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Brown blunders in pledge to secure Nigeria oil
Daniel Howden, Kim Sengupta, Colin Brown and Claire Soares, The Independent
Gordon Brown is being accused of preparing for a military adventure in Africa after he pledged to provide backing to the Nigerian security forces. His announcement prompted the collapse of a ceasefire in the oil-rich Niger Delta and helped to drive up crude oil prices on world markets.
The Prime Minister’s offer to help “tackle lawlessness” in the world’s eighth largest oil producer was immediately condemned by the main militant group in the Delta, which abandoned a two-week-old ceasefire and accused Britain of backing what it calls Nigeria’s “illegal government”. The group issued a “stern warning” to Mr Brown in an emailed statement: “Should Gordon Brown make good his threat to support this criminality for the sake of oil, UK citizens and interests in Nigeria will suffer the consequences.”
Speaking at the close on Wednesday of the meeting in Japan of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations, Mr Brown said that the UK was ready to offer the Nigerian military direct assistance to help return law and order to the southern region and to restore oil output.
(11 July 2008)
UK climate campaigners threaten to invade and shut down power plant
Michael McCarthy, Independent
Green activists are vowing to force their way into one of Britain’s biggest power stations next month in what will be the most serious clash yet between the burgeoning climate change protest movement and the authorities.
At least 2,000 campaigners from the 2008 Camp for Climate Action are expected to take part in the assault on Kingsnorth power station in Kent, a huge 2,000 megawatt plant that supplies electricity to 1.5 million homes in the South-east.
They are protesting at plans by the plant’s owners, E.ON, to build a new facility on the site that would be fuelled with coal – the first such plant to be built in Britain for 33 years and very likely the forerunner of a new generation of coal-fired stations.
(11 July 2008)
Britons spurning foreign holidays as economy dips
Leo Hickman , The Guardian
Travel operators are reporting a marked shift in holiday habits among Britons this summer with a sharp rise in people choosing to take a break in the UK instead of going abroad. The strength of the euro, uncertainties about the economy, airport frustrations and rising fuel costs have all combined to increase the appeal of, say, a weekend in Weymouth or a fortnight in the Fens.
The change of holiday habits is not just thrifty, but also environmentally friendly, says Anna Jones, climate campaigner at Greenpeace UK: “People and businesses are realising that it makes economic and environmental sense to fly less. Holidaying closer to home is better for British tourism and better for the climate. It’s time the government recognised this too and started investing in improving the rail network instead of climate-wrecking runways.”…
…Carrick adds that another important trend is that people are taking more, yet shorter, trips: “The average Briton has 25 days of holiday entitlement a year – this hasn’t changed for over a decade – but because they travel more often they don’t want to travel so far, especially if they are driving with today’s fuel costs. We are seeing that 2-3 hours driving time is the typical limit for Britons holidaying domestically this year. It means bookings are not quite as strong in far-flung places such as Cornwall and Scotland.”
(11 July 2008)
