Flagstaff Community Members Begin Hunger Strike for Protection of the San Francisco Peaks

FLAGSTAFF, AZ – Two young Flagstaffians announced the beginning of a hunger strike to call attention to human rights violations sanctioned by the US Forest Service and perpetrated by Arizona Snowbowl and the City of Flagstaff on Tuesday, June 5, 2012 at a Flagstaff City Council meeting. The announcement was made to current council members and mayor as well as incoming council members.

 “We will begin our hunger strike today and continue until we have justice,” stated Jessica Beasley. “We are calling for community members to join us in our struggle for freedom and equality. We will be attending Flagstaff City Council meetings and encourage others to attend as well, until our voices are meaningfully heard. We hope that other concerned individuals will also join us on the lawn at Flagstaff City Hall to publicly protest the aforementioned human rights violations.”

 The hunger strikers are also urging everyone who cares about the desecration and destruction of the San Francisco Peaks to call or write Flagstaff City Officials and the US Forest Service to make their complaints known.

 

The statement read at the city council meeting is presented below in its entirety:

Anti-Mining Protests in Peru Surge, Mayor Arrested

Compiled & Composed by Britni

Peruvian riot police clad with helmets and plastic shields charged in to the municipal building in Espinar, Peru on Wednesday  to arrest mayor Oscar Mollohuanca in his office for leading a protest against Swiss-based global mining company Xstrata. This is President Ollanta Humala’s latest attempt to end conflicts over natural resources in favor of mining investments. The recent protests against expanding the mining projects in Peru are part of an ongoing struggle and the climate of unrest surges.

Anti-mining protests against the Peruvian government’s latest plan to expand the profits from Xstrata has highlighted Peru’s class divide. In a conflict of interest, thousands of city-dwelling Peruvians who have profited from the violent extraction of resources resulting in a commodities boom in the past decade marched in support of the country’s largest-ever $50 billion mining project on Tuesday. Meanwhile, 60 percent of rural Peruvians are poverty-stricken, and many involved in similar mining projects are injured or dead.

North Carolina Pledges Action Against Fracking

On May 19th, roughly 200 people gathered in Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, to participate in a colorful march organized by Croatan Earth First! on Occupy Well Street’s Day of Action Against Extraction. Protesters marched through downtown with giant puppets, emulating earth spirits and elements, and arrived at the legislature where they plan to legalize fracking in the next coming months. After a talk about the importance of civil disobedience and direct action, hundreds of people recited a pledge of resistance outside the legislature promising to personally take action to stop hydraulic fracturing if it’s legalized. A sermon for the water was delivered as a coffin filled with water was presented to the legislature. A wide range of people and organizations participated in the march including Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Cumnock Preservation Association and Raleigh Occupy. Speeches were given by NC WARN, a representative of Red Hat, the Neuse Riverkeeper, W.A.L.L of Anson County, and Clean Water for North Carolina. Banners read, “No Jobs On A Dead Planet,” “Don’t Frack North Carolina – Earth First!,” and “We Can’t Drink Money.” Croatan Earth First! is planning to organize a direct action training camp in late summer to prepare if hydrofracking is legalized in the state.

For more photos and video see: http://www.croatanearthfirst.com

Anti-Loggers Held Back by Officials

Forestry Administration officials reportedly blocked vehicles in three provinces from travelling to Koh Kong town yesterday on their way to the site where prominent environmental activist Chut Wutty was shot last month.

Activists arrive last night at the Wat Thmei pagoda in Koh Kong town, where they planned to stay the night before proceeding today to the area where activist Chut Wutty was shot last month. Photograph: May Titthara/Phnom Penh Post

But hundreds of others from six provinces in a convoy of 27 vans made it to the provincial capital where they were to spend the night at Wat Thmey then travel to Mondul Seima district’s Bak Khlang commune today for a ceremony for Chut Wutty at Veal Bei point.

Chhim Savuth, a co-ordinator for public forums at the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said villagers travelling from Koh Kong, Kampong Speu and Stung Treng provinces were all blocked.

“It is an illegal action and a violation of human rights,” he said.

In Kampong Thom, Forestry Administration officials forced about 50 villagers travelling to join the convoy to get out of their vans and made them thumbprint a report.

“The [Forestry Administration] authorities should support villagers, because they are opposing illegal logging,”

Climate Activists Disrupt UK Energy Summit

cross posted from IndyMedia UK

Borisaurus Rex – Fossil Free Future

On May 3rd,  hundreds of protesters from climate and anti-cuts groups across the country teamed up to block the UK Energy Summit in the City of London. [1] They descended on the conference venue at 11.45 am, saying they intended to remain there to disrupt the UK Energy Summit. At least 300 protesters targeted all of the main entrances to the Summit venue, attempting to push past police to enter the conference.
The UK Energy Summit [2] involves CEOs of the Big Six energy companies, who have recently come under widespread criticism for drawing in record profits whilst one quarter of UK households have been pushed into fuel poverty. [3] The event took place at The Grange Hotel, near St Paul’s Cathedral.

The protest congregated at four locations before descending on the summit: Tate Modern, St Paul’s, City Thameslink and Canon St. En route to the summit venue, protesters used “any means necessary” to get their message out by using stickers, chalk and noise to draw attention to the protest. Once they arrived at The Grange Hotel, they attempted to enter the hotel building with banners and giant model dinosaurs as a reference to the outdated “dinosaur technology” of fossil fuels. Reports have been of police violence when at least two people were arrested, with one protester possibly knocked unconscious by police.

B.C. Economist Blocks Coal Trains In White Rock

Demonstrators gathered on the tracks where coal trains pass on a regular basis. About a dozen protesters, including one of Canada’s leading energy-environment economists, were arrested Saturday after setting up a blockade on train tracks in White Rock, B.C., aimed at stopping U.S. coal trains from reaching local ports.

About a dozen protesters, including one of Canada’s leading energy-environment economists, were arrested Saturday after setting up a blockade on train tracks in White Rock, B.C., aimed at stopping U.S. coal trains from reaching local ports.

Mark Jaccard, a professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was arrested along with several others late Saturday evening following a day-long protest in the 15000 block of Marine Drive.

“Thirteen protesters were arrested without incident and were respectful of the police and the process that was … a result of their actions,” said RCMP Sgt. Peter Thiessen.

The protesters, 12 men and one woman, were each served with a $115-ticket for trespassing under the Railway Safety Act. All were subsequently released from police custody.

In a written statement released before the protest, Jaccard said he was prepared to be arrested.

“Putting myself in a situation where I may be accused of civil disobedience is not something I have ever done before,” he said.

“But the current willingness of especially our federal government to brazenly take actions that ensure we cannot meet scientifically and economically sound greenhouse gas reduction targets for Canada and the planet leaves me with no alternative.”

To read full article go to source as cross-posted from here

See related article here

Bulgarians Protest Nuclear Power Ahead of Fukushima Anniversary

A man with a mask carrying the commonly known symbol for radioactivity joins a demonstration in Sofia, Bulgaria, 09 March 2012. EPA/BGNES

Members of several environmental organizations gathered in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia for a silent protest to mark the upcoming first anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The environmentalists gathered in front of the country’s Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism, stating that nucleart energy is dangerous and that the Bulgarian government should focus on developing renewable energy instead.

“We do not need Belene, neither do we need nuclear energy,” a protester has told dariknews.bg, referring to the Belene nuclear power plant project that could be pootentially fulfilled.

“The alternative is renewable energy, which is many times safer and causes extremely little damage – and which would allow us to achieve something vital: energy independence for the country and for households.

Bulgaria has been haggling with Russia’s state corporation Rosatom and its subsidiary Atomstroyexport for the price of the 2000 MW Belene NPP – and for other issues – for years.

After it was first started in the 1980s, the construction of Bulgaria’s second nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube was stopped in the early 1990s over lack of money and environmental protests. In 2008, former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev gave a formal restart of the building of Belene.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan was struck by the 11 March 2011 magnitude-9 earthquake and resulting tsunami, which knocked out power and was leading to the failure of its cooling systems. After fires and explosions, large amounts of radioactivity were spewed into the environment.

See source as cross-posted from here

Five Lakota Arrested for Forming Blockade on Pine Ridge Reservation

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Challenges.

PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION – Five Lakota were arrested Monday evening in Wanblee, South Dakota when they formed a blockade to halt a convoy of trucks going through the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

At issue was there were two trucks that appeared to be hauling pipes through the reservation on their way to Canada. The new trucks that were delivered in Texas from South Korea were carrying pipes used for tar sands pipeline. Totran Transportation Services, Inc., a Canadian company apparently wanted to avoid paying the state of South Dakota $50,000 per truck or $100,000 to use its state highways. Instead Totran Transportation thought they would use the roads on the reservation. Some 75 Lakota thought otherwise.

The two trucks marked “oversize load” on them had in its convoy several pick up vehicles that were first spotted on the reservation in the late afternoon.

Once alerted about the convoy and its whereabouts, Alex and Debra White Plume decided to go and stop it. They were joined by others who formed a human blockade

Activists Detained Over Reef Protest

Great Barrier Reef

Police detained several environmental activists after they painted a sign on the side of a coal ship in Gladstone Harbour in central Queensland, Australia, saying the Great Barrier Reef is in danger.

About a dozen Anti-Coal activists led by Greenpeace staged a protest at Gladstone Harbour this morning.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Julie Macken says the activists used two boats to paint the message, “the reef is in danger” on the side of a coal ship.

Police took some of the protesters away in cars this morning.

A United Nations mission visited Gladstone today to assess the impact of gas and port developments on the reef. They declared a federal government claim that coal seam gas developments would have minimal impact on the Great Barrier Reef “may be untrue.”

Representatives from the organization will spend the next nine days visiting the reef

Groups gather at Mendiola to protest mining

MANILA, Philippines – Environmental and militant groups gathered at Mendiola near Malacañang on Saturday to kick off an “intensified” campaign against mining in the country.

The Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment is calling for a moratorium on all mining applications of foreign companies.

“We call for a moratorium on applications and operations on all foreign, large-scale, magnetite and offshore mining transnational corporations. This must stand until we are able to put in place a pro-people, pro-environment mining law,” said Clemente Bautista, the group’s national coordinator.

Militant group Bayan, for its part, is urging the government to repeal the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 as the law marks its 17th anniversary today.

Saying the current mining policy is a “bankrupt economic policy,” Bayan said the government should pursue a nationalist and pro-people policy and that mining should be geared toward meeting people’s domestic needs rather than private profit margins and global market demands.

“It is time that we assert our national interest and sovereignty. It is time we put domestic needs and environmental protection at the forefront of profits. It is time we junk the Mining Act of 1995,” it said.

The protest comes after a big mining conference in Makati City on Friday where stakeholders presented their views about the impact of the industry on economy and environment.

For full article see source as cross-posted from here