International Media Resource Articles – Page 752

VIDEO: 74-year-old labor film about lead, zinc mining joins National Film Registry – by Wally Kennedy and Andy Ostmeyer (Joplin Globe – January 7, 2014)

April 5, 2015January 8, 2014

http://www.joplinglobe.com/ [Missouri, U.S.A.]

CARTHAGE, Mo. — A 74-year-old labor film that kicked open a hornet’s nest in the Tri-State Mining District when it was released in 1940 is among 25 films chosen recently for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

“Men and Dust” was produced and directed by Lee Dick, a pioneer in documentary filmmaking, and was written and shot by her husband, Sheldon Dick. The couple examined conditions in the lead and zinc mines, and silicosis among miners and their family members. Much of the film was shot at Picher, Okla.

The Library of Congress adds 25 films to the National Film Registry every year. They are chosen for their “great cultural, historic or aesthetic significance.” Films added in 2013, along with “Men and Dust,” include “Judgment at Nuremberg,” “Mary Poppins,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “Pulp Fiction” and “The Quiet Man.”

SA platinum market to remain uncertain during 2014 – by Leandi Kolver (MiningWeekly.com – January 7, 2014)

January 8, 2014

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The South African platinum market is expected to remain unpredictable during 2014, but might not be as volatile as it was in 2013, Deloitte associate director Dr Jacek Guzek said on Tuesday.

He stated that the major issues, which kept the industry in crisis over the past two years, such as the unchanged platinum group metals (PGMs) basket price and the ever-increasing wage bill, still persisted.

“South African production in 2014 is either going to stagnate or decrease further. The platinum industry is in crisis for a second year going and there is no end in sight,” Guzek told Mining Weekly Online.

He explained that the industry crisis impacted negatively on production as it led to the systemic holding back of expansion capital by junior and major PGM producers, while, simultaneously, existing mines were becoming older, deeper and more difficult to mine.

Guzek added that the country would also still be faced with labour issues during the course of the year.

How Peru Could Survive The End Of The Commodities Supercycle – by David Gacs (Business Insider – January 7, 2014)

January 8, 2014

http://www.businessinsider.com/

With a mere 30 million people living within its borders, Peru is only slightly larger than the state of Texas. But as the world’s third-largest producer of both copper and zinc and its sixth-largest source of gold, the country enjoyed an outsized benefit from a cresting wave in global commodities markets over the last decade. Between 2002 and 2012, as the price of most commodities soared, Peru’s average annual GDP growth rate was 6.4 percent. As recently as 2010, the Latin American country’s GDP expanded by 8.8 percent, making it one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

But the commodities “supercycle” ended in 2013 and seems set to retreat further in the rear-view mirror. The average price of gold in 2012 was $1,699 an ounce, but Credit Suisse commodities analysts say the 2013 year-end average was some 16 percent lower at $1,421 per ounce. Copper prices have fallen sharply too, from $7,971 a ton on average in 2012 to $7,349 this year – a 7.8 percent drop. It’s been quite the precipitous decline: Copper was selling for more than $9,000 a ton in 2010. Mining investment in another major commodities exporter, Australia, has already peaked, prompting a great deal of discussion about how to rebalance the economy.

But though Peru, too, needs to think about diversifying its economy, the situation is different – not least because there is still plenty of mining investment in the pipeline. Credit Suisse analysts and other observers believe resource-rich Peru’s strong domestic economy and healthy public finances should ensure a relatively soft landing.

Analysis – Social media empowers anti-mining activists – by Allison Martell and Ioana Patran (Reuters U.K. – January 7, 2014)

January 7, 2014January 7, 2014

http://uk.reuters.com/

TORONTO/BUCHAREST – (Reuters) – Facebook and other social networks are making it easier for anti-mining activists to derail projects, helping them get their message out and organize more quickly against an industry that is already struggling with high costs and volatile prices.

From Romania to Peru to Canada, protest movements have disrupted projects in recent years, in part because activists have harnessed the power of social media and mobile technology, parties on both sides of the disputes say.

Civil unrest can spell disaster for mining projects at any stage, even after billions have been invested. That is not new. What has changed is activists’ ability to mobilize, a trend that echoes political upheavals that social media have helped fuel across the Middle East and North Africa.

The saga of Rosia Montana, the Romanian region where Canada’s Gabriel Resources Ltd wants to build Europe’s biggest open-pit gold mine, offers a clear illustration of how social media has shifted the balance of power. Gabriel’s push to get the project approved suffered a series of setbacks in the autumn after activists used Facebook to organize demonstrations across the country.

UPDATE 2-Indonesia mineral export ban uncertainty starts to bite – by Fergus Jensen and Wilda Asmarini (Reuters U.S. – January 7, 2014)

January 7, 2014

http://www.reuters.com/

Jan 7 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s planned mineral export ban – a policy designed to force miners to process their ores domestically – is sending shudders through the economy, with a Singapore-owned nickel miner suspending operations ahead of the Jan. 12 ban.

Indonesia is the world’s top exporter of nickel ore, thermal coal and refined tin, but also has significant exports of iron ore and bauxite, both of which are likely to be stopped after Sunday.

An increase in shipments of processed minerals would bolster the country’s foreign revenue and help narrow a current account deficit, which has undermined investor confidence and battered the rupiah.

However, the move has drawn protests from small mining companies, which say they can’t afford to build smelters, as well as from international majors, including U.S. giants Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and Newmont Mining Corp .

The plan has also raised fears that export earnings could be slashed in the short term as miners scramble to meet the new regulation. Mining contributes about 12 percent of gross domestic product to Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

[Arizona Copper Mining] America’s Future Depends on Decisions We Make Today – by David F. Briggs (Tucons Citizen – January 05, 2014)

January 7, 2014

http://tucsoncitizen.com/

David F. Briggs is a resident of Pima county and a geologist, who has intermittently worked as a consultant on the Rosemont Copper project since 2006.

Opponents claim the Rosemont copper project should not be allowed to be developed because most of the copper concentrates produced by this project will be exported for treatment by foreign smelters and refineries. The false premise of their argument is; “if the copper produced from Rosemont is not consumed here, this project will not benefit Americans.”

How many of you know that most of the copper-bearing materials collected at domestic recycling centers are also shipped to foreign facilities for treatment because the United States no longer has the capacity to treat these materials here? During 2011, recyclable materials containing 1,367,000 short tons of copper were exported to foreign countries for treatment. Most of this recyclable material (75.8%) was exported to China.

Should we also stop recycling copper because most of it is also shipped abroad for treatment? Isn’t recycling copper good for the environment?

[Montana and North Dakota] As Oil Floods Plains Towns, Crime Pours In – by Jack Healy (New York Times – November 30, 2013)

January 7, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/

SIDNEY, Mont. — One cold morning last year, a math teacher jogging through her hometown in eastern Montana was abducted, strangled and buried in a shallow grave. Charged in her death were two drifters from Colorado, drawn to the region by the allure of easy money in the oil fields.

One hundred fifty miles away, in a bustling oil town in North Dakota, a 30-year-old man disappeared one afternoon from the street where he had been putting in water and sewer pipes, leaving behind a lunchbox with his paycheck inside and a family grasping for answers. After months of searching, his mother said she now believes her son is gone, buried somewhere on the high plain.

Stories like these, once rare, have become as common as drilling rigs in rural towns at the heart of one of the nation’s richest oil booms. Crime has soared as thousands of workers and rivers of cash have flowed into towns, straining police departments and shattering residents’ sense of safety.

“It just feels like the modern-day Wild West,” said Sgt. Kylan Klauzer, an investigator in Dickinson, in western North Dakota. The Dickinson police handled 41 violent crimes last year, up from seven only five years ago.

Intel says its processors are now free of minerals from mines held by armed groups in Congo – by Peter Svensson (The Republic – January 07, 2014)

January 7, 2014

http://www.therepublic.com/ [Columbus, Indiana]

LAS VEGAS — Intel Corp., the world’s largest maker of computer processors, says its processors are now free of minerals from mines held by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It’s the first major U.S. technology company to make such a claim about its products. It’s the fruit of four years of work by the company to determine the sources of four crucial metals widely used in electronics manufacturing: tantalum, tungsten, tin and gold.

Eastern Congo is rich in minerals, and economic activity other than mining has been disrupted by nearly two decades of fighting between the government, rogue soldiers and different ethnic groups. There’s been widespread concern that foreign purchases of minerals from mines held by armed groups are fueling the conflict, though many experts say the minerals are not the root cause of the fighting.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich made the announcement Monday in a keynote speech ahead of the opening of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Walsh’s steely resolve for change of culture helps Rio Tinto turn around – by Andrew Burrell and Paul Garvey (The Australian – January 4, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business

SOON after arriving in London a year ago to begin his reign as chief executive of Rio Tinto, Sam Walsh took a stroll from his Kensington home to check out an antiques fair at nearby Sloane Square.

The avid collector of milk jugs — he has more than 350 of the cherished antiques stashed away in his other house in Perth — was in his element as he prepared to browse the collectables. “I walked up to the very first stand and picked up a Royal Worcester milk jug,” recalls Walsh. “And the lady looked at me and said, ‘Australian accent, interested in milk jugs, we know who you are — we’ve been expecting you!’ ”

Walsh roars with laughter when telling the story, partly because he cheerfully revels in the fact his passion for delicate milk jugs breaks all the stereotypes of the knockabout mining industry. But he knows too that it’s much harder to be anonymous — even at an antiques fair — when you’re running one of the biggest companies in one of the world’s financial capitals.

It’s even harder, it may be suggested, when you’re trying to lead the turnaround of a company that had spectacularly lost its way under predecessor Tom Albanese, culminating in more than $US14 billion in writedowns as a result of the failed 2007 acquisition of Canadian aluminium producer Alcan and the disastrous takeover of African coal play Riversdale Mining in 2011.

‘Confiscate wealth of mining mafia’ (The Times of India – January 6, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/international-home

BHUBANESWAR: Reiterating his demand for a CBI probe into the multi-thousand crore mining scam, senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik on Sunday said the inquiry must go beyond the Justice M B Shah Commission report and sought an ordinance to confiscate wealth of the mining mafia.

The former state Congress president, in a press statement, said CBI investigation must go beyond leaseholders.

“The leaseholders are known legal entities and irregularities committed by them can be computed and accountability fixed, as has been rightly done by the Shah Commission,” he said. The Shah panel has recommended recovery of around Rs 60,000 crore from miners for illegalities committed by them.

On mining outside leasehold areas and abandoned mines, Niranjan said, “All entities involved in such illegal mining, as juxtaposed to irregular mining by known legal leaseholders, are remaining nameless and faceless. They have neither paid any royalty nor any income tax and there is no way they can be held accountable.”

S. Korea’s Former Miners Dig Up Nation-Building Past – by Agence France-Presse/Jakarta Globe (January 3, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/

Fifty years ago, several hundred South Koreans went to work in German mines in the first wave of a flood of Korean migrants whose remittances helped jumpstart one of the great economic transformations of the modern age.

The experience was often lonely, and for some their contribution was tainted on their return by the social stigma attached to a job that was tough, filthy and dangerous in a society that looked down on manual labour.

As a result, they feel their role in South Korean history has been largely overlooked, despite helping to seed South Korea’s economic growth and rapid industrialisation by sending funds home.

Mostly in their 20s, the miners — the first South Koreans to work overseas since the peninsula split into the capitalist South and a communist North in 1945 — were part of Seoul’s strategy to solve a high jobless rate and earn hard foreign currency. Bae Jung-Hwan left his homeland in 1970 to work at a German mine before returning a few years later. He says he only recently told his wife and children about his past.

Chilean miracle miners back in spotlight (AFP/Sydney Morning Herald – January 2, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/

At the bottom of a dank salt mine in Colombia, a 200-strong film crew featuring Spanish actor Antonio Banderas is reconstructing the incredible tale of 33 miners buried alive for 69 days in Chile in 2010. Actors from multiple countries work in suffocating heat on The 33, which traces the unlikely survival of the men trapped deep underground after a collapse at the San Jose copper mine in the Atacama desert.

“It’s not just about the physical ordeal these 33 men went through – it’s about the emotional one, of wondering if they would live or die, or if they would go crazy waiting to find out,” Gregg Brilliant, a spokesman for the American film production, told AFP.

To depict the incredible story that unfolded more than 600m underground, the production team chose to film at two sites outside the Colombian capital Bogota. Behind a security cordon, curious onlookers try to catch a glimpse of a star, but their Hollywood hopes are repeatedly dashed.

In the salt mines of Nemocon, the humid and musty environment combine with the thin mountain air to recreate the oppressive atmosphere at San Jose, located 800km north of Chile’s capital Santiago.

Paucity Amidst Plenty [India Mining Problems] – by N. Madhavan, K.R. Balasubramanyam and Anilesh S. Mahajan (Business Today – December 22, 2013)

January 6, 2014

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/ [India]

Why a country flush with natural resources finds itself grappling with their shortage.

Billionaire Lakshmi Niwas Mittal has the uncanny ability to work successfully with governments of all kinds across the globe. That, and his unbridled ambition, have enabled him to set up or acquire steel factories in 20 countries. But the man who created the world’s largest steel empire from scratch tasted the bitter fruit of failure when he decided to invest in his country of birth – India.

In a bid to capitalise on India’s huge iron ore deposits and rising steel consumption, Mittal in 2005 announced plans to set up a steel project in Jharkhand that year and in Orissa the next. Later, he proposed another mill in Karnataka. The total intended investment was $30 billion.

In July this year, ArcelorMittal, Mittal’s company, scrapped its $12-billion mill in Orissa after having failed to acquire land and iron ore mines for seven years. Its other projects have not yet been called off, but are also facing delays. Mittal’s decision came just a day after South Korean steelmaker Posco, the world’s fifth-largest, abandoned a $5.3-billion project in Karnataka for similar reasons.

[India] Bullion smuggling outstrips narcotics to feed gold habit – by A. ANANTHALAKSHMI AND SIDDESH MAYENKAR (Reuters India – December 4, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE/MUMBAI – (Reuters) – Indian gold smugglers are adopting the methods of drug couriers to sidestep a government crackdown on imports of the precious metal, stashing gold in imported vehicles and even using mules who swallow nuggets to try to get them past airport security.

Stung by rules imposed this year to cut a high trade deficit and a record duty on imports, dealers and individual customers are fanning out across Asia to buy gold and sneak it back into the country.

Sri Lanka, Thailand and Singapore are the latest hotspots as authorities crack down on travellers from Dubai, the traditional source of smuggled gold. In a sign of the times, whistleblowers who help bust illegal gold shipments can get a bigger reward in India than those who help catch cocaine and heroin smugglers.

“Gold and narcotics operate as two different syndicates but gold smuggling has become more profitable and fashionable,” said Kiran Kumar Karlapu, an official at Mumbai’s Air Intelligence Unit.

[Indonesian] Ore Export Ban Is Definitive, Official Says – by Muhammad Al Azhari (Jakarta Globe – January 2, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/

Indonesia will be consistent in banning mineral-ore exports this year, as mandated by the 2009 Mining Law, and the government regulation would set processing and purification requirements before companies can export, a senior government official said.

R. Sukhyar, the newly appointed director general of coal and mineral resources at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry talked with the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday, almost two weeks before the Jan. 12 deadline, to clarify the government’s stance about the mineral-ore export ban.

Reports last month said the government would set exemptions, but that is not the case, according to Sukhyar. “The law says mineral ore mined from Indonesian soil must be processed [domestically] and be purified. That’s clear, that means no more mineral-ore exports. That’s non-negotiable,” said Sukhyar, a veteran bureaucrat, who officially started his new position on Dec. 20.

The government regulation, he said, will regulate technicalities about the smelting and purification level for metals including copper, nickel, bauxite, tin, iron ore, manganese, gold, copper. It will also regulate the adding of value to non-metals, such as limestone, quartz and marble, before they can be exported.