Yahoo!7 News

Yahoo!7 News: A group of protesters on board a Shell-contracted oil-drilling ship in Taranaki, New Zealand, are preparing for a third night on board but their water is running low.

The protesters, including TV actor Lucy Lawless, boarded the Arctic-bound Noble Discoverer and scaled the 53m drilling tower on Friday morning, using locks on the access ladder to barricade themselves on the derrick.

The group of six had a cold and uncomfortable night on Saturday with loud music blasting at 3am and spotlights shining on them all night, Greenpeace New Zealand says on its website.

"They're hungry, and water rations are low."

Ms Lawless, who played Xena the Warrior Princes, says she had some dark thoughts before dawn.

"You think is anybody listening? Is anybody out there? Does anybody even care about this like we do? So, you just don't know, but you've got to do what you believe is right."

The group were preparing to spend a third night on the ship and plan to stay as long as they can, a Greenpeace spokeswoman told NZ Newswire on Sunday.

They had taken supplies to last several days.

Activist Injured by Police Negligence

MEDIA RELEASE
23-02-2012

Forest Rescue activist Glen Pendlebury underwent surgery this morning after police badly injured his hands by slicing through his thumbs while unlocking him from logging machinery in Warrup forest.

Pendlebury, who attracted recent media attention after boarding Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru 2, received numerous stitches to both hands. His tendons were cut and bone chipped from a police extraction procedure that went horribly wrong.
Forest Rescue are alarmed that in their haste to get Glen off police used the unprecedented method of a drill-press over safe and established procedures. “The police have seen and extracted dozens of protestors from this type of lock-on before, and for them to use this new method came as a shock to us all” said Forest Rescue spokesman Simon Peterffy.

Moments earlier, officers had joked to Pendlebury about the possibility of cutting off his thumbs in the extraction process.

Forest Rescue are disturbed by police statements that frame the incident as Pendlebury’s fault when clear negligence by police is demonstrated. “I’m appalled that the WA police have shifted blame to the victim of their negligence,” said Peterffy. “The police have the same duty of care to an activist as any other citizen…safety should be their paramount concern.”

Peterffy says the incident demonstrates the police violence and misconduct that Forest Rescue activists have been subject to throughout their campaign to stop logging in Warrup Forest. “In this campaign, the police are acting as the security company for the Forest Products Commission and this is not their role.” Peterffy, who boarded the Japanese whaling vessel with Pendlebury last month, added "we were treated better by the Japanese whalers than we have been by the WA police at Warrup.”

Pendlebury said he locked himself to the machine "because there are left than one thousand numbats left in the wild, and its revolting that the government are encouraging the destruction of their largest colony."

Woodside rejects talk of rift with Browse partners

Woodside rejects talk of rift with Browse partners: Development of the controversial Browse project has been marred by speculation that Woodside's partners - BHP Billiton, Shell, BP and Chevron - want to shift the processing site from James Price Point to the existing facility at the North West Shelf.

But Mr Coleman rejected suggestions his project partners were pulling in different directions, and pointed to a recent ''joint'' decision to extend study times on the James Price Point site.

Groups lodge rival claims for land sought by Woodside | The Australian

Groups lodge rival claims for land sought by Woodside | The Australian: It is believed West Australian government lawyers are concerned about the potential impact of the vote, which took place this week at a gathering of about 100 people in the Kimberley.

Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett, a strong supporter of the project, declined to comment yesterday.

Mr Roe said he was unable to comment on the vote, but sources familiar with the process say a longstanding native title claim by the Goolarabooloo Jabirr-Jabirr people over James Price Point is likely to be deregistered in the Federal Court as a result of the vote.

Outrage over order to dump toxic spoils on reef | The Australian

If the proposed liquefied natural gas export industry extends its arms to James Price Point, we can all say goodbye to our beautiful coastal environment of the Damiper Peninsula and especially Broome.

Goodbye Cable Beach, a beach voted the 3rd most beautiful in the world and farewell Roebuck Bay, an international listed Ramsar site.

With the toxic spoils from the dredging, mixed with the biggest tides of the world, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the impacts on marine life will be despicable, recreational and commercial fishing will be obliterated, the tourism industry shattered, our national heritage listed sites devastated, community and lifestyles demolished and our dreamt future for our children and theirs crushed.

The Broome Shire has the moral obligation and social responsibility to fund and instigate a fact finding mission to Gladstone with representatives from our local recreational clubs, non-government agencies, social services organisations, tourism representatives, environmental groups, fishing and sporting clubs and small business advocates.

Their mission would be to simply investigate the facts on the impacts the LNG development has had on Gladstone’s community and social fabric, their local economic base and the environment and report their findings back to the Broome community in an open public forum.

Open public discussions, with complete and true information about the LNG proposal at James Price Point needs to be undertaken in Broome in order for the community to really understand the turmoil, the sickness and the trepidation a massive destructive project of this nature will have on the Damiper Peninsula.

Every member of the Broome Community should be shouting from their rooftops for their rights to FREE AND INFORMED CONSENT to ensure we do not have to experience what the Gladstone community is suffering or be traumatized in trying to mitigate total ecological wreckage and the social lunacy that comes with it.


Outrage over order to dump toxic spoils on reef | The Australian: MILLIONS of tonnes of potentially toxic dredge spoils from coal and gas port expansions along the Queensland coast have been earmarked to be dumped into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The federal government has told the park authority to raise working capital by imposing a dumping fee of between $5 and $15 per cubic metre.

The proposal has enraged fishing and conservation groups, which have called it "pay to pollute" environmental vandalism.

The plan coincides with long-running concerns over the impact on marine life of dredging at Gladstone Harbour to make way for the $70 billion liquefied natural gas export industry.

Greer kicks off writer's festival - The West Australian

Greer kicks off writer's festival - The West Australian: The results were an absurdly inflated currency, exorbitant food prices, unaffordable housing and ecological degradation, she said.

"What will be kept when the mineral wealth has all been shipped away? The answer is nothing. Mining doesn’t bring development unless governments make it bring development."

"All mining brings is holes in the ground."

Our real inheritance should be bio-diversity, not bricks and mortar, she said.

Women had historically been at the forefront of the environmental movement but Professor Greer called for the women of today to do more and follow the unlikely example of the growing activism of the Country Women's Association against coal seam gas projects in Queensland and New South Wales.

Having been subordinated by men for centuries, women better understood the natural world was ordered from the bottom up, rather than the top down, she said.

"We have to mobilise as if resisting the bombardment of an invader."

Humans shared their DNA and depended for their survival on slime moulds, mycorrhizal plant fungi, bacteria and tree frogs, she said.

"We are all earthlings," she said.

Xena boards ship in oil drill protest - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Xena boards ship in oil drill protest - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): Lawless said she was not concerned at the prospect of being arrested.

"I'm a true believer," she said by mobile phone from the ship.

"We need to start switching over to renewable energy now; we don't have to go to the ends of the earth to suck out every last drop of oil."

Lawless, who starred as the title character in the fantasy television series Xena:
Warrior Princess from 1995-2001, is a long-time environmental activist who was named as a Greenpeace ambassador in 2009.

Police said the protesters had climbed a drilling tower on the ship and were displaying banners.

Activists in New Zealand are blocking a Shell oil rig bound for Arctic destruction. Join them and take action: http://www.greenpeace.org/savethearctic
Follow them here: http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/

Coleman keeps his cards close

Coleman keeps his cards close: And Browse, well, it is a story complicated by the vastly different aspirations of its stakeholders. Woodside’s partners in the project don’t like the operator’s preferred development option. Their preference, generally, would be to use the Browse gas to backfill the NWS project.

But governments state and federal seem as wedded to the idea of a new LNG hub in the Kimberley almost as much as was good old Voelte.

And in the middle of all that sit the environmentalists who don’t like it and the Aboriginal communities who seem to like it and hate it in unequal measure.

Coleman was pushed hard on why he would sell down now when so much of Browse remains so doubtful. He clearly knows why, he just isn’t telling. Essentially then, we remain in the dark on whether the sale should be a received as an indicator of support for the James Price Point option.

What we do know is that the final investment decision on Browse has been delayed until first-quarter 2013 and that, as result, Woodside has applied for state and commonwealth indulgence on an extension of the project’s retention lease.

One result of the “health check’’ that Coleman admits to is that Woodside now has 20 souls beavering away on corporate planning and strategy. This was not previously a “core strength’’, Coleman said yesterday.

Woodside Sale Of Browse Stake May Raise US$1.6 Bln: Citi - Deal Journal Australia - WSJ

Woodside Sale Of Browse Stake May Raise US$1.6 Bln: Citi - Deal Journal Australia - WSJ: Citi pointed out West Australian Premier Colin Barnett said James Price Point is to be the last greenfield LNG hub in Western Australia. “There may be some strategic value in obtaining a position, one factor which may drive the price beyond our DCF,” Mr. Greenwood said.

The broker doesn’t believe Chevron or BHP Billiton will be interested, but said BP could take a look since it has few competing LNG projects in the region.

“Shell is also a possibility…if Shell pre-empted, it could pay with Woodside stock and reduce its 24% stake in Woodside to US$6 billion from around US$7.5 billion,” Mr. Greenwood said before adding that Citi believes neither BP nor Shell would likely match the price offered by other interested parties.

Possible Asian buyers include CPC Taiwan, Mitsui, PetroChina and Mitsubishi.

ITS NOT A DONE DEAL

Second native title claim on gas hub site closer - ABC Kimberley WA - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Second native title claim on gas hub site closer - ABC Kimberley WA - Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Last year, Mr Roe - who opposes any industrial development in the area - indicated he wanted to lodge a separate, competing native title claim to try and invalidate the deal struck.

Yesterday, he put that proposal to the claim group at a closed meeting in Broome.

He succeeded in convincing the approximately 100 people gathered that it was best if the Jabirr-Jabirr and Goolarabooloo families go their separate ways, to better reflect their clashing views on the gas hub.

Planning debate over gas hub site - ABC Kimberley WA - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Planning debate over gas hub site - ABC Kimberley WA - Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The contentious gas hub precinct proposed for James Price Point north of Broome was the focus of planning approvals over preliminary siteworks.

Some 60 people went to a planning policy meeting in Broome on Friday afternoon. Many of them walked out of the public gallery at the Broome Shire office midway through the meeting in a disgruntled mood.

It was a meeting about the James Price Point gas hub proposal.

The Development Assessment Panel (DAP) was meeting to decide whether or not to grant approval to six million dollars worth of work by Woodside, at James Price Point. Much of the company's planning application was seeking retrospective approval for a meterological tower, ground works, staff infrastructure and a helipad.

The Kimberley Joint Development Assessment Panel was formed in July 2011 under the Barnett Government. All regions have a panel to asses works over three million dollars. A developer can opt to have their application assessed by the DAP.

AAOD Journal Issue 9

22 TRACKS BELOW THE TIDE
The dinosaur tracks of Broome
Story by Maria Zammit and David Elliott


AAOD Journal Issue 9

Les terres sacrées du Kimberley - Bayonne - Japon - Prochainement - Thalassa - France3

Les terres sacrées du Kimberley - Bayonne - Japon - Prochainement - Thalassa - France3
Watch this film .... share it far and wide ...
The Sacred Kimberley land
A report by Yannick Charles and Bas Vandenbranden
France 3 TV - Thalasssa productions.

.... watch ... and share ... far and wide ...
with thanks

News release: Nineteen on trial for blocking Shell’s Corrib gas project | Shell to Sea

News release: Nineteen on trial for blocking Shell’s Corrib gas project | Shell to Sea

Strategised Iniquity at James Price Point

So while the DO AS U PLEASE panel were meeting in Broome and the Broome Community were being: railroaded by the state government’s forces of strategised evil, betrayed by their shire president and shafted by the subservient councilor Bloom, Woodside were in Country, confident that the rubber stamp was poised for use.

Fury as Woodside works approved - The West Australian

Fury as Woodside works approved - The West Australian: Five community members were given five minutes each to oppose the application and cited concerns about Woodside’s record of compliance with Shire planning approvals and environmental management.

However, the conditional approval was passed unanimously.

After the meeting, Environs Kimberley spokesman Martin Pritchard was angry the Shire’s position on the matter had been completely ignored by the DAP.

“This shows how the Development Assessment Panels have been set up to override community and Shire Council decisions,” he said.

“They are undemocratic and the decision makers, flown in from Perth, did not even visit the site of the proposed development.”

Mr Pritchard said he was seeking legal advice.

2012.02.17 MEDIA RELEASE Shire Council Congratulated on Brave Decision-1

Ferguson's Dumping Ground Fights Back | newmatilda.com

Ferguson's Dumping Ground Fights Back | newmatilda.com: In February 2010, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson introduced the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill into the House of Representatives, saying it represented "a responsible and long overdue approach for an issue that impacts on all Australian communities".

The legislation names Muckaty, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, as the only site to remain under active consideration for a national nuclear waste dump.

The proposal is highly contested by the NT Government and is also being challenged in the Federal Court by Traditional Owners. Despite this, the Bill is currently being debated in the Senate — and will likely pass.

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