark­shire also has many beau­ti­ful areas with rivers, hills, forests and peat bogs.  Full direc­tions

What to expect — this years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er,  abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk

Plane Stupid on the runway at Southend

3.11.11

16 pro­tes­tors, who occu­pied the run­way at Southend Air­port, have been arrest­ed by Essex Police.  It is believed they are being held at Southend Police Sta­tion. Cam­paign­ers from Plane Stu­pid and Cli­mate Rush entered the air­port short­ly after 9am this morn­ing.  The protest is against the planned expan­sion of Southend Air­port.

3.11.11

16 pro­tes­tors, who occu­pied the run­way at Southend Air­port, have been arrest­ed by Essex Police.  It is believed they are being held at Southend Police Sta­tion. Cam­paign­ers from Plane Stu­pid and Cli­mate Rush entered the air­port short­ly after 9am this morn­ing.  The protest is against the planned expan­sion of Southend Air­port.

Plane Stu­pid installed solar pan­els on the run­way.  Cam­paign­ers from Cli­mate Rush, dressed as pilots and cab­in crew, were on a near­by foot­path per­form­ing a dance rou­tine.

A spokes­woman for the pro­tes­tors said:

“Southend Coun­cil say the expan­sion will bring jobs.  But invest­ment in renew­able ener­gy would cre­ate many more jobs with­out dam­ag­ing the cli­mate.  What we need is solar pow­er not plane pow­er.  The big­ger run­way is bad for cli­mate change, bad for local res­i­dents under the flight path and is not need­ed to help the local econ­o­my.” 

Southend Air­port has been bought by Sto­barts, the logis­tics firm.  Easy­jet has announced that it plans to start oper­at­ing com­mer­cial flights from the air­port in spring 2012.

There has been a major local cam­paign.  It has focused on the impact the air­port would have on the thou­sands of peo­ple who will live under the flight paths.

Natural Gas Drilling Rig Stormed by Anti-Fracking Protesters

2.11.11

2.11.11

This morn­ing nine peo­ple, from the nation­al anti- frack­ing net­work from Frack Off, have halt­ed work at Cuadrilla Resources drilling site in Hes­keth Bank, Lan­cashire. They ran on to the Frack­ing site ear­ly this morn­ing and scaled the drilling rig using climb­ing equip­ment. They aim to sit on top of the drilling rig for as long as pos­si­ble to stop the drilling.

The action is aimed at high­light­ing the hypocrisy behind the ‘Shale Gas Envi­ron­men­tal Sum­mit’ start­ing today in Lon­don: a con­fer­ence spon­sored by a host of com­pa­nies involved in the oil and gas indus­try who are try­ing to spin the rapid expan­sion into the untapped fos­sil fuel as ‘green’ [1].

Cam­paign­ers are act­ing in sup­port of the ‘Frack Mob’ mass action hap­pen­ing out­side the sum­mit at 3pm lat­er today [2].

Both actions aim to counter the PR offen­sive of the shale gas indus­try and bring pub­lic atten­tion to the harm frack­ing has been linked to.

Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing, or ‘frack­ing’ is a con­tro­ver­sial method of nat­ur­al gas extrac­tion, in which a mix­ture of water, sand and chem­i­cals is inject­ed into the ground at high pres­sure, crack­ing shale rock and releas­ing the gas [3]. It has been the sub­ject of much con­tention due to numer­ous reports link­ing the method to water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, health prob­lems and earth­quakes [4]. The indus­try is in its infan­cy in the UK, and there are plans for up to 800 wells in Lan­cashire alone [5].

Jen­ny Boykin, a spokesper­son for Frack Off, said “Frack­ing uses huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals, a large frac­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. The frack­ing flu­id also leach­es chem­i­cals like arsenic out of the rocks when it is used mak­ing it even more tox­ic and so the flu­id that is recov­ered becomes a big dis­pos­al prob­lem. The con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of irri­ga­tion water means that everyone’s food sup­plies could poten­tial­ly be affect­ed. Frack­ing in the Unit­ed States has already result­ed in numer­ous spills of these flu­ids.”

Col­in East­man, one of the climbers, said, “Con­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels have begun to run out and the sys­tem is mov­ing towards more extreme forms of ener­gy like frack­ing, tar sands, and deep water drilling. The move towards ‘extreme ener­gy’ is lit­er­al­ly scrap­ping the bot­tom of the bar­rel, suck­ing the last most dif­fi­cult to reach fos­sil fuels from the plan­et at a time when we should be rapid­ly reduc­ing our con­sump­tion alto­geth­er and look­ing for sus­tain­able alter­na­tives. In the UK frack­ing for shale gas is planned along­side, not instead of, extrac­tion of con­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels like coal.”

Pic­tures are being uploaded here:  http://s.coop/7hwi

Look at the web­site for more info: www.frack-off.org
Fol­low us on twit­ter: @frack_off
Fol­low us on Face­book: www.facebook.com/frackoffuk
Or e‑mail:  media@frack-off.org
Phone: 07931195505

Notes:
[1] Envi­ron­men­tal sum­mit details:  http://www.smi-online.co.uk/events/overview.asp?is=0&ref=3742

[2] press release for the frack mob:  http://frack-off.org.uk/press-release-anti-fracking-protesters-plan-to-shut-down-an-industry-environmental-summit/

[3] short film explain­ing what frack­ing is:
 http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-hell/watch-the-film/

[4]  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050025/Earthquakes-Lancashire-coast-WERE-caused-drilling-gas-experts-warn-energy-operation-threatened-closure.html

[5]  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/21/gas-field-blackpool-dallas-sea

Defending the Xingu River basin from the Belo Monte Dam

Last week, on Octo­ber 27 in Altami­ra, Brazil, the Belo Monte Dam con­struc­tion site was occu­pied by 400 indige­nous peo­ple, fish­er­men and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers intend­ing to per­ma­nent­ly occu­py the site and call­ing allied orga­ni­za­tions and move­ments to join them.

Last week, on Octo­ber 27 in Altami­ra, Brazil, the Belo Monte Dam con­struc­tion site was occu­pied by 400 indige­nous peo­ple, fish­er­men and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers intend­ing to per­ma­nent­ly occu­py the site and call­ing allied orga­ni­za­tions and move­ments to join them. The occu­pa­tion was a col­lec­tive deci­sion made by 700 rep­re­sen­ta­tives from local com­mu­ni­ties who attend­ed a sem­i­nar against the Belo Monte Dam held the week before in Altami­ra.

Pro­test­ers noti­fied the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment about the occu­pa­tion and par­tic­i­pat­ing groups released a state­ment say­ing: “In the face of the Brazil­ian government’s intran­si­gence to dia­logue and con­tin­u­ing dis­re­spect, we occu­pied the Belo Monte con­struc­tion site and blocked the Trans-Ama­zon high­way. We demand a defin­i­tive can­cel­la­tion of the Belo Monte Dam.”

Juma Xipa­ia, a local indige­nous leader, explained, “We only demand what our Con­sti­tu­tion already ensures us: our rights. Our ances­tors fought so we could be here now. Many doc­u­ments and meet­ings have already tran­spired and noth­ing has changed. The machin­ery con­tin­ues to arrive to destroy our region.”

After 15 hours, pro­test­ers were dis­bursed from the con­struc­tion site with the arrival of two jus­tice offi­cials and three lawyers from Norte Ener­gia (the dam-build­ing con­sor­tium), who car­ried an injunc­tion in favor of the con­sor­tium. Upon inform­ing the pro­test­ers about the judi­cial order, offi­cials threat­ened that “Shock Troops” were sur­round­ing the area, ready to act.

This was a sub­stan­tial change from the Mon­day pri­or, when a fed­er­al judge in Brazil stat­ed that the envi­ron­men­tal licens­ing of the con­tro­ver­sial Belo Monte Dam was ille­gal giv­en the lack of con­sul­ta­tions with affect­ed indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

The Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) also request­ed expla­na­tion from the Brazil­ian Gov­ern­ment regard­ing the rights of indige­nous peo­ples affect­ed by the dam, in April. Accord­ing to the OAS, the Brazil­ian Gov­ern­ment is oblig­at­ed to con­sult indige­nous peo­ples who will be affect­ed by the dam, before con­struc­tion begins.

On Octo­ber 26, the day pri­or to the occu­pa­tion and block­ade, Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials refused to attend a closed hear­ing con­vened by the IAHCR intend­ed to fos­ter dia­logue toward resolv­ing this con­flict.

A state­ment by groups par­tic­i­pat­ing in what they called “#Occu­py Belo Monte Dam” said this of the block­ade: “The unprece­dent­ed occu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte con­struc­tion site was a direct result of an autonomous and sov­er­eign deci­sion by indige­nous peo­ple and fish­er­men from the Xin­gu Riv­er basin and is con­sid­ered the land­mark of a new alliance in the strug­gle against the Belo Monte Dam. The mutu­al recog­ni­tion and part­ner­ships sealed this week among the seg­ments that will suf­fer the most with the destruc­tion of the Xin­gu Riv­er marks a new, stronger lev­el of the fight against Belo Monte. Such unprece­dent­ed part­ner­ship between indige­nous peo­ple and fish­er­men shows that the peo­ple from Xin­gu are unit­ed to defend the riv­er, nature and their tra­di­tion­al way of life.

Our resis­tance against this destruc­tive project called Belo Monte remains unshak­able. The occu­pa­tion has sent a clear mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rousseff’s admin­is­tra­tion that the fight for the Xin­gu is more alive than ever. If the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to insist on vio­lat­ing our rights, oth­er resis­tance actions shall come.”

The state­ment was signed by the fol­low­ing groups:

-Coor­de­nação das Orga­ni­za­ções Indí­ge­nas da Amazô­nia Brasileira – COIAB
-Comis­são Pas­toral da Ter­ra – CPT
-Con­sel­ho Indi­genista Mis­sionário – CIMI
-Movi­men­to Xin­gu Vivo para Sem­pre – MXVPS

Hun­dreds of inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty action have also occurred around the world in recent months.

For more infor­ma­tion, check out:

Ryanair ejected by Manchester students

Octo­ber 29, 2011

Ryanair had to can­cel a mar­ket­ing event at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union ear­li­er this week after stu­dents dis­man­tled their pro­mo­tion­al stall in protest against the com­pa­ny’s record on the envi­ron­ment and work­ers’ rights.

Octo­ber 29, 2011

Ryanair had to can­cel a mar­ket­ing event at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union ear­li­er this week after stu­dents dis­man­tled their pro­mo­tion­al stall in protest against the com­pa­ny’s record on the envi­ron­ment and work­ers’ rights.

Ryanair had adver­tised to hold a stall from 12pm to 3pm last Thurs­day (29th Octo­ber 2011) . How­ev­er, at 12.30pm, a group of around nine stu­dents began dis­man­tling the com­pa­ny’s ban­ners and dis­play boards and pop­ping their pro­mo­tion­al bal­loons. The Ryanair sales team soon left the build­ing.

Stu­dents said the action was in anger at Ryanair’s dis­re­gard for the dan­gers of cli­mate change by aggres­sive­ly mar­ket­ing cheap flights. They said the action was also tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with dis­grun­tled Ryan Air work­ers. Last August, Ryanair work­er John Foley staged a rooftop protest at Liv­er­pool John Lennon Air­port against the com­pa­ny’s anti-union activ­i­ties and poor record on work­ers rights.

Physics stu­dent Cather­ine Red­cliffe said, “Ryain Air’s relent­less pur­suit of prof­it over all oth­er con­cerns is tram­pling on work­ers rights and endan­ger­ing our future at the same time. The avi­a­tion indus­try takes more mon­ey out of North­west region than it puts in.”

Nonethe­less, Ryanair seemed adamant that the day had been a suc­cess claim­ing that their staff were “about to pack up and head home” when the stall was dis­rupt­ed at 12.30pm, even though they intend­ed to stay until 3pm.  Spokesper­son Stephen McNa­ma­ra said, “Ryanair thanks the Plane Stu­pid clowns for once again turn­ing a good pro­mo into a great pro­mo.”

Stu­dent Union democ­ra­cy

The stu­dents, who did not claim to be from any par­tic­u­lar group, were fur­ther angered at Stu­dent Union man­age­ment for rent­ing the space to Ryan Air in the first place. Pre­vi­ous­ly, stu­dents had vot­ed that their Union should cam­paign on cli­mate issues and not have busi­ness rela­tions with envi­ron­men­tal­ly-dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies.

Geog­ra­phy stu­dent Marc Hemp­ton, 20, said, “I want­ed to show how Ryanair’s pres­ence was a breach of our demo­c­ra­t­ic process. This is my Union and our col­lec­tive deci­sion had been side­lined by unelect­ed man­age­ment. We should­n’t allow envi­ron­men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in our Union where we have fought for pos­i­tive poli­cies on cli­mate change and against rela­tion­ships with uneth­i­cal com­pa­nies. I’m glad we sent them pack­ing for the day.”

On Wednes­day, activists had peti­tioned the Union man­age­ment with let­ters signed by stu­dents to can­cel the pro­mo­tion­al event. Man­age­ment refused, say­ing that Ryanair stall was bring­ing in extra cash.

Hemp­ton added, “In some ways, this is a micro­cosm of prob­lems regard­ing cli­mate change and work­ers rights. Where mak­ing a quick prof­it is pri­ori­tised at the expense of peo­ple and our envi­ron­ment, it makes it hard­er to address these issues and cre­ates big­ger costs fur­ther down the line.”

manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

 

Frack Mob at Industry Greenwash Conference

Action: Frack Mob
Tar­get: Indus­try green­wash­ing con­fer­ence
Date: Weds 2nd Novem­ber
Time: 3–6pm
Loca­tion: Copthorne Tara Hotel, Scars­dale Place, Kens­ing­ton, Lon­don

Action: Frack Mob
Tar­get: Indus­try green­wash­ing con­fer­ence
Date: Weds 2nd Novem­ber
Time: 3–6pm
Loca­tion: Copthorne Tara Hotel, Scars­dale Place, Kens­ing­ton, Lon­don

Be part of the UK’s first mass-action against frack­ing.

Do you care about where you live, your health and the plan­et?

Then Join us on the 2nd of Novem­ber for a mas­sive ‘frack mob’. This will be the UK’s first mass-action against frack­ing, and what bet­ter tar­get than an indus­try green­wash love-in?

Frack­ing is in it’s infan­cy in this coun­try, if we are going to kill this thing it has to be now.

This con­fer­ence is all about large com­pa­nies shaft­ing the plan­et in the name of prof­it. We still have time to cut through the bull­shit, scare the investors and tell the com­pa­nies to FRACK OFF!

Lets expose this Green­wash. Bring:

-Gas masks
-Fracked water ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/54095609@N00/sets/72157627591245355/with/6166727923/)
-Any­thing that makes a loud noise
-Green body/face paint
-Chalk/giant chalk ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npcInClZKUI)
-A desire to have FUN

Frack­ing com­pa­nies drill for gas by blast­ing water, sand and cor­ro­sive chem­i­cals deep into the ground to crack the bedrock. Frack­ing poi­sons tap­wa­ter, caus­es earth­quakes and releas­es more green­house gas­es than coal.

Invite your friends and get informed:
- Fol­low @Frack_off on twit­ter
- Go to www.frack-off.org

See you on the streets (near­est tube Kens­ing­ton High St).

info@frack-off.org