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Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood

Attawapiskat diamond mine blockade continues, protesters eye De Beers airport – by Jorge Barrera (APTN National News – February 6, 2013)

http://www.aptn.ca/

An Attawapiskat blockade of a winter road leading to a diamond mine operated by De Beers could last until spring and expand to the company’s airport, says Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.

Spence said the handful of protestors who launched the blockade on Monday said they won’t end their protest until they get some concrete changes to the impact benefit agreement (IBA) between Attawapiskat and De Beers.

“The people who are blocking have a lot of concerns,” said Spence, who is currently on sick leave and recovering from her six week-long protest fast.

Spence attended a community meeting held Tuesday evening that ran until near midnight. About 60 people attended the meeting which included De Beers officials. Another meeting began Wednesday at about 5 p.m.

Spence said during Tuesday’s meeting one community member discussed giving De Beers 48 hours to vacate the mine before facing a blockade at its airport. The mining company flies out its diamonds via charters with schedules known only to a few key people.

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Blockade a ‘symptom’ of ongoing Attawapiskat issues: Wynne – by Antonella Artuso (Toronto Sun – February 6, 2013)

http://www.torontosun.com/home

BRADFORD – A blockade set up by Attawapiskat protesters on a winter road to the De Beers mine on the coast of James Bay is a symptom of unmet social needs in First Nations communities, Ontario premier-designate Kathleen Wynne says.

“The economic development that can come from either the mine on the James Bay coast or from the Ring of Fire has to be seen in the context of the relationship between government and the First Nations communities,” Wynne said Wednesday. “There’s a whole range of social issues that are not necessarily directly related to economic development but as a government, and I would suggest the federal government as well… needs to in, my opinion, tackle that whole range of issues if we want to be able to move ahead and have those economic opportunities be fulfilled.”

Wynne said she’s unaware of the actual trigger for the blockade but knows the Attawapiskat community is concerned about a number of issues including lack of housing and the availability of clean water.

“It’s never okay in my opinion to take violent or obstructive action,” Wynne said. “We have to find resolution to those issues at the same time as … allowing economic development to go ahead because in the end, if there is no economic development, then a lot of those issues are not going to be resolved.”

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De Beers reps meet with protesters – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – February 6, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Local management with the De Beers Victor diamond mine have been engaged in a series of community meetings in Attawapiskat in order to bring an end to a blockade which has prevented access to the mine since Monday night.

“There were approximately 16 (protesters involved with the blockade) when we arrived yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon,” Tom Ormsby, director of external and corporate affairs for De Beers Canada told The Daily Press. “Four individuals brought forward issues mainly related to employment, re-employment and training opportunities for them or family members at the mine.

“We have local management from the mine meeting with those involved and we even participated in an open community meeting last night where approximately 60 people attended. Similar to the afternoon discussions, most items centred on employment and training opportunities.”

While the mine has been able to continue operating, the blockade has prevented new supplies from being brought to the mine. These supplies include fuel, oil, tires and other mechanical equipment. Ormsby said there could be an effect on the mine’s operations if the supplies continue to be held up.

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Attawapiskat members blockade Debeers – by Lenny Carpenter (Wawatay News – February 6, 2013)

http://wawataynews.ca/

A small group of Attawapiskat community members have blockaded a road leading from the Debeers Canada diamond mine site to the community, citing issues with the community’s agreement with the diamond company.

Attawapiskat’s Impact Benefit Agreement (IBA) coordinator Danny Metatawabin said the blockaders’ issues pertain to either employment rates among community members at the site or the use of their traditional territory. The blockade began on Feb. 4.

“It started with four individuals,” Metatawabin said, adding that more community members have since joined. “When I went there this morning, there were not even 20.” Metatawabin said the chief and council do not support the blockade, saying the IBA the community signed with Debeers is a “done deal.”

“The current IBA is a done deal, an endorsed document, which states everything is approved and ratified,” he said. “Including allowing Debeers to set up the Victor Mine, the winter road, and ensure that fuel trucks are transported to the site for fuel purposes.”

However, he said the leadership is not taking action against the members who have blockaded the road. A meeting with the leadership and community members is expected to take place in the evening on Feb. 6 while Chief Theresa Spence called for a band council meeting on Feb. 7 regarding the matter.

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Excerpt from “The History of Mining: The events, technology and people involved in the industry that forged the modern world” – by Michael Coulson

To order a copy of The History of Mining please click here: http://www.harriman-house.com/products/books/23161/business/Michael-Coulson/The-History-of-Mining/

SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER (1880-1957)

It is impossible when considering mining in the 20th century not to place the Oppenheimer family at the centre of the development of the South African industry, one that is pre-eminent in the production of precious metals. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer played a crucial role in establishing the Anglo American group and, as Chairman of De Beers, in organising the modern diamond-trading cartel, the Central Selling Organisation, now much reformed.

Sir Ernest was born in 1880 in Freidberg, Germany, where his father Edward was a cigar merchant. The Oppenheimers were a large German Jewish family with excellent connections, particularly in the diamond business in England. When he was 16 he went to England and started work as a clerk in the London office of diamond merchant A. Dunkelsbuhler, who was his cousin, and became a naturalised Briton.

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Blockade halts traffic to diamond mine – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – February 6, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – A team of De Beers executives were scrambling late Tuesday afternoon to meet with a small number of protesters in Attawapiskat who had been blockading the winter road into the Victor diamond mine since Monday night.

While the mine was able to continue operating, company officials reported the blockade was preventing supplies from being brought to the mine.

“Currently the operations of the mine are not interrupted but the work on the road is interrupted – so the resupply to the mine is standing down until it is resolved,” Ashley Brown, senior communications specialist with De Beers, told The Daily Press.

Supply trucks stopped on the road by protesters were carrying “non-perishable consumables like fuel and oil and different mechanical parts, and tires and camp items and new equipment and that sort of stuff,” Brown added. “We use the winter road for those sort of things that are too heavy to economically fly into the mine.”

He said the company was sending an “executive team” to hold talks with the protesters in an effort to resolve the conflict. Brown said the protesters had provided no indication of how long they intended to maintain the blockade.

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Helping developing countries and the mining business – by Ian Smillie (Ottawa Citizen – January 25, 2013)

 http://www.ottawacitizen.com/index.html

Ian Smillie, Ottawa-based author of Blood on the Stone: Greed, Corruption and War in the Global Diamond Trade, chairs the Board of the Diamond Development Initiative.

Throughout 2012 Canadians were treated to an unedifying debate about whether and why the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) should co-finance development projects with Canadian mining companies abroad. The debate arose when CIDA contributed to projects in Africa and South America run by Canadian NGOs and co-financed by three different Canadian mining companies. The projects have vague connections with mining — mainly with mining-related education. But in truth they do not bear directly on any of the companies’ operations.

“Effective partnerships!” said then CIDA minister Bev Oda, a sentiment echoed by current CIDA Minister Julian Fantino. “Subsidies for mining companies!” said the critics, claiming that CIDA should not be funding activities that fall within the ambit of a company’s own corporate social responsibility. CIDA’s mandate, after all, is to end poverty, not to promote Canadian mining companies abroad.

The criticism of CIDA was shrill, however, and much of it was not very well grounded. One of the Canadian firms in question sold its Ghanaian interests to a Chinese firm in 2010, so whatever the critics might think CIDA is promoting there, it isn’t a Canadian company. Those in the “For” camp contributed to the confusion, saying that foreign direct investment is far superior to aid handouts, and that Canadian mining companies actually purvey considerable amounts of development in their own right. In a Toronto speech, Julian Fantino added to the turmoil, saying that “CIDA is committed to contributing to Canada’s long-term prosperity and security.”

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BHP Billiton JV partner sues over sale of Canadian diamond mine – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – January 17, 2013)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – A joint venture (JV) partner is suing BHP Billiton over its plan to sell its stake in the Ekati diamond mine and surrounding exploration properties, in Canada, to miner and luxury goods manufacturer Harry Winston Diamond.

C Fipke Holdings (Fipco) has started an action in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against BHP Billiton Canada and certain of its affiliates, Harry Winston and its subsidiary Harry Winston Diamond Mines, as well as against Dr Stewart Blusson (Blusson) and Archon Minerals, alleging that the offers made by BHP Billiton to Fipco do not comply with Fipco’s pre-emptive rights under the JV agreements for the Ekati mine.

Harry Winston in November 2012 said it had agreed to buy from BHP Billiton an 80% interest in the Core Zone JV and a 58.8% interest in the Buffer Zone JV for about $500-million.

Under the purchase agreement, BHP Billiton offered its interests in the JVs to Fipco, Blusson and Archon, the minority JV parties. Fipco, which holds a 10% interest in each of the Core Zone and Buffer Zone JVs, also alleges in its statement of claim that, among other things, Harry Winston’s debt financing arrangements for the acquisition have interfered with Fipco’s ability to arrange its own financing.

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Harry Winston to focus on mining after deal with Swatch – by Pav Jordan, Bertrand Marotte (Globe and Mail – January 15, 2013)

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.

TORONTO and MONTREAL – Harry Winston Diamond Corp. is selling its storied luxury retail unit to Switzerland’s Swatch Group Ltd., leaving the company to focus squarely on the business of mining after eight years as a high-end jeweller.

Months after the company said interested parties were circling its diamond jewellery and watch business, Harry Winston said on Monday that it’s selling the operation to Swatch for $750-million (U.S.), giving it a healthy cash injection as it eyes an industry ripe for consolidation.

Including $250 million in assumed net debt, the deal has an enterprise value of $1-billion, worth nearly three times what Harry Winston paid for the assets.

For Swatch, the world’s number one maker of finished watches, the deal fills a gap in the high-end jewellery business after the collapse of a partnership with Tiffany & Co. in 2011. “It’s a match made in heaven,” said Jon Cox, head of Swiss research with Kepler Capital Markets in Geneva.

Once the deal closes, Harry Winston is to be renamed Dominion Diamond Corp., its latest move in recent months to push deeper into diamond mining after agreeing in November to buy a controlling stake in Ekati, Canada’s oldest diamond development, from BHP Billiton Ltd.

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The real story behind Attawapiskat’s problems – by Thomas Walkom (Toronto Star – January 9, 2013)

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.

Making sense of Attawapiskat is not easy. The James Bay native community is synonymous with poverty. But it sits next to a diamond mine. Its chief, Theresa Spence, has become famous across Canada because of the hunger strike she is waging on an island in the Ottawa River.

She insists she’ll only consume liquids until Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets with her (which he has agreed to do). But what does Spence want from that meeting? This is less clear. She talks vaguely of a new relationship between aboriginal first nations and the federal government.

We now know, thanks to a detailed audit of Attawapiskat’s finances commissioned by Ottawa, that the first nation’s bookkeeping leaves much to be desired.

Auditors from Deloitte and Touche concluded that roughly 80 per cent of the detailed spending transactions they investigated came with little or no paperwork, making it unclear how the monies were spent.

Yet oddly enough, another auditing firm — this one based in Timmins — has regularly been okaying the band’s annual financial statements, all of which are available on the Attawapiskat website.

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Poor managing on reserves hurts the young the most – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – January 8, 2013)

http://www.torontosun.com/

TORONTO – Just when you thought it was safe to stick your toe back into the murky waters of government accountability, along comes Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, all a-Twitter about the leak of an audit report on Attawapiskat.

“Tough love the rallying cry of the cowards who ‘leak’ these ‘audits’. Too much tough not enough love for our aboriginal bothers and sisters,” Duncan tweeted Monday.

Give me a break. Try too much pot calling the kettle black. As a politician, Duncan was part of a government that regularly leaked documents in order to get out their spin. But when the Tories do it, it’s cowardice? It sure explains why this province is in such dire economic straits.

If he really believes it’s acceptable for the band council in Attawapiskat to spend more than $100 million without adequate documentation, then is it any wonder this province is broke?

A scathing audit report by the accounting firm Deloitte found in random audits of transactions from April 1, 2005, and Nov. 30, 2011, 81% of the files didn’t have adequate documentation.

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Israel recruiting ultra-Orthodox for the diamond industry – by Ari Rabinovitch and Tova Cohen (Reuters/Toronto Star – January 6, 2013)

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.

RAMAT GAN, ISRAEL —Diamond manufacturing is a dwindling trade in Israel. The country has one of the world’s hottest diamond exchanges, but polishers and cutters of the precious stones have been replaced by cheaper workers in newer hubs like India and China.

Israel wants to bring them back. To do so, it plans on recruiting a legion of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who because of their dedication to prayer and study, have been unable or unwilling to join the work force, putting a heavy weight on the economy.

The job of a diamond polisher, however, is unique, said Bumi Traub, president of the Israel Diamond Manufacturers Association. It need not disrupt their pious lifestyle.

“The profession is fitting. You deal with the rock, and if you need to go pray, no one will bother you,” he said. The door to Traub’s office requires a fingerprint scan. Security is tight in the four-building exchange where annual turnover of trading reaches $25 billion (U.S.) each year.

About a third of rough diamonds produced in the world each year pass through the Jewish state and diamonds account for more than one-fifth of the country’s industrial exports. It was a natural sector to develop when Israel was founded 64 years ago, since the small stones have been choice merchandise for generations of Jews who had to quickly flee from riots and persecution.

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Simplistic arguments from Theresa Spence, Idle No More could have tragic consequences for natives – by John Ivison (National Post – January 3, 2013)

 The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

“De Beers is investing $1-billion in the Victor mine near Attawapiskat. It agreed to pay
the band about $30-million over the 12-year life span of the mine. A further $325-million
in contracts has been funnelled through companies owned by the band, to supply catering,
helicopters, dynamite and the like. One wonders how Attawapiskat Resources Inc. has only
made profits of $100,000 on that level of revenue, but that’s for another day.” (John Ivison)

I made the observation on Twitter the other day that certain native leaders seem intent on conflict, and that they want the “hapless” Theresa Spence, the hunger-striking Attawapiskat First Nation chief, to become a martyr.

The reaction was venomous. One of the more considered respondents, Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, called me a “racist p—k” and threatened to kick my “immigrant ass” back to Scotland. And he’s a political science professor at the University of Victoria.

It brought home the power of what psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls “the righteous mind” — the righteous certainty that those who see things differently are wrong, while being completely blind to our own biases.

The prospect of rational debate on this subject is slipping away — and may be lost entirely if Ms. Spence dies. Canada is facing a tumultuous moment in its history with its native people, such as we haven’t seen since the Oka crisis.

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Quebec miners in holding pattern as province finalizes royalty, exploration rules – by Nicolas Van Praet (National Post – November 26, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

MONTREAL — Companies mining in Quebec are expected to ship $9.6-billion worth of minerals this year, double the amount exported only five years ago. But the boom taking hold is being complicated by political uncertainty and competing visions over just how far taxpayers should go in backing companies digging valuable resources in their midst.

Quebec’s Chambers of Commerce Federation says several companies have told its officials they are currently suspending new natural resource and mining investments in the province until the Parti Québécois government finalizes a royalties regime and further clarifies exploration rules. But even established companies tapping existing mines are experiencing growing pains and finding it’s next to impossible to build definitive societal consensus for their projects.

Two particular events illustrate the difficulty miners are having in keeping Quebecers on side.

On Monday, Osisko Mining Corp., the Montreal-based firm operating Canada’s largest open-pit gold mine in Malartic near Val D’Or, confirmed that the head of the independent citizens committee monitoring the mine through to its eventual closure quit. Bernard Gauthier’s resignation came after another member of the seven-person committee said over the weekend the entire group was poised to quit on Wednesday to protest the alleged heavy-handedness of the company in their affairs.

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An Industry Struggles to Keep Its Luster – by John Tagliabue (New York Times – November 6, 2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/

ANTWERP, Belgium — Step off the train here and you cannot miss the signs on the stores: Diamond World, Diamond Gallery, Diamond Creations or simply, Diamonds. Of late, there are the banners and posters reading simply, “Antwerp Loves Diamonds.”
Though this Belgian port has had a love affair with diamonds for centuries, of late it seems to be losing some of its passion. For years now, much of the lucrative but labor-intensive business of cutting and polishing stones has been drifting to low-wage centers in the developing world, like Mumbai, Dubai and Shanghai.

More ominously, in recent years, diamond traders have been accused of a range of violations, including tax fraud, money laundering and cheating on customs payments when buying and selling stones.

Local business leaders recognize the threat. This year, they embarked on what local newspapers described as a “charm offensive.” In a 160-page program, titled Project 2020, the World Diamond Center, a trade-promotion group, outlined plans to draw business back to Antwerp by simplifying and accelerating trading via online systems. That, the industry hopes, will win back some of the polishing business lost to Asian countries with new technology, like fully automated diamond polishers, and generally burnish the image of the diamond business in the public’s jaded eye.

“This is our strength,” said Ari Epstein, 36, a lawyer who is chief executive of the World Diamond Center and the son of a diamond trader, whose father emigrated from a village in Romania in the 1960s. “We have the critical mass so that every diamond finds a buyer and seller.”

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