Sussex Police Arrest Balcombe Oil Drill Protesters

from BBC News

England—Up to 10 arrests were made and the main gate has been cleared at the site near Balcombe, West Sussex.

Cuadrilla has been given permission to drill a 3,000ft (914m) well and 2,500ft (762m) horizontal bore.

Campaigners fear the firm could also carry out hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Cuadrilla said any further activity would need fresh permission.

About 75 police officers were involved in the operation to make arrests on Friday, BBC reporter Mark Sanders said.

The blockade started on Thursday with about 100 protesters at the site.

Sabotage of Nuclear Train in France

by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! News

A fishplate similar to the one reportedly removed by an anti-nuclear group to derail a train earlier in July.

An unknown anti-nuclear group has taken credit for a July 12 act of sabotage that derailed a train transporting nuclear waste in the French city of Limoges.  French police are currently conducting an investigation. 

According to the regional newspaper Le Populaire du Centre, they received an email claiming responsibility. The paper also explained that a steel plate, known as a fishplate, was unbolted from the tracks, the track was lifted and the rail crossings were dislodged.

The derailment took place in the morning on a stretch of track used exclusively by nuclear giant Areva to transport nuclear waste.

The Areva train shot off the rails more than 200 ft. Neither of the two rail-workers aboard were injured.

Climate Change Could Wipe Out Amazing Baobab Trees in Madagascar

Photo: Baobab trees over water by Rita Willaert.

by John R. Platt / The Scientific American

The Ewe people of Togo, Africa, have a proverb: “Wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it.” The proverb refers to the massive trees of the genus Adansonia that can live thousands of years, reach 30 meters into the sky and achieve trunk diameters of 10 meters or more. One baobab tree in South Africa is so large that a popular pub has been established inside its trunk. Many local cultures consider baobab trees to be sacred. Others use them for their nutritious fruits, edible leaves and beautiful flowers. In addition, old baobabs, like many long-lived trees, often have natural hollows in their trunks, which in their case can store tens of thousands of gallons of water—an important resource not just for the trees themselves but also for the people who live near them.

Drone Demonology: Flying Robots, Cop Mustaches & Resistance in the End Times

by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! News

The first time I ever saw a drone I was sweating my ass off, hiking jugs of water through a cactus forest to drop in remote canyons for famished migrants making the deadly trek through the Sonoran desert. U.S. Customs and Border Protection surveillance drones patrol the skies along the border with Mexico on the daily. Like any good activist I gave the drone the bird and then quickly ducked beneath a cholla, which I don’t advise doing, as it is a cactus with a reputation.

Two 10,000-pound Predator-B border patrol drones. These are the fellas that patrol the borderlands, from Yuma, Ariz., to Brownsville, Tex.

Since his inauguration, noble peace prize winning president Barack Obama has increased the U.S. military’s use of drones and rewritten the rules of engagement in over a dozen countries around the world. Hundreds of civilians, including swaths of children and several dozen Al Qaeda operatives have been eviscerated by remote. Even four U.S. citizens have been assassinated by drones, violating due process and habeas corpus protections in the U.S. constitution. Reports put the ratio of civilians to “suspected terrorists” killed by drone strikes at about 50 to 1, meaning roughly 98% of the deaths are “collateral damage.”    

Community Justice vs. Minas Conga Mine

Local indigenous farmers on horseback form part of a protest against the Minas Conga gold mine, June 17, 2013

From Root Force:

A recent Reuters article examines the role that community justice institutions have played in the struggle against the Minas Conga mine in Peru, which would be the country’s largest gold mine. The indigenous- and peasant-led resistance movement has already led to the project being placed on hold once and the President’s cabinet being reshuffled twice.

Although the article quotes several people who are obviously deeply uncomfortable with the traditional, indigenous-influenced rondero justice model due to its failure to place all authority in the hands of the state, it obviously strives to paint a fair picture. The article seems relevant not just for its relation to the Minas Conga struggle in particular, but also for expanding our frame of reference in regard to models of community justice and organizing.

For those of you who are skimmers, don’t deprive yourself of the pleasure of the article’s concluding quote:

Ronderos in Cajamarca say they stopped carrying guns years ago. Punishments they mete out draw on traditional Andean practices, ranging from push-ups to lashings with cow whips. [NOTE:  Peruvian cow whips are thick, not thin like the “Indiana Jones”-style whip that is designed to draw blood. Not that it necessarily feels good to be hit with one. —Root Force]

One of the most severe sentences is the “rondero chain” that requires offenders to toil in fields by day and parade barefoot through frigid villages by night, some ronderos said. It can go on for days or weeks as people are handed off from one village squad to another.

Referring to Mines and Energy Minister Jorge Merino, a laughing Ponce said: “We would make Merino carry out a rondero chain for three or four months. [Peruvian President Ollanta] Humala would get six months.”

Peru peasant squads rally against U.S. firm’s $5 billion gold mine

(Reuters) – Forty years ago, peasants in rural Peru banded together as “ronderos” – Spanish for “people who make the rounds” – to curb cattle rustling.

Today, squads of these ronderos are working toward a different aim – thwarting an American mining company’s planned $5 billion gold mining project that they contend would spoil lakes vital to the local population high in the Andes.

49 Acts of Powerline Sabotage, 19 Acts of Oil Pipeline Sabotage in Last Six Months

by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! News

Smoke rises over a recent pipeline attack in Marib governorate, a tribal region in Yemen.

According to compiled reports from the Yemen Times  over 60 acts of industrial sabotage have taken place since January within the tribal area of the Marib governorate in Yemen, cutting power to Sana’a, the nation’s capital 170 miles to the east, and crippling the government’s oil and gas infrastructure. Oil and gas revenue provides 70 percent of the state’s budget.    

Colombian Military Massacres Peasants in Oil-and-Coal Related Protests

Police violently disperse unarmed peasant protesters in Catatumbo, Colombia, Jun 2013 (photo by Telesur)

from Root Force

The Colombian military has killed at least four peasant protesters in the region of Catatumbo, wounded dozens more (including 21 gunshot wounds) and arrested hundreds.

From Alliance for Global Justice:

In Catatumba, peasants have been holding protests, blocking roads and occupying facilities to protest to the government’s chemical spraying of Monsanto’s RoundUp Ultra herbicide as part of coca eradication efforts; and the refusal of the government to establish a Peasant Reserve Zone, as authorized by legislation in 1994 and 1996. That legislation would provide protected land for collective farming. Protesters say that they are being denied this in favor of concessions made to foreign coal [and oil] companies.

Learn more about the background of the protests here, then send a letter to Colombian officials demanding an end to the  violence.

Trans Mountain Pipeline Shut Down After Second Leak In One Month

Canadian Press

HOPE, B.C. — Another leak has been detected along Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline which crosses southern British Columbia carrying petroleum products from Alberta.

Kinder Morgan spokesman Andy Galarnyk confirms the line has been shut down as a precaution after a company crew noticed a problem in the Hope area, about 150 kilometres east of Vancouver.

Galarnyk says regulatory agencies and local authorities have been notified and the company is following the same procedures used on June 12 when a small leak occurred near Merritt, about 120 kilometres north of Hope.

Fracking Equipment Set Ablaze in Elsipogtog

Shot-hole driller ablaze down the Bass River road. [Photo: Miles Howe]

by Earth First! News

Halifax Media Co-op reports that a piece of drilling equipment was set ablaze on the 24th, by person or persons unknown.  This comes amidst escalating resistance to hydraulic fracturing by indigenous peoples in Elsipogtog, “New Brunswick”.

This comes after numerous direct actions, the midnight seizure of drilling equipment, and a local man being struck by a contractor’s vehicle.

Swamp Line 9 Locks Down and Rallies After Receiving Injunction

At the front gate. #SwampLine9 #SovSummer #tarsands #pipelines #NoLine9 #IdleNoMore (at Enbridge Westover Station)

After 5 days of stopping work on Line 9 at Enbridge’s Westover pump station, the Swamp Line 9 camp has been served an injunction. In response to this legal maneuvre by Enbridge, protestors on the site have locked themselves to the gates of the pump station. Other protestors are rallying across the street, in front of Enbridge’s Westover Terminal, to continue demanding that tar sands oil not be shipped through our communities. They invite their allies and the public to join them there this morning in solidarity.