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Avatar activism: Pick your protest – by Henry Jenkins (Globe and Mail – September 18, 2010)

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.

Henry Jenkins is Provost’s Professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California and the author of Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture.

Five Palestinian, Israeli and international activists painted themselves blue to resemble the Na’vi from James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar in February, and marched through the occupied village of Bil’in. The Israeli military used tear gas and sound bombs on the azure-skinned protesters, who wore traditional kaffiyehs with their Na’vi tails and pointy ears.

The camcorder footage of the incident was juxtaposed with borrowed shots from the film and circulated on YouTube. We hear the movie characters proclaim: “We will show the Sky People that they cannot take whatever they want! This, this is our land!”

The event is a reminder of how people around the world are mobilizing icons and myths from popular culture as resources for political speech, which we can call “Avatar activism.” Even relatively apolitical critics for local newspapers recognized that Avatar spoke to contemporary political concerns.

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Avatar as a criticism of mining or a reflection of deep cultural memory – by Jack Caldwell (I Think Mining.com – January 4, 2010)

http://ithinkmining.com/

My grandson, four-years old, and me went this afternoon to see Avatar.  This is the billion-dollar-grossing movie from James Cameron that is now all the rage. 

Opinions on this movie are all over the map.  The quarrelsome son who could never agree with his father, a mining consultant, says “It is the best movie I have ever seen.”  My son-in-law and daughter said “We have seen that story before in Dances With Wolves.”    The blog-sphere is awash with comments on the movie’s religious significance, its tree-hugging philosophies, and the racism of depicting innocent savages as blue-tinted aboriginals fighting to protect a forest from mining by white-men Americans.

I personally found the movie just too long and too noisy—even my grandson remarked “it is a loud movie.”  And I felt uncomfortable most of the time thinking that I had read this story too often for my own good in the mining news columns of the past few years.  Here is a link to one blog that analyzes the mining-related aspects of the movie, saying:

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Movie “Avatar” has few fans among mining execs – by Steve James (Reuters.com – March 11, 2010)

The article is from the Reuters website: http://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – It’s enough to make a mining executive grit his teeth or his kids to give him the silent treatment. In a case of art imitating life — with perhaps a little poetic license — Oscar-winning movie “Avatar” paints big mining companies as the villains of the future.

But real-life executives are not entirely amused by their fictional colleagues being cast in evil roles in what is already the biggest-grossing Hollywood movie of all time.

“Let me put it this way, my kids saw the movie, and my kids know I’m a miner, and they didn’t say anything to me,” said Peter Kukielski, head of mining operations for ArcelorMittal (ISPA.AS) (MT.N), the world’s largest steelmaker.

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Avatar (Mining Movie – 2009)

This information is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Avatar is a 2009 American[6][7] epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system.[8][9][10]

The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na’vi—a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film’s title refers to the genetically engineered Na’vi-human hybrid bodies used by a team of researchers to interact with the natives of Pandora.[11]

Development of Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film.[12] Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999,[13] but according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film.[14]

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First Nations need more input [Ring of Fire]: Gravelle – by Star Staff (Sudbury Star – February 18, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

First Nations should be included in Ring of Fire talks, Nickel Belt NDP MP Claude Gravelle said.

Gravelle, the NDP’s natural resources critic, is involved in a study about mining and natural resources in Northern Canada. The committee is interviewing interested parties in the Ring of Fire for the report, which will focus on northern communities, the First Nations and mining companies in the North.

“The mining companies are certainly interested in developing the Ring of Fire and the First Nations are very interested in also being part of (it),” Gravelle said of the mineral rich area in Northern Ontario.

The Natural Resources Committee, which Gravelle vice chairs, spoke with mining companies and First Nations communities on Tuesday.

The discussion included the need for business partnerships and the environment side of developing the Ring of Fire project.

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Mine Your Own Business (Mining Documentary – 2006)

This information is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Mine Your Own Business is a documentary directed and produced by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney in 2006 about the Roșia Montană mining project. The film asserts that environmentalists’ opposition to the mine is unsympathetic to the needs and desires of the locals, prevents industrial progress, and consequently locks the people of the area into lives of poverty.

The film claims that the majority of the people of the village support the mine, and the investment in their hometown.[2] The film presents foreign environmentalists as alien agents opposed to progress, while residents are depicted as eagerly awaiting the new opportunity.[3]

Film content

The documentary follows Gheorghe Lucian, a 23-year-old unemployed miner from the Roşia Montană in northern Romania, whose chance of a new job disappeared after an anti-mining campaign orchestrated by foreign environmentalists.

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The principal risks affecting mining in Africa – by Christy Filen (Mineweb.com – February 16, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

Two risk analysis experts shared their views on the principal risks facing investment in mining in Africa on the fringes of the recent Indaba conference in Cape Town.

JOHANNESBURG (Mineweb) –  Government intervention is a recurring theme in an analysis of the top risks for the mining industry on the African continent as identified by experts in their fields.

Ironically the nationalisation research report by South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party is entitled SIMS (State Intervention in the Minerals Sector).

Not surprisingly, the risk of war and strife to business is taking a back seat to the instigations of power wielding politicians in an effort to assuage the electorate.

On the fringes of the Invest in African Mining Indaba, Control Risks managing director for southern and east Africa, Dave Butler and Robert Besseling, the head of business development for Exclusive Analysis in South Africa, shared their views on the top risks facing the mining industry on the African continent.

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October Sky (Mining Movie – 1999)

 

This information is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

October Sky is a 1999 American biographical film directed by Joe Johnston, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper and Laura Dern. It is based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner’s son who was inspired by the launch of Sputnik 1 to take up rocketry against his father’s wishes, and who eventually became a NASA engineer. Most of the film was shot in rural East Tennessee, including location filming in: Morgan County, Tennessee, Roane County, Tennessee, Oliver Springs, Harriman, and Kingston, Tennessee.

Title

October Sky is an anagram of Rocket Boys, the title of the book upon which the movie is based. It is also used in a period radio broadcast describing Sputnik as it crossed the “October sky.” Homer Hickam stated that “Universal Studios marketing people got involved and they just had to change the title because, according to their research, women over thirty would never see a movie titled Rocket Boys”,[1] so Universal Pictures changed the title to be more inviting to a wider audience. The book was later re-released with the name in order to capitalize on interest in the movie.

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Brassed Off (Mining Movie – 1996)

This information is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Brassed Off is a 1996 British film written and directed by Mark Herman. The film, a British-American co-production made between Channel Four Films, Miramax Films and Prominent Films, is about the troubles faced by a colliery brass band, following the closure of their pit. The soundtrack for the film was provided by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, and the plot is based on Grimethorpe’s own struggles against pit closures. It is generally very positively received for its role in promoting brass bands and their music. Parts of the film make reference to the huge increase in suicides that resulted from the end of the coal industry in Britain, and the struggle to retain hope in the circumstances.

Channel 4 and The Guardian both sponsored what was expected to be a low-profile film; it was not expected to gain the wide audience that it has. Having expected viewers to be mostly those with past links to coal mining, the film does not make explicit the political background to the plot. The American marketing for the film (and later VHS and DVD releases) portrays the film as a cheerful romantic comedy with nearly no mention at all about the musical or political elements.

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Some See Two New Gilded Ages, Raising Global Tensions – by Chrystia Freeland (New York Times – January 22, 2012)

www.nytimes.com

NEW YORK — On a bitter evening in mid-January, a group of bankers and book publishers gathered on the 42nd floor of Goldman Sachs’s global headquarters here. The setting could not have been more New York — skyscrapers twinkled out the windows to the north and a jazz ensemble played softly in the corner. But the appetizers, reflecting the theme of the event, were an international mishmash: thumb-sized potato pancakes with sour cream and caviar, steaming Chinese dumplings, Indian samosas and Turkish kebabs.

The party was in honor of the Goldman thinker who had served notice to the Western investment community a decade ago that the world was being transformed by the rise of emerging markets, in particular, the four behemoths that Jim O’Neill, then chief economist at Goldman Sachs, dubbed the BRICs: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

In a new book that Mr. O’Neill has published, “The Growth Map: Economic Opportunity in the BRICs and Beyond,” he argued that the BRIC concept had “become the dominant story of our generation” and described the next 11 emerging markets that are joining the BRICs.

But there is another force that is reshaping the global economy today, and the Goldman executives who toasted Mr. O’Neill are a reflection of that: the rise, in the developed Western economies, of the “1 percent” and the creation of what many are calling a new gilded age.

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Oilsands in Canada – by Michael McCullough (Canadian Business Magazine – February 14, 2012)

Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-publishing business magazine in Canada.

Funny, isn’t it, that just as investment in Canada’s vast reserves of oilsands hits a new high—$134 billion worth of projects under construction or soon to start—we should be struck by an unexpected question: Does anyone even want our oil? Given recent events, you couldn’t blame us for wondering.

For virtually all of the oilsands’ 45-year operating history, the overwhelming challenge was at the upstream end, finding technically and economically viable ways of getting the oil out of the sand, and coaxing brave investors to fund them. In the blink of an eye, the greatest obstacle has drifted downstream to the relatively simple matter of getting the stuff to market.

The obvious solution is to build pipelines emanating from northern Alberta to deliver more of our crude to the world. But recent events have shown that to be more problematic than anyone could have guessed.

Certainly the announcement on Jan. 18 was an abrupt and unexpected reality check. Forced to render an immediate decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline proposal by Republican opponents in Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama turned down would-be builder TransCanada Corp.’s application.

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What’s wrong with Ontario – and how to make it right – by Adam Radwanski, Tim Kiladze and Tara Perkins (Globe and Mail – February 18, 2012)

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.

“Northern cities, such as Thunder Bay or Sudbury, could become
national leaders in the resource sector, particularly if the
province gets serious about developing the so-called mineral
“Ring of Fire.””

“Ontario’s once thriving mining community has lost some of its
lustre.Not only have Western Canada’s vast oil sands and gas
deposits stolen the spotlight, but foreign giants such as Vale
and Xstrata swooped in in 2006 and bought out Ontario mining
stalwarts such as Inco and Falconbridge. In the years since,
mining has felt more like a part of Ontario’s past than a
focal point of its future.”

“Plus, there remain resources to develop. For those who believe
that Ontario’s northern mining deposits are tapped, look no
further than a company like Detour Gold, which is developing
a gold mine north of Timmins.”

It got most of its attention for its warning of a $30-billion deficit, and its 362 cost-cutting recommendations to help avoid that fate. But the scariest number in Don Drummond’s landmark report to the government of Ontario is a much smaller one: two, as in 2 per cent.

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Proud history, uncertain future [Sudbury’s Jewish community] – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – February 18, 2012)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

When I moved to Sudbury from Toronto a year ago, I knew that, as a Jew, it would take some adjusting to go from being one of nearly 180,000 Toronto Jews to one of just a few hundred. president of Sudbury’s Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue, said.

“It’s very challenging to accommodate all those differences in practice and differences in belief within one tent. It’s got to be a pretty big tent.”

However, I never expected finding fresh bagels would be impossible and inquiring about the existence of matzah (unleavened bread eaten by Jews during Passover each year), would be met by blank stares and “did you mean mozzarella?” It wasn’t always this way.

When Sudbury’s first Jewish settler arrived in the late 1800s, and others followed in the years after, a Jewish presence was quickly established in the downtown area by way of a number of thriving businesses and a bustling social life in the then tight-knit community.

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Ontario can no longer hide from taxes, restraint – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – February 17, 2012)

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.

“There are only hard answers and difficult solutions.” So said Don Drummond and his three fellow commissioners about reforming Ontario’s health-care system. They could have used the same words for the entire government of Ontario.

Ontario’s problem is not that it has big government, per se. If you want to see that, on a per capita basis, head to Alberta or Quebec. As the commission correctly noted, “Ontario runs one of the lowest-cost provincial governments in Canada relative to its GDP and has done so for decades.”

Ontario is at or near the bottom in funding universities. The health-care system is not the most expensive in Canada; the welfare rates are not the most generous. It doesn’t offer $7-a-day daycare, as in Quebec.

No, Ontario’s problem is that the size of its government doesn’t fit its revenues, and hasn’t for a long time. Those revenues have been hit by the slow, steady erosion of Ontario’s competitive position, in the face of which governments kept adding spending for which there were insufficient revenues.

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Quebec still favours relaunch of asbestos industry – by Michelle Lalonde (Montreal Gazette – February 16, 2012)

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

MONTREAL – The Quebec government continues to favour a relaunch of the asbestos industry – despite a storm of recent controversy, including groundbreaking criminal convictions of two European businessmen for causing thousands of asbestos-related deaths, and far-reaching concerns about the research upon which the province bases its pro-asbestos policy.

Members of the anti-asbestos movement say the Canadian and Quebec governments have long relied on questionable studies produced by researchers at McGill University and elsewhere, funded by the asbestos industry, to promote chrysotile asbestos as relatively harmless if used safely.

McGill is conducting a preliminary review of the research of professor emeritus John Corbett McDonald to determine whether a full investigation should be called into whether some of that research was influenced by the fact it was funded by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association.

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