Thirteen days after departing Kuantan, members of the Himpunan Hijau (Green Walk) movement protesting the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant in Kuantan have reached the capital and are now at police barricades on roads leading to Dataran Merdeka which is cordoned off.

Suhakam commissioner James Nayagam (right photo) has told them that police would not take any action as long as the barricade was not breached.

Meanwhile, volunteers have also formed a human chain to keep marchers from going any further. 

Himpunan hijau chairman Wong Tack (photo below) climbed on to a parked car and urged the country's "responsible" leaders to hear their woes.

He said they would stay there until Monday morniing but would not march to parliament.

NGO members and some Pakatan (opposition party) leaders joined the main group at Maju Junction Mall.
According to organisers, the group gathered at the Sentul market at about 1pm on Sunday before starting the last leg of their 300km march.

Organisers had originally planned to camp at Dataran Merdeka on Sunday night before heading to Parliament the next day to submit a memorandum against the commencement of the Lynas plant. 
The People's Green Coalition representative Dr Khim Pa said on Thursday they decided to change the route and invited MPs to listen to their woes and receive their memorandum at Dataran Merdeka.

The Kuantan High Court had on Nov 8 lifted the suspension of Lynas' temporary operating licence (TOL), paving the way for the plant to start operations. Justice Datuk Mariana Yahya fixed Nov 30 to set the date for judicial review for an interim injunction application on the TOL filed by three Kuantan residents.

Source: The Star 
 

In the mean time, the Save Malaysia Stop Lynas (SMSL) group today said it was appalled by the cloud of secrecy surrounding the arrival of rare earth ore at the Kuantan Port yesterday.
In a statement, SMSL’s spokesman Steve Hang said that the shipment runs against Lynas Malaysia Sdn Bhd and the Malaysian government’s promise to be transparent on the matter.
Yesterday, about 100 containers of rare earth ore arrived at Kuantan Port and is scheduled to be sent for processing at the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) located in Gebeng, Pahang.
The shipment, which arrived at midnight, was guarded by heavy police escort.
Lynas confirmed that it would start its operations in the “coming days” despite an on-going legal battle in the court.

Tonnes of toxic waste collected from British municipal dumps is being sent illegally to Africa in flagrant breach of this country’s obligation to ensure its rapidly growing mountain of defunct televisions, computers and gadgets are disposed of safely.
Hundreds of thousands of discarded items, which under British law must be dismantled or recycled by specialist contractors, are being packaged into cargo containers and shipped to countries such as Nigeria and Ghana, where they are stripped of their raw metals by young men and children working on poisoned waste dumps.
In a joint investigation by The Independent, Sky News, and Greenpeace, a television that had been broken beyond repair was tracked to an electronics market in Lagos, Nigeria, after being left at a civic amenity site in Basingstoke run by Hampshire Country Council.
Under environmental protection laws It was classified as hazardous waste and should never have left the UK.
Investigators bought back the television after a 4,500-mile journey from Tilbury Docks in Essex to the giant Alaba electronics market in Lagos, where up to 15 shipping containers of discarded electronics from Europe and Asia arrive every day.
At least a third of the contents of each container is broken beyond use and transferred to dumps where waste pickers scavenge amid a cocktail of burning heavy metals and dioxins.
The television is just one example of a broader problem with the enforcement of the legislation, which permits the export of functioning equipment but prohibits broken electronic goods from being sent outside the EU to a country with a developing economy.
Britain is responsible for around 15 per cent of the EU’s total e-waste, which is growing three times faster than any other muncipal waste stream.
A spokesman for Consumers International, which is campaigning for tightened e-waste controls, said: “The sight of children scavenging toxic wastelands overflowing with the West’s unwanted computers and televisions makes a mockery of international bans to prevent the dumping of e-waste. Western governments, including the UK, have shown little desire to deal with the root cause of this problem.”
Source: The Independent