Massive protests break out in Turkey against mining in the Kaz mountain region

Peoples Dispatch | August 07, 2019

Activists claimed that Doğu Biga Madencilik, the local subcontractor of Alamos Gold, cut more than 195,000 trees for the development of the mine.

On August 5, tens of thousands of people marched to a mining site in Turkey’s northwestern Kaz mountain region, protesting the environmental damage inflicted by mining operations of the Canada-based Alamos Gold.

Protesters said that the development of the mine in the Kaz mountains would lead to the poisoning of the local water supply and water in the dam in the nearby Canakkale city. Activists claimed that Doğu Biga Madencilik, the local subcontractor of Alamos Gold, cut more than 195,000 trees for the development of the mine.

Rich list: Mining magnate sees fortune soar after massacre of protesters

by Phil Miller

Morning Star | May 12, 2019

Anil Agarwal wins the Entrepreneur of the year Award at the 2016 British Asian Awards

A MINING magnate has seen his fortune soar by £8 billion since a massacre of protesters outside one of his smelters last year.

Analysis by the Star of the Sunday Times’s new Rich List highlighted London-based Anil Agarwal as one of the highest risers among Britain’s 1,000 top toffs, rocketing 62 places to finish in 12th position with a net worth of over £10bn.

South Africa: Mining conflicts multiply, as critics of “extractivism” gather in Johannesburg

by Patrick Bond

Pambazuka News | November 10, 2018

Photo source: Zambian Eye

The World Social Forum’s “Thematic Forum on Mining and Extractivism” convenes from 12-15 November 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa, just after the Southern Africa People’s Tribunal on Transnational Corporations. In between, at the notorious 2012 massacre site on the platinum belt to the west, there is a launch of a new book – Business as Usual after Marikana– critical not only of the mining house Lonmin but of its international financiers and buyers.

This is the moment for a profoundly critical standpoint to take root, unhindered by ineffectual reformism associated with Corporate Social Responsibility gimmicks and the mining sector’s civilised-society watchdogging at the mainly uncritical Alternative Mining Indaba. That non-governmental organisations-dominated event occurs annually in Cape Town every February, at the same time and place where the extractive mega-corporations gather.

Canada’s hand in Tanzania mining fraud

by Yves Engler

Pambazuka News | August 07, 2017

The Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold’s African subsidiary, Acacia Mining, is embroiled in a major political conflict in Tanzania. With growing evidence of its failure to pay royalties and tax, Acacia has been condemned by President Magufuli, had its exports restricted and slapped with a massive tax bill. Barrick enjoys considerable government backing.

 

Will the Canadian government continue to support Barrick Gold’s exploitation of mineral resources in Tanzania no matter what abuses the company commits?

Would the Trudeau government stop backing the Toronto-based firm if it bilked the impoverished nation out of $10 billion? Or, what if one thousand people were raped and seriously injured by Barrick security? Would Ottawa withdraw its support if one hundred Tanzanians were killed at its mines?

Canada’s Complicity in Entrenching Colonialism in Africa

by Yves Engler

Dissident Voice | May 23, 2017

The recent seizure of phosphate from a Moroccan state company in South Africa and Panama is a blow to corporate Canada and a victory for national independence struggles. It should also embarrass the Canadian media.

This month courts in Port Elizabeth and Panama City okayed requests by the POLISARIO Front asking South Africa and Panama to seize two cargo ships with 100,000 tonnes of phosphate from Western Sahara, a sparsely populated territory in north-western Africa occupied by Morocco. Ruled by Spain until 1975, Moroccan troops moved in when the Spanish departed and a bloody 15-year war drove tens of thousands of Sahrawi into neighbouring Algeria, where they still live in camps.

More Than 1000 Miners Strike in Peru over Wages and Conditions

telesur | 11 March, 2017

More than 1,000 miners at a U.S.-owned copper mine in southern Peru put down their tools on Friday morning over pay disputes, mirroring ongoing strikes in neighboring Chile.

The indefinite strike at the Cerro Verde mine, Peru’s largest copper mine, started at at 7:30 a.m. local time. Around 1,200 miners are involved in the action which has halted 95 percent of the site’s production, equivalent to about 40,000 tons per month, the union said.

Miners are demanding special benefit payments to give them protection against the potential fall in copper prices. They are also asking for better working conditions and family health benefits. Initially, the strike was planned to last five days, but the union then decided to stop work indefinitely.

Canada Uses Money Meant for Indigenous Kids on Mining Instead

telesur | 02 March, 2017

Instead of spending millions devoted to supporting Indigenous communities, Canada is spending a portion on promoting mining development in their territories, according to an investigation published Thursday.

Canada’s Indigenous and northern affairs minister, Carolyn Bennett, said in an interview in January that almost US$150 million are being spent on Indigenous initiatives, but a closer look at documents by Press Progress showed that the sum is exaggerated and that some is siphoned off into programs meant to win and pressure Indigenous communities into complying with mining projects.

Parliament set aside US$53 million last year to address a ruling that showed that Indigenous children were discriminated against in the budget. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, however, found that that gap was twice as big.

Indigenous women lead environmental protests in Canada

Granma | 10 August, 2016

The Secwepemc Women’s Warrior Society protesting. Photo: Facebook/Harsha Walia

Despite consistent government promises to collaborate more closely with Indigenous groups, four activists were arrested Tuesday for occupying the headquarters of a Vancouver-based mining company that is responsible for one of the worst mining accidents in the country’s history.

This month marks the two-year anniversary of the Mount Polley mine disaster when Imperial Metals released years of accumulated mining waste into a lake in central British Colombia. The four activists who were arrested for occupying Imperial Mines offices, and another 20 protesters outside–nearly all Indigenous–intended to underscore the government’s approval of mining projects such as the one that produced the Mount Polley spill.

Greed and Dust in Goa

by Soumya Guhathakurta

Frontier | 03 August, 2016

“Only when the last tree has been cut; only when the last fish has been eaten; only when the last river has been poisoned; only then will they know you cannot eat money”. This is a saying of Native American Cree people that has been quoted  as an  epigraph to the book*. Perhaps we will then end up eating mud.

The book is an outcome of the author’s intense engagement with the mining mafia that has and is devouring the ecology of Goa. “Goa  is so tiny, older Goans refer to it as their ‘mandkulem’ … a baby crawling on the floor ….”. The baby is “helplessly”  under attack from three wolves on the prowl. They being  Tourism/Real Estate & Infrastructure , the Mining Industry and Consumerism. The author began making notes for this book in 2006 when he had a foreboding about what mining would do to the landscapes that he had cherished for years. In his own words this chronicle is ” … a factual blow-by-blow account of what actually happened on the ground”. The book begins with a neat map of most of the physical landscape that the book is situated in. On one end of the map is the river Curca that flows in to the river Kushawati. There is a road from the river that  leads to Cupar, Takiar, Ambaulim and Quepem. These are names that the reader will come across repeatedly. On both sides of the road are the hills and the mines that are devouring them. On the map there is Paik’s temple and Paik’s spring that feeds the river Curca. There  is the Government High School at Maina and Cheryl’s farm.

Another Village In Odisha Rejects Mining

Press Release

Countercurrents.org | 04 May, 2016

 

The community people of Kamanda Gram Sabhaof Kalta G.P inKoidaTahasilhave differed land acquisition by IDCO for Rungta Mines in Sundargarh. Using the PESA Act 1996 and Forest Rights Act, 2006 a Gram Sabha was recently held on 23rd March 2016 in which the community people unanimously decided not to give their private land for the Rungta Mines. The Gram Sabha meeting was presided by the present Sarpanch Sabita Nayak in which around 400 members of the gram sabha participated.