Anti Lynas protestors picket AGM

GOOD ON YER, MATE!

LYNAS NOT WELCOME HERE

LYNAS  AGM on NOVEMBER 30TH

Send a clear message to their shareholders that Lynas 

is not welcome in Malaysia by visiting:

GETUP! CAMPAIGN SUGGESTIONS FORUM

STOPPING AN AUSTRALIAN MINING COMPANY TO DUMP TOXIC WASTE IN MALAYSIA NEAR POPULATED COASTAL REGION

Sydney-based Lynas Corporation is constructing a huge rare earth refinery near the city of Kuantan in Malaysia. It is scheduled to bring rare earth ore from its WA mine in Mt Weld to the refinery in Kuantan, Malaysia.

Every year it will dump 230,000 tonnes of solid waste containing radioactive thorium and a rang of heavy metals and toxic substances. Every hour, 500 tonnes of waste water will be discharged into a natural river which flows into the sea. Every hour, 90,000 cubic meter of gaseous participles are released into the atmosphere. The refinery is within 2 km of densely populated coastal fishing villages and tourism hot spots. No detail of the waste management plan is made available to the public to date. Local people have been protesting to stop the refinery since March, to little avail. The corrupt Government instead sent in paid thugs to rough up the peaceful protestors consisting to grand parents, fathers and mothers with children. They are pleading for help for caring Australians to stop this company from proceeding with the refinery project.

Shouting in the dark

Bravo Al Jazeera!

This is a must watch documentary but I'm warning you that it's quite a harrowing experience.

I was shocked by the pure evil of the regime and also horrified to realise that all the brutality and sadism that's going on in Bahrain is also going on right now here in Malaysia, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Detention without trial, total manipulation of the main-stream media, deaths in police custody, heavy-handed reaction to peaceful demonstrations, police shoot to kill policy, the list goes on...

TIME FOR CHANGE IN BAHRAIN AND MALAYSIA

CONTROVERSY OVER BBC REPORT ON MALAYSIAN DEFORESTATION

An online organisation called Deforestation Watch has taken offence at a 

report which was aired on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 

It accuses Malaysian plantation giant IOI of land grabbing, in cahoots with 

the Sarawak government. 

The end of the jungle?

By Angus Stickler 

BBC Today programme

The Malaysian government and the palm oil industry has been accused

of laying waste to last remaining rainforests of Borneo in what has been 

described as a corporate land grab.  

A BBC investigation has uncovered evidence of the latest jungle 

clearance - where vast tracts of land are being bulldozed to make 

way for plantations. Indigenous tribes say they are being driven 

from their lands.

Palm oil is found in household products including soap and margarine

Malaysia sells its sustainable palm oil to the world. A slickly produced 

advert, banned in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority, 

proclaims that palm oil is "a gift from nature - a gift for life."

Palm oil production in Malaysian Borneo - Sarawak - is on an industrial

scale. One of the major producers is the IOI Group, a global player 

serving markets in more than 65 countries.

Palm oil is found in one-in-ten supermarket products: from margarine

to soap and shampoo. Last year, IOI turned over more than £2.5bn.

Devastated land

Most of the oil plantations in the part of Sarawak I visited are controlled 

from IOI's base camp in Tejab. Here you can get a sense of the scale 

of the company's operations, with mile upon mile of oil palms as far as

 the eye can see in every direction, all of which used to be rainforest.

"What is the government priority? It's greed"

Harrison Ng

But though, from a distance, the plantations look quite green 

and lush, in reality they are barren: the life has basically gone.

It's estimated that only 3% of the primary rainforest of Malaysian 

Borneo remains.

Logging has devastated much of the land, but now campaigners say

the palm oil plantations have taken over.

And it's not just the forest that's gone. Since the early 1990s whole communities

have left - driven, they say, from their farms.

Read the full report here     

When I went online to check out Deforestation Watch it appears to be 

a nameless and faceless organisation. You can check them out here

I'm naturally very suspicious of any site that boasts that it's greening

the earth, which this site does. It's all very reminiscent of the late 80s and

early 90s when many oil palm plantations had greening the earth 

posters and mottos as propaganda under Mahathir's administration

to counter international critisism of Malaysia's management of its

rainforests. Indeed, I suspect this organisation has been set up by 

the oil palm lobby.  The statistics they throw back at the BBC are 

unsubstantiated in terms of no source being given.  I think they also

miss the point that what the BBC report says is that there's only about

3 percent of PRIMARY forest remaining in Sarawak which wouldn't 

surprise me at all.  I live in Ulu Selangor in the foothills of the main range

and although the hills are covered with trees, there's not a single primary 

rainforest tree in sight until you reach Taman Negara.

The other issue that Deforestation Watch haven't taken onboard is the

impact of oil palm plantations, or any other monoculture, on bio-diversity, 

which is the key to the health and well being of all species on this planet

including homo sapiens.

I tend to have much more faith in the BBC (who stand to benefit nothing

from this report) and their chief source, Harrison Ngau who has been 

actively involved in rainforest issues in Sarawak for more than 20 years, 

than I have in some mystery organisation.

Anyway you can check out both sides of this spat and decide for yourself

and if anyone has some information on Deforestation Watch, 

I'd be glad if you would share it here.

THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

The Road to Nowhere saga started on September 4, 2009. You can catch up on the story so far here.

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009 – KG. PERTAK

Mr Tan’s workers were back again today to finally remove the fallen tree that has been blocking the ‘new road’ for more than a week now. They dumped all the debris on the river-facing slope and when I caught up with them they were busy extending the road they had stared on September 4th… the one that the Selangor State government says is illegal… so I asked to see their permit and the excavator driver proudly produced a photocopy of one to show me – he even held it up so I could photograph it. Here it is:

When contacted, district councillor Chua Yee Ling said she had personally checked with the land office in KKB and it had no record of any permit issued to develop this road. The forestry department and the water authority are also in the dark, which is strange considering this area is part of the catchment area for the Selangor Dam. So, Yee Ling told me, as far as the Selangor State government is concerned, the operation is illegal.

The permit is from the ICU in the PM's department. It's addressed to an UMNO member residing in the nearby town of KKB and is signed on behalf of the state development office as you can see below:

So what's going on? First of all, I'm suspicious of the document's authenticity. Take a close look at the top right hand corner... you can almost see the Tipp-Ex!

Secondly, if the permit is for real, then it looks as though UMNO are putting the proverbial two fingers up to the elected state government and are attempting to undermine the authority of elected state exco member for the environment, Elizabeth Wong.

Why else would the PM's department, or UMNO for that matter, take an interest in constructing an access road for a small handful of indigenous people? And if they are genuine, then why didn't they go through the proper channels and seek approval from the state government, the forestry department and the water authority? And why is the road so wide? It's supposed to be an access road to the Orang Asli's dusuns. And why aren't they putting in any drainage? Don't they want it to last?

I really hope the Selangor state government can get to the bottom of this. Otherwise a chunk of the environment is going to get destroyed - and for what? The area is already prone to landslips, and with no proper drainage and no strengthening of the slopes, I'd estimate that the kind of road they are constructing will last 2-3 months tops.

Oh, by the way, how much is all this costing?

Debris from the tree fall dumped on the riverside slope.

Illegal road works ahead!