Arrests Follow Greenpeace Mining Protest in Wellington

Five Greenpeace activists have been arrested after a protest at the office of the mining lobby group Straterra. The protest caused police to cordon off The Terrace, a major Wellington road home to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Ministry of Justice, and Wellington City Council, among others. They were protesting Straterra’s plans to fast-track a seabed mining project in the South Taranaki Bight for one of its clients, Trans-Tasman Resources. Under the government’s new fast track law, specific projects can bypass many processes otherwise required by planning legislation. Critics have said it doesn’t give enough weight to environmental considerations....