Zapatistas: Government Kidnapped Defenders Against Highway Destruction

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Novem­ber 6th, 2014

Screenshot 2014-11-05 at 8.20.38 AM

Novem­ber 6th, 2014

Joint Dec­la­ra­tion from the Nation­al Indige­nous Con­gress and the EZLN on the Cow­ard­ly Attack by Gov­ern­ment forces against the Ñatho Indige­nous Com­mu­ni­ty of San Fran­cis­co Xochicuaut­la on Novem­ber 3, 2014:

To the Ñatho Indige­nous Com­mu­ni­ty of San Fran­cis­co Xochicuaut­la
To the Nation­al and Inter­na­tion­al Sixth
To the Peo­ples of the World
Today once again, our broth­ers and sis­ters of the Ñatho Indige­nous Com­mu­ni­ty of San Fran­cis­co Xochicuaut­la have defend­ed their ter­ri­to­ry against the destruc­tion and vora­cious ambi­tion of those above who want to impose their high­way project at any cost and in vio­la­tion of Mex­i­can and inter­na­tion­al law.

 

Not con­tent with hav­ing laid waste to the forests, the bad gov­ern­ments of Enrique Peña Nieto and Eru­viel Ávi­la Vil­le­gas have kid­napped our sis­ters Feli­pa Gutiér­rez Petra (67 years old), Rosa Saave­dra Men­doza (54 years old), and Fran­cis­ca Reyes Flo­res (28 years old), and our broth­ers Arman­do Gar­cía Salazar (50 years old), Venan­cio Hernán­dez Ramírez (57 years old), Domin­go Hernán­dez Ramírez (57 years old), Mauri­cio Reyes Flo­res (28 years old) and Jerón­i­mo Flo­res Arceli­no (73 years old).
We warn those above, in case they have for­got­ten, that as peo­ples and com­mu­ni­ties who have walked a long jour­ney of resis­tance in defense of what we are, what we were, and what we will be, we will not tire of plant­i­ng rebel­lion where they cut the flow­ers, oaks, and firs; we will not tire of build­ing resis­tance where they impose the machin­ery of destruc­tion.
The roots of Xochicuaut­la and the oth­er orig­i­nary peo­ples and indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties reach deep into our hills and coun­try­sides, far deep­er than their high­ways, and they are far stronger than attempts to uproot us from this Mex­i­co that today cries for its young peo­ple, mur­dered and dis­ap­peared by the Bad Gov­ern­ment.
This gov­ern­ment, which is not sati­at­ed by fill­ing the pris­ons with rebel­lious men, women, chil­dren, and elder­ly, has again tak­en by force the free­dom of indige­nous broth­ers and sis­ters. They have done this to our Yaqui broth­ers and our Nahua broth­ers from the vol­cano region, and to so many oth­ers whose pain we also share. To all of these broth­ers and sis­ters we want to say that we walk in the same strug­gle, as peo­ples and com­mu­ni­ties who call our­selves the Nation­al Indige­nous Con­gress.
And to the deaf ears of the bad gov­ern­ments, we say that we know they are scared. They demon­strat­ed this with the 500 riot cops and police heli­copters they brought today to Xochicuaut­la, where next Decem­ber we as indige­nous peo­ples and com­mu­ni­ties will con­verge to share our rebel­lion, our strug­gle, and our seeds of resis­tance.
Their pain is our pain, their rage is our rage!
Novem­ber 3, 2014.
Nev­er Again a Mex­i­co With­out Us
Nation­al Indige­nous Con­gress
Indige­nous Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Clan­des­tine Committee—General Com­mand of the Zap­atista Army for Nation­al Lib­er­a­tion.
 

Fourth Consecutive Day of Work Stoppage at Australian Coal Mine

Update: 7am Police Search and Res­cue arrive at the scene

Update: 7am Police Search and Res­cue arrive at the scene

MAULES CREEK 5 Novem­ber 2014: Bat­man returned today to shut down Whitehaven’s Maules Creek project. A per­son dressed as Bat­man has scaled Whitehaven’s largest exca­va­tor, the Hitachi Super Dig­ger. This action comes on the heels of Monday’s report from the UN Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) find­ing that dam­age to the envi­ron­ment caused by fos­sil fuel use con­tin­ues to increase. Today is the fourth con­sec­u­tive day of the Release the Bats Act Up stop­ping work on White­haven sites.

The Hitachi ex8000 Super Dig­ger is a key piece of ‘ultra class’ min­ing machin­ery with an 800 tonne scoop capac­i­ty. This equip­ment is essen­tial if White­haven is to get coal out on their for­ev­er-shift­ing date for first coal.

Lewis Lau­rence, 23, who is on the exca­va­tor said “We want to draw atten­tion to the human cost of cli­mate change, the real cost of this mine to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty. What hap­pens here affects fish­er­men thou­sands of miles away, who may no longer have homes to return their boats to. Instead of ask­ing our­selves, ‘Where were we? What did we do?’ We need to ask our­selves, ‘What are we doing now?’ ”

The Unit­ed Nations IPCC report sug­gests that we are doing very lit­tle, warn­ing of cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change just around the cor­ner if we do not act now. Accord­ing to the IPCC a pre­dict­ed increase in the glob­al tem­per­a­ture of 20C is a thresh­old beyond which impacts would be irre­versibly dam­ag­ing. Whitehaven’s Maules Creek project is increas­ing­ly detri­men­tal to our cli­mate and envi­ron­ment, glob­al­ly as well as on a local scale.

“White­haven have been giv­en per­mis­sion to destroy a large por­tion of the Leard State For­est for open cut coal and will leave behind a ‘void pit’ which will col­lect water and poi­son the local aquifers,” said Mr. Lau­rence

“White­haven will face no charges and will accept no respon­si­bil­i­ty for their destruc­tion unless peo­ple stand up,” said Emi­ly Rose, Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son

The Leard For­est Alliance is call­ing for a stop work order on the Maules Creek project while a full and prop­er audit of the plan­ning and approvals process at state and fed­er­al lev­els is con­duct­ed.

“This mine should nev­er have been approved. The poten­tial dam­age to local aquifers and impacts on cli­mate dis­play a sin­gle-mind­ed inter­est in prof­it from our state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. We must heed the inter­na­tion­al con­sen­sus, and leave coal in the ground,” said Ms. Rose

This last week has already seen a num­ber of White­haven sites shut down through peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence includ­ing: the co-owned Idemit­su and White­haven Tar­ra­won­ga Haul road, access to the Maules Creek mine site, the Maules Creek Hitachi exca­va­tor, as well as Whitehaven’s Narrabri North under­ground mine which also halt­ed a sup­ply train car­ry­ing 6000t of coal.

There have been over 270 peo­ple arrest­ed as part of the cam­paign to defend the Leard State For­est.

Fur­ther Infor­ma­tion:

 

Emi­ly Rose
Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son0401 214 729		 Meret Mac­Don­ald
Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son0402 017 027

 

Twit­ter updates @FLACCoal and #Leard­Block­ade

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from Front Line Action on Coal

Hambach Forest: New Treesit, Tree Felling Equipment Halted

Noname

Novem­ber 5th, 2014

Noname

Novem­ber 5th, 2014

The Ham­bach or Ham­bach­er for­est is locat­ed near Cologne, Ger­many and is under threat from an adja­cent lig­nite (brown coal) mine expan­sion. The occu­pa­tion to keep the trees stand­ing has been ongo­ing for three years.

100 meters dis­tant from a new tree occu­pa­tion in the cut­ting area of RWE a har­vester has been squat­ted to block the ongo­ing fellings. Both occu­pa­tions are part of the cam­paign „hands off the trees!“ (ger­man: „Kein Baum fällt“), that con­tin­ues unabat­ed­ly in the light of last week’s repres­sion.
We defend the for­est against your vio­lence!

Since Thurs­day one impris­oned com­rade is await­ing tri­al in Aachen. Please con­tact us to express your sol­i­dar­i­ty via post mail.

UPDATES

14:00 Uhr – RWE per­son­el starts cut­tings near a tree, that has been occu­pied four days ago.
15:00 Uhr – Activists express the immi­nent dan­ger of peo­ple in the trees.
15:30 Uhr – A har­vester is blocked by four per­sons.
16:00 Uhr – Pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards retreat from the tree occu­pa­tion to gath­er at the squat­ted vehi­cle. They are armed with iron ton­fas as usu­al.

forest destruction stopped for several hours +++ 14 arrestees +++ 1 activist remains in Jail +++ Grubenblick-Occupation evicted +++ cruelty against activists at police stations +++ Meadow-occupation raided by police +++

 

After the events on Thurs­day (10/30/2014), 13 of 14 arrest­ed activist are free again. Most of them remained at the police sta­tions for about 24 hours. One per­son is still in jail, prob­a­bly because of extreme­ly severe accu­sa­tions. We will try to put up the pris­on­er sup­port for him on the occu­pa­tion.

Some arrest­ed activists were forced to give their fin­ger­prints by vio­lence. 6 had to give their DNA to the court. While raid­ing the mead­ow occu­pa­tion, the police con­fis­cat­ed sev­er­al items they defined as ille­gal. Some small elec­tron­i­cal devices were stolen by police „in pri­vate“. 5 climb­ing har­ness­es and sev­er­al mobile phones were con­fis­cat­ed from the arrest­ed peo­ple.

While the only tree­house which was locat­ed in the this year clearcut area has been evict­ed, the Ham­bach For­est remains occu­pied at two oth­er spots.

Australia: Two Lock to Coal Conveyer Belt in Continuing Protests

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Novem­ber 4th, 2014

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Novem­ber 4th, 2014

UPDATE 8:30AM (Aus­tralian East­ern Time): Police and Police Res­cue have arrived on the scene.

10:50: Jamie and Seren­i­ty have been arrest­ed in the line of pro­tect­ing our cli­mate and water, and have been tak­en to Narrabri Police sta­tion.

MAULES CREEK, 4 Novem­ber 2014: In the sec­ond day of Leard For­est Alliance’s (LFA) “Release the Bats” Ini­tia­tive against White­haven Coal two peo­ple have locked them­selves to a con­vey­er belt in the White­haven-owned Narrabri North under­ground mine.

Seren­i­ty Hill, 37, and Jamie Yarnald, 32 immo­bilised the belt as part of a week­end of protest against the con­tro­ver­sial White­haven-owned Maules Creek coal mine project. If this mine is allowed to con­tin­ue its oper­a­tions, White­haven will deplete the ground­wa­ter aquifer by up to two metres.

“Work­ing with farms and food has shown me first hand just how impor­tant clean usable water is for our sur­vival. So the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion or lack of our pre­cious water is very con­cern­ing for me,”  said Ms. Hill, a food sys­tems ana­lyst whose action with Mr. Yarnald halt­ed mine oper­a­tions for the course of the morn­ing.

LFA spokesper­son Phil Evans said “The IPCC report released yes­ter­day warns that if we con­tin­ue with the dis­re­gard for our envi­ron­ment we have shown, by 2050 we will see cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.” Evans called upon the NSW gov­ern­ment to “say neigh to coal this Mel­bourne Cup day.”

The LFA is call­ing on the NSW gov­ern­ment to stop work imme­di­ate­ly on the scan­dal-plagued Maules Creek project and to con­duct a full inquiry into the plan­ning and approval meth­ods that allowed this project to pro­ceed.

“Coal needs to stay in the ground for us all to have a live­able, breath­able cli­mate. 80% of coal needs to stay in the ground for us to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change,” said Mr. Yarnald. His arrest with Ms. Hill adds to the over 270 arrests this year in a con­tin­u­ous effort from the com­mu­ni­ty led, non-vio­lent Leard Block­ade cam­paign.

Fur­ther Infor­ma­tion:

Emi­ly Rose
Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son
0401 214 729		 Phil Evans
Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son
0490 064 139

 

High Res­o­lu­tion Pho­tos: mediafire.com/folder/6kj6m626b81xy/4_November_2014

Twit­ter updates @FLACCoal and #Leard­Block­ade

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from Front Line Action on Coal

USA: 15 Arrested as Anti-Gas Blockade in Finger Lakes Enters Third Week

Novem­ber 3rd, 2014

Novem­ber 3rd, 2014

Enter­ing the third week, start­ing at 7:00 AM this morn­ing pro­test­ers blocked the gates of Texas-based Crest­wood Midstream’s gas stor­age facil­i­ty on the shore of Seneca Lake. 15 peo­ple were arrest­ed at about 9:00 AM after Crest­wood called the police. Last week, ten pro­test­ers were arrest­ed in acts of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence block­ing the gates, just as the 15 peo­ple did today. Pro­test­ers have held block­ades at the Crest­wood gate since Thurs­day, Octo­ber 23; on Wednes­day, Octo­ber 29, they began block­ing two of the gates to Crest­wood. Notably, the ongo­ing protests also includ­ed a ral­ly with more than 200 peo­ple at the Crest­wood gate on Fri­day, Octo­ber 24th.

Fri­day, Octo­ber 24th marked the day that major new con­struc­tion on the gas stor­age facil­i­ty was autho­rized to begin. The ongo­ing acts of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence come after the com­mu­ni­ty pur­sued every pos­si­ble avenue to stop the project and after being thwart­ed by an unac­cept­able process and denial of sci­ence.

The uni­fied action is called ‘WE ARE SENECA LAKE’. More infor­ma­tion and pic­tures of the actions over the pre­vi­ous weeks are avail­able at www.WeAreSenecaLake.com.

The protests are tak­ing place at the gates of the Crest­wood com­pres­sor sta­tion site on the shore of Seneca Lake, the largest of New York’s Fin­ger Lakes. The methane gas stor­age expan­sion project is advanc­ing in the face of broad pub­lic oppo­si­tion and unre­solved ques­tions about geo­log­i­cal insta­bil­i­ties, fault lines, and pos­si­ble salin­iza­tion of the lake, which serves as a source of drink­ing water for 100,000 peo­ple. A Cap­i­tal New York inves­ti­ga­tion recent­ly revealed that Gov­er­nor Cuomo’s DEC excised ref­er­ences to the risks of under­ground gas stor­age from a 2011 fed­er­al report on methane con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of drink­ing water and has allowed key data to remain hid­den.

*Note that the WE ARE SENECA LAKE protest is to stop the expan­sion of methane gas stor­age, a sep­a­rate project from Crestwood’s pro­posed Liq­ue­fied Petro­le­um Gas (LPG) stor­age project, which is on hold pend­ing a Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Con­ser­va­tion Issues Con­fer­ence.

The 15 peo­ple arrest­ed today are: Lyn Ger­ry, John Den­nis, Mari­ah Plum­lee, Bob Hen­rie, Lau­ra Sala­man­dra, Elan Shapiro, Lind­say Clark, Dar­lene Bor­d­well, Jodi Dean, Ruth Young (for­mer Schuyler Coun­ty Leg­is­la­tor), Paul Pas­sa­vant, Stephanie Red­mond, Joanne Cipol­la Den­nis, Martha Fer­g­er, and Ken­neth Fog­a­r­ty.

Ruth Young of Horse­heads, a for­mer mem­ber of the Schuyler Coun­ty Leg­is­la­ture, was among those arrest­ed today, said, “We’re stand­ing on what used to be a part of my leg­isla­tive dis­trict in Schuyler Coun­ty. I am embar­rassed and sad­dened to see what is going on here, I’m sad to see that some of the peo­ple in this dis­trict are actu­al­ly sup­port­ing this endeav­or to store gas in a very unsta­ble salt for­ma­tion.”

John Den­nis, PhD, of Lans­ing, who was arrest­ed today, said, “I’m wor­ried about water qual­i­ty, there are severe salin­i­ty prob­lems already, and I’m almost cer­tain those will get worse because we think the exist­ing prob­lems are caused by gas stor­age start­ed in 1964.”

Mari­ah Plum­lee of Covert, a moth­er of three who was also arrest­ed today, said, “I think it’s real­ly impor­tant to do this, and if every­body did this then we wouldn’t have this prob­lem. We moved here almost ten years ago because we knew it would be a won­der­ful place to raise a fam­i­ly.”

Lyn Ger­ry of Watkins Glen, a radio host in Schuyler Coun­ty, arrest­ed today, said, “Our elect­ed offi­cials have let us down, so we have to take mat­ters into our own hands. I love Seneca Lake, I love this area. I’m not from here orig­i­nal­ly, I’ve trav­eled 3,000 miles to come to this beau­ti­ful place by this beau­ti­ful lake to live, and I’ve come from a place that greed has already destroyed. So I know what a land being destroyed looks like. So now, my back is to the wall and I must defend what I love.”

Note, press are encour­aged to come to the court arraign­ment – for the ten pro­test­ers arrest­ed on Octo­ber 29th – on Nov. 5th start­ing at 6:00 PM at the Read­ing Town Hall, 3914 Coun­ty Rt. 28, Watkins Glen.

As they have for a long time, the pro­test­ers are con­tin­u­ing to call on Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, U.S. Sen­a­tors Schumer and Gilli­brand, Gov­er­nor Cuo­mo, and Con­gress­man Reed to inter­vene on behalf of the com­mu­ni­ty and halt the dan­ger­ous project.

Recent­ly, the Tomp­kins Coun­ty Leg­is­la­ture approved a res­o­lu­tion that oppos­es gas stor­age on the lakeshore, as well as the Yates Coun­ty Leg­is­la­ture.  In so doing, they joined the Board of Super­vi­sors of both Ontario and Seneca coun­ties, which pre­vi­ous­ly passed motions oppos­ing gas stor­age, along with the Gene­va City Coun­cil and the Watkins Glen Vil­lage Board.

In spite of over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion, grave geo­log­i­cal and pub­lic health con­cerns, Crest­wood has fed­er­al approval to move for­ward with plans to store high­ly pres­sur­ized, explo­sive gas in aban­doned salt cav­erns on the west side of Seneca Lake. While the New York State Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Con­ser­va­tion (DEC) has tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed plans to stock­pile propane and butane (LPG) in near­by caverns—out of ongo­ing con­cerns for safe­ty, health, and the environment—Crestwood is active­ly con­struct­ing infra­struc­ture for the stor­age of two bil­lion cubic feet of methane (nat­ur­al gas), with the bless­ing of the Fed­er­al Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion (FERC).

Back­ground:

Local busi­ness­es and winer­ies are part of broad oppo­si­tion to Texas-based Crestwood-Midstream’s pro­pos­al to use old aban­doned salt cav­erns along Seneca Lake to store mil­lions of bar­rels of liq­uid petro­le­um gas (LPG) and bil­lions of cubic feet of nat­ur­al gas. The pro­pos­al has gen­er­at­ed oppo­si­tion from over 200 busi­ness­es, over 60 winer­ies, 13 munic­i­pal­i­ties (includ­ing neigh­bor­ing Watkins Glen) and thou­sands and thou­sands of res­i­dents in the Fin­ger Lakes region who are con­cerned about the threat it pos­es to pub­lic health and safe­ty, one of the state’s largest sup­plies of drink­ing water, the local econ­o­my, and the area’s grow­ing wine and tourism indus­try.

Res­i­dents, winer­ies and oth­er local busi­ness­es have issued emer­gency calls to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, U.S. Sen­a­tors Schumer and Gilli­brand, Con­gress­man Reed and Gov­er­nor Cuo­mo to imme­di­ate­ly step in and stop this reck­less project that threat­ens the heart of the Fin­ger Lakes, many people’s health and the drink­ing water source for 100,000 peo­ple.

Addi­tion­al­ly, an inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist with DC Bureau recent­ly uncov­ered oth­er sci­en­tif­ic objec­tions to the project, to which FERC did not give due con­sid­er­a­tion in issu­ing approval. Inde­pen­dent sci­en­tists have warned about the unsta­ble geol­o­gy of the salt cav­erns, includ­ing the fact that a 400,000 ton chunk of rock – rough­ly the size of an air­craft car­ri­er – had giv­en way in the very cav­ern that the com­pa­ny pro­posed to use for gas stor­age.

Fur­ther­more, in August, Dr. Rob Macken­zie, a retired CEO of Cayu­ga Med­ical Cen­ter, a hos­pi­tal about 20 miles east, raised objec­tions. An expe­ri­enced risk ana­lyst, Macken­zie pre­pared a for­mal quan­ti­ta­tive risk analy­sis of the Crest­wood methane gas pro­pos­al. Macken­zie ana­lyzed acci­dent events — major fires, explo­sions, col­laps­es, cat­a­stroph­ic loss of prod­uct, evac­u­a­tions — at salt cav­ern stor­age facil­i­ties in the Unit­ed States dat­ing back to 1972. He con­clud­ed that the risk of an “extreme­ly seri­ous” salt cav­ern event with­in Schuyler Coun­ty over the next 25 years is more than 35%.

Accord­ing to Ener­gy Infor­ma­tion Admin­is­tra­tion data uncov­ered by Macken­zie – report­ed by Peter Man­tius of DC Bureau – gas stor­age facil­i­ties in salt cav­erns in the Unit­ed States have had high rates of prob­lems. Between 1972 and 2012,there have been 18 “seri­ous or extreme­ly seri­ous inci­dents” at U.S. salt cav­ern stor­age facil­i­ties, Macken­zie wrote, cit­ing EIA data. That trans­lates to an inci­dent rate in the US of about 60%.

Macken­zie also found that nine of the 18 salt cav­ern inci­dents involved large fires and/or explo­sions; six involved loss of life or seri­ous injury; eight involved evac­u­a­tions of between 30 and 2,000 res­i­dents; and 13 involved extreme­ly seri­ous prop­er­ty loss­es.

Seneca Lake is eco­nom­i­cal­ly crit­i­cal to the region and New York State. A recent report on the state’s grape and wine indus­try showed that it con­tributes $4.8 bil­lion to the New York State econ­o­my every year, sup­port­ing the equiv­a­lent of 25,000 full-time jobs, pay­ing over $408 mil­lion in tax­es, and gen­er­at­ing over 5.2 mil­lion wine-relat­ed tourism vis­its. The Fin­ger Lakes region, in par­tic­u­lar, has gained increas­ing promi­nence as home to world-class wines, with many winer­ies earn­ing awards in nation­al and inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions. Gov­er­nor Cuo­mo high­light­ed the suc­cess of the indus­try at his 2013 Governor’s Cup Wine Com­pe­ti­tion in Watkins Glen, exact­ly where the gas stor­age facil­i­ty is being pro­posed for loca­tion and this past sum­mer, a Seneca Lake win­ery won the 2014 Governor’s Cup.

The region has become so wide­ly known for its wine­mak­ing that vint­ners from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty have begun to invest in the area as well.

The Fin­ger Lakes is also con­sid­ered a world-class tourism des­ti­na­tion, with Sher­mans Trav­el nam­ing it the #1 Lake Vaca­tion in the world last year.

In addi­tion to the over-indus­tri­al­iza­tion such a stor­age facil­i­ty would cause, salt cav­ern stor­age is his­tor­i­cal­ly unsafe. It presents the poten­tial for explo­sive acci­dents and water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion along the Fin­ger Lakes. Salt cav­ern stor­age rep­re­sents only a small per­cent­age of gas stor­age facil­i­ties, but is respon­si­ble for the major­i­ty of instances of cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure. In 2001, gas migrat­ed 7 miles from a salt cav­ern stor­age facil­i­ty in Kansas, came up in aban­doned brine wells and explod­ed, killing two peo­ple, destroy­ing build­ings and evac­u­at­ing res­i­dents. There are many such aban­doned brine wells just three miles from the pro­posed facil­i­ty in down­town Watkins Glen, NY.

Australia : Mass Protest Against Whitehaven Coal

Front Line Action On Coal

Novem­ber 2nd, 2014

Front Line Action On Coal

Novem­ber 2nd, 2014

The bats have been released! Mass protests against White­haven Coal.

Maules Creek Mine Main access: A young woman has locked her­self to the inside of a car, block­ing the main access point for Maules creek mine.

UPDATE: Police res­cue have arrived on the scene

Maules Creek Mine, inside: The rail­way line being built inside the mine site has been blocked by a woman sus­pend­ed in a tree with the rope going across the con­struc­tion site.

UPDATE: Work­ers have been able to go under the ropes, trucks are still being held up.

Maules Creek Mine Hitachi Dig­ger: 1 woman has scaled the super dig­ger while anoth­er woman has locked her­self to the huge machine.

 

Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son

Mur­ray Drech­sler

0418754869

 

MAULES CREEK 3/11/2014
Over eighty peo­ple have set up sep­a­rate block­ades on and around the con­struc­tion site of the con­tro­ver­sial Maules Creek mine, near Narrabri, in a ramp up of peace­ful action to pre­vent the mine from depres­suris­ing the water table.

White­haven Coal’s Maules Creek mine has been seri­ous­ly delayed by a grow­ing move­ment of farm­ers, envi­ron­men­tal­ists and oth­er sup­port­ers con­cerned that farm bores will fail due to the 600 mega­l­itres of water the mine would use each year.

The Leard For­est Alliance is call­ing on NSW Plan­ning Min­is­ter Rob Stokes to stop con­struc­tion work on the mine while a par­lia­men­tary inquiry into plan­ning deci­sions is under­way.

Spokesper­son for the Leard For­est Alliance Mur­ray Drech­sler said “The amount of water White­haven plans to use over the life of the Maules Creek mine would fill a third of Lake Bur­ley Grif­fin and this is water that should be used for food pro­duc­tion.”

“The com­mu­ni­ty has the courage to stand up for water ahead of coal and we expect Plan­ning Min­is­ter Rob Stokes to do the same.” Con­tin­ued Mr. Drech­sler.

The mine’s state and fed­er­al approvals were grant­ed before White­haven had fin­ished their water man­age­ment plan and that fact was includ­ed in a sub­mis­sion to the par­lia­men­tary inquiry.

Twit­ter:

@FLACcoal #Leard­block­ade

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Front Line Action On Coal

Front Line Action On Coal

Front Line Action On Coal

 

France Halts Dam Construction after Protester’s Death & solidarity protest news

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Novem­ber 2014

French local author­i­ties have decid­ed to sus­pend work on a con­tro­ver­sial dam after the death last week of an activist protest­ing against the project.

The exec­u­tive coun­cil in charge of the project in the south-west­ern Tarn region decid­ed to freeze work on the dam but did not defin­i­tive­ly scrap it.

It was impos­si­ble in the light of the tragedy to con­tin­ue any work at the site of the Sivens dam project, said Thier­ry Carcenac, head of the region’s exec­u­tive coun­cil. “What hap­pened was ter­ri­ble and should nev­er hap­pen again,” he added.

Remi Fraisse, 21, died in the ear­ly hours of Sun­day dur­ing vio­lent clash­es between secu­ri­ty forces and pro­test­ers against the project. It was the first death dur­ing a protest in main­land France since 1986.

Ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tions showed traces of TNT on his clothes and skin, sug­gest­ing he may have been killed by a police stun grenade.

France’s inte­ri­or min­is­ter, Bernard Cazeneuve, who has come under fire over the inci­dent, has since banned the use of the grenades, which are designed to stun rather than kill.

The already unpop­u­lar gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent François Hol­lande has come under more pres­sure over a per­ceived slow response to the death, as well as alle­ga­tions that police mis­han­dled the riots.

The death has been fol­lowed by renewed clash­es. Overnight on Thurs­day, 200 pro­test­ers ram­paged through the west­ern city of Rennes, with some over­turn­ing cars and break­ing shop win­dows. Fur­ther protests are planned through­out the week­end and author­i­ties are brac­ing for fur­ther unrest.

Ecol­o­gy min­is­ter Ségolène Roy­al will next week gath­er togeth­er all war­ring par­ties to dis­cuss the future of the Sivens dam.

Those opposed to the project say the dam will destroy a reser­voir of bio­di­ver­si­ty and will only ben­e­fit a small num­ber of farm­ers. Those pro­mot­ing the project, mean­while, retort that the dam is in the pub­lic inter­est as it will ensure irri­ga­tion and the devel­op­ment of high-val­ue crops.

from The Guardian

—

Hard-left and anar­chist demon­stra­tors clashed with French riot police for a sec­ond day on Sun­day in protest at the death of a young green activist who was struck by a police stun grenade last week­end.

In run­ning bat­tles dur­ing an unau­tho­rised demon­stra­tion in east­ern Paris, 66 young pro­test­ers were arrest­ed for attack­ing police and pos­ses­sion of offen­sive weapons. In Nantes and Toulouse more than 30 activists were arrest­ed and six police­men injured on Sat­ur­day. Oth­er demon­stra­tions on Sun­day – includ­ing a sit-in beside the Eif­fel Tow­er and a silent march at the scene of last week’s death – passed off peace­ful­ly.

Rémi Fraisse, 21, a young botanist and paci­fist, was protest­ing against the build­ing of a dam in an unspoiled val­ley in south-west­ern France eight days ago when police stun grenade explod­ed behind his back. His death – the first in a polit­i­cal demon­stra­tion in France for many years – has caused wide­spread con­ster­na­tion and has become a cause célèbre for French hard-left and green activists.

Rad­i­cal pro­test­ers and some main­stream green politi­cians have blamed the young man’s death on the alleged­ly “author­i­tar­i­an” and right-lean­ing poli­cies of the reformist, Social­ist Prime Min­is­ter Manuel Valls. When pro­test­ers attacked build­ings and hurled molo­tov cock­tails and acid at riot police in Nantes on Sat­ur­day, Mr Valls attempt­ed to turn the tables. He accused the pro­test­ers of “dirty­ing”  the mem­o­ry of the young vic­tim who was not just a “mil­i­tant ecol­o­gist” but also a “con­vinced paci­fist”.

Work on the dam at Sivens in the Tarn departe­ment was sus­pend­ed last Tues­day, three days after the death of Mr Fraisse. The envi­ron­ment min­is­ter, Ségolène Roy­al, broke with gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy in an inter­view yes­ter­day by sug­gest­ing that the dam was too large and should nev­er have received plan­ning per­mis­sion.

 

from The Inde­pen­dent

 

Australia: Batman Blocks Coal Mine with Tripod

Trick-or-Treat-06-300x200

Octo­ber 30th, 2014

Trick-or-Treat-06-300x200

Octo­ber 30th, 2014

Kick­ing off a week­end of action against Whitehaven’s con­tro­ver­sial Maules Creek coal mine, a con­cerned cit­i­zen has scaled a tri­pod, block­ing access to Whitehaven’s Tar­ra­won­ga haul road, block­ing access for trucks try­ing to leave Tar­ra­won­ga coal mine. This comes as peo­ple from around the coun­try con­verge at the Leard Block­ade to defend water, cli­mate and our democ­ra­cy from White­haven coal.

Phil Evans, 33, a cli­mate cam­paign­er with 350.org has today put him­self on the line to draw atten­tion to White­haven dodgy deal­ings and destruc­tion of our water and cli­mate.

Leard For­est Alliance Spokesper­son, and tri­pod activist, Phil Evans says,” I’m here to call ‘trick or treat’ on White­haven coal. White­haven need to be held respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty, water and the cli­mate.”

Due to Whitehaven’s Maules Creek mine, the aquifers are pre­dict­ed to drop by up to 2m. Pre­vi­ous­ly dur­ing drought the agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty has not had water for their live­stock and their farms. The Maules Creek mine, as the largest new coal mine under-con­struc­tion in Aus­tralia, will con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to cli­mate change caus­ing fur­ther droughts for the local com­mu­ni­ty and insta­bil­i­ty of glob­al pro­por­tions.

“We hope the NSW par­lia­men­tary inquiry into the plan­ning process will send the Maules Creek project back to square one, if any of the alleged­ly cor­rupt rela­tion­ships between Aston exec­u­tives and senior politi­cians from both sides have found to influ­ence the approvals process in any­way.” said Mr. Evans.

Whitehaven’s plan­ning, approval and con­struc­tion process­es have been plagued by ques­tion­able deal­ings and clouds of cor­rup­tion. The mul­ti­ple prob­lems of the plan­ning process have been brought to the atten­tion of the NSW par­lia­men­tary inquiry into plan­ning by com­mu­ni­ty groups.

“The state ICAC has raised very seri­ous con­cerns about the undue influ­ence of coal on our democ­ra­cy, but it has not gone far enough. The Leard For­est Alliance is call­ing for work to stop on the Maules Creek project, and an audit of the plan­ning and approval process that allows White­haven to con­tin­ue with this atroc­i­ty. We need a fed­er­al lev­el ICAC and we need to take our democ­ra­cy back.” said Mr. Drech­sler.

“The time of coal get­ting spe­cial treat­ment is over. The cor­rup­tion has got to end. It is up to all of us to reclaim our voice, and democ­ra­cy” said Mr. Evans.

There have been over 265 arrests this year as part of the ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ty lead cam­paign of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence against White­haven Coal.

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from Front Line Action on Coal

Two Blockades Evicted at Hambach Forest Occupation

Noname

Octo­ber 30th, 2014

Noname

Octo­ber 30th, 2014

RWE Wach­schutz injures activists. One per­son los­ing con­scious­ness due to beat­ing by the secu­ri­ty. Activists choked and arrest­ed with cable ties.

Today was anoth­er block­ade of cut­ting and log­ging in the Ham­bach­er For­est, with­in the cam­paign “No Tree is Falling”.
At this block­ade the RWE Secu­ri­ty attacked the activists with batons and pep­per spray. At this point some activists got injured.

In response a sec­ond block­ade hap­pened to make the secu­ri­ty and the log­gers aware that they injured activists. At this point secu­ri­ty attacked the activists harsh­ly with batons and pep­per spray. In addi­tion the log­ging machine was head­ing direct­ly towards the activists. Dur­ing this attack three activists were injured, one of them los­ing con­scious­ness for a moment. Also the RWE pri­vate secu­ri­ty arrest­ed three peo­ple, they choked them and bond them with cable tie. Activists defend­ed them­selves. After one hour police showed up and arrest­ed 3 more per­sons. The police came from Düren and also the Arrest­ed peo­ple will be brought there.
Come around and sup­port the Block­ades. Show Sol­i­dar­i­ty every­where, thats what the peo­ple need here.
Press Con­tact: 015754136100

The Ham­bach­er for­est is the site of an ongo­ing land defense cam­paign in Ger­many. The for­est sits at the edge of a lig­nite (brown coal) mine and is under immi­nent threat from mine expan­sion.

News Tick­er:

– sev­er­al ambu­lance cars dri­ving in the for­est.
– police is evict­ing the block­ades togeth­er with RWE Secu­ri­ty
– The „Pile“ (Fort on the way to the Squat­ted Trees) is sur­round and activists are on Tripods and Trees.

12:00: Police­news: Activists got arrest­ed because of break­ing Civ­il Laws. Prob­a­bly to MünchenGlad­bach, Bergheim, and Düren. (Not Con­firmed)
– around 100 Cops are in the For­est.
– Police and RWE Secu­ri­ty tried to evict the „Pile“ with heavy Machines, although activists where in the block­ade and there life was put at risk.
13:00 Work was stopped. Police said they want to fin­ish the evic­tion until 15:00. 4 Per­sons are in the „Pile“
13:05 Until Now 6 Per­sons got arrest­ed. But they‘re still in the For­est.
Black flag fly­ing Song
13:50 Police is dri­ving with heavy evic­tion machines in the For­est. Also more Cops are on the way in the for­est.
14:00 Log­ging Work is start­ed again. Trees on the way to Tree­block­ade are cut­ed to make way for the evic­tion.
14:10 Activists are trans­port­ed out of the For­est. Cher­ry Pick­ers are dri­ving in the For­est.
15:30 Sev­en more Police Cars drove to the for­est. Now there are 3 Riot Units in the For­est.
– In the „Pile“ Block­ade are actu­al­ly 4 activists. One in the Trees, One in the Tun­nel, Two on Tripods. The „Pile“ is com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by police
– At the Tree­block­ade until now there is no Secu­ri­ty and Police. Only the way for heavy machines is ready.
15:45 Evic­tion of the Pile start­ed. Cher­ryp­ick­er is build up.
16:07 Police in Plain Clothes is watch­ing the Mead­ow occu­pa­tion.
16:30 Activists locked them­selves to the bar­ri­cade (Pile)
16:50 One Per­son got evict­ed from Tri­pod at the „Pile“
– Anoth­er Unit of Riot Police drove to the For­est.
– Tree Block­ade „Gruben­blick“ is sur­round­ed.
– Cher­ry-Pick­er and Flood­light is at the Block­ade.
– One Per­son is in the Trees above the „Pile“
17:30 I seems like the Police is stop­ping the evic­tions.
– The „Pile“ is evict­ed. One Per­son is still in the Trees. 3 more Per­sons got arrest­ed.
18:00 The Bar­ri­cade is pushed togeth­er by the police with heavy machines. The police is touch­ing the tree on which the last per­son is sit­ting. Due to that the police risk the life of the activist. That has been point­ed out to the police sev­er­al time but the dont stop the work.
– Climb­ing Police arrived at the Tree Ocu­pa­tion „Gruben­blick“.
18:20 Nine Police­cars are on the way to the part of the for­est near the mead­ow.
20:30 The Search­ing on the Mead­ow by the Police is fin­ished. More Infor­ma­tion soon.
21:45 In the last 3 hours the fol­low­ing things hap­pened:
– The Treeocu­pa­tion „Gruben­blick“ is evict­ed. The activists got arrest­ed.
– The activist on the tree at the „pile“ block­ade is still up there. Climb­ing Police is on the spot. At the Moment the Cher­ry-Pick­er is raised up.
– The first Per­son got released at the police sta­tion in Düren.

mod­i­fied slight­ly from Ham­bach For­est Blog

USA: Burnaby Blockade, Encampment Stops Kinder Morgan Suveyors for a Second Day

Octo­ber 30th, 2014

Angry pro­test­ers stopped crews from con­duct­ing pipeline sur­vey work on Burn­a­by Moun­tain Wednes­day, forc­ing the com­pa­ny to reassess how it will fin­ish work need­ed for a Nation­al Ener­gy Board deci­sion.

Octo­ber 30th, 2014

Angry pro­test­ers stopped crews from con­duct­ing pipeline sur­vey work on Burn­a­by Moun­tain Wednes­day, forc­ing the com­pa­ny to reassess how it will fin­ish work need­ed for a Nation­al Ener­gy Board deci­sion.

RCMP offi­cers watched as some pro­test­ers con­front­ed a Trans Moun­tain sur­vey crew, yelling “go back to Texas,” while anoth­er pro­test­er crawled under a sur­vey crew’s SUV, wrapped him­self around the front tire and refused to leave.

Stephen Col­lis, a spokesman for the pro­test­ers who call them­selves the Care­tak­ers, said they plan to hun­ker down.

“We’re cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the space that they have iden­ti­fied that they need to work in. Since we’re on pub­lic land, we have every right to be here,” he said. “They can’t real­ly work in a space that’s filled with dozens of peo­ple. That’s the inten­tion.”

The plan worked, at least for the day.

Work­ers left in anoth­er vehi­cle, and one man car­ried sev­er­al signs under his arm that read No Entry Until Fur­ther Notice and Field Test­ing Area Under Order of the Nation­al Ener­gy Board.

Greg Toth, senior direc­tor for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Moun­tain expan­sion project, said all sur­vey work on the moun­tain was stopped, although oth­er crews were still work­ing around Burn­a­by.

He wasn’t yet sure if the com­pa­ny would ask for an injunc­tion pre­vent­ing protests.

“We have to reassess, based on today’s activ­i­ties,” said Toth. “It’s quite a vocal protest. Our pri­or­i­ty is the safe­ty of our crews and the gen­er­al pub­lic. So we’ll retrench and look at what options are avail­able.”

The demon­stra­tion comes in the midst of a bit­ter bat­tle over the company’s plans to expand the pipeline through Burn­a­by.

The Nation­al Ener­gy Board grant­ed Trans Moun­tain access to the sites so it can com­plete work through Burn­a­by Moun­tain, it’s pre­ferred route for the pipeline. The NEB ruled the City of Burn­a­by can’t pre­vent the activ­i­ty because the work is need­ed for the board to make a deci­sion on the expan­sion appli­ca­tion.

The City of Burn­a­by announced it will appeal the NEB rul­ing.

May­or Derek Cor­ri­g­an said he didn’t believe the reg­u­la­tor has the author­i­ty to con­sid­er con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions con­cern­ing city bylaws.

Toth said the Nation­al Ener­gy Board and the Fed­er­al Court have giv­en the com­pa­ny every right to do work need­ed to sup­port the deci­sion-mak­ing process.

He said it’s iron­ic that crews haven’t been allowed on Burn­a­by Moun­tain, con­sid­er­ing the com­pa­ny and city res­i­dents have deter­mined the route is the least dis­rup­tive option.

“It’s real­ly in response to strong feed­back from the local res­i­dents and the gen­er­al pub­lic in the area for the alter­na­tive rout­ing, which would have been through the streets,” he said.

In July 2007, a geyser of oil cov­ered more 100 homes, after a crew acci­den­tal­ly pulled up the pipeline, spilling 250,000 litres.

The cleanup cost about $15 mil­lion.

The 5.4‑billion dol­lar expan­sion plan would come close to tripling the capac­i­ty of the exist­ing pipeline between Alber­ta and B.C. to about 900,000 bar­rels of crude a day.