| A man has been arrested after seven Greenpeace protesters, including Hollywood star Lucy Lawless, clambered onto an Arctic-bound oil drilling vessel and scaled its 53-metre tower at Port Taranaki this morning. The group managed to evade the port's tight security and, about 7am, board the Liberian-flagged Noble Discoverer, which was to depart on an 11000km journey to drill three exploratory oil wells in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska. They climbed to a platform atop its 53-metre drilling derrick and unravelled banners saying "Stop Shell'' and "Save The Arctic''. A police spokesman confirmed a man who was associated with the protest but not on the boat was arrested at the port gate this morning. Five officers were on board and had made face-to-face contact with the protesters, he said. "We're trying to establish what their intentions are.'' Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel said police were trying to climb the derrick to get to the protesters. Article continues below "We'd be pretty concerned about that because it requires specialist knowledge and capabilities to climb so you wouldn't want your everyday police officer having to do that without proper equipment. It's industrial climbing.'' The protest has captured international media attention with organisations including MSNBC, The Nation and the Associated Press trying to get interviews with Lawless, whose television series Spartacus is currently airing in the United States. "Her involvement is very significant ... |
