Barrick Gold Corporation – Page 57

[Toronto Star freelance] Journalist deported for investigating [Barrick] mine massacre – by Jocelyn Edwards (Toronto Star – May 29, 2011)

May 29, 2011

The Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada, has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

But local leaders accuse the company of complicity in the conduct of the police,
because it employs officers to provide mine security, and allege that African Barrick
is benefiting from it. (Jocelyn Edwards) “A community that has been intimidated is a
community that can’t demand its rights from the company.” (Tanzanian MP Tundu Lissu)

Reporter for the Star questioned in Tanzania as string of arrests follows deaths at Barrick site

KAMPALA, UGANDA—Given that I had been followed around the tiny town for two days by men in ’80s-style wraparound sunglasses, it wasn’t really a surprise to me when I finally got arrested last Thursday in northern Tanzania.

I had gone to the East African nation to investigate the deaths of five villagers gunned down at a mine in North Mara belonging to African Barrick, a subsidiary of Toronto-based mining giant Barrick Gold Corp. Barrick said the men killed by security forces — initial reports had pegged the death toll at seven — were “intruders.” Family members of the victims said the gold-laced stones the men routinely collected at the mine were their only means of survival.

Trucks of police in full riot gear patrolled the streets of Tarime, the town nearest the mine. The situation was tense and relatives of the deceased were huddled together in a compound.

Tuesday morning, I woke up and found the room next to mine empty. The environmental and human rights lawyer who had been staying there had been arrested, along with seven other people who had been guarding the bodies of the victims at the town mortuary.

Barrick Gold’s May 19th and 25th Web Responses to Seven Tanzanian Deaths

May 25, 2011May 25, 2011

North Mara’s 2010 Responsibility Report (PDF): click here

Recent police action at North Mara, Tanzania

Update May 25, 2011 — There is a great deal of misinformation circulating in the local community at North Mara, and being reported by media. Barrick and African Barrick Gold have been unable to verify a number of allegations circulating involving Tanzanian police activity. The police are the appropriate authority to confirm or deny those allegations. We are continuing to focus our efforts on re-establishing a constructive dialogue with the local community and also continuing our efforts to work together to improve the situation in the area surrounding our property.

Further updates and information will be provided as required.

Message concerning recent police action at North Mara

May 19, 2011 — The recent violent confrontation and loss of life at African Barrick Gold’s (ABG) North Mara mine is deeply concerning to Barrick and ABG. African Barrick Gold is working with the Tanzanian government and police to address this situation.

Bodies of men shot at Barrick mine stolen and dumped by police: families – by Jocelyn Edwards (Toronto Star – May 25, 2011)

May 25, 2011

The Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada, has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published May 25, 2011.

Grim warning near African Barrick mine

TARIME, TANZANIA – It was on the side of a dirt road in northern Tanzania that relatives found a coffin containing the body of Emmanuel Magige on Tuesday morning.

The 27-year-old man was one of seven people killed and more than 12 injured on May 16 when villagers at African Barrick’s mine in northern Tanzania clashed with security forces.

Late Monday night, police stormed a mortuary in the small northern town of Tarime and removed bodies belonging to four of the dead in a bid to prevent a memorial planned at the mine for Tuesday, witnesses said. After finding the bodies of the victims forcibly returned to their villages, families instead held small burial services at their homes in the afternoon.

“It was inhuman. They did this like animals,” said Magige’s 20-year-old wife, Mary.

Memorial for dead banned at Canadian [Barrick] gold mine in Africa – by Jocelyn Edwards (Toronto Star – May 24, 2011)

May 24, 2011

TARIME, TANZANIA—Families of the five men killed by security forces of a Canadian mine are furious after that were denied permission to hold a memorial service Tuesday at African Barrick’s gold mine in North Mara.

“When you have lost your loved ones and you are in a grieving period, for someone to do this to you, it is not right. It would be better if they would take you too,” said Magige Gati, whose 27-year-old son Emmanuel Magige was among the dead.

Five men were killed, and at least a dozen injured, when about 800 locals clashed with security on May 16 at a mine in the area owned by African Barrick, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation.

The clash is the latest episode in an ongoing conflict between residents of North Mara, who come to the mine to scavenge for gold and Barrick, which took over the mine in 2006.

Barrick Gold: Controlling fallout from deadly clash [7 Tanzanian deaths]- Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – May 21, 2011)

May 21, 2011

Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion. This article was originally published May 21, 2011.

Stan Sudol, a communications consultant and mining industry blogger,
recommends that the Canadian government establish a fact-finding mission,
headed by a respected, retired, non-partisan individual, to go to Tanzania
“to shed light on this incident. It’s the only way to get credibility back to
the Canadian mining sector. No one is going to believe any report coming
from Barrick or the Tanzanian government,” he says. (Toronto Star, May 21, 2011)

Two words instantly come to mind in cynical business circles when a tragedy occurs under a big company’s watch: damage control. Barrick Gold Corp. landed in a firestorm of controversy last week when seven villagers were gunned down and a dozen more were injured in a brutal clash at its troubled North Mara mine in Tanzania, run by its African Barrick Gold division.

Though Barrick spun off its higher-cost African assets last year to the newly-created London-based firm, the Toronto bullion behemoth remains the majority owner.

And since Barrick’s name is literally on it, the Toronto headquarters is forced to wear — and ultimately repair — the hit to its global brand, and it won’t be easy, say industry watchers and public relations experts.

A Golden Opportunity: How Tanzania is Failing to Benefit from Gold Mining – by Mark Curtis and Tundu Lissu (October 2008)

May 19, 2011

Published by the Christian Council of Tanzania (CCT), National Council of Muslims in Tanzania (BAKWATA), and Tanzania Espicopal Conference (TEC) – Financed by Norwegian Church Aid and Christian Aid

A Golden Opportunity: How Tanzania is Failing to Benefit from Gold Mining (October 2008)

Executive Summary

Gold mining is the fastest growing sector of Tanzania’s economy. Minerals now account for nearly half the country’s exports and Tanzania is Africa’s third largest gold producer. Yet ordinary Tanzanians are not benefiting from this boom both because the government has implemented tax laws that are overly favourable to multinational mining companies and because of the practices of these companies. Tanzania is being plundered of its natural resources and wealth.

Between 1997 and 2005, Tanzania exported gold worth more than US$2.54 billion (bn). The government has received around $28m a year in royalties and taxes on these exports, amounting to just 10 per cent over the nine year period. The 3 per cent royalty has brought the government only an average of US$17.4m a year in recent years. Raising the royalty rate to, say, 5 per cent would have increased government revenues by around US$58m over the past five years.

We calculate that Tanzania has lost at least $265.5m in recent years as a result of an excessively low royalty rate, government tax concessions that allow companies’ to avoid paying corporation tax and possibly even tax evasion by some companies if allegations are true. This is a very conservative estimate, in that it does not cover all the gold mining companies or all figures for recent years (which are not publicly available). Neither does it cover the financial costs of other tax incentives such as VAT exemption, which are extremely difficult to estimate.

Canada: A Global Mining Powerhouse – by Cy Gonick (Canadian Dimension – Jan/Feb 2011)

May 18, 2011

Canadian Dimension is a Canadian leftist magazine founded in 1963 by Cy Gonick and published out of Winnipeg, Manitoba six times a year.

Most Canadians are not aware of it but with the help of the Canadian state, corporate Canada is beginning to throw its weight around the Global South – specifically, in metal mining locations of South America, Mexico, Africa and Asia. This has been a mainly recent development, taking off in the 1990’s but really accelerating over the past decade. Today, Canada’s metal mining industry accounts for about 12 percent of all direct investment abroad, second only to financial services.

Why are Canadian mining companies shifting their investments to the Global South? The reason is twofold. First, in Canada the easy to find ore has already been found so that new properties being developed are low-grade, high cost marginal projects. Second, besides giving diplomatic support, Canadian governments have introduced tax measures and the Export Development Corporation provides easy credit that together greatly facilitates the global expansion of Canadian mining.

Toronto is the mining finance capital of the world, raising 30 to 40 per cent of the world’s mining equity most every year, and Canadian mining companies account for a world-leading 40 percent of global exploration expenditure. As of a few years ago, companies listed on Canadian stock exchanges held interests in over 3000 mineral properties in Canada, 1400 in Latin America, close to a thousand in Africa and about 500 in each of the USA and Asia, Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Commodities bloodbath ‘nothing to fear,’ mining tycoons say – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – May 17, 2011)

May 17, 2011

The recent slide in metals prices — make that a slaughter in silver — has been pretty hard to stomach for the stampede of investors who have taken a shine to the gritty mining industry lately. But Peter Munk, Ian Telfer and Bob Gallagher aren’t reaching for the Rolaids.

Nor are they the least bit bearish after two rocky weeks that saw silver plummet by 35 per cent, gold dip under the $1,500 U.S. per ounce watermark and a sharp pull back in construction-friendly base metals from aluminum to zinc.

Many investors are squeamish after the gut-wrenching correction which dragged once-soaring silver squarely into bear market territory. (A 20 per cent decline from a market high is the unofficial definition of a bear market.)

In fact ‘poor man’s gold’, as it’s known, suffered its biggest four-day decline in 28 years earlier this month after hitting a peak of $48.70 U.S. in April. Silver slid another $1.85 again Monday, closing at $34.35 in London.

Shooting Gold Diggers at [Barrick Gold] African Mine Seen Amid Record Prices – by Cam Simpson (Bloomberg Markets Magazine – April 2011)

May 13, 2011

Bloomberg Markets magazine brings the inside view of professional investing with unparalleled access to the most influential people in global business and finance.

Security guards and federal police have allegedly shot and killed people scavenging the waste rock at Barrick Gold’s North Mara mine in Tanzania

(Bloomberg) — Barrick Gold Corp.’s North Mara mine near the Tanzanian border with Kenya disgorges millions of pounds of waste rock each week, piled high around communities where almost half the people live on less than 33 cents a day.

Children in school uniforms scurry across the rubble to reach their classes. Women with water pails atop their heads skirt past the heaps. The piles grow as the longest bull market for gold in at least 90 years pushes Barrick, the world’s largest miner of the precious metal, to increase production.

Villagers, too, are hunting the ore on the North Mara land that their ancestors worked for decades, sometimes paying with their lives.

Security guards and federal police allegedly have shot and killed people scavenging the gold-laced rocks to sell for small amounts of cash, according to interviews with 28 people, including victims’ relatives, witnesses, local officials and human-rights workers.

For Barrick, a golden opportunity to expand [into copper] – by Brenda Bouw and David Ebner (Globe and Mail – April 30, 2011)

May 1, 2011May 1, 2011

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. Brenda Bouw is the Globe’s mining reporter.

“When you are not prepared to look at new things because you are struck in your own
success because the commodity is going up, that is when danger occurs. … Isn’t that what
business is all about, to take advantage of opportunities when they arise? … I am not an
employee. It’s my legacy, it’s my life. I live this company.”
(Peter Munk – Chairman Barrick Gold Corporation)

Peter Munk has heard the howls of protest from Bay Street before.

The founder and chairman of Barrick Gold Corp. was lambasted in 1994 when he paid $1.7-billion (U.S.) for gold miner Lac Minerals to expand outside of North America, and then again in 2006 when he took out rival gold producer Placer Dome for $10-billion, picking up 12 new mines to secure the company’s position as the world’s largest gold producer.

But the cries were particularly shrill this week after Barrick surprised the mining industry with a $7.3-billion (Canadian) bid for Equinox Minerals Ltd., a copper producer with operations in Africa and Saudi Arabia. Even as gold prices hit new highs this week, Barrick shares dropped 9 per cent since the deal was announced Monday.

Investors quickly voiced a number of concerns about the deal, from the rich premium paid, to increased political risk. But their biggest beef centres around the shift in strategy. Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer, is betting a bundle on a different class of metal: copper.

The mining giant’s golden boy [Barrick’s Aaron Regent] – by Lisa Wright

February 23, 2011

Chalk it up to the luck of the Irish but Aaron Regent has already marked a number of golden milestones this year, both personal and professional.

For starters, he just passed the two-year mark as chief executive of the world’s largest bullion producer, Barrick Gold Corp., amid a red-hot gold market.

He also turned 45 last month. And recently it was revealed the Dublin-born, Calgary-bred executive is the top-paid CEO in Canada, raking in $24.2 million in 2009.

True to form, Regent remains low-key about it all. “It’s been a busy two years for us,” he says, with an accent that hints of both old country and new.