Canadian/International Media Resource Articles – Page 186

Asbestos: Killer product or toxic PR? – by Mark Bonokoski (Toronto Sun – July 10, 2011)

July 11, 2011

Mark Bonokoski is a columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper. mark.bonokoski@sunmedia.ca

Back in May, an international consortium of doctors, scientists, labour leaders and health organizations wrote a rather pandering letter to Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe.

And, in that letter, they appealed for “His Excellency” to back off reopening two old asbestos mines in the country he has already impoverished by murderously turning Africa’s certified bread basket into a certifiable basket case.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s name was not mentioned, but it was implied, citing the Canadian government’s support for the reopening of the Jeffrey asbestos mine in Quebec as the kind of “reprehensive and retrogressive” action that Zimbabwe should not emulate.

The World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization and the International Trade Union Confederation — claiming to represent 176 million workers in 151 countries — have all called for a global end of the use of any form of asbestos, citing it has led to the deaths and chronic disabilities of thousands of innocent victims from cancer and the respiratory disease of asbestosis.

How the Web gave a razed mining town [Pine Point, NWT] poignant life – by Ivor Tossell (Globe and Mail – March 15, 2011)

July 10, 2011July 10, 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.

For the NFB documentary file please click here: Welcome to Pine Point

For 30 years in the later part of the last century, there was a place called Pine Point, a town of 1,200, across Great Slave Lake from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.

Pine Point was an insta-bake lead and zinc mining town, a pre-fab suburban subdivision plunked down in the middle of nowhere in the 1960s. It was a thriving place in its day, and it was inhabited just long enough for one full generation to pass through it.

People were born there and schooled there. People came of age there. It was a northern party town of mullets and tinted glasses and foolhardy backlot exploits. Its residents formed clubs and played in bands and did their banking. They photographed themselves in tight, terrible swimsuits in the sun and snowsuits in the cold and drank at the hotel bar, and at the legion hall, and, by many indications, pretty much anywhere else they could. And then the mine closed, and Pine Point, quite simply, was razed.

But the town didn’t vanish, exactly. You can’t demolish a community without leaving debris, debris of many sorts, and it turns out that that debris has been preserved in a most poignant and remarkable way.

A deadly disdain for science [Harper and asbestos] – by Peter McKnight (Vancouver Sun – July 9, 2011)

July 10, 2011

www.vancouversun.com
pmcknight@vancouversun.com

The Conservative Party’s stance on asbestos -which drew worldwide condemnation -is just the latest example of the federal government’s embrace of an alternate reality bereft of scientific evidence and morality

In the atmospheric film Silent Hill, a dead mining town is forever shrouded in fog and falling ash, while those unfortunate enough to visit also find themselves forever trapped in an alternate reality, where science and morality have no hold.

It’s an apt metaphor for Quebec’s dying and deadly asbestos industry, as it slowly suffocates in a chrysotile cloud. But even more so, it’s an apt metaphor for the federal government’s asbestos policy, just the latest example of the Conservatives’ embrace of an alternate reality bereft of science and morality.

That policy received worldwide condemnation recently, after Canada became the only country in the world to oppose listing chrysotile asbestos under Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention, a multilateral treaty covering the importation of hazardous chemicals. Listing a substance on Annex III triggers the Convention’s Prior Informed Consent Procedure, which requires exporting countries to inform importers of the hazards that exist, and of the precautionary measures they ought to take in handling the substance.

Mining the Congo: Golden opportunity [Banro Corp.] – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – July 10, 2011)

July 10, 2011

Jennifer Wells is a feature writer 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. No stranger to the mining industry, Ms. Wells won the 1999 National Business Book Award for Fever: The Dark Mystery of the Bre-X Gold Rush as well as covering many other major mining stories.

TWANGIZA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Baraka Zihindula appears small for 13, sitting on his bum on the ground, in his royal blue school shorts and short-sleeved shirt. He’s worrying the earth with a stick in the distracted manner of adolescent boys everywhere as he tells his life story, a task that might seem inflated for a mere 13-year-old, until you learn Baraka’s life thus far has included six years of hard labour.

Baraka was 8 when he started panning for gold, working artisanally as a miner alongside his two brothers and his father, just one more family, invisible amid the million-plus informal miners who scrabble for a subsistence living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Baraka’s family lives in the village of Luchiga and every day, seven out of seven, the boys would accompany their father to the river. A little gold was found just about every day, Baraka says, and that little gold was converted to a little money and with that little money his mother was able to feed the family.

Sometimes the father would keep the boys working overnight.

Seated in the shade of a tree, a stone’s throw from the school he now attends, Baraka has kicked off his plastic sandals. There’s a light breeze, the air is fresh and Baraka looks handsome in his schoolboy uniform.

Pedal to the (not-so-heavy) metal [palladium] – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – July 9, 2011)

July 9, 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.

What does a junior Toronto mining company have in common with avant-garde fashion designer Vivienne Westwood? They both dig palladium.

The rare precious metal has always flown under the radar compared to its more glamorous cousins gold and platinum, but lately it’s a lot hotter. Palladium quietly became the best performing metal last year, nearly doubling in value amid a scorching hot resources market.

Yet it’s still just half the price of traditional trinket ingredients gold and platinum, which is helping to push the relatively unknown white metal into the mainstream.

The fact that it’s also eco-friendly – think emission-reducing catalytic converters in cars – prompted Westwood to launch her first-ever jewelry line. The oversized yet lightweight palladium baubles debuted this spring in an effort to offer more affordable designer bling to the masses.

“It’s the rarest of the precious metals, and there’s no real substitute for it” as there are for most other metals, says Bill Biggar, chief executive of North American Palladium Ltd. in Toronto.

Northern Ontario pushes McGuinty to reverse $122-million Metrolinx contract – by Tony Van Alphen (Toronto Star – July 9, 2011)

July 9, 2011

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

Furious municipal politicians in Northern Ontario are pressing Premier Dalton McGuinty to reverse a $122.6-million GO Transit car refurbishing contract with a Quebec firm because they argue a Crown company in North Bay should have won it.

“It doesn’t make much sense,” North Bay Mayor Al McDonald said Friday about the recent decision by Metrolinx, another Crown-owned agency that owns GO.

He warns if the decision by Metrolinx, the GTA’s transit agency, proceeds, it will kill hundreds of jobs in his city and could have significant negative political implications for the governing Liberals in the fall provincial election in Northern Ontario. The Liberals currently hold six of nine northern seats while the NDP represents the other three.

“It flies in the face of their own policy for economic rejuvenation in the North,” said McDonald, who has been rallying other municipal leaders against the deal. “This would be a very difficult decision to defend.”

For peat’s sake: Use this source of energy – Stan Sudol (Toronto Star – February 11, 2005)

July 7, 2011

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

This article is being posted for archival purposes. Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

Not since the oil price hikes of the 1970s has Ontario’s energy future been so precarious. Dwindling North American gas supplies, Middle-East turmoil and enormous energy demands from Chinas are all causing shortages and price increases of oil, gas and coal.

To keep a green election promise to reduce pollution, the Ontario Liberals are committed to closing five coal-fired power plants, which supply 25 per cent of the province’s electricity.

The one Ontario fuel source that could help the province weather the energy turmoil of the next few years is all but ignored. That energy source is peat, a relatively economical alternative that produces significantly less pollution than coal. A 1982 provincial report indicated that Ontario’s peat resources have the energy equivalent of approximately 26 billion barrels of oil – this province’s version of the Alberta tar sands.

Mine workers dig in on wages, pensions, benefits – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – July 6, 2011)

July 6, 2011

Mine workers are flexing their muscles amid surging commodity prices and increased labour shortages, setting the stage for more union unrest.

Workers at some of the world’s largest copper, gold and coal mines have either walked off the job or are threatening to strike, pushing demands for higher wages, and better job security and benefits.

The labour activism is playing out worldwide, from rolling strikes at Australian coal mines jointly owned by BHP Billiton Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corp., to walkouts at Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold’s giant Grasberg mine in Indonesia. African gold producers AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and Gold Fields Ltd. are also facing labour action, as is Chile’s state-owned copper giant Codelco.

Mining companies are trying to hold their ground to prevent a further spike in costs, at the same time maintaining output levels to capitalize on near-record prices for gold, copper, silver and coal. Prolonged strike action could lead to production shortages that would in turn drive up prices for resources as it did with nickel last year following lengthy strikes by workers at Brazilian mining giant Vale SA’s Canadian operations.

[Thunder Bay’s] Lakehead wins approval to launch law school – by James Bradshaw (Globe and Mail – July 6, 2011)

July 6, 2011

Lakehead University has won provincial approval to launch the law school it has long coveted, promising to gear its newest faculty to attract aboriginal students and focus on aboriginal law.

It is Ontario’s first new law school since 1969, and one of several recent efforts across Canada to craft programs and curricula around local cultural needs, from plans for an indigenous law degree at the University of Victoria to Cape Breton University’s newly minted chair in aboriginal business studies.

It is also Northern Ontario’s first law school, chosen to fill a regional need as well as a cultural gap. For years, Lakehead has argued the need to train local students close to home to maintain a strong pool of legal talent, drive economic expansion and serve aboriginal students, who already make up nearly 14 per cent of its student body.

A first class of 55 law students will enroll in September, 2013, with priority going to Northern and aboriginal applicants. They will be able to take courses on aboriginal law, which can range from indigenous legal principles to treaty or land-claim law.

New commodity bull market ready to charge ahead – by Simon Avery (Globe and Mail – July 4, 2011)

July 4, 2011

Resources

A resurgence in global growth will fuel a new bull market later this year for commodities ranging from copper to corn, according to a leading market watcher. While prices for several key raw materials have recently taken a tumble, “it’s always tricky to assume commodity prices have peaked, unless you get a major, major slowdown in global economic growth,” says Patricia Mohr, economics and commodity market specialist at Bank of Nova Scotia. “I think that what is probably occurring is a mild growth slowdown.”

The Scotiabank Commodity Price Index dipped 2.6 per cent in May from a month earlier, led by a 3.9 per cent decline in oil and gas prices. But it still remains 56 per cent above its low in April, 2009.

The most important factor determining future prices is the outlook for China. The country accounts for 40 per cent of world demand for the four key basic metals – copper, aluminum, zinc and nickel – while the U.S. consumes less than 10 per cent. “China really does dominate the commodity outlook,” Ms. Mohr says.

Coltan a minefield in the Congo – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – July 3, 2011)

July 3, 2011

“Don’t just shock us. Make us understand.” — Jason Stearns, Congo watcher

So you want to see the minerals!” Edouard Mwangachuchu, senator, Democratic Republic of the Congo, quickly advances toward a cargo trailer situated high on a verdant emerald hilltop in Masisi Territory. It is a glorious day.

Masisi, in the Congolese province of North Kivu, is lush and agriculturally rich, rising in terraced steps more visually fitting the postcard pastures of today’s Rwanda, or possibly the rice plateaus of Vietnam, than the Congo, which often — too often — seems a desiccated and wretched place.

In Masisi the sweet peas are white, the lupines are purple, and the senator, in his straw hat and pink golf shirt, looks the part of the weekend farmer, which he is, crowing that he produces the finest Gouda cheese in all the Congo. The senator is also a mine operator of a modestly mechanized operation, and on this day he is in an expansive mood.

The lock on the cargo trailer is surprisingly slight, given the riches stored inside.

The Congo’s tin soldiers (Blood Minerals) – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – June 26, 2011)

July 3, 2011

“You’ll say I walked across Africa with my wrists unshackled, and now I am one more soul walking free in a white skin, wearing some thread of the stolen goods, cotton or diamonds, freedom at the very least, prosperity.” — Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

BISIE, CONGO—The figure stirs suddenly, rising on one elbow, eyes blinking out from the dark, hand-dug mine shaft. Rough-hewn post-and-beam construction frames the entrance to the pit, partly obscuring the small cot upon which the creuseur has claimed a moment’s rest, a break from the brain-dulling monotony of hacking at the rock face with mallet and chisel and then, by brute strength, hauling broken ore to the surface, toward the sunlight.

At midday the heat is searing, baking an endless vista of rubble painted in colours of titian and yellow ochre. The treeless moonscape is a 45-minute roller-coaster climb beyond the tiny town of Bisie, itself a nine-hour walk — for the fleet of foot — from the nearest road in the eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Bisie “mine” isn’t really a mine at all, but a cassiterite deposit that has enticed creuseurs like diggers to the Klondike. From pits that run to 100 metres deep and more, miners excavate the ore that ultimately will be smelted to tin by big players in the smelting game, players that reside outside of the Congo. The tin is used not just for cans and containers, but in considerable measure by electronics manufacturers for lead-free solders, forging the link between a mountain in the Congo and shopping malls thousands of kilometres away displaying the latest in smart phones and laptops.

Mining the Congo: From the Earth to the moon – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – June 25, 2011)

July 3, 2011

In the first part of the series Mining the Congo, Jennifer Wells recounts a trek through the Congo toward a remote, cratered mountainside where miners toil.

The heat of the day was coming on. Suspended above a smoky fire a meaty gnarl of antelope, the size of a small ham, twisted lazily. A group of women sat nearby, having lowered their heavy panniers, seeking a moment’s respite.

Mari stood in the umbra of the woodland, her sloe eyes, her round face, a funny little knit cap on her head, tatty pants under a blue and yellow floral piece of cloth that she had tied about her waist. Her pannier of cassava leaves lay at her feet.

Those eyes. They seemed to scan in slow motion before Mari swiftly and dismissively swept the back side of one hand across the palm of the other. “You will not make it to Bisie before nightfall,” she said firmly in Swahili, steadying her gaze not upon photographer Lucas Oleniuk, but upon my determinedly un-weary person. “You will have to sleep in the forest.”

Asbestos hypocrisy sticking to PM – by Tim Harper (Toronto Star – June 29, 2011)

June 29, 2011

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

It takes a special kind of resilience to get knocked down, get up, dust yourself off and declare that you are winning. But that was Kathleen Ruff’s position, communicated forcefully and frenetically, from the West Coast on Tuesday. Ruff continues her battle over Canadian asbestos exports, even as Prime Minister Stephen Harper again confounds the world.

Last week, in Geneva, Harper’s government refused to put chrysotile asbestos on a United Nations list of hazardous exports. It was the third time Canada has stepped in to prevent placing asbestos on a list of exports that would have to include warnings of health hazards to recipient countries.

Those countries could then refuse the asbestos imports if they believed they were unable to handle the product safely on their soil. The cost of protecting Quebec mining jobs has been high.