New Research Shows Mongolia Forced to Give Up Control Over Natural Resources

New research by SOMO and OT Watch shows how one of the world’s largest copper mine, Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia, was negotiated at the expense of the Mongolian people. Leaked documents expose how mining companies Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill Resources, the US embassy, the IMF and the World Bank compelled the Mongolian government into offering generous corporate incentives that leave the country with debt, environmental damage and a loss of democratic control over their natural resources.

Source
Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) – Oyu Tolgoi Watch

Global Mining Corporations Have a Friend in the New Guatemalan Government

Submitted by Jen on
Special Blog Type

The new president has appointed a former mining executive to a high-level post, worrying indigenous communities that have long protested the company’s harmful extraction activities.

Tanzanian Victims Commence Legal Action Against Barrick Gold in UK

(Ottawa/London) A group of seven Tanzanian human rights victims launched a legal claim at the British High Court against subsidiaries of Canada-based Barrick Gold, one of the world’s largest gold mining companies, alleging serious abuses by security forces, including local police, employed at Barrick’s North Mara gold mine.

Source
RAID – MiningWatch Canada

MiningWatch and JATAM Write to Vale Indonesia and Vale Canada to Support Karonsi'e Dongi Demand for Electricity

Submitted by Jamie on
Special Blog Type

MiningWatch Canada joined JATAM, the Indonesian Mining Advocacy Network, in writing to Vale Indonesia and Vale Canada to renew a request that the company support the restoration of the electricity to homes of the Karonsi’e Dongi people in Bumper, East Luwu, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Categories

Mining CEO Tells Vancouver Business Crowd He Sees a ‘Monster Opportunity’ to Profit Off Mining Disasters

The CEO of a major mining asset-management firm recently told a power breakfast for mining executives in Vancouver that he sees a “monster opportunity” for the industry to profit off Canadian mining disasters.

Rick Rule, the CEO of Sprott US Holdings, was addressing executives gathered at an industry conference organized by the Association for Mineral Exploration.

Source
Press Progress
Key Issues

Canadian Delegation Receives Report Linking Human and Environmental Abuses to Canadian Mining Activities in Chile

(Santiago, Ottawa) Yesterday, members of a Quebec-based human rights delegation to Chile were presented with the report “Human Rights, Canadian Extractivism and Chilean Water” by the Chile-based Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA from its Spanish initials).

Source
OLCA – MiningWatch Canada

MiningWatch Canada pushes for global review of safety of tailings dams

Sudbury Third party would review engineering and ground conditions, says MiningWatch spokesperson

CBC News · 

State prosecutors in Brazil have charged Fabio Schvartsman, the former chief executive of the mining company Vale, and 15 other people with homicide in connection with a tailings dam disaster last January that killed more than 250 people.

Source
CBC Sudbury

Communities & Civil Society Call for Action to Prevent More Mine Waste Disasters on First Anniversary of Deadly Brazilian Spill

(Washington, DC and Ottawa) Communities and civil society groups are marking the first anniversary of one of the world’s deadliest mine waste disasters by highlighting the dangerous practices of the mining industry, and calling for stricter oversight.  

Source
Earthworks – MiningWatch Canada

Background on Pro-Mining Law Amendments in Mendoza, Argentina

Submitted by Kirsten on
Special Blog Type

On December 20th, the Provincial Court of the Argentinean province of Mendoza amended an anti-mining Law (#7722) to permit the use of dangerous chemical substances banned under the law like cyanide and sulphuric acid used in the mining industry, essentially giving a green light to large-scale mining in the province.

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