Women, children join anti-POSCO action in India

Women and children have formed a human barricade to prevent police and officials from entering villages earmarked for a $12 billion steel plant in India, protesters said Sunday. Around 1,000 women and children joined the demonstration in eastern Orissa state, where South Korean steel giant POSCO's plans to build the new facility on tribal land have sparked widespread opposition. "We are going to fight to the finish," said Abhay Sahu, who heads the anti-POSCO campaign in Jagatsinghpur district, 100 kilometres (60 miles) from state capital Bhubaneshwar. "We are determined to keep POSCO off our land," he told AFP, as women and children lay on the ground, their hands linked, at the entrance to the proposed plant site. Hundreds of police were out in force to oversee the protest, witnesses said. "The administration has no intentions of using force but the villagers must not provoke the police," said district administrator Narayan Chandra Jena. India gave POSCO its final clearance in May to set up the plant on 1,250 hectares (3,100 acres) of forest land in the impoverished state. The project is one of India's biggest foreign projects since the launch of market reforms in 1991. The POSCO deal, first announced in 2005, is being watched as a test case for foreign investors eager to enter the fast-growing Asian economy but wary of the potential for environmental concerns to derail their plans. Giant steelmaker ArcelorMittal, controlled by the Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, has also found itself unable to acquire land for a proposed plant in eastern India.