by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 14, 2012 | Lobbying, Mining & Drilling
By Mirel Bran, Guardian Weekly
Shukri Hussein was only 23 when he first bought some land, with a friend, to start a farm at Praventsi, a village close to Novi Pazar, in north-east Bulgaria. Ten years later the biology graduate heads a 110-hectare organic farm with a workforce of 35.
He was pleased with what he had achieved and had no intention of letting anyone spoil his dream. At the beginning of January he joined thousands of others to protest against plans to explore the huge shale-gas reserves in his region. Their efforts were crowned with success. In June last year the Bulgarian government had granted a permit to the US firm Chevron to prospect across 4,400 sq km around Novi Pazar.
But in January parliament withdraw the permit issued to Chevron, and also decided to ban exploration of shale-gas reserves using the controversial hydraulic-fracturing (fracking) technique.
MPs cited as a precedent a French ban enacted last July, as Bulgaria became only the second state to ban the procedure.
The government had hoped that the new energy source would reduce the nation’s almost complete dependence on imported Russian gas, supplied by Gazprom. Bulgarian shale-gas reserves are estimated to amount to at least 300bn cubic metres, according to the economy and energy ministry.
“To begin with everyone was really enthusiastic,” says Hussein. “We thought we’d get rich overnight. But when I realised the hazards this technology entails I was very concerned. I’ve worked hard for the past 10 years to build up the farm. If they start drilling for shale gas I’ll lose everything.”
Bulgaria’s reserves are several thousands of metres deep. Injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to fracture the bedrock and release the gas involves a serious risk of groundwater contamination.
The risk is particularly serious in the Novi Pazar area, due to its particular geology. But looking further afield, fracking could affect the whole of the north-eastern Dobrudja region. “We were promised lots of jobs and other miracles,” says Vessko Dimov, a dental surgeon from Novi Pazar who launched the anti-fracking protest movement. “But when we woke up to the hazards involved we decided to oppose the project.”A petition collected 15,000 signatures in a month and, much to the protesters’ surprise, several councils in the area decided to oppose fracking.
The campaign spread to Veliki Preslaz, a small town about 40km southeast of Novi Pazar. This historic stronghold is a tourist attraction and feared that trade might suffer.
From 893 to 972 the town was the Bulgarian empire’s second capital and the ruins of the old citadel are testimony to its past splendour. “The travel trade is vital for our town,” says the leader of the local council Aleksandar Gorchev, elected three months ago. “Shale-gas exploitation is a real danger for us. Everyone would be OK if this technology did not pose any problems, but that’s not the case.”
In mid-January the anti-fracking demonstrations spread to the capital Sofia and a dozen other towns across Bulgaria. “I have to admit that at first, I didn’t believe we could do it,” says Hussein. “It’s a big victory for us. In Dubai, they spend a fortune to make the desert inhabitable, whereas here in Europe we have everything we need. We don’t want to turn it into a desert.”
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/14/bulgaria-bans-shale-gas-exploration
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 12, 2012 | Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Agence France-Presse
Thousands demonstrated in Tokyo on Saturday against nuclear power generation, 11 months after a massive earthquake and tsunami sparked reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Kenzaburo Oe, the 1994 Nobel prize winner for literature, told a central rally at Yoyogi Park, “Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants will be borne by generations to come.”
“This must not be condoned by human beings. It is against ethics,” the 77-year-old novelist said.
The rally was attended by 12,000 people, according to its organisers. Police estimated the turnout at around 7,000.
The March 11 quake-tsunami disaster left more than 19,000 dead or missing and sparked the Fukushima crisis, the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, on Japan’s northeast coast.
Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes around the plant, located some 220 kilometres (140 miles) northeast of Tokyo, as radiation levels rocketed, with many not knowing when and if they will be allowed to return.
The vast majority of Japan’s 54 commercial nuclear reactors are offline because popular opposition has prevented them being restarted in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
Japanese actor Taro Yamamoto, who has allegedly lost acting opportunities for his anti-nuclear advocacy, told the rally: “Our country will cease to exist if there is another big earthquake.”
“To prevent our country from ceasing to exist, we shall not allow nuclear plants to be reactivated.”
A similar rally, smaller in size, was also reportedly staged in Niigata prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast dotted with nuclear plants.
After the Tokyo rally, the protesters marched down the streets of Shibuya, one of Tokyo’s major shopping and entertainment districts.
They chanted slogans and held placards reading such messages as “Sayonora to nuclear plants,” “Have the courage to say no nukes” and “Another accident will occur if nuclear plants are reactivated.”
From The Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/11/thousands-rally-against-nuclear-power-in-japan/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 12, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Barbara Fraser / Indian Country Today
A caravan of about 700 people from Peru’s northern Cajamarca region arrived in Lima, the capital, on February 9, at the end of a nine-day journey to protest a mine they said would destroy key watersheds.
“We want the president to say that there won’t be mining at the tops of watersheds,” said Jaime Lozana Infante, 38, of the community of Huasmín, near the site of the Congas mine. Congas is a project of Yanacocha, a mining company consisting of Colorado-based Newmont Mining Corporation, Peru’s Compañía Minera Buenaventura and the International Finance Corporation.
The gold and copper mine would destroy four lakes and a high-altitude wetland at the top of three watersheds that drain toward the Amazon River. Plans call for the company to replace the lakes with reservoirs of equal or greater capacity, but small farmers in the area fear the mine will dry up the water supply for their crops and livestock.
Cajamarca, where the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro murdered the Inca chief Atahualpa and launched his conquest of the Inca Empire, is known for its cheeses and other dairy products.
The Peruvian government approved the environmental impact study for the Conga mine in late 2010 and construction was to begin in October 2011. When heavy machinery moved in, however, local communities began to protest.
President Ollanta Humala, who had been in office just three months, sent Cabinet ministers to negotiate, but residents called a regional strike and blocked highways. The government declared a state of emergency and sent some 3,000 troops and police to Cajamarca. Escalation of the conflict finally forced the entire Cabinet to resign in early December, and the mining company put its plans on hold temporarily.
Although the government agreed to order an outside review of plans for the mine, it also said the country cannot afford to halt the $4.8 billion project. Several protesters said they felt betrayed by President Ollanta Humala, who campaigned in Cajamarca on a platform of “water before gold” before he was elected in July 2011, with strong backing from voters in Cajamarca and other rural areas.
“Ollanta’s message was the one the people had hoped for,” Lozana said. “He took advantage of us. He’s not keeping his promise.”
The conflict over Conga is the latest in a series of battles pitting mining companies against rural communities – most of them indigenous – in Peru they worry that the mines will pollute rivers and dry up lakes and springs.
Of 223 conflicts registered in the country in December 2011, more than half involved environmental issues, according to the government Ombudsman’s Office. Cajamarca was the scene of seven environmental conflicts, including Conga.
This is not the first time communities have confronted mining companies in the region, where Yanacocha, the largest gold mine in South America, opened in 1993. Protests stopped a planned expansion of Yanacocha to a hill known as Quillish in 2004.
Although the Conga mine’s environmental impact study was approved in 2010, protesters said they did not have enough opportunity to question the project or give input, and their communities lacked the expertise to examine the thousands of pages of technical information in the three months allowed.
Critics say the study lacks detailed hydrological and geochemical data and underestimates the impact of the mine on rivers and wetlands.
Protesters also said there was no prior consultation about the project, a requirement under International Labor Organization Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples.
Read more from Indian Country Today:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 11, 2012 | Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Russia Today
Traditionally known as F*ckFBIFriday, this weekend’s eve turned into F*ckCIAFriday, as hacktivists downed the official website for the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States cia.gov.
At approximately 3:10 p.m. Eastern time one of twitter accounts related to the hackers’ group announced “cia.gov DOWN. #UMAD?#Anonymous.”
The CIA website became the latest victim in a series of attacks conducted by the elusive group of hackers against US law enforcement agencies and copyright holders. As RT reported earlier, Anonymous took credit for crashing the websites of the US Department of Homeland Security, which was quickly revived, and the FBI.
The CIA seems to be less prepared for fighting Anonymous than other agencies. If the work of dhs.gov was revived in mere minutes, the CIA’s site was still down even hours after the attack. One of the twitter accounts affiliated with Anonymous explained the reasons of the attack: “We do it for the lulz,” referring to the popular online abbreviation “for laughs.”
In previous occasions Anonymous has orchestrated humiliating assaults with massive distributed denial of services attacks.
The technique also known as a DDoS, is a concentrated effort by multiple individuals to make a network busy to its intended users. The end results in a server overload
Even though DDoS attacks are a violation of the Internet Architecture Boards’s proper use policy, it has become an effective tool for Anonymous to spread online mayhem.
Read more from Russia Today:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 11, 2012 | Agriculture, Lobbying
By Julia Moskin / The New York Times News Service
Silent in flannel shirts and ponytails, farmers from Saskatchewan and South Dakota, Mississippi and Massachusetts lined the walls of a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan last week, as their lawyers told a judge that they were no longer able to keep genetically modified crops from their fields.
The hearing is part of a debate that is coming to life around the country, in courtrooms and Occupy sites, in boardrooms and online, with new petitions, ballot initiatives and lawsuits from California to Maine.
Last year, according to the Department of Agriculture, about 90 percent of all soybeans, corn, canola and sugar beets raised in the United States were grown from what scientists now call transgenic seed. Most processed foods (staples like breakfast cereal, granola bars, chicken nuggets and salad dressing) contain one or more transgenic ingredients, according to estimates from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, though the labels don’t reveal that. (Some, like tortilla chips, can contain dozens.)
Common ingredients like corn, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, soy protein, lecithin, monosodium glutamate, cornstarch, yeast extract, sugar and corn syrup are almost always produced from transgenic crops.
No known health risks are associated with eating transgenic foods (though many scientists say it is too soon to assess the effects), and the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as safe.
But consumer resistance to transgenic food remains high. In a nationwide telephone poll conducted in October 2010 by Thomson Reuters and National Public Radio, 93 percent said if a food has been genetically engineered or has genetically engineered ingredients, it should say so on its label – a number that has been consistent since genetically modified crops were introduced. F.D.A. guidelines say that food that contains genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.’s, don’t have to say so and can still be labeled “all natural.”
In California, voters in November will decide on a ballot initiative requiring the labeling of such foods. In October, an online campaign called Just Label It began collecting signatures and comments on a petition to the F.D.A., requesting rules similar to those in the European Union, Japan, China, India and Australia, stating what transgenic food is in the package. (For example, an ingredients list might say “genetically engineered corn” instead of just “corn.”) Six hundred thousand Americans have commented, according to the group.
“You don’t have to be a technophobe or think corporations are evil to not want G.M.O.’s in your food,” said Ashley Russell, a college student who attended a rally sponsored by Food Democracy Now after the Manhattan court hearing.
Read more at TruthOut:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 10, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying, Mining & Drilling
By Tanya Talaga / Toronto Star
When members of Wahgoshig First Nation spotted a drilling crew on what they say is a sacred burial site, they demanded to know who the strangers were and what they were doing.
The Wahgoshig, whose Algonquin reserve of 19,239 acres is 113 km east of Timmins, running south from Lake Abitibi near the Quebec border, say they were met with silence.
But what was happening on the land was anything but silent, according to court records.
The prospecting work involves clearing 25 sq. metre pads, clearing forest, bulldozing access routes to the drilling sites and the transportation and storage of fuel and equipment.
The workers were with Solid Gold Resources Inc., a junior mining firm that has a 200-square-kilometre prospect at Lake Abitibi near the Porcupine Fault zone. The land they were on, says Wahgoshig band chief David Babin, is not part of the reserve itself but does include the traditional lands the Algonquins have lived on for thousands of years.
“Through history, Wahgoshig First Nation had developed homes around Lake Abitibi. When we died, we buried our people around the rivers and lakes — we didn’t have cemeteries,” Babin says.
Wahgoshig, a community of 250 people, protested to the Ontario government, which in turn told Solid Gold on Nov. 8, 2011, that before any more drilling occurs they must adequately consult with the band.
Solid Gold responded by bringing in a second drilling rig, court documents say.
Last month, Ontario Judge Carole Brown ordered Solid Gold to stop its activity on the site for 120 days. The injunction expires in May. Brown ordered Solid Gold and the government to use that time to properly consult and accommodate the concerns of Wahgoshig.
The ruling has implications for other resource projects on First Nations traditional land — including the $5.5 billion Northern Gateway Pipeline, a high-stakes bid to ship Alberta tar sands oil to China via a new pipeline across B.C. to the coast.
Many B.C. aboriginal groups are lined up against that pipeline. Last Saturday, 600 people took to the streets in Prince Rupert to support Hartley Bay First Nation’s opposition to oil tankers coming in to their coastal community near Kitimat, the proposed destination of the pipeline.
Judge Brown ruled she is mindful of Wahgoshig’s position that refusing to enjoin Solid Gold from its drilling will “send a message that aboriginal and treaty rights, including the rights to consultation and accommodation, can be ignored by exploration companies, rendering the First Nations’ constitutionally recognized rights meaningless.”
“This would not be in the public interest. It is in the public interest to ensure the Constitution is honoured and respected,” she wrote.
Solid Gold is seeking leave to appeal the decision. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 29 at divisional court in Toronto.
Read more from the Toronto Star here: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1129591–ontario-first-nation-wins-injunction-to-stop-gold-drilling
