Free Republic

Donald Trump had by far his worst debate of the 2016 campaign on Thursday. He was defensive and vulgar, evasive and condescending, rude and imperious. He moved drastically to the center on immigration, repudiating his position on H-1B visas on stage and saying “everything is negotiable,” including the border wall and the fate of illegal immigrants already in the United States. He defended his calls for expansive torture and the killing of civilians related to terrorists, saying the military “will do what I tell them” even if his orders contradict the law. He dismissed his opponents as “little Marco” and...

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish tuna fishermen rammed their boat into a Greenpeace ship Friday and pelted it with lead fishing weights, the environmental group said. No one was injured. The fishing vessel was among several that swarmed the Arctic Sunrise, which was carrying activists campaigning against overfishing in the Mediterranean. The boat rammed the Greenpeace ship at high speed, said Yesim Aslan, a spokeswoman for the group. The barrage of lead weights damaged a helicopter that the activists had used earlier in the day to document the vessels' activities, Aslan said.

“We’re not a protest organization, we’re a policing organization,” Paul Watson...of his Sea Shepherd... A pirate organization is more like it. Sporting the skull and crossbones, his black or battleship-gray ships sail menacingly through the waves. They are painted with the names of the boats Watson has rammed and sunk. The ships are fitted with...a concrete-filled bow made for ramming, and an attachment dubbed the “can opener” that can tear open a boat’s hull. In his book Earth Warrior, David Morris writes that Watson wears a long bowie knife at his side and carries AK-47s on board. He blasts Richard...

The captain and first officer of the anti-sealing ship the Farley Mowat were due to appear in court in Sydney, N.S., on Sunday, a day after their arrest off the west coast of Newfoundland. They have been charged with interfering with the seal hunt after a confrontation with a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker two weeks ago. Their vessel was boarded and seized Saturday in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by RCMP officers, working with officials from the federal Fisheries Department and the coast guard... Paul Watson of the international group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which owns the vessel, said its...

Two members of the radical anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd are reportedly being held against their will on a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctic waters. In a vessel called Steve Irwin, members of the group had been pursuing Japan's annual whaling hunt in the Antarctic for almost a month. After locating five Japanese whaling boats this morning, two of its activists – Australian Benjamin Potts and British man Giles Lane – boarded the Yushin Maru No 2 vessel. They handed the crew a letter advising them they were "illegally killing whales" and were then detained. "They were successful in delivering the...

Japanese whalers seize British protester and tie him to harpoon shipBy RICHARD SHEARS - More by this author » Last updated at 23:00pm on 15th January 2008This is the moment a British anti-whaling activist was taken captive on a Japanese harpoon ship. Giles Lane appears to be crying out in pain as the sailors surround him and bind him. In the dramatic pictures his companion, an Australian, is wrapped around with rope and seems powerless to help. Scroll down for more... Captured: Giles Lane, left, appears to cry out while his Australian companion (right) looks on Colleagues of the pair...

THE Speedos-wearing protester who allegedly tried to disrupt Prime Minister John Howard's visit to the New South Wales south coast town of Bega has been charged with assault, police said today. The 23-year-old man from nearby Tathra was arrested and charged following an incident at the local RSL club during Mr Howard's visit to the key marginal seat today. Police alleged the man, wearing only blue Speedos and swimming cap, and with “climate change” written across his chest, ran towards Mr Howard. A plain-clothes police officer attempted to stop the 23-year-old but he allegedly pushed the officer and tried to...

Britain February 17, 2005 Oil on troubled waters: a protester is led to a bus requisitioned by police to hold them (RICHARD POHLE) Kyoto protest beaten back by inflamed petrol traders By Laura Peek and Liz Chong WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail. What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement. “We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing...

Last Wednesday the Kyoto Protocol kicked in and Greenpeace decided to mark the event in Britain by storming London's International Petroleum Exchange, the world's second-largest energy market, with the modest ambition of closing down trading for the day. Around 35 dolphin-huggers stormed the exchange just after the 2 pm resumption of trading. The sortie was well-planned. One male protester lurked around the door to the building. When he spotted an employee about to use his swipe card to exit, he accidentally dropped some coins and bent to pick them up and, as the employee, not noticing him, strode out onto...

Kyoto protest beaten back by inflamed petrol traders By Laura Peek and Liz Chong WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail. What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement. “We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.” Another said: “I took on a Texan...

Last Updated: Wednesday, 16 February, 2005, 15:16 GMT Greenpeace tries to halt trading Greenpeace attempted to stop trading at the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in the city of London on the day the Kyoto Protocol comes into force. They claimed to have stormed the building near Tower Bridge, in central London and halted trading on the floor. But IPE said trading had not ceased. Scotland Yard said they were aware of the protest but could not confirm if protesters had got into the building. The Kyoto accord aims to curb air pollution blamed for global warming. Stephen Tindale, from Greenpeace,...

"...Thirty-five Greenpeace volunteers halted trading on the global oil market by occupying the International Petroleum Exchange in London. They entered the high security building near Tower Bridge shortly before 2pm, just as the world market in Brent crude was about to switch to London...They attached distress alarms to helium balloons, blew foghorns and handcuffed themselves to the trading pit, forcing the exchange to shut down. The International Petroleum Exchange does one thousand billion dollars of business each year and trading at the London exchange sets the price for 60 percent of the world's oil..."

ULTIMATE MARCH MADNESS MOMENT 2005 LONDON OIL TRADERS KICK GREENPEACE BUTT by R. Bastiat Greenpeace activists had their heads handed to them by some ferocious oil traders in the City of London when the eco-terrorists crashed the International Petroleum Exchange and briefly disrupted open-outcry trading in the oil futures pit. The well-organized intruders succumbed to a spontaneous counter-attack by their outraged targets and beat a hasty retreat. The trespassers said they were trying to paralyze oil trading as a protest against what they termed the inadequacy of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and the alleged contribution of petroleum to...