Three Activists Killed Before Human Rights Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Impuni­ty

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oplan Bayani­han

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

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

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

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

Accused Environmental Warrior Rebecca Rubin Surrenders at US-Canada Border

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Nation Leaders Enter Parliament and Scuffled by Security

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

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

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

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

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

 

News from the Hambach Forest: Eviction and resquatting

Dur­ing the last week a lot has hap­pend. On the 13th of Novem­ber the police start­ed to evict the camp area near the hole. It took till sat­ur­day 17th ear­ly in the morn­ing to get out the last peo­ple.

Dur­ing the last week a lot has hap­pend. On the 13th of Novem­ber the police start­ed to evict the camp area near the hole. It took till sat­ur­day 17th ear­ly in the morn­ing to get out the last peo­ple.

There was some atten­tion localy and in the whole press and TV in this lan­guage zone. On a press con­fer­ence we gave on the 19th of Novem­ber we anounced the we have since squat­ted for qui­et a while anoth­er area. South of the for­est. So we wern’t real­ly com­plet­ly evict­ed and resquat­ted inside a week:) On Wedns­day 21th of Novem­ber police came to evict this new area, but did­nt have any paper work, it hap­pend that the own­er of the area came to see his land , dur­ing this police action.

He was tak­en into cus­tody by police, this result­ed in pret­ty bad press for the police 🙂 It seems he got angry with the police and RWE as a result of this and does­nt want to evict us from his ground.

These days its windy and secu­ri­ty cars are going in the neig­bour­hood, there are even more peo­ple sup­port­ing, and more would be wel­come.

Squat more. Resist here and every­where.

Any time they hit us we come back much stronger 🙂

Two People Barricade Themselves Inside Keystone XL Pipe To Halt Construction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

The Clause 21 Growth and Infrastructure Bill Threat: More Info

 

THE LOOSE ANTI OPENCAST NETWORK

IF THE GOVERNMENT GETS ITS WAY, ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE MORE ‘MOTHBALLED’ OPENCAST SITES POCK-MARKING OUR COUNTRYSIDE?

 

THE LOOSE ANTI OPENCAST NETWORK

IF THE GOVERNMENT GETS ITS WAY, ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE MORE ‘MOTHBALLED’ OPENCAST SITES POCK-MARKING OUR COUNTRYSIDE?

LAON PR 2012- 16                                                               1/12/12

The hid­den top­ic so far, in all the dis­cus­sion about the Ener­gy Bill is what will be its impact on the UK Coal Indus­try. This is a much shrunk­en indus­try, pro­duc­ing around 18m tonnes of coal a year. Last year 59% of that coal was pro­duced by open­cast meth­ods. This year, as the deep min­ing sec­tor con­tin­ues to suf­fer from prob­lems and cost pres­sures are clos­ing mines (on a tem­po­rary basis) at Malt­by and Aper­perg­wm and Daw Mill, our largest pit is almost cer­tain to close, domes­tic coal pro­duc­tion is becom­ing ever more reliant on sur­face min­ing – in the July to Sep­tem­ber quar­ter, of the 4m tonnes of coal the UK pro­duced, 65% now came from sur­face mines.

But even the sur­face mine sec­tor of the coal indus­try is not immune to the cold winds of eco­nom­ic real­ism com­ing from across the Atlantic, as US coal pro­duc­ers, des­per­ate to find a mar­ket for their coal now that it can no longer com­pete with gas in the US domes­tic mar­ket because of the ‘frack­ing rev­o­lu­tion’, send shiploads of coal to Europe at prices that make UK coal pro­duc­tion uncom­pet­i­tive. As a con­se­quence, ATH Resources, a major sur­face mine oper­a­tor has put itself up for sale and stopped devel­op­ment work on its new sites and Scot­tish Coal has asked its work­force to take a 10% pay cut and moth­balled its large Blair House open­cast site in Scot­land inde­fin­ably. It’s just left it as large hole.

Fur­ther­more, the Ener­gy Bill, intro­duced into Par­lia­ment this week is intend­ing to cre­ate a low car­bon gen­er­at­ing sys­tem which is design to squeeze out coal from being part of the fuel mix unless Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (CCS) prove itself to be com­mer­cial­ly viable. The Bill will pro­vide for finan­cial dis­in­cen­tives to make it more cost­ly to burn coal in pow­er sta­tions with­out CCS, whilst, at the same time, pro­vide finan­cial incen­tives for exist­ing coal fired pow­er sta­tions to be ful­ly con­vert­ed to burn bio­mass. The result is that Coal Oper­a­tors in the UK are for the fore­see­able future like­ly to see their mar­ket for coal shrink­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

All that may sound good to you, if you wor­ry about pro­tect­ing the coun­try­side from being treat­ed as one large coal bunker, or you are con­cerned about cli­mate change.

Except it is not all good news. The expect­ed decline in the use of coal for pow­er gen­er­a­tion pur­pos­es is going to take years to achieve. In the mean­time, we may be start­ing to wit­ness an increase in plan­ning appli­ca­tions for new open­cast mines across the UK, as Coal Oper­a­tors realise that they must try to cash in on the invest­ments they have already made before the coal mar­ket dries up.

This month LAON can report, in its 7th Review of Open­cast Sites avail­able here:

https://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/3309

 that two new pro­pos­als have been made recent­ly, one for a new 10m tonne site called Cauld­hall, near Rosewell in Mid­loth­i­an (iron­i­cal­ly by Scot­tish Coal) and the oth­er at the Dean­field site for 1.18m tonnes at Sharleston near Wake­field, where UK Coal, anoth­er coal com­pa­ny which near­ly went into admin­is­tra­tion this year, intends to sur­face mine. As a con­se­quence, The Stop Open­cast in Sharl­ston (SOS) group has joined the Net­work

That is not the only bad news about the sur­face min­ing of coal in Eng­land. The Gov­ern­ment is propos­ing, through the Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill (Clause 21), to make it eas­i­er to dig up coal in Eng­land, just when they are plan­ning to reduce the role coal plays in pro­duc­ing elec­tric­i­ty through the Ener­gy Bill. This clause of the Bill is like­ly to be debat­ed by the Growth and Infra­struc­ture Pub­lic Bill Com­mit­tee, along with our evi­dence, on Tues­day 4th Decem­ber.

LAON’s con­cern about these pol­i­cy changes is this. Giv­en the eco­nom­ic dif­fi­cul­ties that the UK Coal Indus­try finds itself in, is this the right time to be chang­ing the plan­ning sys­tem to make it eas­i­er for Coal Oper­a­tors to get per­mis­sion for new open­cast mines? This is increas­ing the risk that many more open­cast sites are left ‘moth­balled’ and pock-mark­ing our coun­try-side if UK Coal Pro­duc­ers find that they are increas­ing­ly priced out of their own declin­ing domes­tic mar­ket. In our view, this is not the time to relax plan­ning con­trols at all for new sur­face mines in Eng­land

We are hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment realis­es the incon­sis­ten­cies in its cur­rent pol­i­cy pro­pos­als and whilst it con­tin­ues with its plans to decar­bonise the gen­er­at­ing sec­tor, it revis­es its plans and not allow any plans to sur­face mine coal in Eng­land to be treat­ed as a Major Infra­struc­ture Project.

A ref­er­enced ver­sion of this press release is avail­able by con­tact­ing LAON at the email address below.

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It func­tions as a medi­um through which to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land (Just Say No to Lig­nite), Scot­land (Coal Action Scot­land), Wales (Green Val­leys Alliance, The Merthyr Tyd­fil Anti Open­cast Cam­paign), Eng­land, (Coal Action Net­work), Northum­ber­land, (Whit­ton­stall Action Group, Hal­ton Lea Gate Res­i­dents)) Co Durham (Pont Val­ley Net­work), Leeds, Sheffield (Cow­ley Res­i­dents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skel­mansthor­pe Action Group)  Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm Open­cast Oppo­si­tion), Der­byshire (West Hal­lum Envi­ron­ment Group, Smal­l­ey Action Group and Hill­top Action Group) , Leices­ter­shire (Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group), Wake­field (Stop Open­cast in Sharl­ston) and Wal­sall (Alumwell Action Group).

Con­tact­ing LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordi­na­tor, at infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

Fracking Lord’s Chelsea Mansion Drilled

The Big Rig Revolt kicked off at 8am Sat­ur­day with Frack Off Lon­don pay­ing a sur­prise vis­it to the Chelsea Man­sion owned by Lord Browne of River­stone and Cuadrilla. The Frack­ing Lord’s malign influ­ence has spread through­out the gov­ern­ment since he was appoint­ed to the role of recuit­ing busi­ness lead­ers to advise gov­ern­ment depart­ments. A vari­ety of oth­er actions are planned across the coun­try through­out the day.

Uncon­ven­tion­al gas, includ­ing Shale Gas, Coal Bed Methane (CBM) and Under­ground Coal Gasi­fi­ca­tion (UCG), are threat­en­ing to spread thou­sands of wells across the British Isles. The first appli­ca­tion for an uncon­ven­tion­al gas devel­op­ment in Britain, 14 sites with 22 wells and over 20km of pipelines, was sub­mit­ted to Falkirk Coun­cil by Dart Ener­gy. Most areas off the coun­try face some sort of threat and the cli­mate impli­ca­tions of these process­es are fright­en­ing.

Dressed in orange boil­er suits and wear­ing gas masks 6 cam­paign­ers from Frack Off Lon­don erect­ed a 20ft drilling rig out­side the home of Lord Browne to high­light the peer’s involve­ment in UK uncon­ven­tion­al gas devel­op­ment. The gov­ern­ment has just announced that they are end­ing their gentleman’s agree­ment with Cuadrilla to sus­pend frack­ing oper­a­tions in Lan­cashire and it could start again in Lan­cashire with­in months.

The gov­ern­ment has plans to sell off large parts of the coun­try next year for uncon­ven­tion­al gas exploita­tion. The Chan­cel­lor, George Osborne, is also expect­ed to announce the set­ting up of an Office of Shale Gas to expidite the process of frack­ing the coun­try. The gov­ern­ment is also plot­ting to short cir­cuit local plan­ning pro­cee­dures and green-light appli­ca­tions direct­ly from cen­tral gov­ern­ment, ensur­ing local com­mu­ni­ties have no chance to object.

Dozens Wounded in Mayanmar Coppermine Protest

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

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

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

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

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

Activists interfere with international mining conference in Finland

“There is no such thing as socially and environmentally sustainable mining!”

Today in Espoo, Fin­land, a meet­ing of bureau­crats and indus­tri­al­ists  enti­tled Confe

“There is no such thing as socially and environmentally sustainable mining!”

Today in Espoo, Fin­land, a meet­ing of bureau­crats and indus­tri­al­ists  enti­tled Con­fer­ence on Social­ly and Envi­ron­men­tal­ly Respon­si­ble Min­ing was dis­rupt­ed by the group Hyökyaal­to (“Tidal wave). The fol­low­ing state­ment was released today:

With the North­ern min­ing boom the min­ing indus­try, famous for it’s chem­i­cal emis­sions, is threat­en­ing waters and ecosys­tems in var­i­ous loca­tions, where clean nature offers the most pos­si­bil­i­ties for local peo­ple. It is grotesque that the peo­ple involved gath­er to dis­cuss the min­ing indus­try as a sus­tain­able activ­i­ty while every emer­gency dam in the Tal­vi­vaara mine is leak­ing poi­so­nous waste into Vuok­si waters.

The action is a protest against the indus­try and the state’s attempt to legit­imize min­ing by dis­cussing its “sus­tain­abil­i­ty”. Pro­test­ers are remind­ing peo­ple that no such thing as “respon­si­ble”, “sus­tain­able” or “green” min­ing exists. The Tal­vi­vaara mine in Sotkamo, East­ern Fin­land is a clear exam­ple that the only green things caused by min­ing are the pol­lut­ed swamps and waters. The min­ing indus­try, famous for its chem­i­cal emis­sions, threat­ens the waters and oth­er ecosys­tems cru­cial to every­one liv­ing in the sur­round­ing areas. The action is arranged in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Stop Tal­vi­vaara move­ment and all the peo­ple to whom min­ing indus­try caus­es suf­fer­ing around the world.

The envi­ron­men­tal activists feel that direct action is the only strat­e­gy left to make a dif­fer­ence since the Finnish gov­ern­ment has decid­ed to sup­port min­ing and ignore the crit­i­cal voic­es from the peo­ple com­plete­ly. Thus, the pub­lic opin­ion has no impact in the par­la­men­tary sys­tem. A reveal­ing exam­ple of this is that the open­ing speak­er for the two-day green­wash­ing con­fer­ence is Hei­di Hau­ta­la from the Finnish Green par­ty.

The organ­is­ing group of this protest, Hyökyaal­to demands imme­di­ate shut­down of Tal­vi­vaara mine and aban­don­ing all oth­er min­ing plans.

www.hyokyaalto.org

Stop the mining boom!

Activists Lock Themselves to Trucks Outside Valero’s Houston Refinery

Activists Begin Sustained Hunger Strike, Demand That Valero Divest from Keystone XL Pipeline

HOUSTON, TX – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 8:00AM –

Activists Begin Sustained Hunger Strike, Demand That Valero Divest from Keystone XL Pipeline

HOUSTON, TX – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 8:00AM –-Long­time Gulf Coast activists Diane Wil­son and Bob Lind­sey Jr. have locked their necks to oil tanker trucks des­tined for Valero’s Hous­ton Refin­ery in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Tar Sands Blockade’s protests of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL pipeline. Valero Ener­gy Corp. is among the largest investors in TransCanada’s tox­ic tar sands pipeline that will ter­mi­nate near the com­mu­ni­ty of Man­ches­ter, locat­ed in the shad­ow of Valero’s refin­ery. Not only are Wil­son and Lind­sey blockad­ing the Valero refin­ery, the two life­long friends have also vowed to begin a sus­tained hunger strike demand­ing that Valero divest from Key­stone XL and invest that mon­ey into the health and well-being of the peo­ple of Man­ches­ter.

With a 90% Lati­no pop­u­la­tion, Manchester’s rela­tion­ship with the Valero refin­ery is a text­book case of envi­ron­men­tal racism. Res­i­dents there have suf­fered through decades of pre­ma­ture deaths, can­cers, asth­ma and oth­er dis­eases attrib­ut­able to the refin­ery emis­sions. With lit­tle finan­cial sup­port for law­suits and with­out the polit­i­cal agency nec­es­sary to leg­isla­tive­ly reign-in crim­i­nal pol­luters like Valero, the com­mu­ni­ty suf­fers while Valero posts record prof­its.

“All my life the Gulf Coast has been an envi­ron­men­tal sac­ri­fice zone, and enough is enough,” declared Diane Wil­son, who spent over twen­ty years orga­niz­ing to stop chem­i­cal plants from dump­ing tox­ins direct­ly into Gulf waters. “Key­stone XL will bring to dirt­i­est fuel on the plan­et right down to the Gulf, where already over­bur­dened com­mu­ni­ties like Man­ches­ter will be forced to suf­fer even more. After decades of tox­ic air in Man­ches­ter, I refuse to just let them con­tin­ue to pun­ish this com­mu­ni­ty. I won’t eat until Valero divests from Key­stone XL.”

Wil­son, a fourth-gen­er­a­tion Gulf Coast shrimper, is no stranger to civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. After years of fight­ing indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion in her home­town of Sead­rift, TX, her will­ing­ness to use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence in the strug­gle for clean water and the suc­cess­es it wrought for her com­mu­ni­ty changed the land­scape of envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice along the Gulf Coast.

New­ly des­ig­nat­ed by the Water­keep­er Alliance as the San Anto­nio Bay Water­keep­er, Bob Lind­sey Jr. was born and raised in Cal­houn Coun­ty, which has high­est rate of can­cer of any coun­ty in TX. Lind­sey also has a shrimp­ing her­itage stretch­ing back five gen­er­a­tions. His sis­ter has had four episodes of can­cer, and his father and nephew both died of rare dis­or­ders while in their for­ties. All of these dis­eases are trace­able to the chem­i­cal facil­i­ties around which Bob’s fam­i­ly mem­bers lived and worked.

“Me? I’m healthy. They’re the ones I’m fight­ing for. We have to be pre­pared to fight for those who can’t fight for them­selves or who are too afraid to fight for them­selves. That’s why I’m here.”

“Diane and Bob’s deci­sion to hunger strike in protest of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL and chal­lenge Valero’s long­stand­ing dis­re­gard for the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple of Man­ches­ter push­es the bound­aries of the Gulf Coast envi­ron­men­tal move­ment yet again, explains Ram­sey Sprague, a Louisiana Gulf Coast-born Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son. “Man­ches­ter deserves jus­tice as do all com­mu­ni­ties treat­ed as ener­gy sac­ri­fice zones. Cor­po­ra­tions like Valero and Tran­sCana­da can­not seem to func­tion with­out vio­lat­ing the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple every­where from Alber­ta to Man­ches­ter.”