An action by the radical environmental movement Extinction Rebellion (XR) causes trouble in Great Britain. Now the government wants to take action against the group.

Activists ( more than 100 XR demonstrators) blocked two printing plants belonging to the Rupert Murdoch group (“The Sun”, “The Times”) on Saturday, which is why many British people did not get a daily newspaper.

“It is totally unacceptable to restrict public access to news in this way,” Johnson tweeted on Saturday.

The newspaper “The Telegraph”, which was itself affected by the blockade, now reports, citing government circles, that one of the considerations is to classify Extinction Rebellion as a criminal organization(!!).

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel have asked their officials to take a “fresh look” at how this group should be classified by law.

Responding to criticism from Ms. Patel that their actions were an “attack on our free press” (!!!), XR said: “Our free press, society, and democracy is under attack – from a failing government that lies to us consistently, is becoming increasingly authoritarian, and is leading us towards four degrees of warming.”

Extinction Rebellion activist Gully Bujak, 27, said: “You cannot have a functioning democracy with a mainstream media that is ruled by a small, unrepresentative sect of society, who are in bed with politicians and the fossil fuel industry.

“The climate emergency is an existential threat to humanity. Instead of publishing this on the front page every day as it deserves, much of our media ignores the issue and some actively sow seeds of climate denial.

“They thrive off of polarization and division. They sow hatred in order to distract us, actively profiting from this division.

“To these papers, we say this: you will not come between us anymore. For a night we’re going to filter out the lies and take the power back. For a night we’re going to show the world that you are vulnerable, just like us.”

The demonstrations prevented the distribution of millions of papers. Pic: XR

https://www.n-tv.de/der_tag/Extinction-Rebellion-blockiert-Zeitungen-London-reagiert-article22018651.html

Statement from the organization XR UK about its action

5 Billionaires control over 70% of the British Media. Last night Extinction Rebellion groups blockaded the printing presses of The Sun, The Times, The Sun on Sunday, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, as well as The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, and The London Evening Standard.

These people and their corporations have purposefully failed to accurately report on the climate & ecological emergency.
Their consistent manipulatIon of the truth to suit their own personal and political agendas must be stopped.

We’re not moving forward at the speed we need to turn the climate and ecological emergency around. We’re trapped somewhere between acceptance and the reality of just how bad the situation is.

The right-wing media is a barrier to the truth, failing to reflect the scale and urgency of the crisis and hold governments to account. Coverage in many of the newspapers printed here is polluting national debate on climate change, immigration policy, the rights and treatment of minority groups, and on dozens of other issues.

They distract us with hate to maintain their own power and wealth, profiting from our division. We can’t move forward until this barrier falls.

The truth is being held hostage and so are we. We need to Free the Truth.
We Want To Live | UK Rebellion | https://rebellion.earth/uk-rebellion-…

On my part … bravo #Extinction Rebellion! excellent work!

And Prime Minister Boris Johnson, actually a faithful copy of Trump, must release Julian Assange if he wants to prove to us that he is a supporter of the free press.
Because Assange, as a fair journalist, did nothing else than bring the truth to light.

My best regards to all, Venus

Australia’s environment department gave permission for 232 birds to be exported to Germany, including threatened species such as Carnaby’s black cockatoos. Photograph: blickwinkel/Alamy.

Australia’s environment minister orders investigation into export of hundreds of endangered parrots

Sussan Ley announces audit after Guardian Australia revealed her department allowed the birds to be exported to Germany

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/04/australias-environment-minister-orders-investigation-into-export-of-hundreds-of-endangered-parrots

The environment minister, Sussan Ley, has appointed an auditor to investigate her own department over the export of hundreds of native and endangered parrots to Germany over a three-year period.

Guardian Australia revealed in 2018 that the Australian government permitted the export of hundreds of birds to a German organisation despite concerns they were being offered for sale rather than exhibited.

The Berlin-based Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP) received permission to receive 232 birds between 2015 and November 2018. It was more than 80% of all the live native birds legally exported from Australia in the same period.

Australia gave endangered birds to secretive German ‘zoo’, ignoring warnings

The exports included threatened species such as Carnaby’s and Baudin’s black cockatoos, worth tens of thousands of dollars each.

Ley said on Wednesday she had asked the secretary of the department of agriculture, water and environment, Andrew Metcalfe, to launch an independent investigation into all decisions by officials relating to the export of native and exotic birds, specifically those that went to the ACTP. Financial services firm KPMG is conducting the audit.

She said Australians needed to be able to have faith that the system was protecting wildlife. “I am disgusted by suggestions of native animals being sold overseas for exhibition, and then actually being used for profit,” Ley said.

The review will examine management of native bird exports, the circumstances in which permits were issued allowing exports to ACTP, and the department’s capacity to regulate the system.

Guardian Australia’s investigation revealed the environment department approved the transfer of more than 200 birds to Berlin over three years on the grounds they would be used for a zoo exhibition despite the organisation having no facilities that were freely open to the public.

Private messages on social media showed native Australian birds apparently from ACTP had been offered for sale for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The German federal agency for nature conservation said at the time it was aware of those offers. With respect to advertisements for a pair of glossy black cockatoos imported from Australia by ACTP it said it had looked into the offers and found the birds had been legally imported and bred, and there were no limits on trade.

Both Australia and Germany are signatories to the convention on international trade in endangered species (Cites), which governs the importing and exporting of rare and endangered birds.

Australian law says no native species can be exported for commercial purposes.

‘A legitimate zoo?’ How an obscure German group cornered global trade in endangered parrots

The parrots in this case were purchased legally from local breeders and birdkeepers, and exported after the environment department recognised ACTP as a zoo.

The species exported included glossy black cockatoos, yellow-tailed black cockatoos, and a variety of lorikeets.

Multiple emails from the Australian environment department to ACTP, obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, revealed concerns that exported birds, or their offspring, would be sold.

They showed department officials repeatedly relied on statements written by Cites officials at the German federal agency for nature conservation, and by ACTP itself, to verify the nature of the organisation.

Departmental correspondence noted that the Australian aviculture industry had expressed concerns about the number of birds sent to ACTP. A briefing addressing these concerns was sent to the then environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, in October 2017.

Responding to the previous investigation the head of ACTP said the organisation was “extremely careful to follow all the rules and regulations set by both our German authorities and those of the other countries whom we deal with”. He accused Guardian Australia of harassing ACTP associates and fabricating stories about the organisation

The environment department told Guardian Australia in May that its inquiries had not uncovered any evidence of breaches of permit conditions or international environmental law.

Ley said on Wednesday that she did not know whether there had been breaches, but there had been “too much conjecture for too long”.

“We need to put a line under it once and for all,” she said. “If there are lessons to be learned, we need to learn them. Ultimately, I want people to have confidence in the process.”

The Queensland Coalition MP Warren Entsch, who raised concerns about the issue as early as 2017 and has repeatedly called for an independent investigation, welcomed Ley’s decision and said an audit was long overdue.

“What I want to come out of this review is that we return integrity to the process of zoo to zoo transfers,” Entsch said. “And I want the officers that facilitated this process to be held accountable.”

Dear Mark,

Unbelievable. Today, after months of unjustifiable delays in the lawsuit brought by Indigenous communities for the massive oil spill that occurred in the Amazon on April 7, the judge dismissed their case, citing that his court, which processes constitutional rights violations, was the incorrect legal venue. 

What does this mean? It means that the judge sided with the oil companies by claiming that the constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples and nature were not violated by the spill, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Dirty crude oil contaminated the biodiverse headwaters region of Ecuador’s Amazon and affected the health and livelihoods of thousands of Indigenous Kichwa community members, and yet, this decision gives oil companies OCP and Petroecuador a free pass for their pollution and raises serious concerns about the oil industry’s influence over the judicial branch.

It is what Indigenous communities’ have feared since the start of this trial—that the justice system is rigged in favor of the country’s economic interests and doesn’t guarantee Indigenous peoples’ rights. It also tarnishes Ecuador’s pioneering constitution, which was the first in the world to incorporate “rights of nature”.

Can you believe the oil companies actually claimed the oil spill was an unpreventable “act of nature” and that the river would clean itself over time? They also claimed to have supplied adequate food and water to communities whose lands and drinking water were contaminated, but the families who received limited supplies say the aid was nowhere near enough to survive on and came with strings attached. 

It’s not over yet. The Kichwa, backed by Amazon Frontlines and other allied organizations, will appeal and fight back.

More than 300 Indigenous community members from different nationalities came together on Monday to march with the Kichwa people in solidarity and demand justice. While the outcome of the lawsuit is not what we hoped for, the road to get here has strengthened the Indigenous movement in Ecuador and prepared us for the next phase.

We hope that you will continue to stand with us when that time comes. It has never been clearer that the power of the oil industry must be challenged. Join us and our Indigenous partners in calling for an end to extraction in the Amazon. 

The Amazon Frontlines Team

Help the fight back:

https://www.amazonfrontlines.org/amazon-extraction/public/action

https://www.amazonfrontlines.org/amazon-extraction/public/

https://www.amazonfrontlines.org/amazon-extraction/public/news

We stand throughout; united with the wonderful indigenous peoples of the Amazon – they must be protected from the abusers in the oil industry – WAV.