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Kyoto protest beaten back by inflamed petrol traders(protestors beaten down!)
Times online ^ | 02/16/05 | Laura Peek and Liz Chong

Posted on 02/16/2005 6:57:38 PM PST by Pikamax

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 Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”

Greenpeace had hoped to paralyse oil trading at the exchange in the City near Tower Bridge on the day that the Kyoto Protocol came into force. “The Kyoto Protocol has modest aims to improve the climate and we need huge aims,” a spokesman said.

Protesters conceded that mounting the operation after lunch may not have been the best plan. “The violence was instant,” Jon Beresford, 39, an electrical engineer from Nottingham, said.

“They grabbed us and started kicking and punching. Then when we were on the floor they tried to push huge filing cabinets on top of us to crush us.” When a trader left the building shortly before 2pm, using a security swipe card, a protester dropped some coins on the floor and, as he bent down to pick them up, put his boot in the door to keep it open.

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”

Last night Greenpeace said two protesters were in hospital, one with a suspected broken jaw, the other with concussion.

A spokeswoman from IPE said the trading floor reopened at 3.10pm. “The floor was invaded by a small group of protesters,” she said. “Open outcry trading was suspended but electronic trading carried on.”

Eighteen police vans and six police cars surrounded the exchange and at least 27 protesters were arrested. A small band blocked the entrance to the building for the rest of the evening.

Richard Ward, IPE’s chief executive, said that the exchange would review security but denied that protesters had reached the trading floor. However, traders, protesters and press photographers confirmed to The Times that the trading floor had been breached.

Mr Ward would not discuss whether he would press charges, and said he would not know until this morning if there had been any financial loss.

Greenpeace later started a second protest at the annual dinner of the Institute of Petroleum at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, in Central London. Greenpeace claimed that five campaigners had got into the Great Hall. About 30 protesters were outside the hotel, some blocking the front entrance by sitting down and locking themselves together, while others sounded klaxons and alarms. Climbers scaled scaffolding to unfurl a banner reading, “Climate change kills, oil industry parties”.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: climatechange; environment; oil; sodoffswampy
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To: GW and Twins Pawpaw

God! I hated goat heads when I was a kid! My kids gowing up in Illinois never learned what those things were like.


81 posted on 02/17/2005 4:29:36 AM PST by nuke rocketeer
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To: expatpat
"We decided to retreat for everyone's safety."

Oil Traders-1
Nancy Boys-0

82 posted on 02/17/2005 4:51:14 AM PST by jslade (People who are easily offended......OFFEND ME!)
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To: dighton
From what I've heard of floor-traders in commodities, the protesters were lucky not to have their hearts ripped out barehanded.

Exactly. Those guys are young and loaded with testosterone. New York, Chicago, Tokyo, London ... ya gotta be a youth to handle that pressure.

83 posted on 02/17/2005 7:28:16 AM PST by aculeus
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To: Pikamax

Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules,
Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these.
But of all the world's brave heroes, there's none that can compare
With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the British oil traders.


84 posted on 02/17/2005 8:23:39 AM PST by ScottFromSpokane (http://drunkengop.blogspot.com/)
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To: festus

NZ? London, UK, mate.


85 posted on 02/17/2005 8:35:03 AM PST by expatpat
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To: Pikamax

Love this story.


86 posted on 02/17/2005 11:12:32 AM PST by Cableguy
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To: Pikamax

THIS is how you deal with those maggots.

I think we should make it a point to do the same thing to the anti-war protesters wherever we find them.


87 posted on 02/17/2005 11:15:53 AM PST by Leatherneck_MT (What are you? Lion or Lamb?)
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To: Godzilla

"Then when we were on the floor they tried to push huge filing cabinets on top of us to crush us.”

Only two were injured, the yellow and blue pieces must have ran very fast.


88 posted on 02/17/2005 11:27:53 AM PST by HuntsvilleTxVeteran (a bullet only costs two bits.)
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To: 1FASTGLOCK45
Whenever a crypto-communist scumbag is beaten into the hospital...an angel gets his wings.


89 posted on 02/17/2005 6:36:20 PM PST by walford (http://utopia-unmasked.us)
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To: Pikamax
You might appreciate this exchange I had on the subject from a board frequented by self-declared 'Eurowussies.'

budgie wrote:
See? Don't ever try and get between a greedy capitalist and his lust for petrochemical wealth.

This could be a metaphor for what the right wing media and corportations do to the reputations of anyone caught disagreeing with their agenda: beat them up and throw them out bruised and bloodied onto the street.


walford wrote:
Your nipple-leaking bleats would have some credibility if these ardent souls were peacefully protesting outside and the traders came out to rough them up. When on the otherhand, the 'protesters' come in to stop people from peacefully going about their business, they should understand that not all will compliantly just stop what their doing and take it.

Instead some may indeed physically assert their right to work unmolested. You will note that none of these protesting groups ever have the balls to protest against a dictatorship -- not even outside the embassy. Let them try those antics in Damascus, Pyongyang, Tehran, Beijing, Havana, etc.

If they cannot put their lives on the line to undermine the TRUE locus of evil, poverty, war and oppression in the world, then they are just spoiled brats who are throwing mud pies at law-abiding citizens in the safety of countries that actually recognize human rights.
90 posted on 02/17/2005 8:20:10 PM PST by walford (http://utopia-unmasked.us)
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To: Wormwood

Somehow I missed this posting, and caught a link in a blog, but this is just freaking awesome.


91 posted on 02/19/2005 1:28:17 AM PST by SoDak (hoist that rag!)
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To: Pikamax

Absolutely freakin' awesome. I would have loved to have been part of this. I'll have to content myself for now by being part of the military-industrial complex that makes war machines to kick the s**t out of even worse scumbags.

Maybe I can start an angel wing collection in my office :-0


92 posted on 02/19/2005 6:00:50 AM PST by enviros_kill
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To: festus
Sod off=get lost.

Swampy=frog kissing environut.

93 posted on 02/19/2005 8:25:20 AM PST by concrete is my business (keep your friends close and your enemies even closer)
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To: All

lmao.

I guess Eric Bolling (Fastmoney) was on the wrong side of some trades that day hehehe.


94 posted on 03/19/2007 8:49:37 AM PDT by rbmillerjr ("Message to radical jihadis...come to my hood, it's understood ------ it's open season" Stuck Mojo)
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