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Mining

Latin Americans Fighting Mining Companies During COVID19

Over the years, the mining industry has taken advantage of dictatorship, disasters, and a variety of distractions to expand operations in Latin America. In the time of Covid-19, with entire populations under lockdown and economies falling apart, mining companies have also hopped on the pandemic profiteering bandwagon. In Latin America, the areas of interest to mining companies whether they are exploring or digging for gold, silver, copper, iron ore, and other minerals can extend to vast areas of entire countries. Their activities also affect important ecosystems. These include high-altitude wetlands and glacier systems in the Andes, which are crucial sources of water for millions of people. Mining companies also have their sights set on the Amazon basin, the health and integrity of which is crucial to the future of all. The principle obstacle standing in their way to unfettered extraction has been local communities and Indigenous peoples unwilling to accept the destruction of their land, water, and ways of life.

The White Lobby: When The U.S. Was Sanctions-Buster Extraordinaire

The bullet holes were what stuck with me.  I visited the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina during the summer of 2016, at the head of the West Point civil rights history staff ride - a two week trip across the American South for select cadets in my classes.  It had only been a year since the young white supremacist Dylan Roof had murdered nine people at the famed historically black church.  So it was eery to attend the very same evening prayer session that he’d shot up and glimpse the persistent pocked marked evidence on the walls.  Much was later made of Roof’s web posts, particularly his ubiquitous photos with Confederate iconography.  These set off a welcome national debate on the display of the secessionist battle flag and other southern civil war symbols. 

Colombian Farmers Continue Push Against Mining, For Peace

“What we have has cost us a lot of sweat,” said Ariel Velásquez, as an iridescent green hummingbird flitted between the flowers outside his home in search of nectar. “We don’t want mining in our territory.” A 36-year-old farmer, Velásquez lives at the very edge of Vereda La Soledad, a coffee and plantain farming community in the municipality of Jericó, in southwestern Antioquia, Colombia.

‘Against Colonial Violence And Land Theft,’ Indigenous Activists And Allies Target Mining Industry Convention In Toronto

Hundreds of people led by Indigenous land defenders and a coalition of environmental groups worked to shut down a large mining industry convention in downtown Toronto on Sunday, blockading the entrances to the building where the meeting was taking place as they protested against "the extractive industry's violence, ongoing colonization, and complete disregard for the future of life on this planet."

In Amarillo, Copper Workers’ Strike Enters Fourth Month With No End In Sight

It’s a February evening in the Texas Panhandle, and it’s cold as hell. Five men stand on the shoulder of Highway 136 northeast of Amarillo, huddled around a fire in a 55-gallon oil drum. Patches of snow linger from a morning flurry, and barren fields cut none of the whipping wind. In the distance, a power plant and a copper refinery dot the sparse horizon.

Wet’suwet’en Strong: Unceded And Unwavering + Mining The Deep Ocean

Trans rights are human rights – because human rights are only valid if they include every person in their entirety. Next, mining on land is so 20th century – the new frontier of mining is just as deep and dark as it is terrifying and catastrophic. And finally, we hear from the Wet’suwet’en on their ongoing battle to preserve their ancestral homelands. http://unistoten.camp/

Tribal Leaders Call Bears Ears Opening An ‘Unlawful Action’

Trump administration opens southern Utah national monument lands to development including grazing, mining, and oil and gas development Thursday the Trump administration announced it was opening two national monuments to development. The culturally and geologically significant Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante monuments will be available for cattle grazing, mining, and oil and gas development. Five tribes had formed a coalition in 2015 to promote protection of the Bears Ears region; dozens more tribes have expressed support for their effort.  In a prepared statement, Shaun Chapoose, Ute, co-chair of the Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition and representative of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee, said the coalition is united in opposition to the administration’s management plan for the two monuments.

Indigenous Leaders Call On Minister Wilkinson To Reject The Teck Frontier Mine

January 20, 2020, Vancouver, BC, Coast Salish Territories - Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) gathered Indigenous leaders and land defenders outside Minister Wilkinson’s office in North Vancouver to raise alarm about the impacts of the Teck Frontier Mine proposal - the largest proposed open-pit tar sands mine. Members from the Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), Tiny House Warriors, Smith’s Landing First Nation, and Wet’suwet’en Solidarity Network came together to assert inherent Indigenous rights and put the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change...

Eight Days Of Protest Force Reversal Of Cyanide Law In Argentina

For over a week, residents of the Argentine province of Mendoza mobilized, in marches, candlelight vigils, and enormous protests against the provincial government’s decision to overturn Law 7722, which prohibited the use of hazardous chemicals in mining activities. The law, originally passed in 2007, was the result of years of organizing by neighborhood assemblies, community organizations, and groups of agricultural producers in defense of water as a key element of life, and attempting to establish an alternative to the extractivist economic model.

How A Rising Anti-Mining Movement Is Challenging Portugal’s ‘White Gold’ Rush

The global transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles — technologies that are currently powered by lithium-ion batteries — is creating a high demand for lithium, popularly known as white gold, among other minerals. In Portugal, where some of the largest reserves of lithium in Europe are located, the government recently launched a strategy to increase mining and supply of the mineral for this emerging market. However, residents and organizations throughout the country are questioning the impacts of that large-scale mining plan and who will really benefit from it.

Mining Culture Wars Escalate In Oaxaca

Tourism is on the rise in the picturesque city of Oaxaca, known for its smoky mezcal, activist art scene, and diverse patchwork of Indigenous cultures. This year, visitors to the tiny airport in southern Mexico—where traffic is up 34 percent—were greeted by a billboard depicting smiling miners in a verdant field. “Welcome to Oaxaca,” the sign read, “where progress and nature coexist. Cuzcatlán Mining Company.” Cuzcatlán is the wholly-owned subsidiary of Fortuna Silver Mines, a Vancouver-based company that operates a gold and silver mine an hour south of the airport.

Former San Carlos Apache Tribe Chair Walking To Traditional Lands To Protest Copper Mine

The former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe will walk to his tribe's traditional lands near Superior, where Resolution Copper plans to build a large underground mine. Wendsler Nosie Sr., who was the chairman from 2006-2010, wrote in a letter to the U.S. Forest Service he's starting his 44-mile walk from the San Carlos Apache Tribe's reservation Thursday to Oak Flat. Oak Flat is a sacred site that sits inside the Tonto National Forest east of Phoenix. He said he wants to raise awareness about the environmental and religious impacts of the mine. "I have to vacate where you put my family as prisoners of war where you've instructed us, even programmed us, that this is where we originated from," Nosie said in reference to his conversation with the Forest Service.

Multinational Mining Corporations Are Exploiting U.S. Taxpayers

Under the Trump administration, corporate profits have taken priority over public lands time and time again. However, the biggest of all handouts to the mining industry started decades before Donald Trump was even born: the General Mining Act of 1872, a woefully outdated law that governs extraction of hardrock minerals in the United States. This law allows companies to mine for metals and other minerals on public lands for free; exposes nearby communities and rivers to perpetual toxic waste; and gives tribes and land managers no meaningful opportunity for input.

Extractivism And Resistance In North Africa

Large-scale oil and gas extraction in Algeria, phosphate mining; water-intensive agribusiness and mass tourism in Morocco and Tunisia, are all aspects of an extractivist model of development that is accompanied by disastrous social and environmental consequences, affecting the most marginalised sections in society. Extractivism refers to activities that over-exploit natural resources destined particularly for export to world markets. As such, it is not limited to minerals and oil: it extends to productive activities which overexploit land, water and biodiversity...

The Coup In Bolivia Has Everything To Do With The Screen You’re Using To Read This

When you look at your computer screen, or the screen on your smartphone or the screen of your television set, it is a liquid crystal display (LCD). An important component of the LCD screen is indium, a rare metallic element that is processed out of zinc concentrate. The two largest sources of indium can be found in eastern Canada (Mount Pleasant) and in Bolivia (Malku Khota). Canada’s deposits have the potential to produce 38.5 tons of indium per year, while Bolivia’s considerable mines would be able to produce 80 tons per year.

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