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17 November 2017
Green Party councillor Gina Dowding and 11 others have been found guilty of wilful obstruction today following a lock-on at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road fracking site in July [1].
The protesters were found guilty of wilful obstruction of the highway but other charges relating to the Trade Union Act and Labour (Consolidation) Act were dismissed.
Each defendant was each given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay court costs and victim surcharge totalling £270. There were no fines issued.
Dowding sits on Lancashire County Council. The 12 protesters also included two other independent councillors, Fylde borough councillor Julie Brickles and Kirkham town councillor Miranda Cox.
Dowding said:
“My fellow councillors and I have a mandate to represent the views of our constituents and now we’ve been criminalised for taking part in a peaceful protest against fracking, which residents are overwhelmingly opposed to. Shale gas is neither needed nor wanted in Lancashire.
“If anyone should have been on trial today it’s the Government, for trampling over local democracy and allowing the shale gas industry to impose fracking on our communities.
“In a show of staggering hypocrisy, just this week UK representatives were in Bonn promising to meet our international obligations to prevent climate change, but at the same time offering carte blanche and financial support to the shale gas industry.
“Allowing Cuadrilla to start fracking in Lancashire is opening up a whole new fossil fuel industry when we should be keeping fossil fuels where they belong – in the ground. Fracking is dirty, dangerous and unnecessary and we should never have been dragged through the courts for taking direct action against such a reckless and harmful industry.”
Notes:
read moreBeijing and surrounding areas reported good air quality on more days in October thanks to strengthened efforts to reduce emissions.
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Beijing reports good air quality on Nov. 18, 2017. [Photo/China.org.cn] |
In 13 cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, “good air” days accounted for 69.2 percent on average last month, up by nearly 5 percent from a year ago, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said Friday. Beijing saw the biggest improvement as its ratio of days with blue skies reaching 80 percent.
The density of PM2.5 dropped 10.3 percent from a year ago in those cities, and the density of PM10 went down by 15.7 percent.
Air quality usually worsens in winter in northern China where less wind and coal-powered heating combine to exacerbate air pollution.
The improvement was attributed to government measures to tackle air pollution, with dirtier coal-powered heating being replaced and industrial polluters strictly penalized. Special inspection teams have also been dispatched to cities.
However, Beijing and nearby areas are still not free from concern. Air quality actually worsened in the first ten months and was still lower than the national average. The region contributed half of the top-ten list of cities with the worst air quality across the country.
Nationwide, the 338 cities monitored by the MEP reported good air quality on 87.8 percent of the days in October, down by 5 percentage points from the same period last year.
The ratio was 93.8 percent in the city cluster around Yangtze River Delta and 73.1 percent in cities around Pear River Delta.
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![Beijing reports good air quality on Nov. 18, 2017. [Photo/China.org.cn]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20171118/001fd04cf03a1b79fd1502.jpg "Beijing reports good air quality on Nov. 18, 2017. [Photo/China.org.cn]")