Shell to Sea revisit RPS office

Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 17th 2008

Unite against raw gasAgainst raw gas wallThurs­day Jan­u­ary 17th 2008

Yes­ter­day, over 30 local peo­ple again vis­it­ed the RPS office in Bel­mul­let to again let it be known that under no cir­cum­stances would they accept raw gas run­ning through their com­mu­ni­ty. Even though RPS group direc­tor PJ Rud­den claimed recent­ly to media that he was “pleas­ant­ly sur­prised” by the reac­tion to the short list­ed routes, he will be in no doubt what the major­i­ty of peo­ple in Kil­com­mon parish think of the routes fol­low­ing this most recent vis­it. Four mem­bers of the group went in to the RPS offices to out­line some of their objec­tions to the cur­rent pipeline pro­pos­als. They also hand­ed in a peti­tion signed by mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty stat­ing their objec­tions to putting their pipeline any­where through the Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) in Glen­gad or the Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area of Broad­haven Bay.

It also emerged recent­ly that the Coun­ty Coun­cil are once again doing their utmost to assist Shell in any­way they can. This time they have put in a plan­ning pro­pos­al to upgrade the road from the refin­ery site back to Glen­gad (via the Leanamore road). The upgrade of the road will cease imme­di­ate­ly after the gate down to land­fall leav­ing no doubt who the insti­ga­tors of this upgrade are. Approx­i­mate­ly 6 kilo­me­tres of the road will be widened while the whole of the road upgrade will be strength­ened with wire mesh to with­stand the increase traf­fic that the coun­cil forsee. This is yet anoth­er slap in the face to the local com­mu­ni­ty, who hav­ing been wait­ing for road repairs for years but must watch their Coun­cil spend their tax­es on Shel­l’s infra­struc­ture.

It also seems that Shell are con­tin­u­ing with their long held strat­e­gy of blam­ing any prob­lems they have on pro­tes­tors actions.

Dur­ing the Afri Hedge School that was held in Erris in ear­ly Novem­ber, a talk was giv­en by Fr Kevin O’Hara (who found­ed the Cen­tre for Social and Cor­po­rate Respon­si­bil­i­ty, which mon­i­tors oil com­pa­nies in Nige­ria). He stat­ed that in one case of an oil spill at which he was present, a Shell engi­neer upon turn­ing up at the spill loca­tion was straight away able to point out to oth­er employ­ees what had caused the oil spill as it had been a reoc­cur­ring prob­lem. How­ev­er offi­cial­ly of course the Shell excuse was that sab­o­tage had caused the oil spill. The only prob­lem for Shell was that the Shell engi­neer had been caught on film direct­ing the employ­ees to the fault in the pipeline, which was the true cause of the spill.

It seems as if Shell are using a sim­i­lar tac­tic here in Mayo. In the lat­est refin­ery ‘Envi­ron­men­tal Report’ (18th Dec 07) that Shell has com­piled, they admit­ted that one of their 4 dust col­lec­tion points showed a read­ing that was well above their lim­it for dust depo­si­tion (mea­sured 530mg/m2/day where 350mg/ m2/day is the lim­it). The dust col­lec­tion pots were in place for over a month how­ev­er Shell blame the high lev­el of dust record­ed on the fact that pro­tes­tors “pos­si­bly van­dalised” the dust gauge dur­ing an incur­sion on to the site on the 9th of Novem­ber.

See the Envi­ron­men­tal Reports (sic) here:
http://www.mayococo.ie/en/News/GasTerminal/Environmenta…2007/

Whalers Hand Activists Over To Australia’s Ship

17th Jan­u­ary: the activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 — were detained Tues­day after board­ing the har­poon ship to protest Japan’s whal­ing pro­gramme. They were hand­ed over to Aus­tri­ali­a’s ‘Ocean Viking’ ear­li­er today.

Operation Migaloo (Sea Shepherd)
Steve Irwin Sea Shepherd boat & helicopter
17th Jan­u­ary: the activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 — were detained Tues­day after board­ing the har­poon ship to protest Japan’s whal­ing pro­gramme. They were hand­ed over to Aus­tri­ali­a’s ‘Ocean Viking’ ear­li­er today.

A Japan­ese whal­ing ship late Thurs­day hand­ed over to an Aus­tralian cus­toms ves­sel two anti-whal­ing activists who climbed aboard two days ear­li­er, an offi­cial from Japan’s Fish­eries Agency said.

Aus­tralia sent the cus­toms ship, the Ocean­ic Viking, to the Japan­ese whal­ing ship in a bid to end the stand-off involv­ing the activists of the mil­i­tant Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety.

“Two Sea Shep­herd activists who intrud­ed onto the Yushin Maru No 2 and have been in cus­tody on the ship were hand­ed over to the Ocean­ic Viking char­tered by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment,” Hidea­ki Oka­da, a whal­ing offi­cial at the Fish­eries Agency in Tokyo, told AFP ear­ly Fri­day.

More at http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gzy-7LzEluJCEYZWmJXa_MiYpOcQ and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7193212.stm

Hope­ful­ly they will be returned back to Sea Shep­herd’s ‘Steve Irwin’ very soon, that is the plan.

Back to destroy­ing whal­ing…

==================»
Sea Shepherd pirates
Antarc­tic Whale Defense Cam­paign
Oper­a­tion Miga­loo 07–08

For more details, see http://www.seashepherd.org/migaloo/index.html

Climate camp set up outside court — Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station action necessity

Cli­mate Change Tri­al Opens

The tri­al of the eleven cli­mate change activists who shut down Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion on April 10th 2007 began today Mon­day 14th Jan at Not­ting­ham Mag­is­trates Court

Racliffe-on-Soar camp at court caseCli­mate Change Tri­al Opens

The tri­al of the eleven cli­mate change activists who shut down Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion on April 10th 2007 began today Mon­day 14th Jan at Not­ting­ham Mag­is­trates Court

Over 30 peo­ple, con­cerned about cli­mate chaos, held a demon­stra­tion out­side the court in sup­port of the defen­dants at 9.30 this morn­ing

BBC and ITN cam­era crews were there to film and inter­view.

The pros­e­cu­tion com­plet­ed giv­ing its evi­dence today and the evi­dence for the defence will be heard tomor­row.

The Tri­al is being heard before a Dis­trict Judge and is expect­ed to last 3 days.

http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk

Day 1 report
Day 2 report
Day 3 report

Judge­ment expect­ed 25th Feb­ru­ary.

Orig­i­nal action report and as part of Spring into Action.

Anti-whaling hostages — update & solidarity demo reports: Berlin, London, Barcelona, New York, Washington DC

17/1/2008
Sea Shep­herd Shuts Down Antarc­tic Whale Hunt
The Japan­ese hunt for endan­gered whales in the South­ern Oceans Whale Sanc­tu­ary has been shut down.

Yushin Maru 2 whaler17/1/2008
Sea Shep­herd Shuts Down Antarc­tic Whale Hunt
The Japan­ese hunt for endan­gered whales in the South­ern Oceans Whale Sanc­tu­ary has been shut down.

“All whal­ing activ­i­ties have come to a halt,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son from onboard the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Society’s ship Steve Irwin. No whales have been killed since Jan­u­ary 11th. The Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been denied a sol­id week of whal­ing activ­i­ty. Our task now is to make that two weeks and then three weeks.”

As long as the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and Green­peace keep the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet on the run, there will be no whal­ing activ­i­ty.

“I wish that Green­peace would be more coop­er­a­tive,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “How­ev­er we will con­tin­ue to feed them the coor­di­nates for the rest of the fleet as they tail the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru. If we can­not work with Green­peace direct­ly we will work with them indi­rect­ly. The strength of any move­ment is in diver­si­ty.”

Jan­u­ary 17th found the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin chas­ing the whal­ing sup­ply ves­sel Ori­en­tal Blue­bird and three oth­er whal­ing ships east­ward along the line of Lat­i­tude of Six­ty Degrees South near the Eighty Six Degree East line of lon­gi­tude. This is approx­i­mate­ly 2000 miles from Fre­man­tle, Aus­tralia.

The Japan­ese whalers con­tin­ue to hold Aus­tralian cit­i­zen Ben­jamin Potts 28 and Giles Lane 35 of Great Britain. The Japan­ese gov­ern­ment has ordered their release but the whalers are defy­ing that order and refus­ing to release their hostages until Sea Shep­herd agrees to their demands. One of the demands is for Sea Shep­herd to dis­con­tin­ue oppos­ing whal­ing activ­i­ties. Cap­tain Wat­son respond­ed by refus­ing to acknowl­edge their demands and demand­ing instead that the hostages be released with­out con­di­tions.

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin will con­tin­ue to pur­sue ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties for as long as pos­si­ble.

——

Aus­tralia to inter­cede in Safe Return of Sea Shep­herd activists

After two days being held hostage on the Yushin Maru No 2, two Sea Shep­herd anti-whal­ing activists may be returned with­in the next day to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin by the autho­ri­sa­tion of the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to use the Cus­toms and Fish­eries patrol ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking as an inter­me­di­ary.

Aus­tralian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Stephen Smith said “What is required now to trans­fer those two men is the agree­ment of the Japan­ese Gov­ern­ment, which we have, the agree­ment of the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment, which we have,” Mr Smith said. “We now need the full and com­plete coop­er­a­tion of the two ves­sels, the two cap­tains and the two men con­cerned.”

Sea Shep­herd were refus­ing to meet the con­di­tions stip­u­lat­ed by the Cap­tain of the Yashin Maru No 2 to stop inter­fer­ing with the whal­ing fleet oper­a­tions for the trans­fer of the two crew mem­bers, with Cap­tain Paul Wat­son say­ing on the ABC 7.30 report “I don’t acqui­esce to ter­ror­ist demands and that’s what that is. Hold­ing hostages and mak­ing demands is a ter­ror­ist tac­tic.”

Asked to jus­ti­fy two mem­bers of his crew board­ing anoth­er ves­sel with­out autho­ri­sa­tion, which the Japan­ese have accused as an act or ter­ror­ism or pira­cy, Paul Wat­son replied “You can run around the ocean jump­ing on poacher’s ves­sels. They’re tar­get­ing endan­gered species and whale sanc­tu­ar­ies, in vio­la­tion of a glob­al mora­to­ri­um. The Unit­ed Nations’ world char­ter of nature on sec­tion of imple­men­ta­tion under Sec­tion 21 E allows for non-gov­ern­ment organ­i­sa­tions to uphold inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. So, we are autho­rised to do that. These are poach­ers, I’m try­ing to get that through to peo­ple. They are poach­ers.”

Sec­tion 21 E of the World Char­ter for Nature, passed by the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly in 1982, states that “States and, to the extent they are able, oth­er pub­lic author­i­ties, inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, indi­vid­u­als, groups and cor­po­ra­tions shall .…(e) safe­guard and con­serve nature in areas beyond nation­al juris­dic­tion.”

Sec­tion 24 of the char­ter says that “Each per­son has a duty to act in accor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the present Char­ter; act­ing indi­vid­u­al­ly, in asso­ci­a­tion with oth­ers or through par­tic­i­pa­tion in the polit­i­cal process, each per­son shall strive to ensure that the objec­tives and require­ments of the present Char­ter are met.”

Accord­ing to the Aus­tralian For­eign min­is­ter, Stephen Smith on the ABC 7.30 Report, “the only con­di­tions that will be imposed here are con­di­tions that will be imposed by the Aus­tralian author­i­ties and the ‘Ocean­ic Viking’, and those con­di­tions will go to the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of this oper­a­tion.

It was report­ed by AAP that the trans­fer may take place in the next 24 hours. Accord­ing to Kim McCoy, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, on board the Steve Irwin “We have just spo­ken very recent­ly with an agent on board the Ocean­ic Viking cus­toms ves­sel,” she said. “We have received offi­cial con­tact from them stat­ing that they’re just wait­ing for the Japan­ese to con­firm that they’re will­ing to accept those terms.”

“My under­stand­ing is that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment is not going to impose any con­di­tions on us to stop harass­ing the whal­ing, because the whal­ing is ille­gal. The only con­di­tion that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment wants to impose is the safe trans­fer, and of course we’re going to have to facil­i­tate a safe trans­fer, we don’t want to jeop­ar­dise any­one’s safe­ty dur­ing the trans­fer of Giles and Pottsy (Ben­jamin Potts) to our ship.

“Beyond that they’ve told us that there will be no addi­tion­al con­di­tions. In oth­er words, we are going to con­tin­ue inter­ven­ing against the ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ty of the Japan­ese.” she said.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son told Ali Moore from the ABC 7.30 Report “We’re not protest­ing their whal­ing oper­a­tions, we’re not protest­ing them. What we are doing is inter­fer­ing with ille­gal activ­i­ties. This is an inter­ven­tion­ist oper­a­tion not a protest organ­i­sa­tion.”

Sources:

* ABC 7.30 Report — Jan 17, 2008 — Govt con­sid­ers send­ing ‘Ocean­ic Viking’ to the res­cue
* ABC 7.30 Report — Jan 17, 2008 — Sea Shep­herd cap­tain reports from the high seas
* ABC News — Jan 17, 2008 — Sea Shep­herd will only accept ‘uncon­di­tion­al’ Govt help
* news.com.au, Jan 17, 2008 — Anti-whalers con­tact­ed over detainees
* Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­by 1982 World Char­ter for Nature

Repost from report on Syd­ney Indy­media, that con­tains all source links.
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/australia-intercedes-safe-return-sea-shepherd-activists

——
Sea Shep­herd Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest at Japan­ese Embassy, Berlin

16.1.2008
Peo­ple went to put pres­sure on offi­cials at the Japan­ese Embassy at Hiroshi­mas­trasse in Berlin today. They hung ban­ners on the fences of the Embassy demand­ing the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of the two Sea Shep­herd crew mem­bers tak­en hostage on 15 Jan­u­ary by the Japan­ese
Whal­ing Fleet.

For updates, see www.seashepherd.org

——

Sea Shepherd Hostage London Solidarity Demo
Sea Shep­herd Hostage Lon­don Sol­i­dar­i­ty Demo
16/1/08

Fifty pick­et the Japan­ese embassy in Lon­don in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Sea Shep­herd hostages (see pre­vi­ous posts). The embassy staff were not hap­py. Ban­ners read ‘Free the Hostages’, ‘Stop the the Whale Slaugh­ter’ and ‘Defend the Wild’. The pick­et got a lot of media cov­er­age with mul­ti­ple TV crews includ­ing one from Japan.

Updates post­ed here and at www.seashepherd.org

——

Sea Shep­herd demo, Barcelona
17.1.2008
Demon­stra­tors today held a protest out­side the Japan­ese Con­sul in Barcelona, also deliv­er­ing a let­ter to the Gen­er­al Con­sul demand­ing the imme­di­ate release of two Sea Shep­herd crew mem­bers cur­rent­ly held hostage by Japan­ese whalers.

A group of Sea Shep­herd sup­port­ers demon­strat­ed out­side the Japan­ese Con­sulate in Barcelona today, to call for the imme­di­ate release of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts, cur­rent­ly held hostage aboard a Japan­ese whal­ing ship.

Inside, two peo­ple deliv­ered a let­ter to the Con­sul con­demn­ing the hostage tak­ing and demand­ing Japan­ese inter­ven­tion. Out­side, 150 leaflets were hand­ed out to work­ers and passers­by.

The Mossos turned up but every­thing was qui­et. Sol­i­dar­i­ty to Sea Shep­herd!

—–

NYC Protest for Sea Shep­herd Hostages

17.01.2008
Activists braved the cold of New York City today to protest yes­ter­day’s kid­nap­ping of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts by an ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing ship. They were released ear­li­er today to the Ocean Viking (Aus­trali­a’s ship).

VIDEOS
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk1AKVRbR8I
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb7IM9VNY48

Activists braved the cold of New York City today to protest yes­ter­day’s kid­nap­ping of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts by an ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing ship.

The duo are cur­rent­ly being held hostage on the ship, and demon­stra­tions and protests at Japan­ese embassies and con­sulates across the globe are being held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Sea Shep­herd crew.

Japan, we demand you stop the bloody slaugh­ter of inno­cent whales and dol­phins and return the kid­napped activists IMMEDIATELY with­out harm!

http://www.war-online.org

—–

17/01/08

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO2I38jBo‑E

Activists from NYC band­ed togeth­er with activists from Wash­ing­ton D.C. to protest the kid­nap­ping and hostage tak­ing of Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety mem­bers Giles Lane (UK) and Ben­jamin Potts (Aus­tralia).

Ani­mal lovers and envi­ron­men­tal­ists gath­ered out­side the Japan­ese embassy and demand­ed the release of Potts and Lane, who are regard­ed as heroes, and also demand­ed an end to the slaugh­ter of beau­ti­ful whales and dol­phins that go to feed Japan­ese bel­lies.

At the end of yes­ter­day’s protest activists received the call: The Sea Shep­herd heroes had just been released.

Indigenous Action Against Mining Hold Australian Firm At Bay in the Philippines

2008-01-17
NUEVA VIZCAYA, Philip­pines- Trib­al vil­lagers up north Luzon block­ad­ed the Aus­tralian min­ing com­pa­ny from fur­ther explor­ing min­er­als in their com­mu­ni­ty, Fri­day noon, and forced the min­ing firm to leave the vil­lage.

Rabbit under fence2008-01-17
NUEVA VIZCAYA, Philip­pines- Trib­al vil­lagers up north Luzon block­ad­ed the Aus­tralian min­ing com­pa­ny from fur­ther explor­ing min­er­als in their com­mu­ni­ty, Fri­day noon, and forced the min­ing firm to leave the vil­lage.

Accord­ing to reports, hun­dred dozens of indige­nous res­i­dents in Kasi­bu town ‚“pushed away employ­ees of a for­eign min­ing firm and their earth-mov­ing equip­ment that were sup­posed to start explo­ration in their com­mu­ni­ty”, said Inq.Net. The action held by local peo­ple has lead to an indef­i­nite oper­a­tion shut down of OceanaGold Philip­pines Inc.- an Aus­tralian com­pa­ny.

Indige­nous res­i­dents were only pro­tect­ing the Papaya water­shed that feed the Alimudin, Mal­ong and Pah­d­u­an rivers. These are the main sources of irri­ga­tion for about 150,000 fruit trees in Mal­abing Val­ley, which has six vil­lages. But the min­ing firm came in with­out con­sent among the vil­lagers and threat­en their means of exis­tence.

This is what the Aus­tralian Min­ing Com­pa­ny has said in their media release:
“OceanaGold offi­cials insist they no longer need proof of con­sent from the com­mu­ni­ty since they have a Finan­cial and Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance Agree­ment (FTAA) grant­ed by the gov­ern­ment in 1994 to Cli­max Min­ing Ltd.”

Biofuel week of action — 26th January-2nd February 2008

Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 2nd Feb­ru­ary 2008. Rather than organ­is­ing one cen­tral protest, UK groups and cam­paigns are encour­aged to organ­ise local protests and actions – which could involve a ban­ner protest out­side a Tesco or BP petrol sta­tion or out­side an agro­fu­el refin­ery (click for map of bio­fu­el refiner­ies), leaflet­ing and/or street the­atre in the city cen­tre, a press release, a pub­lic film show, etc. Please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk if you can help in any way, or if you would like to find out if any­thing is already planned in your area.

Acme Biofuel/palm oilBio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 2nd Feb­ru­ary 2008. Rather than organ­is­ing one cen­tral protest, UK groups and cam­paigns are encour­aged to organ­ise local protests and actions – which could involve a ban­ner protest out­side a Tesco or BP petrol sta­tion or out­side an agro­fu­el refin­ery (click for map of bio­fu­el refiner­ies), leaflet­ing and/or street the­atre in the city cen­tre, a press release, a pub­lic film show, etc. Please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk if you can help in any way, or if you would like to find out if any­thing is already planned in your area.

If you are plan­ning a local event and would like us to put the details on our web­site, then please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.

Click here for details of events in Lon­don, Tee­side, Chel­tenham and Aberdeen.

Click here for resources!

Japanese whalers take Sea Shepherds hostage (incl. Brit) — demo, L’don, 16 January; email addresses; release demands; videos

15.01.2008 — [lat­est update at bot­tom]
In what has been an unpre­dictably dra­mat­ic day for the cam­paign against whal­ing in Antarc­ti­ca, the crew of a Japan­ese har­poon gun­boat have seized Aus­tralian and British crew mebers of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, Steve Irwin.

Sea Shepherd Hostages15.01.2008 — [lat­est update at bot­tom]
In what has been an unpre­dictably dra­mat­ic day for the cam­paign against whal­ing in Antarc­ti­ca, the crew of a Japan­ese har­poon gun­boat have seized Aus­tralian and British crew mebers of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, Steve Irwin.

Astound­ing! Last year around this time, things were real­ly get­ting dra­mat­ic in the Sea Shep­herd pur­suit of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet across Antarc­ti­ca. Crew miss­ing at sea, ship­board fires, the risk of a pris­tine envi­ron­ment being chem­i­cal­ly dec­i­mat­ed, and even one human death as an accom­pa­ni­ment to the slaugh­ter of hun­dreds of mam­moth sen­tient beings.

Not to be out­done, the 2007/08 sea­son of resis­tance has just kicked into over­drive. Today, the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court called Japan­ese whal­ing — in Aus­tralian waters, at least — what it is: ille­gal. The Hon­ourable Jus­tice All­sop issued an injunc­tion order­ing that all Japan­ese whal­ing with­in Aus­tralian Antarc­tic waters (which Japan and most oth­er coun­tries don’t rec­og­nize) stop imme­di­ate­ly. So, tech­ni­cal­ly, since about 3pm Aus­tralian East Coast time every sin­gle crew mem­ber of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been eli­gi­ble for arrest should they enter Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­ries.

But the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet, as always, need­ed to up the ante. In the last 50 min­utes it has been report­ed that the crew of the har­poon gun­boat Yashin Maru II have tak­en two Sea Shep­herd activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts and a Briton, Giles Lane — hostage, and tied them to the radar mast of their ship. Ear­li­er today the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Steve Irwin broke off its pur­suit of the whale-pro­cess­ing fac­to­ry ves­sel, also known as the Cetacean Death Star, the Nis­shin Maru. With Green­peace’s Esper­an­za still pur­su­ing the fac­to­ry ship away from the rest of the whal­ing fleet, the Shep­herds turned about to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the rest of the scat­tered fleet.

Obvi­ous­ly, they found them alright. Shep­herd Cap­tain Paul Wat­son reports that the two men, who have now been effec­tive­ly kid­napped on the high seas — iron­i­cal­ly, a gen­uine act of pira­cy by the Japan­ese whalers — had board­ed the ship to deliv­er a let­ter to the cap­tain pro­claim­ing their whal­ing activ­i­ty ille­gal and demand­ing an imme­di­ate ces­sa­tion of whale-hunt­ing, as per the order made today by the Fed­er­al Court.

Seems that Aus­tralian con­cerns about cre­at­ing a diplo­mat­ic inci­dent with Japan pale in com­par­i­son to what the whal­ing fleet are clear­ly eager to cre­ate.

Stay tuned.

============

The Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2 has tak­en two Sea Shep­herd vol­un­teer crew mem­bers hostage. Ben­jamin Potts 28, an Aus­tralian cit­i­zen and Giles Lane, 35, a cit­i­zen of Great Britain are being held hostage onboard the whal­ing ves­sel. Both men were assault­ed and then tied to the rail­ings of the whaler. They were then moved and tied to the radar mast by the whalers.

Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet On the Run With Two Sea Shep­herd Hostages

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety’s ship Steve Irwin is in full pur­suit of five ves­sels of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet includ­ing the Japan­ese sup­ply ves­sel Ori­en­tal Blue­bird.

Both men board­ed the Yushin Maru to deliv­er a mes­sage to the Japan­ese cap­tain that the whalers were in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law by tar­get­ing endan­gered species in an estab­lished whale sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing. They also noti­fied the cap­tain that Aus­tralia had just passed a court rul­ing bar­ring Japan­ese whalers from the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

All of this activ­i­ty has tak­en place in the area of 60 Degrees South and 78 Degrees East. All activ­i­ty has been doc­u­ment­ed from the Sea Shep­herd heli­copter and the fast mov­ing Delta ves­sel. The Steve Irwin has dis­patched a small fast Delta boat and a heli­copter to attempt to per­suade the Yushin Maru No. 2 to stop and release the hostages.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son has noti­fied the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police that he would like to see kid­nap­ping charges brought against the Japan­ese whalers. The Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and the British Embassy have been informed that their cit­i­zens are being held hostage on an ille­gal­ly oper­at­ed Japan­ese whal­ing ship in Inter­na­tion­al waters.

The Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru has fled over 700 miles to the North­west and is head­ing towards South Africa accom­pa­nied by the Green­peace ship Esper­an­za. The entire whal­ing fleet is on the run and out­side of the whal­ing area with the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin in hot pur­suit of five ves­sels of the Japan­ese fleet.

No whales have been slaugh­tered for the last four days and it does not look as if the whal­ing oper­a­tions are going to begin again for anoth­er week at least, and not at all if the ves­sels are pre­vent­ed from regroup­ing. The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin has a good sup­ply of fuel and can remain in the area for some time and will con­tin­ue to police the ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions by the Japan­ese fleet.

Sea Shep­herd cap­tain Paul Wat­son will turn over author­i­ty to the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment to enforce the court rul­ing against ille­gal whal­ing in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone upon request from the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and an agree­ment that Aus­tralia will enforce the court’s rul­ing to bar all Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.

The let­ter tak­en aboard:

To: The Cap­tain of any Japan­ese ship involved with poach­ing oper­a­tions in The Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

Sir,

My name is Giles David Lane

I am a British cit­i­zen and an unpaid vol­un­teer on the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel Steve Irwin

I have come onboard your ship because you have refused to acknowl­edge com­mu­ni­ca­tion from our ship per­tain­ing to your ille­gal activ­i­ties in the waters of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

I am not board­ing your ship with the intent to com­mit a crime, to rob you or to inflict injury upon your crew and your­self or dam­age to your ship. My rea­son for board­ing is to deliv­er the mes­sage that you are in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and in vio­la­tion of the laws of Aus­tralia. It is my intent to deliv­er this mes­sage and then to request that you allow me to dis­em­bark from your ves­sel with­out harm or seizure.

I am empow­ered to act to uphold these laws in accor­dance with the Unit­ed Nations World Char­ter for Nature and the laws of Aus­tralia.

I am board­ing you with the request that you please refrain from any fur­ther crim­i­nal activ­i­ty in these waters and cease and desist with the con­tin­ued killing of endan­gered whales in this des­ig­nat­ed Whale Sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of the IWC glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing and that you cease and desist in con­tin­ued vio­la­tions of Aus­tralian law by killing whales with­in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of Aus­tralia with­out per­mit or per­mis­sion from the gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia.

I am board­ing you on the orders of Cap­tain Paul Wat­son who requests that you treat me with respect and in accor­dance with the Gene­va Con­ven­tion.

http://www.seashepherd.org/

============

Pick­et at 2.15pm 16/1/08 at Japan­ese Embassy, Lon­don. Near­est Tubes Green Park & Hyde Park Cor­ner.

The address is:101–104 Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don, W1J 7JT
============

It would be great if every­one could take a moment to email the Japan­ese embassy and For­eign office and ask them to do what­ev­er they can to effect Giles’ release. Japan­ese Embassy: info@jpembassy.org.uk

For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office: It would be good to copy them in to what­ev­er you send to the Embassy. I had some trou­ble get­ting hold of an email address, but you could try the fol­low­ing one — msu.publicin@fco.gov.uk; Meg Munn is the Min­is­ter “respon­si­ble” for Asia and the Pacific.meg.munn@fco.gov.uk or munnm@parliament.uk
020 7008 1500

Sug­ges­tion of what to write: Dear Japan­ese Ambassador,I am writ­ing to you to protest in the strongest pos­si­ble terms the tak­ing of two hostages on board a Japan­ese Whal­ing Ship this morning.Press reports (see links below) have sug­gest­ed that the two men, (one of whom is a UK Nation­al by the name of Giles Lane), who peace­ful­ly board­ed the Yushin Maru No. 2 to deliv­er a let­ter, were assault­ed and then tied up. Pho­tographs from their own ves­sel, the Sea Shep­herd, show the two men being tied up out­side. The inci­dent hap­pened sev­er­al hours ago and I am great­ly con­cerned for their safety.I demand that you inter­vene at once to ensure that these men are released, pro­tect­ed from the ele­ments, and returned safe­ly to their ves­sel as soon as pos­si­ble. I also hope that your gov­ern­ment will ensure that the cap­tain and crew of the Yushin Maru No. 2 be pros­e­cut­ed for their actions.Yours sin­cere­ly, etc

============

16/1/2008

Japan­ese Whalers Make Demands for Return of Hostages

The Insti­tute of Cetacean Research, the front group for the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tions are mak­ing demands for the release of the two Sea Shep­herd crew being held hostage onboard the Japan­ese whal­ing ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2.

The whalers said they will return the hostages in return for Sea Shep­herd agree­ing to no longer inter­fere with their whal­ing oper­a­tions.

“The Insti­tute of Cetacean Research is act­ing like a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion,” said Steve Irwin’s 1st Offi­cer Peter Brown. “Here they are tak­ing hostages and mak­ing demands. Our pol­i­cy is that we don’t respond to ter­ror­ist demands.”

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has heard reports from the media that Japan has agreed to release the hostages but the Steve Irwin has not heard any­thing offi­cial from either the Aus­tralian or Japan­ese gov­ern­ments.

“The activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet are ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. The Japan­ese are poach­ers and should be treat­ed in the same man­ner as ele­phant or tiger poach­ers,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety will not nego­ti­ate with poach­ers and demands that the Japan­ese whalers release Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane as soon as pos­si­ble.

The loca­tion of the Yushin Maru No. 2 with the hostages onboard is not known present­ly. The ves­sel is no longer in sight or with­in radar range of the Steve Irwin.

============

BBC video of ship being board­ed

Col­lec­tion of dif­fer­ent videos

Saving Iceland Update 2008 — Mini-gathering — Friday 22nd February 2008, Sumac Centre, Nottingham

Sav­ing Ice­land Update 2008
Mini-gath­er­ing

A day of talks and film show­ings to pass on infor­ma­tion about the on-going inter­na­tion­al cam­paign and the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Ice­land

Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary 2008, Sumac Cen­tre, Not­ting­ham

Sav­ing Ice­land Update 2008
Mini-gath­er­ing

A day of talks and film show­ings to pass on infor­ma­tion about the on-going inter­na­tion­al cam­paign and the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Ice­land

Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary 2008, Sumac Cen­tre, Not­ting­ham

The event is aimed at:
Activists who have been involved with Sav­ing Ice­land in the past, have part­ed com­pa­ny for what­ev­er rea­son, but would like to know what’s hap­pen­ing now
UK-based Sav­ing Ice­land activists who were unable to make it to the recent organ­is­ing gath­er­ings abroad and would like an update
Peo­ple who are new to the issue but are inter­est­ed to find out about this great eco­log­i­cal threat to our rel­a­tive­ly local wilder­ness.
Any­one with ques­tions about the cam­paign

Please book in advance (email savingiceland@riseup.org, sub­ject head­ing “UK mini-gath­er­ing”) so we have some idea of cater­ing require­ments, and let us know if you need accom­mo­da­tion. We will be ask­ing for a small dona­tion to cov­er costs of food and venue.

We will start at 10 a.m. with an intro­duc­tion to the issues. If you already know the basics, aim to arrive by 11a.m.

* * *

www.savingiceland.org

Oxford Tree Protest Brings Fences Down; update & latest on end of protest/arrest

12.1.2008 A demon­stra­tion in Oxford against the felling of trees and the build­ing of a mon­strous new shop­ping cen­tre saw hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­er around Bonn Square. Many of them then took spon­ta­neous direct action to stop the fenc­ing-off of the square, and forced the Coun­cil to take the fences back down! We won this … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Oxford Tree Protest Brings Fences Down; update & lat­est on end of protest/arrest”

Oxford Saturday tree protest 3

12.1.2008
A demon­stra­tion in Oxford against the felling of trees and the build­ing of a mon­strous new shop­ping cen­tre saw hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­er around Bonn Square. Many of them then took spon­ta­neous direct action to stop the fenc­ing-off of the square, and forced the Coun­cil to take the fences back down!

We won this time, but the strug­gle to save the trees and stop the West­gate Cen­tre goes on. On Mon­day, the tree-sit­ter is in court and the Coun­cil is seek­ing final per­mis­sion to go ahead with the felling. Sup­port is always need­ed down at the Square, and watch this space for announce­ments of future actions.

==========
Activist arrest­ed while try­ing to give tree pro­test­er water

13.1.2008
An activist is arrest­ed for “on sus­pi­cion of lit­ter­ing” while try­ing to throw Gabriel, the Bonn Square tree pro­test­er, some water.

At about 2 AM on Sun­day morn­ing two activists went to Bonn Square to try to give the fenced-off tree pro­test­er, Gabriel, some water. As one dis­tract­ed the secu­ri­ty, the oth­er tried to throw a bot­tle to Gabriel, but unfor­tu­nate­ly it was­n’t a very good throw 😉

Police sit­ting in a near­by car quick­ly noticed and the bot­tle-throw­er was arrest­ed “on sus­pi­cion of lit­ter­ing”. For­tu­nate­ly only about 3 hours was spent at the police sta­tion before the activist was released with­out charge — the police seemed to have changed their mind and decid­ed it was­n’t a pros­e­cutable offence.

The arrestee was advised by a solic­i­tor that whilst the arrest was poten­tial­ly unlaw­ful, pur­su­ing legal action would like­ly only result in a dif­fer­ent charge such as “pub­lic dis­or­der”. An IPCC com­plaint may be made.

==========
14.1.2008
Lat­est update from BBC:

Police arrest tree man pro­test­er

A pro­test­er who was liv­ing in a tree in an attempt to stop it from being chopped down has been arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

Gabriel Cham­ber­lain set up his makeshift tree house in Bonn Square, Oxford, 11 days ago.

The city coun­cil secured an evic­tion order to force him down, but Mr Cham­ber­lain came down vol­un­tar­i­ly after he ran out of water and sup­plies.

The tree was lat­er felled as part of a £1.5m facelift in Oxford’s west end.

The sycamore was the largest of four trees which have been cut down.

The oper­a­tion sparked protests in Bonn Square from oth­er res­i­dents and police have arrest­ed at least two oth­er peo­ple.

The trees will be replaced with sev­en semi-mature robinia pseudoa­ca­cia trees.

A coun­cil spokesman said Bonn Square was in a key loca­tion at the inter­sec­tion of four major routes.

He said the plan was aimed at mak­ing the square more attrac­tive and improv­ing CCTV sur­veil­lance.

==========

Yes­ter­day morn­ing Gabriel was arrest­ed and work began on destroy­ing the tree. I don’t know the exact details; whether it was a planned evic­tion or whether he was grabbed hav­ing come down from the tree for sup­plies or a break.

Pro­test­ers were out­num­bered by cops and secu­ri­ty and the tree itself was sur­round­ed by sev­er­al lay­ers of fenc­ing. Nev­er­the­less a few attempt­ed to block the work, but were quick­ly dragged away. They were arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass and I believe all have now been released on police bail, and will find out in a few weeks whether or not the charges will be dropped.

This is not the end of the cam­paign though; there are still tens of trees under threat as part of the West­gate expan­sion, and the Bonn Square cam­paign has served to gal­vanise local action. Watch this space 🙂

Mean­while the Radley Lakes Town Green appli­ca­tion was turned down by the Coun­ty Coun­cil, despite plen­ty of evi­dence; cam­paign­ers will take the case to the High Court.

Forest defenders take action in the Styx Valley, Tasmania

Two for­est actions took place in the Styx Val­ley this week. On Tues­day morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on a new bridge as a for­est defend­er locked onto forestry machin­ery for over 10 hours before being cut off by police. Yes­ter­day, activists con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to stop the indus­tri­al scale destruc­tion of ancient forests locat­ed in coupe SX10F.

Tasmania Styx action
Two for­est actions took place in the Styx Val­ley this week. On Tues­day morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on a new bridge as a for­est defend­er locked onto forestry machin­ery for over 10 hours before being cut off by police. Yes­ter­day, activists con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to stop the indus­tri­al scale destruc­tion of ancient forests locat­ed in coupe SX10F.

See media releas­es and audio links below…
MEDIA RELEASE

Tues­day, 15 Jan­u­ary 2008

For­est defend­ers take action in the Styx Val­ley, Tas­ma­nia

This morn­ing, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed work on the con­struc­tion of a new bridge across the Styx Riv­er. If built, this bridge will pro­vide increased log truck access to the glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant stands of giant euca­lypts locat­ed in the val­ley.

“Tas­ma­nia is cur­rent­ly in a state of envi­ron­men­tal emer­gency. Vast tracts of old growth forests are being destroyed and sent to the chip­per in order to fur­ther inflate the already gross­ly bulging bank accounts of a select few. Right now, in coupe SX10F, chain­saws and bull­doz­ers are rip­ping apart some of our most pre­cious nat­ur­al her­itage” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“The com­mu­ni­ty is being locked out of their own forests all over the state, while local cli­mate crim­i­nals Forestry Tas­ma­nia employ their usu­al far­ci­cal spin and claim that this bridge will be used pri­mar­i­ly for tourists. What this bridge will do is increase the whole­sale destruc­tion of some of the island’s most sig­nif­i­cant car­bon sinks” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

Recent devel­op­ments at the Bali cli­mate con­fer­ence have fur­ther rein­forced the impor­tance of halt­ing the defor­esta­tion and degra­da­tion of car­bon sinks. Euca­lyp­tus reg­nans old growth forests, such as those locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley, have been shown to store huge amounts of car­bon.

“We are call­ing on the Rudd gov­ern­ment to take seri­ous action and demon­strate to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty that Aus­tralia is imple­ment­ing intel­li­gent, enlight­ened and equi­table strate­gies to com­bat cli­mate change by ensur­ing the imme­di­ate pro­tec­tion of Tasmania’s ancient forests” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

For­est defend­ers will con­tin­ue to take a stand against the destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­leys.

Lis­ten to SWST vs Forestry Tas­ma­nia on ABC Radio http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/15/2138389.htm

MEDIA RELEASE

Thurs­day, 17th Jan­u­ary 2008

For­est activists con­tin­ue their protest in the Styx Val­ley, Tas­ma­nia

Ear­ly this after­noon, com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened con­duct­ed a peace­ful walk in to coupe SX10F to doc­u­ment and bear wit­ness to the ongo­ing destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley.

“Some of our most sig­nif­i­cant car­bon sinks are being destroyed at a dis­turbing­ly accel­er­at­ed rate, ren­der­ing Tasmania’s forestry prac­tices an inter­na­tion­al dis­grace. The Rudd gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to endorse the log­ging and burn­ing of ancient forests locat­ed in the Styx Val­ley. Pro­tect­ing Tasmania’s old growth forests is a sim­ple, cheap and intel­li­gent cli­mate change solu­tion” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“SX10F has gained an inter­na­tion­al pro­file over the past few years, becom­ing an icon­ic exam­ple of Tasmania’s glob­al­ly renowned forests. This irre­place­able ecosys­tem, locat­ed with­in 1.5km of the World Her­itage Bound­ary, is being ripped apart by bull­doz­ers and chain­saws to line the pock­ets of greedy wood­chip­pers Gunns Ltd.” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

For­est defend­ers will con­tin­ue to peace­ful­ly protest against the destruc­tion of old growth forests locat­ed in the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­leys.