(USA) Sunrise Intervention at Gas Industry Convention

It was 7:00 am, the last day of the Mar­cel­lus Shale Coalition’s annu­al con­ven­tion in Philadel­phia, when a group of 40 or so peo­ple gath­ered to meet the gas indus­try face to face. “We just want­ed to see what they had to say for them­selves” said one of the pro­test­ers.

It was 7:00 am, the last day of the Mar­cel­lus Shale Coalition’s annu­al con­ven­tion in Philadel­phia, when a group of 40 or so peo­ple gath­ered to meet the gas indus­try face to face. “We just want­ed to see what they had to say for them­selves” said one of the pro­test­ers. It turned out the indus­try del­e­gates weren’t so shy for talk­ing after-all.

(scroll down for full gallery)

The con­ven­tion was called “Shale Gas Insight” and took place in the for­ti­fied Philadel­phia Con­ven­tion Cen­ter in down­town Philly. The con­ven­tion  host­ed hun­dreds of ven­dors and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from just about every com­pa­ny involved in hydraulic frac­tur­ing, or “Frack­ing” as some call it. You can read about the work­shop titles here; http://shalegasinsight.com/conference-schedule/

The action, called “Sun­rise Inter­ven­tion” by local orga­niz­ers, suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to face the indus­try on their own terms. For hours, indus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives were forced to pass through an aggres­sive pick­et at the front entrance with ban­ners, flags, drums, and chants. This was pre­ced­ed by a “walk of shame” in which the del­e­gates were ver­bal­ly con­front­ed for an entire city block in pub­lic view. As they approached the con­ven­tion cen­ter, peo­ple phys­i­cal­ly blocked them from enter­ing. To say the least, it became a venue for inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion.

“I real­ly val­ued the hon­esty on behalf of the del­e­gates” said a bystander. At one point a group of uni­formed char­ter school kids joined in the fun, tak­ing pictures–laughing and point­ing.

“We were hop­ing the del­e­gates would get arrest­ed for col­lab­o­rat­ing in envi­ron­men­tal crimes” said one of the pick­eters when the police arrived. But they didn’t.

“I’m too scared to do the right thing” whis­pered an offi­cer from his car. The police then sep­a­rat­ing the pick­et onto either side of the main entrance, ush­er­ing del­e­gates off the side­walk into the road.

Although the police estab­lished a rit­u­al­is­tic pres­ence, they didn’t do much to pro­tect the del­e­gates from the angry crowd. Per­haps they weren’t too impressed with the gas industry’s pol­i­cy on pub­lic health.

The protest last­ed a cou­ple more hours, police & all, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for del­e­gates to reach the door. Once most of the del­e­gates were inside, the protest end­ed in an un-per­mit­ted march through down­town Philadel­phia to meet up with an ACT UP ral­ly and street the­ater per­for­mance.


(USA) Tar Sands Blockade Launces 8‑Person Treesit

Gan­dalf hates tar sands.

The ongo­ing Tar Sands Block­ade cam­paign has launched an 8‑person treesit in the planned path of the under-con­struc­tion Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline. “Con­struc­tion can­not pro­ceed until tree-sit­ters descend and Tran­sCana­da clear-cuts through hun­dreds of trees to make way for the tox­ic tar sands pipeline,” Tar Sands Block­ade announced.

The treesit­ters have announced their inten­tion to remain in the trees until the Key­stone XL pipeline is stopped for good.

Tar Sands Block­ade is an ongo­ing cam­paign to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone pipeline through Texas and Okla­homa. The pipeline is meant to car­ry oil from Alberta’s tar sands to the US.

There are still plen­ty of ways to get involved in this cam­paign. Fol­low news of the treesit here. For some ways to get involved, read this call to action or vis­it Tar Sands Block­ade.

 

 

(Brazil) Fishermen Paralyze Construction of the Belo Monte Dam

Fish­er­men form a line to block

Fish­er­men form a line to block access to the con­struc­tion site of a cof­fer dam on the Xin­gu Riv­er, Sep. 2012

From Inter­na­tion­al Rivers:

On Wednes­day [Sep. 19], a group of about 50 fish­er­men pre­vent­ed a fer­ry from trans­port­ing machines and work­ers to a cof­fer dam being built for the Belo Monte Dam Com­plex, set­ting up a protest camp on one of the main islands of the Xin­gu Riv­er near the con­struc­tion site.

After assem­bling, the pro­test­ers decid­ed to remain indef­i­nite­ly in place, and called on Norte Ener­gia and IBAMA to imme­di­ate­ly nego­ti­ate com­pen­sa­tion for the loss of eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive fish species that the fish­er­men have suf­fered as a result of the cof­fer dam’s con­struc­tion.

“The fish­er­men have seen a 50% reduc­tion in fish­eries pro­duc­tion. The riv­er is dry­ing up. Sev­er­al species failed to spawn over the last year due to Norte Ener­gia’s inter­ven­tion in the riv­er.  A lot of fish are dying, and in some loca­tions the com­pa­ny wants to impede the fish­er­men from access­ing the riv­er,” explained Ana Bar­bosa Laide of the Movi­men­to Xin­gu Vivo, who has accom­pa­nied the mobi­liza­tion.

On Wednes­day night, a group of fish­er­men who depend on orna­men­tal fish from the riv­er joined the group, demand­ing that envi­ron­men­tal agency IBAMA guar­an­tee the sur­vival of species that are endem­ic to the area where the dam is being built, say­ing that oth­er­wise, the species will go extinct. “They argue that if these species die off, IBAMA should release its pop­u­la­tion of col­lect­ed orna­men­tal fish in order to save the eco­nom­ic liveli­hoods of the fish­er­men,” explained Laide.

Accord­ing to the move­ment lead­ers, the occu­pa­tion protests the deci­sion of IBAMA to allow Norte Ener­gia to per­ma­nent­ly close the riv­er. Dur­ing this process, the fish­er­men were not con­sult­ed nor informed about how they could con­tin­ue their eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties, or how they could con­tin­ue to trans­port their boats on the riv­er past the dam. “The riv­er is ours and we came to fish. You can’t just pro­hib­it fish­ing, we have to work, “says Lucio Vale, Pres­i­dent of the Fish­er­men’s Colony of Altami­ra.

On the evening of the 19th, civ­il police offi­cers, accom­pa­nied by mem­bers of Norte Ener­gia, were at the demon­stra­tion site. Accord­ing to agents, they were assured that the protest was non-vio­lent.

(Peru) Despite Promised Reforms, Another Mine Resister Killed in Peru

Peru­vian pol

Peru­vian police are becom­ing noto­ri­ous for using lethal force against pro­test­ers. In this pic­ture, police respond with force to protests which rocked the Ama­zon region in 2009.

Despite gov­ern­ment promis­es of reforms in the way nat­ur­al resource con­ces­sions are han­dled, anoth­er anti-mines pro­test­er has been killed in Peru. This marks the 19th per­son killed in a nat­ur­al resource-relat­ed con­flict since Pres­i­dent Ollan­ta Humala took office in July 2011.

Clash­es between police and pro­test­ers broke out in the Ancash region on Wednes­day Sep. 19, when police tried to break up a block­ade of a road lead­ing to Bar­rick Gold’s Pier­na mine.  Locals blame the mine for con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing their drink­ing water and using up their water sup­ply.

The com­pa­ny tem­porar­i­ly shut down the mine fol­low­ing the killing.

The vio­lence came even as Peru’s Con­gress debates reforms to the way min­ing con­ces­sions are han­dled, includ­ing the cre­ation of a new over­sight body to eval­u­ate min­ing con­ces­sions, sep­a­rate from the agency respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing them.

The gov­ern­ment has also been tout­ing its new pol­i­cy of con­sult­ing with affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties regard­ing oil and gas con­ces­sions in the Ama­zon, but com­mu­ni­ties in resis­tance to such projects have expressed skep­ti­cism about what such con­sul­ta­tion will actu­al­ly mean.

“Which com­mu­ni­ties will be con­sult­ed? What are the terms and con­di­tions? Indige­nous peo­ples need answers to these ques­tions, because there is a great deal of mis­trust,” said con­gress­mem­ber Veróni­ka Men­doz.

“We think it is good that they will hold a con­sul­ta­tion. But how can they rem­e­dy all of the dam­age they have done to us in the last 40 years in just a short time? They need to explain that to us first,” said Achuar indige­nous leader Andrés San­ti, pres­i­dent of the Fed­er­a­tion of Native Com­mu­ni­ties of Cor­ri­entes.

Mining Company and Government Thugs Attack Guatemalan Mine Resisters

On Sep­tem­ber 17 and 18, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers from Mataque­s­cuint­la, Jala­pa and San Rafael Las Flo­res, San­ta Rosa, Guatemala protest­ed against the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of a min­ing project in their com­mu­ni­ties. In response to the first of these protests, provo­ca­teurs attacked both police and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers with stones. In response to a peace­ful block­ade out­side the min­ing site, pro­test­ers were “attacked with­out warn­ing by mem­bers of the mine’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty agency, the Nation­al Civ­il Police and the army, using tear gas can­nons, firearms and rub­ber bul­let guns. Secu­ri­ty agents attacked from inside the mine, with trained attack dogs. The Police cor­nered the unarmed pro­tes­tors, and the army sur­round­ed them, crouched and at the ready. The dis­play of repres­sive force had all the char­ac­ter­is­tics of mil­i­tary counter-insur­gency tac­tics that we had thought belonged to the past, includ­ing the bad inten­tions, bru­tal­i­ty and cow­ardice that so char­ac­ter­ize the tac­tics of the Nation­al Army.”

Fol­low­ing the attack, mil­i­tary heli­copters began fly­ing over the resist­ing com­mu­ni­ties, “like in the old days of the armed con­flict.”

 

Energy Industry Crackdown, Global Protest Frackdown

Yes­ter­day, while Shell announced suing Green­peace Inter­na­tion­al in an attempt to have the orga­ni­za­tion banned from protest with­in 500 meters of any Shell prop­er­ty in the Nether­lands,  New York activist Susan Walk­er was sen­tenced to 15 days in jail after she refused to pay a fine for block­ing the entrance to Iner­gy gas facil­i­ty in New York ear­li­er this month. 

But judges and jails aren’t enough to stop a world-wide move­ment against the ener­gy empire, and today marks the “Glob­al Frack­down” with more than 100 protests against gas frack­ing sched­uled to take place around the world. So get out there in the streets and raise some hell…

Shell sues Greenpeace to block environmental protests in the Arctic

The suit against Green­peace Int’l argued at Amsterdam’s Dis­trict Court Fri­day showed Shell aggres­sive­ly tak­ing the offen­sive to pro­tect its $4.5 bil­lion invest­ment in drilling for oil in the icy Arc­tic waters off the coast of Alas­ka. A ver­dict is not expect­ed for two weeks.

A protest at a Shell gas sta­tion in the Nether­lands — with stuffed polar bear. (AFP/ANP, Mar­cel Antonisse)

Green­peace has protest­ed Arc­tic drilling with oth­er stunts around the world, but the trig­ger for Friday’s law­suit was a Dutch demon­stra­tion on Sept. 14, in which Green­peace pro­test­ers blocked more than 70 Shell gas sta­tions in the Nether­lands for sev­er­al hours, drap­ing ban­ners and clamp­ing gas pump han­dles togeth­er with bike locks.

Fif­teen peo­ple were arrest­ed. Shell has not put for­ward any esti­mate of how much dam­age it suf­fered.

“Because Green­peace Inter­na­tion­al doesn’t oper­ate alone, but is the spi­der in the web of nation­al and local orga­ni­za­tions, our request includes that Green­peace inform its satel­lite orga­ni­za­tions that it no longer sup­ports protests that are sole­ly direct­ed at caus­ing Shell eco­nom­ic dam­age or that bring human lives and the envi­ron­ment in dan­ger,” Shell’s com­plaint said.

Protest backs jailed environmental activist in Inergy Blockade

Joseph Camp­bell, pres­i­dent of Gas Free Seneca, speaks Fri­day out­side the Chemu­ng Coun­ty Jail. He said local res­i­dents turned to civ­il dis­obe­di­ence because their peti­tions, let­ters and attend­ing hear­ings failed to get their voic­es heard on Iner­gy Midstream’s pro­posed stor­age facil­i­ty.

Near­ly 30 peo­ple slammed the ener­gy indus­try out­side the Chemu­ng Coun­ty Jail on Fri­day but praised the Dundee woman held inside for refus­ing to pay a fine for tres­pass­ing at a pro­posed gas stor­age facil­i­ty.

They demon­strat­ed in sup­port of Susan Walk­er, 53, who plead­ed guilty to tres­pass­ing Wednes­day night before Read­ing Town Jus­tice Ray­mond H. Berry and got 15 days in jail after she refused to pay the $275 fine.

“We’re in agree­ment with Susan’s words when she spoke in the cour­t­house, ‘If I were a cor­po­ra­tion, I would not be going to jail,’” said one of four speak­ers, San­dra Ste­in­graber, an Itha­ca Col­lege schol­ar in res­i­dence who co-found­ed the coali­tion New York­ers Against Frack­ing.

Fracking Protests Planned Around The World By GlobalFrackdown Campaign

More than 100 protests against the nat­ur­al gas drilling process known as frack­ing are sched­uled to take place around the world on Sat­ur­day, build­ing on pub­lic con­cerns but also using an over­ly sim­pli­fied mes­sage to spur out­rage.

The Glob­al­Frack­down web­site and cam­paign was devel­oped by Food & Water Watch, a Wash­ing­ton, D.C. non­prof­it that was once part of Ralph Nader’s Pub­lic Cit­i­zen group. The cam­paign claims that frack­ing “has already dam­aged com­mu­ni­ties and ruined lives. It pol­lutes water and makes peo­ple sick.”

(USA) Another Lockdown Against the Keystone Tar Sands Pipeline!

Pro­test­ers locked to equip­ment clearcut­ting forests to make way for the Key­stone tar sands pipeline. Winns­boro, TX, Sep. 19 2012

Tar Sands Block­ade pro­test­ers have locked them­selves to a wood chip­per and skid­der being used to clear-cut trees near Winns­boro, TX to make way for the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline. This is the fourth action to date in the Tar Sands Block­ade cam­paign.

The Tar Sands Block­ade cam­paign is active and ongo­ing. Calls to join the action have been put out both by the main group and by “a small crew of Earth First!ers and eco-anar­chists engaged in tac­ti­cal ele­ments of the larg­er Tar Sands Block­ade cam­paign.”

To find out more, watch this Tar Sands Block­ade action video, and vis­it tarsandsblockade.org and stoptarsands.org.

 

BBC Investigates Opencast Mining

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

A small vil­lage, of just 75 house­holds, is all that may stand between pre­serv­ing large sec­tions of the Eng­lish coun­try­side and the expressed desire of the UK Min­er­al Extrac­tion Indus­try to see more per­mis­sions giv­en to exploit­ing England’s min­er­al resources in areas that are more envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive and / or are clos­er to where peo­ple live.

The unfor­tu­nate vil­lage is Hal­ton Lea Gate, locat­ed on the Cum­bria / Northum­ber­land bor­der and near an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty. A team from the BBC’s Coun­r­ty­file pro­gramme was film­ing there recent­ly to inves­ti­gate why this spot now finds itself on the front line of a nation­al plan­ning con­tro­ver­sy.

 In ear­ly August, after a Pub­lic Inquiry into an Appeal to grant per­mis­sion for an Open­cast Mine, the Inspec­tor found in favour of the Appli­cant. The sting in the tale, for all oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in Eng­land, is the rea­son­ing giv­en by the Inspec­tor to allow the Appeal. His rea­son­ing set a new case law prece­dent, it is argued, which affects all future min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions in Eng­land.

 What the Appli­cant has to repli­cate in the future, is the argu­ment used here: that there is a nation­al need for the min­er­al in ques­tion, in this case coal. If they can per­suade the Plan­ning Author­i­ty (or the Inspec­tor, if the Appli­ca­tion has gone to an Appeal) that this is the case, then ‘great weight’ has to be attached to this claim. So much weight it seems, that this fac­tor alone may over­ride all oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions.  (1)

This sit­u­a­tion has arisen as a con­se­quence of the Gov­ern­ment imple­ment­ing the new Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work. In the time lead­ing up to the 2010 elec­tion, lob­by­ing organ­i­sa­tions such as Coal­pro and the CBI lob­bied long and hard for a relax­ation of the plan­ning rules for min­er­al extrac­tion. (2) It seems, from this exam­ple, the first Pub­lic Inquiry for min­er­al extrac­tion to be held under the new rules, that their efforts have been reward­ed. The advice of the Inspec­tor has now gone to the Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ties and Local Gov­ern­ment to be con­firmed or reject­ed by a Min­is­ter.

The BBC came to inves­ti­gate the issue and explore why local peo­ple have tak­en on the task of rais­ing £40,000 so that they can mount a Judi­cial Review over the deci­sion. If local peo­ple are suc­cess­ful in rais­ing the mon­ey and mount­ing a suc­cess­ful action, they may have pre­vent­ed the flood­gates from open­ing and saved Eng­land from expe­ri­enc­ing a rash of min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions for devel­op­ing swathes of the coun­try­side. This is now a Pub­lic Appeal, and dona­tions can be made payable to The North Pen­nines Pro­tec­tion Group, who have been one of the local groups who have opposed this Appli­ca­tion

An e peti­tion to the Gov­ern­ment has been start­ed about this plan­ning deci­sion and its impli­ca­tion for sim­i­lar plan­ning deci­sions else­where which can be signed by fol­low­ing this link:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/36985

Steve Leary for the Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work com­ment­ed

“ LAON was con­tact­ed by the BBC in the lead up to film­ing for the Coun­try­side pro­gramme. We are delight­ed to be able to coop­er­ate in the mak­ing of the pro­gramme and show why we argue that this is an issue of nation­al impor­tance which will affect oth­er com­mu­ni­ties up and down the Coun­try if the deci­sion is not changed.

We know of five oth­er open­cast mine appli­ca­tions, near Smal­ly in Der­byshire (George Farm) , Kirklees, Sth. York­shire (Dearne Lea), Trow­el in Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm) , Whit­ton­stall in Northum­ber­land ( Hood­sclose) and Gateshead  (Birk­lands) that will be affect­ed by this deci­sion if it stands.

In addi­tion, we are aware of three oth­er sites where a poten­tial appli­cant is mak­ing the final deci­sion to pro­ceed with a full appli­ca­tion in Gateshead,   Mar­ley Hill Recla­ma­tion) , Der­byshire ( Hill Top Project near Clay Cross) and Northum­ber­land  (Fer­neybeds near Wid­dring­ton Sta­tion, Northum­ber­land) which might also be affect­ed.

The issue here though, we believe, goes way beyond open­cast min­ing. It’s about relax­ing the rules around all forms of min­er­al extrac­tion from pits for sand, grav­el and clay to quar­ries for gran­ite and lime­stone to open­cast mines for coal. This is what the indus­try lob­bied for and now, it seems, the Gov­ern­ment has deliv­ered, if it upholds the Inspector’s rec­om­men­da­tion to approve the Appli­ca­tion and the Judi­cial Review fails. We there­fore urge peo­ple every­where, who cher­ish and love our coun­try­side, to sup­port both the peti­tion and the pub­lic appeal for mon­ey to take this case to a Judi­cial Review.”

The Coun­r­ty­file edi­tion of the pro­gramme is to be broad­cast on Sun­day 30th Sep­tem­ber 2012. It will include a 12 minute sec­tion on the Hal­ton Lea Gate issue.

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Ref­er­ences

1)   For more infor­ma­tion on the sig­nif­i­cance of this deci­sion as far as open­cast mine appli­ca­tions are con­cerned see  LAON PR7 here

http://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/2754

2)   Evi­dence about the lob­by­ing to relax these plan­ning rules can be found here.

Brief­ing Note E2 “Ener­gy Pol­i­cy and the Pro­posed Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work,” MOPG 2011  @

http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/mopg-briefing-notes-series.html

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ABOUT LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It  func­tions as a medi­um through to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions through which any per­son / group can com­mu­ni­cate ideas, infor­ma­tion, requests for infor­ma­tion and pos­si­bly con­cert­ed actions if we find a tar­get. In addi­tion feel free to invite any oth­er per­son / group who oppose open­cast min­ing appli­ca­tions, to join the net­work so that it grows. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales, Northum­ber­land, Co Durham, Leeds, Kirklees Not­ting­hamshire, Der­byshire, Leices­ter­shire and Wal­sall.

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

Anti Opencast Coal March in Clay Cross

A march is tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber to show the strength of oppo­si­tion to any pro­pos­al to seek to open­cast mine on the Hill­top Project site. For more info see

http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/events/2774

A march is tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber to show the strength of oppo­si­tion to any pro­pos­al to seek to open­cast mine on the Hill­top Project site. For more info see

http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/events/2774

(India) Police Kill Anti-Nuke Protester in India, Resistance Continues to Grow

A group of fish­er­folk stag­ing “jal satya­gra­ha” in the sea, against the Kudanku­lam nuclear pow­er project at Veer­a­pan­di­an­pat­ti­nam coast in Tuti­corin dis­trict on Fri­day. (Pho­to: N.Rajesh)

Despite the killing of an anti-nuclear pro­test­er by police on Mon­day, hun­dreds of pro­test­ers form­ing a human chain stood in sea waters today, for the sec­ond day in a row, demand­ing a halt to prepa­ra­tions for fuel load­ing into the reac­tor of Kudanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Project (KKNPP) in Tuti­corin dis­trict.

The Hindu.com report­ed that women and men would stand in the sea waters for two hours in turns. Push­parayan, leader of the People’s Move­ment Against Nuclear Ener­gy (PMANE) has been spear­head­ing the year-long agi­ta­tion.

Indi­an police offi­cers detain a pro­tes­tor after they baton charged res­i­dents protest­ing against the Russ­ian built Kudamku­lam nuclear plant on the Bay of Ben­gal coast at Kudamku­lam, Tamil Nadu state, India, Mon­day, Sept. 10, 2012. (AP Pho­to)

The Coast Guard air­craft and ships main­tained sur­veil­lance at sea off near­by Idinthakarai as the vil­lagers stood in waist and neck deep water.

Tak­ing cue from a sim­i­lar protest demand­ing land as com­pen­sa­tion and reduc­tion of Omkaresh­war Dam recent­ly by vil­lagers of Khand­wa dis­trict in Mad­hya Pradesh, PMANE launched their jal satya­gra­ha (water civ­il dis­obe­di­ence) on Thurs­day, mark­ing a new turn in their agi­ta­tion, which was inten­si­fied after prepa­ra­tions for fuel load­ing into the plant was announced.

More than 4,000 police per­son­nel, bol­stered by the para­mil­i­tary Rapid Action Force, con­tin­ued to main­tain a strict vig­il, hav­ing almost sealed the entire Kudanku­lam town.

Mean­while, police have been seek­ing to arrest S.P. Udayaku­mar, the con­ven­er of PMANE, in attempt to quell the protests. They have already arrest­ed a close asso­ciate of Udayaku­mar in Chen­nai last week for try­ing to “insti­gate” the fish­er­men to join the stir against Nuclear Pow­er Project.

Mr. Udayaku­mar had alleged­ly announced that he would sur­ren­der on Tues­day night, but seems to have changed his mind.  Police said they would con­tin­ue their search.

Ear­li­er this week, state offi­cials say Indi­an police fired at pro­test­ers near this nuclear pow­er plant being con­struct­ed in south­ern India, killing one per­son.

The Tamil Nadu state gov­ern­ment says police fired Mon­day to dis­perse about 2,000 peo­ple who were demon­strat­ing against the load­ing of nuclear fuel in the Russ­ian-built reac­tor. It says the pro­test­ers threw stones and sticks at police near the Kudanku­lam Project, and five offi­cers were injured.

Con­struc­tion of the plant has been delayed by protests in the past year by res­i­dents and anti-nuclear groups con­cerned about safe­ty fol­low­ing the Fukushi­ma nuclear pow­er plant dis­as­ter in Japan last year.

The gov­ern­ment says the plant, about 700 kilo­me­ters (440 miles) south of Chen­nai, the state cap­i­tal, will meet safe­ty stan­dards.

The fol­low­ing video shows recent cov­er­age of the jal satya­gra­ha actions against hydro­elec­tric dams which have become an inspi­ra­tion to move­ments through­out the region: