Showing posts with label artico. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 December 2013

Arctic 30 activists expected to return home after Christmas

guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/24/arctic-30-activist-granted-amnesty-russia

Arctic 30 activists expected to return home after Christmas

Russian authorities begin process of dropping criminal cases and granting amnesty to Greenpeace activists held over oil rig protest

Peter Walker
theguardian.com, Tuesday 24 December 2013 12.25 GMT

Arctic 30 activists meet residents of St Petersburg on 23 December.

Arctic 30 activists at a meeting with residents of St Petersburg on 23 December. Photograph: Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images

A group of 30 Greenpeace activists and journalists detained in Russiasince September should be home shortly after Christmas after authorities began on Tuesday to formally process their criminal amnesties and grant them exit visas.

A Greenpeace spokesman said members of the group, who were arrested aboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise during a protestagainst oil drilling in the Arctic, were beginning to go through the administrative process clearing them of criminal charges, before being given exit visas to leave the country. This was likely to take some time, he said, and none of the group were expected to leave Russia before Thursday at the earliest.

The group said Anthony Perrett, a Greenpeace activist who is one of six Britons to be detained, was the first to have the criminal case against him formally dropped. He is now awaiting the exit visa needed to leave Russia and has been told he can collect it on Thursday.

In a statement released by Greenpeace, Perrett said: "It's time to go home, it's time to get back to Wales, and I just got one big step closer." He said the group took peaceful action and he remained proud of his actions.

The 28 activists and two journalists were charged with piracy, later reduced to hooliganism, after Russian authorities boarded their ship. After they were held in St Petersburg for months, initially in prison and then on bail, they were given amnesty under a law passed by Russia's parliament last week, which also granted clemency to the two jailed members of the punk group Pussy Riot.

Kieron Bryan, a British freelance video journalist who is among the so-called Arctic 30, said from St Petersburg: "Only a few weeks ago it looked like we were going to be here well into February and probably beyond. To be getting our amnesty for Christmas Day is pleasing."

Bryan's fiancee was arriving in St Petersburg later on Tuesday to spend Christmas with him, he added, and they would return to the UK together: "Christmas will be whenever we're all together as a family, as far as I'm concerned. It'll be strange tomorrow. Talking to my mum and dad on Skype will be a bit bizarre, but we'll be together before the New Year and we'll start 2014 in the right place, which is good."

Once he returned to his home village in Devon, Bryan said, he would begin trying to put his life back together. "I've got a lot of people to go and say thank you to in person, and do a lot of things I've been missing."

Cliff Harris, the father of another Briton among the group, Alex Harris, said the family were expecting her imminently. He said: "We've been told it might be Boxing Day, but it might not be. I think two have gone through and been told they can leave, but they've got to go before the investigating committee and get the final stamp. It would have been nice to see her for Christmas, but any time is great."

Greenpeace has said Russia was acting contrary to international law in laying criminal charges against people taking part in a legitimate and peaceful protest. The organisation strongly argued firstly for the 30 to be granted bail, and then for them to be allowed to leave the country.

Thursday, 19 December 2013

Greenpeace vows incarceration will not stop Arctic oil campaign

guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/19/greenpeace-arctic-30-campaign-russia

Greenpeace vows incarceration will not stop Arctic oil campaign

UK director says Russian action has inadvertently strengthened will to protest against drilling in the Arctic

John Vidal
The Guardian, Thursday 19 December 2013
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A Greenpeace Arctic campaign banner is seen during a press conference given by Real Madrid

A Greenpeace banner steals the attention away from a Real Madrid press conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Photograph: Nikolai Linares/AFP/Getty Images

Greenpeace will step up its campaign to confront oil companies working in the Arctic, but has not decided whether to attempt to board Russian oil platforms, again, its UK director said .

Speaking after it was announced that an amnesty approved by the Russian parliament would cover the Arctic 30 protesters, John Sauven said that the arrests had backfired spectacularly on the Russian authorities by creating an "iconic" campaign that had gained global attention.

There have been 860 protests in 46 countries, with more than 2.6 million people writing to embassies. Celebrities including Paul McCartney, Madonna, Jude Law and Ewan McGregor offered support as well as Nobel prize winners including Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi.

Russia was also wrongfooted by the political support Greenpeace received from Angela Merkel, David Cameron, François Hollande, Ban Ki-moon and Hillary Clinton.

The campaigners' incarceration would not deter Greenpeace from campaigning on Arctic drilling. "Going to the Arctic is not going to change. That's certain. But we haven't thought 'what next'. We haven't thought through whether we should confront Gazprom or Russia again," Sauven said.

"There is a sense of fantastic relief at the Russian parliamentary amnesty. [But] we know we have not won. We haven't stopped oil companies industrialising the Arctic. We need to go back there. We have to bear witness and show the risks [to the environment]," he said.

"We have to end the age of oil, step up the campaign on the alternatives. Ultimately we need to remove the market for oil and end the age of oil."

Just as the French intelligence services inadvertently helped Greenpeace's cause when its agents sank the Rainbow Warrior in 1984 to prevent the ship from interfering with a nuclear test, so the storming of the Arctic Sunrise by 15 federal security service officers had helped make the world far more aware of what oil companies are doing in the Arctic, he said.

"The Russians have shot themselves in the foot by massively raising the profile of the campaign. There is huge new awareness of what is happening. Millions more people now know. The political leaders from 18 countries [which had Arctic 30 campaigners] had to engage with Russia over it. The idea that these oil companies will go up to the Arctic now in secret is no longer the case."

The 21 judges sitting at the international tribunal for the law of the sea convention may have provided the knock-out blow, voting 19-2 in favour of Greenpeace last month. "The convention [on the law of the sea] is the same one that Russia has used to claim much of the Arctic. They could not be seen to accept some parts of it but not others," Sauven said.

The group intends to campaign more in Russia. "Russia has not been favourable to Greenpeace in the past. But we have had a lot of airtime in the last few months. The Russian public is much more aware. We have got to find ways to develop this and connect with the Russian public," he said.

"Half the oil spills in the world happen in Russia. But if you look at the opinion polls, people there want to protect the Arctic. People understand the history of the Soviet Union is one of environmental destruction."

He said the focus of Greenpeace's Arctic campaign may now switch to Shell, Exxon and other large oil companies planning to work in the Arctic. "Things are changing. Oil companies are beginning to see some of the risks. Investors are getting worried. Shell alone has spent billions and got nothing from it. It costs more and more to go to these hostile environments."

Tuesday, 17 December 2013

Sunrise in Antarctica – in pictures

guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/gallery/2013/dec/17/sunrise-antarctica-pictures

Sunrise in Antarctica – in pictures

Laurence Topham and Alok Jha are travelling with the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. On Tuesday, the expedition will reach Commonwealth Bay on the Antarctic coast and begin a quest to reach the huts used as a base by the explorer Douglas Mawson on his ill-fated expedition a hundred years ago