By Dady Chery, News Junkie Post | Haiti Chery. How does one drag a people with a sense of enough into the capitalist enterprise? In Haiti, this process is exposed in all its hideousness as it happens in real time.
By Staff, AlterPresse | Staff, Organization for the Development of Port-Margot (ODEP) | Translation and editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Residents of the northern beach town of Port-Margot, Haiti, are angry with the government for neglecting their major arteries to the east and west, and for appropriating their most important tourist attraction, Chouchou Bay, for a neighboring city. The town in 35 km (22 miles) from Cap Haitien and is coveted as a place to live by mining personnel moving into northern Haiti. (English | French)
By Staff, AFP via Terra Daily | Rhea Sandique-Carlos, 4-Traders. The Philippines has indefinitely suspended the operations of the country’s largest gold mine, officials said Monday August 6, after a waste spillage near a major river due to heavy rains. Philex Mining Corporation had previously insisted the spillage consisted only of water and sediment, which were “non-toxic and biodegradable”.
By David Swanson/Douglas Ou-ee-ii-jay-ii Jack, War Is a Crime. The great majority of Canadians are unaware of their status as world leaders in activities such as mine development, energy development, deforestation, consumerism, and weapons sales.
By Staff, Defend Haiti | Meagan Fitzpatrick and Staff, CBC News Online | Sheila Dabu Nonato, National Post. Canada Foreign Aid Minister Bev Oda — the woman responsible for the relocation of hundreds of thousands from the tent camps on Champs de Mars, Port-au-Prince, Haiti — has resigned. She was replaced by Julian Fantino, a former policeman risen to the ranks of police chief, Member of Parliament, and Defense Minister. Mr. Fantino has been followed in every political post by allegations of corruption.
PRESS RELEASE, Center for Biological Diversity. TUCSON, Arizona, USA — The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit on June 29th against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the agency’s failure to protect Coleman’s coralroot under the Endangered Species Act. Coleman’s coralroot is an extremely rare purple orchid found on national forest land in the footprint of the proposed Rosemont copper mine outside Tucson, Arizona USA. If protected, this orchid would become one of at least 10 endangered species that would be harmed by the proposed mine.
Top Five Reasons Why Caracol Industrial Park is Disastrous for Haiti
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The Caracol Bay area was slated to be a World Heritage site and park because of its breathtaking barrier reef, mangroves, and migratory birds. The area is also the site of several major archaeological finds, including Guacanagaric, one of the largest and most complete Taino Indian villages. Instead, the area has been converted into the massive Caracol Industrial Park (or Caracol Free-Trade zone, FTZ) that is expected to pollute the Trou du Nord River and the bay and get served by a deep-water port.
The Rush to Haiti’s North
By Roberson Alphonse, Le Nouvelliste | Translation and editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. According to Dieuseul Anglade, director of the Office of Mines and Energy in Haiti (Bureau des Mines et de l’Energie, BME), the outlook is encouraging, and during the negotiations for exploitation, the Haitian state will keep close watch to ensure that the citizens of Haiti benefit from the country’s mineral wealth. Meanwhile, the region’s mayors have been dismissed, depriving the citizens of a voice in their local government, and land prices have skyrocketed. (English | French)
By Staff, with reporting by Milagros Salazar (Lima), Emilio Godoy (Mexico City) and Alice Marcondes (São Paulo), Tierramerica. Environmental innovation projects to obtain clean gold, fuel, and water demonstrate the capacity of Latin American researchers to develop solid virtuous circles.
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 Gerard Maxineau, Le Nouvelliste | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The National Federation of Haitian Mayors (FENAMH) has fingered the executive and some lawmakers as having recently drafted a plan to dissolve 140 municipal councils and replace them with municipal boards at the service of the parliamentarians, but this plan was drafted abroad in the prefab constitution that came along with Haiti’s prefab president and its prefab parliament exactly one year ago. It is a plan especially designed to grab lands in northern Haiti.
By Marcela Valente, Tierramerica | Rebelion. A number of Latin American countries have achieved economic growth by an extractivist model of production that increases the gross domestic product (GDP) at the cost of the intensive use of gradually exhausted natural resources such as: large-scaling mining with cyanide to cause major environmental impacts, or monoculture plantations for export, at the expense of diversified rural production.
Financial Enslavement of West Africans By France
By Antoine Roger Lokongo, Pambazuka News. Francophone Africans from 14 countries deposit 65% of their hard currencies yearly into the French Treasury, without French nationality nor access to the public goods and services available to French taxpayers. Close to 1,500 billion CFA francs (Communauté Financière d’Afrique common currency) generated from the surplus of West African states’ foreign reserves are placed on the foreign stock markets and out of the reach of the Africans who own the money. In addition the French force money payments, like an Ivory Coast compensation for the recent war.
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.