January, 24 2017, 10:15am EDT
Greenpeace Responds to Trump Attempt to Revive Keystone & Dakota Access Pipelines
Alliance of Indigenous and Climate Communities Stopped Them Before, Will Again
WASHINGTON
In response to news that Trump plans to restart the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, Greenpeace Executive Director Annie Leonard said:
"A powerful alliance of Indigenous communities, ranchers, farmers, and climate activists stopped the Keystone and the Dakota Access pipelines the first time around, and the same alliances will come together to stop them again if Trump tries to raise them from the dead. Instead of pushing bogus claims about the potential of pipelines to create jobs, Trump should focus his efforts on the clean energy sector where America's future lives. Trump's energy plan is more of the same -- full of giveaways to his fossil fuel cronies at a time when renewable energy is surging ahead.
"We all saw the incredible strength and courage of the water protectors at Standing Rock, and the people around the world who stood with them in solidarity. We'll stand with them again if Trump tries to bring the Dakota Access Pipeline, or any other fossil fuel infrastructure project, back to life.
"Renewable energy is not only the future, but the only just economy for today. Keystone, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and fossil fuel infrastructure projects like them will only make billionaires richer and make the rest of us suffer. We will resist this with all of our power and we will continue to build the future the world wants to see."
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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Turkey's foreign ministry condemned the plan as "a new stage in Israel's goal of expanding its borders through occupation."
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would move to expand settlements in the occupied and illegally annexed Golan Heights, exploiting the collapse of the Assad government to further entrench its control of Syrian land.
Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday that "strengthening" the Golan Heights is synonymous with "strengthening the state of Israel" and declared that "we will continue to hold onto it, make it flourish, and settle in it."
According to Netanyahu's office, the Israeli government "unanimously approved" the prime minister's push to double the settler population in the Golan Heights.
There are currently dozens of Israeli settlements housing roughly 20,000 people in the territory, the bulk of which Israel unlawfully annexed in 1981 after occupying it during the 1967 war.
Israel's settlement expansion plan sparked outrage from countries in the region, with Turkey's foreign ministry condemning the decision Sunday as "a new stage in Israel's goal of expanding its borders through occupation."
The foreign ministry of Saudi Arabia accused Israel of "sabotaging" Syria's "prospects for restoring its security and stability."
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Israel's military has wasted no time advancing on Syrian territory in the wake of Assad's fall. As Drop Sitenoted over the weekend, "Israeli tanks have advanced into villages and towns in Syria's Quneitra governorate, across from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, damaging streets, cutting down trees, and destroying electricity poles."
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"Syria's war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations," he said.
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Netanyahu said in a video statement that he had "a very friendly, warm, and important discussion" with Trump late Saturday about the future of the Middle East.
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The ministry's statement noted that "the Israeli ambassador in Dublin was returned to Israel at the time following Ireland's decision to unilaterally recognize a 'Palestinian state'," which took place in May of this year.
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"Today two tankers, Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239, were damaged due to a storm in the waters of the Black Sea," said the Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport in a statement. "There are 15 people on board of one ship and 14 people on the other. The damage caused an oil spill emergency."
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Footage taken by nearby ships captured portions of the disaster as it unfolded:
“Another ship is going down. Holy shit!” said a sailor from a nearby boat as the filming took place.
Paul Johnston, head of Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter in the U.K., warned of possible grave consequences from the maritime disaster.
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