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Endeavour Mining eyes London listing in potential blow to Toronto Stock Exchange – by Neil Hume (Financial Post/Financial Times – August 11, 2020)

https://financialpost.com/

Endeavour Mining Corp., the biggest gold producer in west Africa, is debating whether to shift its primary share listing to the U.K. as it seeks to tap a new pool of investors.

Chief executive Sébastien de Montessus said the US$4.5 billion Toronto-listed company was assessing whether to move to London or New York in the wake of its merger with rival Semafo Inc.

“We are going to move to one or the other. We are currently assessing which is the most relevant and attractive given our portfolio and locations and also the fit in terms of governance and liquidity,” said de Montessus in an interview with the Financial Times. “Given that management is based in London, a listing in the U.K. is an option on the table.”

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Ontario mining company 1st to try new mobile test that diagnoses COVID-19 in as little as an hour – by Sarah Bridge and Ioanna Roumeliotis (CBC News – August 11, 2020)

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

Even at the height of summer and amid a global pandemic, days start early at New Gold Inc.’s silver and gold mine in Rainy River, Ont.

As a precaution these days, there are fewer workers on any given shift, but shortly after sunrise a stream of cars and buses begins to arrive at the mine 65 kilometres northwest of Fort Frances.

Nurses stand by to ask questions about COVID-19 symptoms and check the temperatures of those who haven’t been onsite for a few days. Signs remind crews to don PPE. As of early August, the mine hasn’t seen any COVID-19 cases.

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Northern Dynasty ‘confident’ of final Pebble decision despite White House review – by Jackson Chen (Mining.com – August 7, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Northern Dynasty Minerals’ (TSX: NDM) US-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership is welcoming a pending White House review of its controversial copper-gold project and the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) released by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) last month.

In a public statement issued on Friday, Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier said he is confident that the scientific and regulatory record established by project’s Final EIS demonstrates the project can be developed without harm to fisheries in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump pledged to hear out “both sides of the issue” concerning the proposed Pebble mine after his son Donald Jr. — in a rare instance of public disagreement — tweeted to oppose the project supported by his father’s administration.

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Natural Resources Canada NEWS RELEASE: Canada Invests in Clean Mining Technology in Quebec City (August 10, 2020)

Canada’s mining and minerals industry is important to communities across the country. Developing Canada’s natural resources in more sustainable and responsible ways drives our economy, reduces our environmental impacts and creates jobs. This will be more important than ever as we reopen the economy and plan our recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, President of Treasury Board of Canada and Member of Parliament for Quebec, on behalf of the Honourable Seamus O’Regan, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, today announced an investment of over $2.1 million for Corem, a Quebec-based innovative expertise centre in mining processing. The Quebec Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources is also contributing an additional $100,000 to this project.

The funding will support the development of an innovative gold extraction process for the recovery and recycling of cyanide in the gold extraction process, which is more environmentally sustainable and reduces the impact of gold mining on the aquatic ecosystem.

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‘Hell To Pay’ Sheds New Light On A-Bomb Decision (NPR.org – January 16, 2020)

https://www.npr.org/

The atomic bombs that ended World War II killed — by some estimates — more than 200,000 people. In the decades since 1945, there has been a revisionist debate over the decision to drop the bombs.

Did the U.S. decide to bomb in order to avoid a land invasion that might have killed millions of Americans and Japanese? Or did it drop the bomb to avoid the Soviet army coming in and sharing the spoils of conquering Japan? Were the prospects of a land invasion even more destructive than the opening of the nuclear age?

D.M. Giangreco, formerly an editor for Military Review, has taken advantage of declassified materials in both the U.S. and Japan to try to answer those questions. He talks with NPR’s Scott Simon about his new book, Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947.

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Gold price sharply down as Russia approves Covid vaccine – by Jim Wyckoff (Kitco News – August 11, 2020)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – Gold and silver prices are sharply lower in early U.S. trading Tuesday, with the yellow metal falling back below $2,000. Traders and investors have put risk back on the table today, due in part to news overnight that Russia has approved a Covid-19 vaccine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters the vaccine has been given to his daughter. However, global health experts are cautioning that the Russian vaccine is premature because it has not gone through full “stage three” trials that last a few months.

Still, the marketplace is so far Tuesday morning taking the Russian news as very good. October gold futures were last down $51.70 an ounce at $1,978.60. September Comex silver prices were last down $1.486 at $27.785 an ounce.

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China’s effort to buy an Arctic gold mine raises many concerns – by Marc Montgomery (Radio Canada International – August 10, 2020)

https://www.rcinet.ca/en/

China’s huge Shandong Gold Mining Corporation is proposing to buy Canada’s TMAC resources mine in the Arctic.

Currently under review by the federal government, the $207.4 million dollar offer raises concerns not only over China’s increasing control over the precious metal and other strategic resources but also concerns of sovereignty and of potential security in the Arctic.

Chinese companies have been acquiring other gold producers around the world, and the state owned Shandong Gold Group is part of a national effort to stockpile gold as a hedge against economic volatility.

China has also been engaged in an effort to control rare earth minerals and already owns copper and zinc assets in Canada’s Nunavut territory. Zinc is an important element in the making of galvanized steel as well as use in computers, mobile phones and other electronic equipment, and in batteries.

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Barrick eyes place in S&P 500 while keeping Toronto HQ – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – August 11, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. is hoping to be included in the S&P 500 Index in the United States but plans to keep its head office in Canada, a potentially tricky manoeuvre that, if successful, would open up the giant miner to an even larger pool of investors.

Being included in the S&P 500 would result in increased buying of Toronto-based Barrick from large institutional investors, such as index funds. While specialist mining funds have been in decline over the past decade, index-tracking exchange-traded funds are making up a bigger swath of the investment pool.

“That’s something that’s always been of interest to me, because if we got on the S&P, the index demand would increase substantially,” Barrick chief executive Mark Bristow said in an interview.

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Why the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima – by Ryan Browne and Scottie Andrew (CNN.com – August 6, 2019)

https://www.cnn.com/

(CNN)On this date 74 years ago, the US dropped the first of two atomic bombs on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing more than 70,000 people instantly. A second bomb followed three days later over Nagasaki and killed 40,000 more.

The US remains the only country to ever use an atomic bomb in war.
The nuclear warfare ushered in the end of World War II and a devastating chapter in world history. Here’s what you need to know about the attacks and how Hiroshima honors those who died.

Where is Hiroshima?

The city is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture located in southwestern Japan on the island of Honshu.

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NUCLEAR: The forgotten mine that built the atomic bomb – by Frank Swain (BBC.com – August 3, 2020)

https://www.bbc.com/

The Congo’s role in creating the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was kept secret for decades, but the legacy of its involvement is still being felt today.

“The word Shinkolobwe fills me with grief and sorrow,” says Susan Williams, a historian at the UK Institute of Commonwealth Studies. “It’s not a happy word, it’s one I associate with terrible grief and suffering.”

Few people know what, or even where, Shinkolobwe is. But this small mine in the southern province of Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), played a part in one of the most violent and devastating events in history.

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The Attack On Indigenous Rights In Brazil – OpEd – by Yanis Iqbal (Eurasian Review – August 11, 2020)

https://www.eurasiareview.com/

On 5 August, 2020, the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to institute measures aimed at protecting indigenous people from the Covid-19 pandemic.

This ruling is the legal recognition of the totally disastrous anti-indigenous policies of the Bolsonaro government. Like other indigenous people living in the Peruvian jungles, eastern Bolivia, the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Colombian Amazon, Brazilian collectivities too have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

More than 23,000 members of 190 indigenous groups in the Amazon basin have been infected by the virus and all of these communities share a commonality – they suffer from structural inequalities.

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BHP urges more power for Indigenous groups after Rio cave blast disaster – by Hamish Hastie and Nick Toscano (The Age – August 11, 2020)

https://www.theage.com.au/

The nation’s largest miner, BHP, says Indigenous groups should have a greater say over projects endangering significant sites on their ancestral land following Rio Tinto’s destruction of 46,000-year-old rock shelters in Western Australia.

In a submission to a federal inquiry into the blasting of the Juukan Gorge site by rival Rio, BHP said heritage-protection laws covering mining operations in WA’s iron ore-rich Pilbara were weighted too far in favour of resources companies.

BHP said it supported enshrining traditional owner consultation requirements for disturbing land into new state laws, and the introduction of rights for traditional owners to appeal decisions after they are granted.

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The Unraveling of America – by Wade Davis (Rolling Stone – August 6, 2020)

https://www.rollingstone.com/

Wade Davis holds the Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia.

Never in our lives have we experienced such a global phenomenon. For the first time in the history of the world, all of humanity, informed by the unprecedented reach of digital technology, has come together, focused on the same existential threat, consumed by the same fears and uncertainties, eagerly anticipating the same, as yet unrealized, promises of medical science.

In a single season, civilization has been brought low by a microscopic parasite 10,000 times smaller than a grain of salt. COVID-19 attacks our physical bodies, but also the cultural foundations of our lives, the toolbox of community and connectivity that is for the human what claws and teeth represent to the tiger.

Our interventions to date have largely focused on mitigating the rate of spread, flattening the curve of morbidity. There is no treatment at hand, and no certainty of a vaccine on the near horizon. The fastest vaccine ever developed was for mumps.

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Treasury Metals finalizes Goldlund acquisition – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – August 7, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Dryden-area mine developer begins exploration, environmental work to create district-scale gold mine

Northwestern Ontario mine developer Treasury Metals has finalized the acquisition of a gold property to create a district-sized mine operation, east of Dryden.

Treasury said its addition of the Goldlund gold project from First Mining Gold, announced in June, got the thumbs-up from shareholders at the Toronto company’s annual and special meeting this week.

Treasury’s proposed Goliath open-pit gold property, just 20 kilometres east of Dryden, is next to the Goldlund project, which runs to the northeast toward Sioux Lookout. The combined 300-square-kilometre properties has an estimated resource base of 3.1 million ounces of gold with plenty ofexploration upside.

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Barrick Gold reports 14% rise in dividend amid soaring gold prices, on track to achieve 2020 production guidance – by Anna Golubova (Kitco News – August 10, 2020)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE:GOLD, TSX:GOLD.TO) said on Monday that it increased its Q2 dividend to shareholders by 14% to 8 cents per share, citing robust performance and strong balance sheets amid record-high gold prices.

The company also noted that its dividend more than doubled since the Barrick-Randgold merger announcement in September 2018.

“The Board believes that the dividend increase is sustainable and is reflective of the ongoing robust performance of our operations and continued improvement in the strength of our balance sheet, with total liquidity of $6.7 billion, including a cash balance of $3.7 billion as of the end of the second quarter, and no material debt repayments due before 2033,” said Senior executive vice-president and chief financial officer Graham Shuttleworth.

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