2012 – Page 148 – Republic of Mining

Nuclear waste storage depot attracts southern Ontario towns – by John Spears (Toronto Star – February 22, 2012)

February 21, 2012

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

You can call it a repository for used nuclear fuel in an adaptive phased management program. You can call it a nuclear waste site.

Either way, a surprising cluster of municipalities in south-western Ontario’s rural heartland are saying they might want to be the place where Canada’s spent nuclear fuel is stored for thousands of years.

No final decisions on a waste site have been made – or will be for several years, under the multi-step process put in place by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

And the western Ontario municipalities who are showing interest will be judged against sites proposed by other communities scattered across Canada. But it’s a surprising show of interest for a region of the country best known for green fields, blue water and Alice Munro.

Canada’s oil sands: Not so dirty after all – by Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – February 21, 2012)

February 21, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

CALGARY— Canada’s government, which has threatened a trade war over a proposed European rule to penalize oil-sands crude in a bid to clean up transportation fuels, has a powerful new argument in its favour, as new research shows other energy sources are far more dangerous to the climate.

On Thursday, a committee of the European Union will vote on a proposed fuel-quality directive intended to reduce the carbon footprint of gasoline and diesel on that continent. The directive directly penalizes oil-sands crude for its high-emissions content, using language that oil-sands supporters and others have called “flawed,” “discriminatory” and worse.

If passed, such a directive could set a precedent for other international fuel rules that challenge oil-sands products, a prospect that has deeply alarmed Canada’s political and corporate leadership. Officials have waged a years-long lobbying campaign to have it changed, enlisting the help of European nations with oil-sands interests such as Britain and the Netherlands.

First nations don’t have a pipeline veto, but they do have options – by Tom Flanagan (Globe and Mail – February 21, 2012)

February 21, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Tom Flanagan is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary. He has managed campaigns for the Conservative Party of Canada and the Wildrose Party of Alberta. He is co-author of Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights.

The Conservative government has shown that it favours Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to carry bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands to the B.C. deepwater port of Kitimat. Despite this open support, there’s a risk that the Northern Gateway proposal could go the way of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline – ultimately approved in principle but held up so long it never gets built, because the market has found alternative options.

About 50 first nations lie in Northern Gateway’s path. Consultation with these first nations will be critical, so let’s look at the legal framework.

In the 1997 Delgamuukw case, the Supreme Court of Canada held that aboriginal title still exists across British Columbia where treaties have never been signed.

Mined out: Australia’s skills shortage – by Chris Lo (Mining Technology.com – February 6, 2012)

February 20, 2012

http://www.mining-technology.com/

A skills shortfall is putting the Australian mining industry’s ability to meet its production commitments in doubt. Chris Lo looks at the roots of Australia’s labour crisis and asks how the country can create a new generation of mining professionals.

Being located close to Asia’s emerging economic powerhouses has been a blessing for Australia’s mining industry. As increasingly confident economies like China and India look abroad for raw materials to feed an unprecedented number of construction and infrastructure projects, Australia’s immense mineral resources are exceedingly well placed to meet the demand.

The Australian mining sector’s strategic position is reflected in the number of projects and the amount of investment springing up in the country.

The Australian reported in early 2010 that while no mining project valued at more than A$10 billion came online in the first decade of the 21st century, six of these mega-projects are in development today, with a total value of more than A$150 billion.

Mining in Poland: History and Current Production (Poland’s Natural Resources)

February 20, 2012

This information came from the Official Promotional Website of the Republic of Poland. http://en.poland.gov.pl/

Nature has bestowed Poland generously with both non-renewable and renewable resources. The latter, such as wind and solar energy, are used more and more frequently, their growing popularity supported by great advances in technology.

Poland is a country rich in minerals. It is among the world’s biggest producers of hard and brown coal, copper, zinc, lead, sulphur, rock salt and construction minerals.

As early as in antiquity, the country was famous for its amber, transported along the Amber Route from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic coast. The largest amounts of amber, often called Baltic gold, were found at the mouth of the Vistula and on the Sambia Peninsula (now in Russia’s Kaliningrad Region). It was a much valued material at that time and played a major role in barter trade with the Meditterranean. Amber was traded most intensively in the second century AD.

Quadra FNX shareholders approve KGHM’s C$3 billion bid – by Nicole Mordant and Supantha Mukherjee (Reuters.com – February 20, 2012)

February 20, 2012

This article is from the Reuters.com website: www.reuters.com

Mon Feb 20, 2012

Vancouver (Reuters) – Shareholders of Canadian miner Quadra FNX (QUX.TO: Quote) approved a C$3 billion takeover offer from KGHM KGHM.WA on Monday, the tie-up is set to geographically diversify the Polish miner’s asset base and boost its copper output.

The friendly deal announced in December gives KGHM control of Quadra’s Sierra Gorda copper project in Chile, one of the world’s largest copper projects, along with other assets spread across Canada, Chile and the United States.

Preliminary results from a shareholder vote in Vancouver indicate that 78.6 percent of the votes cast were in favor of the deal. For KGHM’s bid to succeed, it required two-thirds support of the votes cast by Quadra shareholders.

Earlier this month, proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommended that Quadra shareholders vote in favor of Polish miner’s bid. ISS advised its clients to support the bid for Vancouver-based Quadra, on the basis that “there have been no alternate offers and there are no governance concerns.”

KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. NEWS RELEASE: Report no. 8/2012: Approval of Quadra FNX Mining Ltd shareholders

February 20, 2012

2012-02-20

The Management Board of KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. („KGHM”, „Company”) announces that the shareholders of Quadra FNX Mining Ltd („Quadra FNX”) at the General Meeting of the company convened on 20 February 2012, approved by the required majority of votes the transaction described in the binding conditional agreement entered into between KGHM and Quadra FNX on 6 December 2011.

As a result of this transaction, KGHM, through its special purpose wholly controlled subsidiary, founded under British Columbia law, will acquire from the existing shareholders, under a Plan of Arrangement recommended by the Board of Directors of Quadra FNX, the shares of Quadra FNX, representing 100% of the share capital of this company.

Closure of the transaction was made contingent on the fulfillment of conditions precedent, consisting of gaining shareholder approval as expressed by a majority 2/3 of the votes at the General Meeting of Quadra FNX, court approval for the transaction and regulatory approvals by appropriate monopoly-control bodies, and by the Canadian Minister of Industry.

Climate change boosts need for bigger presence in Arctic: Canadian navy head – by Bill Graveland (Toronto Star – February 20, 2012)

February 20, 2012

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

CALGARY—The head of the Royal Canadian Navy says Canada needs to bolster its military presence in the Arctic to prepare for a boom in human and economic activity resulting largely from climate change.

Global warming is thought to be occurring faster in the North than anywhere else. The gradual disappearance of sea ice is opening up commercial shipping as well as previously inaccessible areas rich with oil, natural gas and mineral resources.

“From a naval perspective, climate change probably means there will be more open water, so the Arctic Ocean will really emerge as the Arctic Ocean,” Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison, Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, said in a recent interview.

“It also means . . . that the circumpolar route will probably open to international shipping from Asia to Europe sometime in this century — probably a lot earlier than most people predicted a few years ago,” he said.

The Plundered Planet: How to Reconcile Prosperity with Nature – by Paul Collier (The Observer – May 16, 2010)

February 20, 2012February 20, 2012

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/

How can the west stop poor nations being exploited for their natural wealth?

Imagine a small nation, undeveloped yet fantastically rich in a natural resource that offers it a one-off chance of great wealth. An aggressive, sophisticated foreign power wants that commodity and is prepared to do anything it can – diplomatic or military – to get it. What hope does the nation have? You wonder if Paul Collier’s new book has been timed as a tie-in with the DVD of Avatar, the story of a gentle planet that suffers “resource curse”.

Extractables are a curse: no poor nation in modern times (except, perhaps, Malaysia and Botswana) has prospered as a result of them. Many, from Sierra Leone to the Democratic Republic of Congo, have been repeatedly ravished over decades because of the wealth under their soil. And the reversal of this rule provides Collier’s central question: how are we to redirect the whole sorry story of mankind’s inequitable and short-sighted plundering of the planet’s resources?

Policymakers in development love Collier, because he offers routes out of ideological thickets.

Audacious Environmental Hypocrisy: James Cameron – Grow Up – by Ann McElhinney (BigHollywood.brietbart.com – February 24, 2010)

February 20, 2012

Beautiful but Dangerous Avatar – Ann McElhinney’s You-Tube posting speech, above is from the conservative CPAC convention (February 2, 2010). Ann McElhinney, the director of “Not Evil Just Wrong” and “Mine Your Own Business” speaks about anti-development bias in James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar and about environmental indoctrination in public education system in US.

This column below is from: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/

Ann McElhinney is a conservative documentary film director and producer.

I thought Avatar was a great film, beautiful even. Cameron is such a good story teller he even had me rooting for the blue rain forest people and wishing death on all the appalling Americans in final battle scene.

But seriously, James Cameron grow up. Avatar is an anti-mining, anti resource development rant worthy of a not very clever spotty undergraduate.

James Cameron is a self confessed unrepentant greenie, and in the world he creates mining is evil and life in the rain forest is just spiffing. So lets throw a few facts in the way of Cameron’s gorgeous but idiotic narrative.

Avatar activism: Pick your protest – by Henry Jenkins (Globe and Mail – September 18, 2010)

February 20, 2012February 20, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Henry Jenkins is Provost’s Professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California and the author of Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture.

Five Palestinian, Israeli and international activists painted themselves blue to resemble the Na’vi from James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar in February, and marched through the occupied village of Bil’in. The Israeli military used tear gas and sound bombs on the azure-skinned protesters, who wore traditional kaffiyehs with their Na’vi tails and pointy ears.

The camcorder footage of the incident was juxtaposed with borrowed shots from the film and circulated on YouTube. We hear the movie characters proclaim: “We will show the Sky People that they cannot take whatever they want! This, this is our land!”

The event is a reminder of how people around the world are mobilizing icons and myths from popular culture as resources for political speech, which we can call “Avatar activism.” Even relatively apolitical critics for local newspapers recognized that Avatar spoke to contemporary political concerns.

Avatar as a criticism of mining or a reflection of deep cultural memory – by Jack Caldwell (I Think Mining.com – January 4, 2010)

February 20, 2012

http://ithinkmining.com/

My grandson, four-years old, and me went this afternoon to see Avatar. This is the billion-dollar-grossing movie from James Cameron that is now all the rage.

Opinions on this movie are all over the map. The quarrelsome son who could never agree with his father, a mining consultant, says “It is the best movie I have ever seen.” My son-in-law and daughter said “We have seen that story before in Dances With Wolves.” The blog-sphere is awash with comments on the movie’s religious significance, its tree-hugging philosophies, and the racism of depicting innocent savages as blue-tinted aboriginals fighting to protect a forest from mining by white-men Americans.

I personally found the movie just too long and too noisy—even my grandson remarked “it is a loud movie.” And I felt uncomfortable most of the time thinking that I had read this story too often for my own good in the mining news columns of the past few years. Here is a link to one blog that analyzes the mining-related aspects of the movie, saying:

Movie “Avatar” has few fans among mining execs – by Steve James (Reuters.com – March 11, 2010)

February 20, 2012February 20, 2012

The article is from the Reuters website: http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – It’s enough to make a mining executive grit his teeth or his kids to give him the silent treatment. In a case of art imitating life — with perhaps a little poetic license — Oscar-winning movie “Avatar” paints big mining companies as the villains of the future.

But real-life executives are not entirely amused by their fictional colleagues being cast in evil roles in what is already the biggest-grossing Hollywood movie of all time.

“Let me put it this way, my kids saw the movie, and my kids know I’m a miner, and they didn’t say anything to me,” said Peter Kukielski, head of mining operations for ArcelorMittal (ISPA.AS) (MT.N), the world’s largest steelmaker.

Avatar (Mining Movie – 2009)

February 20, 2012

This information is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Avatar is a 2009 American[6][7] epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system.[8][9][10]

The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na’vi—a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film’s title refers to the genetically engineered Na’vi-human hybrid bodies used by a team of researchers to interact with the natives of Pandora.[11]

Development of Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film.[12] Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999,[13] but according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film.[14]