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Impassable winter roads create ‘dire’ situation for Ontario First Nations: NAN (Canadian Press – February 10, 2024)

https://www.cp24.com/

Impassable winter roads are delaying vital shipments and threatening the safety of First Nations across northern Ontario, leaders warned as they pressed the provincial and federal government for support.

An unseasonably warm winter, intensified by human-caused climate change, has left many remote First Nations cut off from an essential road network built over frozen land, lakes and rivers. The situation has prompted recent state of emergency declarations by First Nations in Manitoba and Ontario, as well as repeated requests for support.

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Uranium Prices Are Warming. Now Consider the Bear Case: Lithium. – by Jack Hough (Barrons – February 9, 2024)

https://www.barrons.com/

Uranium dipped in price this past week after hitting its highest level in 16 years. Is it about to get lithium-ed? Lithium, the lightest metal, multiplied more than five times in price in less than a year after CME Group launched a futures contract in 2021. Then it collapsed, and now it’s lower than it started.

Uranium, one of the heaviest metals, doubled in price since summer to a recent $106 per pound before dipping to just below $100. Two niche exchange-traded funds, Global X Uranium and Sprott Uranium Miners, together took in more than $1 billion in fresh investor cash over the past year, as assets under management swelled to a combined $5 billion.

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New mine at N.W.T.’s Pine Point still 6 years away, company says – by Carla Ulrich (CBC News North – February 9, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

It’s been almost 4 decades since the former mine at Pine Point was abandoned

There could be a new Pine Point mine operating in the N.W.T. in about six years, according to the company behind the project — and many South Slave residents are looking forward to it. There hasn’t been an operational lead and zinc mine at Pine Point in almost four decades when the former mine and neighbouring community closed down and were abandoned.

The site, located between Hay River and Fort Resolution., N.W.T., is currently in the development phase. Last winter, Osisko Metals completed a five-year drilling program on site to determine the mineral resources.

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Canada Nickel Co. introduces plans for new processing facilities, but funding remains uncertain – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – February 9, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada Nickel Company Inc. announced plans Thursday to build two large processing facilities near Timmins, Ont., whose output would be directed partly to North America’s rapidly growing market for electric vehicles.

The company said its wholly owned subsidiary, NetZero Metals Inc., intends to build a nickel-processing facility it described as North America’s largest, as well as a stainless-steel and alloy plant it said would be Canada’s biggest.

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‘Done being patient’: Treaty 4 First Nations suing Ottawa over $5 annuity payments – by Jeremy Simes (Canadian Press/Toronto Star – February 11, 2024)

https://www.thestar.com/

Treaty 4 First Nations suing Ottawa over annuities

REGINA – Chief Lynn Acoose says she’s taking a step elders and past Indigenous leaders in her community have long been reluctant to.

The chief of Zagime Anishinabek, home to several First Nations in southeastern Saskatchewan, has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the federal government. The suit alleges Ottawa has not kept its end of the bargain over annuity payments after signing Treaty 4 nearly 150 years ago.

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BHP ramps up cost-cutting as axe hangs over thousands of nickel jobs – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – February 11, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

BHP has told suppliers and workers at its West Australian nickel operations that it needs to cut costs for the business to have any chance of surviving the nickel rout that has claimed mines run by IGO and Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo.

Chief executive Mike Henry and the BHP board face tough calls on Nickel West amid estimates the business is losing up to $50 million a month at current nickel prices. Nickel miners, including Nickel West boss Jessica Farrell, met WA Premier Roger Cook on Friday as part of work by his government to refresh its critical minerals strategy in light of the downturn in nickel, lithium and other green metals.

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Trump’s reckless new world disorder – by John Ivison (National Post – February 12, 2024)

https://nationalpost.com/

Epochal changes are taking place beyond our borders — including the U.S. potentially leaving NATO. But our politicians slumber on

The world appears to be drifting inexorably towards catastrophe but you wouldn’t know it from watching the House of Commons, where momentous global events are subordinated to the relative domestic trivia of car thefts and carbon taxes.

What will it take to rouse Canadian politicians from their torpor? How about the candidate who is odds on to be the next president of the United States indicating in a speech that he will give Vladimir Putin free rein in Europe, if he is elected?

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Glencore to Sell Stake in Struggling New Caledonia Nickel Mines – by Eddie Spence and Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – February 12, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Glencore Plc plans to sell its stake in a nickel mine and a processing plant on the islands of New Caledonia following a dramatic slump in prices.

The world’s top commodity trader will seek to sell its 49% stake in Koniambo Nickel SAS, according to a statement from KNS. The company would begin “without delay” to suspend operations at its ferronickel plant while a new investor is found.

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NATO leader says Trump puts allies at risk by saying Russia can ‘do whatever the hell they want’ – by Vanessa Gera and Lorne Cook (Associated Press – February 11, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The head of the NATO military alliance warned Sunday that Donald Trump was putting the safety of U.S. troops and their allies at risk after the Republican presidential front-runner said Russia should be able to do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO members who don’t meet their defense spending targets.

“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the U.S., and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

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OPINION:The strengthening case for nuclear – by Marcus Gee (Globe and Mail – February 10, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Last week, the Ontario government announced plans to spend many years and billions of dollars refurbishing an old nuclear plant in Pickering, just east of Toronto. Pure folly, said its critics. In fact, the decision makes good, solid sense, both for Ontario and the planet.

Winning the battle to control global warming depends in large part on powering more things with electricity – specifically electricity that isn’t produced by burning fossil fuels. Making that energy shift is a huge task, but Ontario has two big advantages.

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Can royalties help Australia’s critical minerals lift off? – by Clyde Russell (Reuters – February 12, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Feb 12 (Reuters) – A consistent contradiction in Australia’s mining sector is that while there is a pressing need for new mines to be developed to provide raw materials for the energy transition, the capital to do so is hard to find.

The relatively easy part is getting an exploration permit, doing some initial drilling and proving up a resource. The hard part is then raising the finance to develop the mine from exploration to production.

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Justin Trudeau’s debacle of misgovernment – by Conrad Black (National Post – February 10, 2024)

https://nationalpost.com/

Canada has never had a government so vehemently opposed to our national interests

This column has often lamented the decline of Canada’s competitive status as an economic and geopolitical power, and particularly our descent down the ladder of the world’s nations in per capita income. Everything that could be done in this very fortunate country to make our nation less prosperous and less influential in the world is being done.

Capital leaving Canada that was generated in this country has exceeded investment capital entering from outside by $285 billion in the last nine years. The world is clawing at our door to buy our oil and natural gas but the present government, while inciting every conceivable pretext for refusing or harassing the construction of pipelines to get our oil and gas to world markets, has clamped its lips around the gas-pipe of climate alarmism.

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Remote Manitoba First Nations declare state of emergency due to lack of winter road access – by Sarah Petz (CBC News Manitoba – February 06, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/

Chiefs say they’re not able to bring in hundreds of loads of essential supplies

The chiefs of four isolated First Nations in northeastern Manitoba say this year’s unusually warm weather has made it impossible to bring in hundreds of loads of essential supplies to their communities, via the province’s winter road system.

At a news conference Tuesday morning, the chiefs from the Island Lake region — which is comprised of the Wasagamack, St. Theresa Point, Red Sucker Lake and Garden Hill First Nations — said they are declaring a state of emergency as a result.

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Israel’s Diamond Trade Is Stuck Between Two Crises – by Joshua Freedman (Rapaport Magazine – February 8, 2024)

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The global downturn is a bigger challenge for the market than the war is, says bourse president Boaz Moldawsky.

October 7 was supposed to be a joyous day for Boaz Moldawsky, president of the Israel Diamond Exchange (IDE). His daughter gave birth at 11 p.m. the night before. The Hamas attack on Israel started early the next morning.

Moldawsky was in Tel Aviv when it all kicked off. As many did, he brushed off the first rocket siren at 6:30 a.m. as an ordinary warning that happens from time to time. Within a few hours, it became clear that something more serious was happening. “At the beginning, nobody thought it was something so big,” Moldawsky says. “But after a few hours, we saw the catastrophe.”

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Alaskan tribes seek historic legal recognition from B.C. gov’t for review of mining project – by Caitrin Pilkington (CBC News Canada North – February 07, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Coalition wants to be part of environmental review for Eskay Creek gold mine

An Alaska-based coalition of Indigenous governments has applied to be part of a B.C. environmental review process. Representatives of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission say they’re concerned about the environmental impacts of a proposed project that would see work resume at Eskay Creek, a former open-pit gold mine. The mine, which mining company Skeena Resources hopes to revive, lies about 85 kilometres northwest of Stewart, B.C.

Skeena’s proposal would see workers make use of some of the old mine’s existing facilities, extracting up to three million tonnes of gold and silver ore per year. The proposed mine would be in operation for nine years.

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