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Glencore to buy out Anglo American and BHP at coal mine – by Greg Roxburgh(Alliance News – June 28, 2021)

https://www.morningstar.co.uk/

(Alliance News) – Glencore PLC on Monday said it has agreed to buy out its Cerrejon coal mine joint venture partners, Anglo American PLC and BHP Group PLC, for USD588 million.

For London-based Anglo American, the sale will mark the wide-ranging miner’s exit from thermal coal. Anglo will be selling its 33% stake in the Colombian mine for USD294 million.

“Today’s agreement marks the last stage of our transition from thermal coal operations,” said Anglo American Chief Executive Mark Cutifani.

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Column: Unmaking a university: Laurentian’s insolvency – by Dieter K. Buse (Sudbury Star – June 26, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Accent: Those responsible for turning LU into little more than a technical school have not been held to account

In Sudbury, as across the country, many are puzzled at the sudden declaration of insolvency by the local university. A relatively young institution at 60 years, it had slowly crawled up from being known as a “jock school” or “last chance u” to being a normal place of higher learning.

From being at the bottom of the rankings — if you believe in that sort of crude measurement — to among the top third of small universities, Laurentian defied all the starting strikes against it: first, existing in a working-class town formerly burdened with a reputation as a moonscape; second, overcoming the difficulties in recruiting top faculty and students to an unproven institution; and third, competing with established universities that had the benefit of donations from deep alumni pockets.

By the 1980s and 1990s, many Laurentian students who went to graduate school did well (one with a Rhodes scholarship) and others succeeded in nursing, commerce, finance, law, sciences, teaching and cultural fields.

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OPINION: A call to Canadians: Help us find every burial site. Bring every lost Indigenous child home. Prove that you are who you claim to be – by Tanya Talaga (Globe and Mail – June 26, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

“We had concentration camps here.” Those were the words of Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations in Saskatchewan.

He was speaking to the world on his phone from his car, at a press conference on Thursday that detailed the crimes against 751 children and possibly adults, whose headstones were silently, viciously removed at the Marieval Indian Residential School in the 1960s.

Canada may not have more than one million dead who were slaughtered and buried in killing fields, as they do in Cambodia. But make no mistake: Over the past 153 years, Canada has consistently used government policies – residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, the prison system, “universal” health care and repeated ignorance of our people’s necessities of life – to make damn sure we are assimilated.

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Indigenous Leaders: Advocating for Indigenous economic empowerment – by Hugh Kruzel (Northern Ontario Business – June 22, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The passion in his voice speaks of the advancing cadre of young Indigenous leaders. Leaders who have education, voice, the right and the will to kick things to the next level. Jason Rasevych is part of this new generation that has reached a critical mass.

“There is now change opportunity to transform community and people’s lives. That’s what motivates me. “Education is key in all of this. Education on all fronts,” said Rasevych, a member of Ginoogaming First Nation, a small Anishnawbe community near Longlac in northwestern Ontario.

“I had looked at staying at Durham College (in Oshawa) in economics. I was pursuing a career in marketing but something kept pulling me back north. Next was business administration at Confederation College here in Thunder Bay, and then I went on to Lakehead University and got my bachelor’s degree in business.”

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Report outlines what Canada must do to secure supply of critical minerals – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Northern Miner – June 24, 2021)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The Standing Committee on Natural Resources has presented a report before Canada’s House of Commons that stresses the importance of securing a supply of critical minerals, particularly in the face of China’s dominance.

Currently, the Asian economic giant owns as much as 80% of the global processing capacity for rare earths, as it has been investing for decades in acquiring strategic mineral assets across the world, and according to data gathered by the committee, it is likely to hold about 67% of the global capacity to build lithium-ion batteries by 2030.

Based on the information and feedback received from industry, First Nations, research institutions, market analysts and other experts, the Committee said it is time for the Canadian government to step up its game, leverage the Canadian mining industry’s high environmental, social and governance standards and involvement of Indigenous communities, and take concrete steps to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign markets while positioning itself in global markets.

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How ‘Ecocide’ Could Become an International Crime – by Ryan Hesketh (Bloomberg News – June 25, 2021)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

From oil spills to open-pit mining, clear-cut logging to heavy-net trawling, humans continue to scar the planet despite mountains of legislation, regulation and good intent.

Some environmental lawyers want to make destruction of an ecosystem an international crime — “ecocide” — on par with genocide or war crimes. Past attempts were stymied by the challenge of defining what would constitute a crime. But amid rising concern about climate change, a new definition has been published that could make ecocide the first new crime added to international law since 1948.

1. What is ecocide?

The term was coined in 1970 by Arthur W. Galston, an American biologist. It’s derived from the Greek oikos, meaning home, and the Latin caedere, meaning to demolish or kill.

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FILM REVIEW: Liam Neeson’s Manitoba-set The Ice Road is the best-worst movie in his unstoppable Daddy Action canon – by Barry Hertz (Globe and Mail – June 25, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Liam Neeson will fight anything. Ever since the actor has embraced the deliciously junky sub-genre that I’m going to call Daddy Action, the man has battled gangsters (Run All Night, The Commuter), sex traffickers (Taken), skyjackers (Non-Stop), corrupt politicians (Widows), drug cartels (The Marksman) and wolves (The Grey). Wolves! But with the new film The Ice Road, Liam Neeson is up against his greatest enemy ever: melting ice.

Yes, writer-director Jonathan Hensleigh’s thriller finally finds a foe – Mother Nature – worthy of going toe to toe with our generation’s most improbable butt-kicker.

An absolutely bananas mashup of History Television’s Ice Road Truckers reality series, the best and worst of the Die Hard franchise and just about every post-Taken project in Neeson’s disturbingly dense filmography, The Ice Road is destined to go down as one of the actor’s best-worst movies. It is a pure trashterpiece that must be seen to be believed.

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Biden seeks federal mining law overhaul – by Shane Lasley (North of 60 Mining News – June 25, 2021)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

From reinstating the Roadless Rule in the Tongass Forest to replacing the General Mining Law of 1872, federal regulations being proposed by President Joe Biden threaten to rain on a parade of strong metals prices, growing demand for critical minerals, and robust investments into mineral exploration and mining across Alaska.

“We recommend Congress develop legislation to replace outdated mining laws including the General Mining Law (GML) of 1872 governing locatable minerals (including nickel) on federal lands, the Materials Disposal Act of 1947 to dispose of minerals found on federal lands, and the Mineral Land Leasing Act of 1920 among others,” the Biden administration penned in a June 8 statement on battery supply chains.

“These should be updated to have stronger environmental standards, up-to-date fiscal reforms, better enforcement, inspection and bonding requirements, and clear reclamation planning requirements.”

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B2Gold launches arbitration against Mali over Menankoto exploration permit – by Editor (Mining.com – June 24, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

B2Gold (TSX: BTO) (NYSE: BTG) announced Thursday that its Malian subsidiary, Menankoto SARL has begun international arbitration proceedings against the Republic of Mali.

The Menankoto exploration permit, which forms a part of the Anaconda area is located 20 kilometres north of the company’s Fekola Mine licence area.

The action argues that the Republic of Mali breached its obligations to Menankoto under the Convention and under the 2012 Mining Code. The arbitration will be conducted by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Paris, France, B2Gold said in the news release.

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Mining tourism still untapped potential in Iran (Tehran Times – June 25, 2021)

https://www.tehrantimes.com/

TEHRAN – Mining tourism as a relatively untapped potential could lead to economic prosperity and fuel boom in the Iran tourism scene by the means of creating new destinations and sustainable jobs for the locals.

Experts say mining tourism is a new category in the tourism industry, which involves tours of both abandoned and active mines.

Last year, Iran started to promote mining tourism by launching the first project in the Anguran lead and zinc mine, located 130 kilometers west of the northwestern city of Zanjan.

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A Mining Startup’s Rush for Underwater Metals Comes With Deep Risks – by Todd Woody (Yahoo/Finance/Bloomberg – June 2021)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — A seabed mining startup, DeepGreen Metals Inc., has successfully sold itself to investors as a game-changing source of minerals to make electric car batteries that can be obtained in abundance—and at great profit—while minimizing the environmental destruction of mining on land.

But there’s strong scientific evidence that the seabed targeted for mining is in fact one of the most biodiverse places on the planet—and increasing reason to worry about DeepGreen’s tantalizing promises.

Bloomberg Green’s examination of corporate and legal filings, regulatory records and other documents raises questions about DeepGreen’s business plans.

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How the ‘Greens’ Could Upend the Green Dream – by William F. Shughart II (Independent Institute – June 24, 2021)

https://www.independent.org/

There is growing concern among some commentators and experts that the United States has become “dangerously dependent” on imported minerals and metals and that such dependence is hampering the development of clean energy technologies. The concern is real.

But the reason the U.S. is dependent on foreign producers, many of them competitors and adversaries, is not that many of the world’s mines are owned or controlled by China and Russia but that government policies supported by radical “green” interest groups have blocked the development of adequate domestic supplies of these raw materials, which are essential to the green dream of a “net zero” fossil fuel future.

Consider, for starters, lithium, one of the metals used in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles. As I write, environmental groups are blocking the development of a new lithium mine in a remote part of Nevada, arguing, among other things, that the mine would harm the habitat of an endangered desert plant, Tiehm’s buckwheat.

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ReconAfrica defends itself after short seller says Canadian oil company is ‘drilling blind’ in Namibia – by Geoffrey York and Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – June 25, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Prominent U.S.-registered short seller Viceroy Research has taken a short position in Canadian oil company Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. (ReconAfrica), alleging the company is “drilling blind” and has a “near-zero chance” of finding any deposits of value in its Namibia exploration project.

In a report released Thursday, Viceroy said it has shared its detailed findings with Canadian regulators and expects them to take action.

ReconAfrica’s stock price on the TSX Venture Exchange has soared from about 50 cents to more than $13 over the past 18 months, despite warnings from environmentalists that its drilling could threaten the fragile ecosystem of the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta.

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MNDMNRF: Is the new ‘megaministry’ good for northern Ontario? – by Eric White (CBC News Sudbury – June 24, 2021)

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

There is now one minister at Queen’s Park with a lot of power over northern Ontario. Northern Development, mines, natural resources, forestry and Indigenous affairs were all merged into the portfolio of Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford in last week’s cabinet shuffle.

“Look forward to an extraordinary opportunity to consolidate a number of ministries or parts of ministries into one to advance the real economic interests of all of northern Ontario,” the minister said in an interview with CBC Thunder Bay.

This isn’t the first time the so-called “northern ministries” have been put together. It was known as the Ministry of Lands, Forests and Mines until 1919 when it was split in two.

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