“The scandal is what’s legal.” – Edward Snowden

The massive leak of secret banking information tagged “The Panama Papers” has made a lot of waves in the weeks since its contents started being made public, and they were renewed this week with the release of a searchable database of leaked material.

Those waves may yet prove strong enough to overcome the sandbag redoubts created by banks and wealth individuals and corporations (who are also legally people, right?) to protect their wealth from marauding tax collectors.

RAID and MiningWatch Canada have engaged in extensive exchanges with Acacia Mining over the past two years about security and human rights concerns at the North Mara Gold Mine. Our organisations have been critical of the continuing high level of violence at the mine site and the lack of a transparent and effective remedy programme.

(Malartic) While the Stk’emlupsemc te Secwepemc Nation (SSN) is hosting its first days of community hearings on the controversial Ajax open pit mine project near Kamloops, B.C., municipal representatives are touring across the other end of the country, in Ontario and Quebec, learning some hard lessons about the impacts of large open pit mines located next to city limits.

(Ottawa) Villagers living around Barrick Gold’s Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea and North Mara mine in Tanzania are suffering from violence at the hands of mine security and police guarding the mines. Women have been beaten and raped and men have been maimed and killed by mine security at both mines.

(Montreal/Ottawa) Development and Peace and Mining Watch Canada are calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to give special attention to an open letter from close to 200 Latin American and international organizations urging for sweeping change to Canada’s foreign policy regarding the global mining sector.

(Ottawa) Today, First Nations women leaders, legal and human rights activists called on the Canadian government to take a lead in calling for an independent, international investigation into the murder of world-renowned Indigenous activist, Berta Cáceres, and to investigate Canada’s engagement with the Central American country since a 2009 military-backed coup.
 

By James Peters

April 18, 2016 - 11:45am Updated: April 19, 2016 - 5:45am

Image Credit: MiningWatch Canada

KAMLOOPS — MiningWatch Canada has issued a damning report on the financial predictions made by KGHM-Ajax.

(Kamloops/Ottawa) A new report by MiningWatch Canada concludes that the Ajax open pit mine project near Kamloops, BC, “does not make economic sense” and “represents an unconscionable risk to investors, governments and the public.” The watchdog organization recommends that the mine should not be permitted and that an investigation be undertaken by the B.C. Securities Commission for inadequate disclosure of risks and costs.

Today, the 'Canada Honduras Delegation for Justice, Land and Life', including First Nations women leaders, lawyers, human rights and solidarity activists, had planned to visit Aura Minerals' San Andrés project in Copán, Honduras.

(Ottawa/Montreal) Today, the ‘Canada Honduras Delegation for Justice, Land, and Life’ is traveling to Tegucigalpa for the International Peoples Gathering ‘Berta Cáceres Lives’. First Nations women leaders, lawyers, filmmakers and solidarity activists make up the delegation that has been organized in the wake of the murder of Berta Cáceres’ on March 3rd, followed closely by her colleague Nelson Garcia’s murder on March 14th.