By Staff, Terra Daily (AFP) | Haiti Chery. Latin America accounts for 45 percent of global copper production, 50 percent of silver and 20 percent of gold. But several commercial mining projects have been put on hold in Chile, Peru and Argentina, as local communities have fought for their rights to prior consultation under the International Labor Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention.
By Mario Osava, IPS. A year ago, unrest was predicted to break out at Jirau because: growth in wages has not kept up with the demand for labor, the large concentration of workers at enormous construction sites is leading to worker solidarity in the fight for improved wages and conditions, and the dam is being built by a foreign utility (GDF Suez) that provides terrible working conditions and allows little personal time to the workers. (English | Spanish)
By Laurence Iliff, Dow Jones Newswires via 4-Traders | Tony Burke, Power in a Union | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Mexican Supreme Court has decided that the National Union of Mine, Metal and Steelworkers (Los Mineros) is entitled to choose its own leader. This represents a huge victory for Mexican labor and resounding defeat for the right-wing employers who have persecuted Napoleon Gomez Urrutia since his 2008 election as General Secretary of Los Mineros.
By Fabíola Ortiz, IPS. Brazilian mining giant Vale was named the “Worst Company in the World” by the Public Eye Awards in January 2012. A Report on Vale’s Unsustainability (PDF included) accuses the company of 15 worker deaths between 2010 and 2012, and of massive emissions of greenhouse gases and particulate matter into the atmosphere. The report was drafted by an International Network of People Affected by Vale, including 30 social movements from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile and Mozambique. (English | Spanish)
By Staff, Protestbarrick. As the opening date approaches for the Dominican Republic’s Pueblo Viejo mine, controversy around this mega-mine has continued to grow. According to the president of Maimón’s municipal committee, the funds Barrick has transferred to the municipality are less than the costs of the damage it has caused. Community members complain that the workers in the mine are overwhelmingly foreigners. Recently Barrick was accused of blocking the performance of the protest song “De Pascua Lama” (video included) at a Dominican Festival.
Poor Little Rich Haiti to Be Fleeced of Copper-Silver-Gold Via Caracol Deep-Water Port (UPDATED)
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Plans are under way for Canadian corporations to mine Haiti’s northeast area near Caracol, which has been discovered to contain a wealth of silver and gold, in addition to copper. As in the Dominican Republic’s Pueblo Viejo project, construction of the mines will involve dynamiting of mountains, and the ore will be extracted by an opencast (or open-pit) mining process that contaminates large volumes of water with cyanide. In addition a deep-water port is slated for construction in Caracol. UPDATES: May 7 (Le Matin) Martelly formally announces construction of a “modern port” in Fort Liberte, near Caracol.
By Emmanuel Bruno Marino, AlterPresse | All-India Drug Action Network | Translations by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Within two months of the start of a campaign of vaccination with pentavalent vaccine in India by the World Health Organization (WHO), four healthy inoculated children died. Nevertheless, on April 16, 2012 Haiti announced that it would introduce pentavalent vaccine into its national immunization program at a cost U.S. $11 million. According to Expanded Vaccination Program Director Dr. Ronald Jean Cadet, this program will make up for “a lack of sanitary control over foreigners who can travel with these viruses into the country.” (English | French)
All-India Drug Action Network open letter | Ranjit Devraj, IPS | Haiti Chery. Pentavalent vaccines were introduced in India last year by the World Health Organization (WHO). Despite the widespread concern over their safety, efficacy and cost, India’s central health ministry approved their inclusion in its universal immunisation programme for seven provinces. Eminent pediatrician Jacob Puliyel likened the unpredictable deaths in vaccinated children to the penicillin sensitivity reaction and said it borders on criminality to be administering pentavalents to children without first testing them for hypersensitivity.
By Robert Engelman, Yale Environment 360. Demographers predict that the world population will climb to 10 billion later this century. Is this projected population reasonable, given the warming of the planet and the increasing pressures on supplies of food, water and life-sustaining ecosystems including pollinators?
By Marianela Jarroud, IPS, Tierramerica | Haiti Chery. Plans to build a massive power plant complex, called the Castilla Thermoelectric Project, near an area of rich marine biodiversity has sparked fierce opposition from the small northern Chilean farming town of Totoral, which has now scored its first victory in court. Behind the Castilla project is the energy company MPX, a subsidiary of the EPX Group owned by Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista, the seventh wealthiest man in the world according to Forbes magazine.
PRESS RELEASE, UT Austin Institute for Geophysics (UTIG). A study examining nearly 40 years of satellite imagery has revealed that the floating ice shelves of a critical portion of West Antarctica are steadily losing their grip on adjacent bay walls, potentially amplifying an already accelerating loss of ice to the sea.
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery | Julia Whitty, Mother Jones. An article by Paul Durak and colleagues in the Journal Science represents yet more confirmation that the effects of global warming are stronger than anticipated from scientific models. An intensification of water evaporation and precipitation over the Earth implies severe consequences for living things, including famines, floods, droughts, and general climate instability.
By Staff, AFP via Raw Story. Australia’s highest court unanimously threw out an appeal by a group of international and Australian companies, including Warner Bros, Disney and 20th Century Fox, alleging that iiNet had authorised the infringement of their copyright.
By Muriel Kane, Raw Story | Interview of Isak Gerson with Alison George | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. “The Church of Kopimism does not make claims regarding gods or supernatural forces. Life as we know it originated with the DNA molecule’s ability to duplicate itself, irrespective of the original creation of the Universe.… Copying is fundamental to life and runs constantly all around us…. ‘From all at one and from one to all – and then back – exchange without beginning and without end.’”