Mining and Oil Sector Image – Page 22

Asbestos’s last, lonely champion – by Susan Riley (Ottawa Citizen – June 24, 2011)

June 25, 2011June 24, 2011

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/ Susan Riley writes on national politics. E-mail: sriley.work@gmail.com.

I still remember the shock and dismay I felt walking through the ByWard Market in 2005, when I noticed newspaper headlines announcing that Chuck Strahl had been diagnosed with a deadly form of asbestos-related cancer.

Not only was Strahl fit and strong (fortunately, he still is), he was a well-liked Reform, then Conservative, MP and, subsequently, a successful cabinet minister in a number of posts. He decided not to run in the last election – his son Mark took over his B.C. seat on May 2 – and has returned to Chilliwack, his cancer apparently in remission.

This memory makes Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s adamant support for Quebec’s asbestos industry in recent weeks seem even more confounding and cold. After all, within his own cabinet he had sobering evidence of the cost of unprotected exposure to asbestos.

Barrick Gold and North Mara: the search for common ground – by Aaron Regent (Globe and Mail Website – June 22, 2011)

June 22, 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.

Aaron Regent is the president and CEO of Barrick Gold Corp. For Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives at Barrick, go to Beyond Borders.

The relationship between developing countries and Canadian mining companies has been the subject of much discussion in recent weeks and understandably so. As president and CEO of Barrick Gold Corp., it troubles me that events surrounding our company are part of that discussion.

In mid-May, we learned that five people had been killed by Tanzanian police following the invasion of the North Mara mine by as many as 1,500 people. Shortly after, this newspaper reported on our findings that police and security officers may have committed sexual assaults in the area around the mine. Barrick’s revulsion at discovering this evidence is deep. I have seen myself, from the men and women working on the ground to the most senior levels of management, enormous disappointment at these situations and a determination to act.

Barrick will not shy away from the challenges at North Mara, nor diminish them by failing to respond. Where we do encounter safety or human-rights concerns, we will act. We will aggressively investigate allegations of abuse or violence, and we will actively support the investigations of authorities. We will address concerns related to security and the safety risks posed by trespassing.

Gooey Oil Sands Lies PR Flacks Tell: Call BS! – by Andrew Nikiforuk (June 10, 2011 – TheTyee)

June 12, 2011

The Tyee: B.C’s Home for News, Culture and Solutions http://thetyee.ca/

Nikiforuk’s latest ENERGY & EQUITY column includes a clip and send to-do list for decision makers.

Every year Gallup publishes a poll on the popularity of 25 industries and every one, sure as rain, ranks the oil and gas industry at the bottom of the list.

While the computer industry, restaurants and farming generally get positive reviews, banking, real estate and the petroleum industry all languish in a swamp of negativity. Nobody, it seems, trusts Big Oil.

Yet Canadian and Alberta politicians still think that they can polish away all the dirt and toxic waste associated with the tar sands (the world’s largest earth-moving project) with a growing mound of PR.

Almost all of this spin doctoring highlights the words “clean” or “responsible” and talks about a totally fictional country called “the foremost clean energy superpower.” The only people who live in this wonderful petropolis appear to be Tory cabinet ministers and Big Oil lobbyists.

Our world needs more Peter Munks – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – June 11, 2011)

June 11, 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. mwente@globeandmail.com

Some parts of the world are nastier than Canada. Peter Munk should know. He came from one.

Mr. Munk is the founder and chairman of Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold miner. From the day he landed in Toronto from war-torn Europe, he has loved this country with a passion. “I arrived in this place not speaking the language, not knowing a dog,” he says. He was 18 – an alien, a foreigner, a Jew in a funny-looking suit. In Europe, people were living in the ruins, like rats.

The young refugee presented himself at Lawrence Park Collegiate, where nobody had seen a foreigner before. He expected to be shunned. Instead, the principal took him to a sun-filled classroom, where, unbelievably, boys and girls studied together. At lunchtime, everybody streamed into the cafeteria, where a trestle table groaned with meat, bread and milk. “The amount of food in that place could have fed any city in Europe for a whole day,” he recalls. Kids began asking him home, where their parents invited him to raid the fridge.

For Mr. Munk, this generosity became a metaphor for Canada. “People here don’t ask about your origins,” he says, “only about your destiny.”

Today, the company that he founded is embroiled in controversy, and Mr. Munk himself has come under vicious attack. Billionaires and mining giants will never be exempt from criticism, nor should they be. But these attacks are so toxic, they demand a response.

Tanzania weighs ‘super-profit’ tax on miners – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – June 9, 2011)

June 9, 2011June 9, 2011

Tanzania is eyeing a “super-profit tax” on miners to help pay for a development program in the East African country, the latest in a growing list of governments trying to grab more money from the resource sector amid rising commodity prices.

While the Tanzanian government hasn’t confirmed that it is weighing such a plan, reports say the new tax could be similar to one proposed last year in Australia.

“Considering the increasing trend in mineral prices, it is optimal to introduce a super-profit tax on the windfall earnings from the mineral sector,” state government documents viewed by Reuters.

Bloomberg reported the comments come from the country’s planning commission, which the Tanzanian government website describes as a think-tank under the President’s office that advises on economic issues.

In an African mine, the lust for gold sparks a deadly clash – Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – June 8, 2011)

June 9, 2011June 9, 2011

NORTH MARA, TANZANIA

The morning of May 16 began like many others. Carrying hammers and rucksacks, hundreds of Tanzanian villagers trudged to the mountain of waste rock at dawn expecting to make another illicit deal with the heavily armed police who protect it.

Two hours later, at least five villagers were dead and many others wounded – gunned down by police at the gold mine owned by a subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation of Toronto.
The shooting, the latest in a series of deadly incidents at the mine over the past several years, raises troubling questions about Barrick’s security agreement with a notoriously corrupt police force that routinely extracts bribes from the villagers who enter the North Mara mine to scavenge for traces of gold.

It also provokes questions about Barrick’s decision to keep operating in the anarchic conditions around its mining site, where violent confrontations are common, allegations of police abuses are frequent and deaths are inevitable.

During a five-day visit to the North Mara Mine and the surrounding villages, The Globe and Mail witnessed an atmosphere of conflict and intimidation. Interviews with injured survivors of the May 16 shootings and other witnesses suggest that most of the villagers were unarmed or carrying only stones when they were shot. The witnesses, along with the local police commander, have contradicted the company’s assertion that hundreds of people attacked the police with machetes, hammers and rocks.

Canada mines discontent among the poor of Africa – Linda McQuaig (Toronto Star – June 7, 2011)

June 9, 2011June 7, 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. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca

While Canadians may think of ourselves as best known for owning the Olympic podium, among Africans we may actually be better known — and not particularly liked — for owning their natural resources.

Once beloved on the continent, Canada is no longer so fondly regarded in Africa.

The new, less enthusiastic view of Canada was vividly illustrated last month when more than 1,500 desperately poor Tanzanian villagers picked up machetes, rocks and hammers and stormed the mining compound of Canadian-owned African Barrick Gold.

The uprising — leading to the shooting deaths of seven of the villagers by police and security forces at the mine — is a startling reminder that theories widely held in the West about the benefits of foreign investment for the developing world are not always shared by people on the receiving end.

Statement from Barrick Gold Corporation concerning the North Mara Mine, Tanzania (May 30, 2011)

June 1, 2011

Introduction

Barrick Gold Corporation, and its affiliates and subsidiaries, operate in some of the most challenging environments in the world. Among Barrick’s operations and affiliates, the Mara region of Tanzania, in which African Barrick Gold (ABG) owns and operates the North Mara mine, is especially challenging. The North Mara mine is located in a very remote, underdeveloped part of the country in close proximity to the Kenyan border. In-migration from other areas and countries is rampant and law enforcement capacity is limited, making the area a magnet for transients, criminals and organized crime. Civil unrest due to poverty is a particular problem in the area, a fact widely recognized by Tanzanian authorities.

The vast majority of people living near North Mara share the same desire for security and safety as ABG and its employees. To that end, ABG is working with Tanzanian authorities to address a variety of issues that impact the community, particularly related to law and order. The end goal is to make this area safer for residents of the community and for the men and women who work at the mine.

The Investigation

It is against this background that ABG recently notified Barrick that it had received highly disturbing allegations of sexual assaults by the police and ABG security against local women. Following recent events at the Porgera Joint Venture in Papua New Guinea, employees have a heightened sensitivity to these issues. ABG has also been pursuing enhancements to its human rights program generally, in parallel to Barrick commencing its new human rights compliance program. Employees raised these allegations to external investigators retained by ABG to inquire into an unrelated matter.

Peregrines disrupt Vale’s [Sudbury] demo plans – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – May 31, 2011)

May 31, 2011

The Sudbury Star, is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. This article was published on May 31, 2011. hcarmichael@thesudburystar.com

It has been closed since 1980, but don’t tell a pair of peregrine falcons.

As far as the endangered raptors are concerned, the upper parts of Vale’s Iron Ore Recovery Plant off Fielding Road in Copper Cliff make for a perfect nesting area where they won’t be disturbed.

In fact, the pair — either descendants of young peregrines brought from Alberta to Greater Sudbury back in the early 1990s during Project Peregrine Sudbury or original birds released here — have been making the long-closed building their summer home for four years.

“I would expect so,” said Allison Merla, senior environmental analyst at Vale’s Greater Sudbury operations. “Peregrines will return to the same nesting area year after year.” While the pair’s nest was visible in previous years, it appears this year the nest is situated inside the structure.

Claims of sexual abuses in Tanzania blow to Barrick Gold – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – May 31, 2011)

May 31, 2011

“These deplorable crimes, if confirmed, are neither acceptable nor excusable.
They send a clear message to us that we have not met the promises we have
made to the community, and to ourselves, to pursue responsible mining in every
location where we and our affiliates operate. We can, and will, do more.”
(Barrick statement to The Globe and Mail)

NORTH MARA, TANZANIA – Just two weeks after the fatal shooting of seven people at one of its Tanzanian gold mines, Barrick Gold Corp. is investigating allegations of sexual assault by about a dozen police and security guards at the same violence-plagued mine.

The Toronto-based corporate giant, the world’s biggest gold miner, is already reeling from allegations of gang rape by its security guards at another of its subsidiaries, in Papua New Guinea.

The deaths and alleged abuses at the Barrick sites, which began years ago but failed to gain wide attention until recently, are accelerating Barrick’s efforts to introduce stronger rules for investigating human-rights problems at its 26 mines around the world. The latest case comes as investors have been urging Canadian companies operating overseas in tough and lawless environments to push for more transparency instead of tolerating human-rights abuses.

Barrick recently became the first Canadian mining company to sign up to the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, an international set of guidelines for extractive industries, which oblige it to investigate and report any credible information about human-rights abuses at its workplaces.

[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.

Canadian Mining in Africa: “Do As You Please” Approach Comes at High Cost – by Bonnie Campbell (Canadian Dimension – Jan/Feb 2011)

May 26, 2011

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

Bonnie Campbell is a professor of political economy at the Department of Political Science at the University of Québec in Montreal where she heads the Research Chair C.-A. Poissant on Governance and Aid for Development.

While Canadian miners have expanded to all continents, Africa now accounts for about 17 percent of Canadian mining assets abroad, up from 11 percent in 2001. Next to South African investments, companies registered on Canadian stock exchanges now represent the most important source of investment in mining in Africa. From a total amount of C$ 2.87 billion in 2001 and $6.0 billion in 2005, Canadian mining investment in Africa exceeded $23.6 billion in 2010. The trend illustrating the growing presence of Canadian companies in Africa is given in Graph 1 and the 2010 distribution of assets by countries in Graph 2. The country distribution of that investment and the minerals concerned as of December 2008 are in the pictures above.

The map shows that 91% of Canadian investments are concentrated in eight countries, with the order of countries’ importance being the following: South Africa (25.6%), DR Congo (17.8%), Madagascar (13.8%), Zambia (9.9%), Tanzania (9.5%), Ghana (6.5%), Burkina Faso (4.7%) and Mauritania (3%).

Issues of violence, environmental damage and human rights abuses abound in mineral rich Africa and according to a 2009 report produced by the Canadian Centre for the Study of Resource Conflict, Canadian mining companies have been the most significant group involved in such violations.

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.