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China Tries to Blot out Tibetan Criticism of Mining Firm’s Damage to the Environment – by Duncan Bartlett (The Diplomat – October 28, 2024)

https://thediplomat.com/

Chinese censors are trying to prevent people from viewing posts that allege severe environmental damage in Tibet caused by sand mining. A young Tibetan man named Tsowo Tsering initiated the online discussion with a video post, delivered in Mandarin. In it, he says he is speaking from Ngawa Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

He shares video footage that he says proves the severe impact of activities by a Chinese mining company on his community. Tsowo Tsering claims that “large amounts of sand have been recklessly mined, leading to serious soil erosion in the surrounding areas. This endangers the foundations of residents’ homes.”

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How Quebec Cree avoided the fate of Attawapiskat – by Terry Milewski (CBC News Politics – May 14, 2013)

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

Please note that his article is from 2013!!

On the eastern shore of James Bay, a very different story

Freezing, mouldy homes. Sewage contamination. Sick kids. Unemployment. A blockade on the road to the mine. A hunger strike by the chief. That, it seems, is the news from the Cree of James Bay — at least, as it’s defined by the desperate community of Attawapiskat, in northern Ontario.

Before that, there was the news from nearby Kashechewan. Flooding. Despair. Suicide. And both James Bay towns endured fresh emergencies this spring as the annual meltwaters exposed, again, their rickety infrastructure.

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How Beijing Tamed a Lawless Industry and Gained Global Influence – by Keith Bradsher (New York Times – October 28, 2024)

https://www.nytimes.com/

State-controlled companies now run an industry once known for its acid pits, radioactive waste and smugglers.

As recently as 2010, few industries were as lawless, and yet as central to the global economy, as China’s production of rare earth metals.

Consignments of rare earths frequently changed hands for sacks of Chinese currency: The rule of thumb was that a cubic foot of tightly packed 100-renminbi bills was worth $350,000. At a warehouse in Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, acid was used illegally to extract rare earths, and the residue, faintly radioactive, was dumped into the municipal sewage. The gang operating the warehouse brought in foreign buyers in the trunks of cars to keep its location a secret.

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Lithium-ion batteries causing fires, dangers on California freeways, sparking calls for safety improvements – by Clara Harter (Los Angeles Times – October 28, 2024)

https://www.latimes.com/

For more than two days, a vital shipping passageway in the Port of L.A. was shut down, and the cause was surprising to some. A big rig overturned, sparking a fierce lithium-ion battery blaze that spewed toxic gases, snarled port traffic and resulted in what one official said was massive economic losses from delayed shipments.

The incident focused new attention, and fears, on the fuel cells helping drive the state’s clean energy transition. But how dangerous are these batteries really? And should you be scared of your e-bike, vape pen or electric car?

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Times of ‘Wild West’ in mining are over: Agnico Eagle – by Arty Sarkisian (Nunatsiaq News – October 28, 2024)

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People remain suspicious of resource extraction even though more regulations are in place, says company director

Many Nunavummiut have misconceptions about mining, says Pujjuut Kusugak. Kusugak is the director of Nunavut affairs for Agnico Eagle, which operates multiple gold mines in Nunavut. “People still remember how mines used to operate — Wild West do whatever you want, no safety concerns,” he said in an interview with Nunatsiaq News at the Agnico Eagle office in Rankin Inlet.

People assume that the company still “does whatever it wants,” he added, but today Nunavut has some of the strictest regulations that protect the environment using both territorial and federal laws. Meliadine mine would have been “shut down” very quickly if it was operating the same way mines used to operate, Kusugak said.

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Diamond-rich Botswana holds an election with new economic challenges for a long-ruling party – by Sello Motseta (Associated Press – October 28, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

GABORONE, Botswana (AP) — Botswana votes in a national election this week that will decide if the ruling party extends a 58-year stretch in power in a southern African country that is a leading diamond producer and often held up as one of the most stable and least corrupt democracies on the continent.

President Mokgweetsi Masisi of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party, or BDP, is seeking a second and final term in office, although Wednesday’s election isn’t directly for president. Voters will decide the makeup of Parliament and lawmakers will later elect the president.

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Rate cuts should be good for bonds and dividends. So why is gold shining? – by David Berman (Globe and Mail – October 26, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Central-bank rate cuts should be terrific for bonds and dividend-paying stocks. But another asset has been grabbing attention with better performance: gold. And some observers expect bullion will continue to dominate.

If this comes as a surprise, you’re probably not alone. As U.S. inflation subsided and the Federal Reserve cleared the way this year for cutting its key interest rate from multiyear highs, rate-sensitive assets rallied.

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Utah has the last conventional uranium mill in the country. What does it do? – by Anastasia Hufham (Salt Lake Tribune – October 7, 2024)

https://www.sltrib.com/

The mill’s owner and regulators say there’s no evidence its uranium processing is causing contamination. But a nearby tribe and others fear the impacts of increased demand.

San Juan County – Trucks filled with thousands of pounds of rock roll up a paved road, the namesake twin buttes of Bears Ears National Monument visible in the distance on a clear day. The dark gray rock is uranium ore headed to the White Mesa Mill in Utah’s rural San Juan County — the last remaining “conventional” uranium mill in the United States.

The country’s other 14 uranium recovery sites solely process rock from the site where they’re located. This leaves White Mesa as the only American uranium mill still accepting ore and other radioactive materials from around the country and the world.

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China Tightens Its Hold on Minerals Needed to Make Computer Chips – by Keith Bradsher (New York Times – October 26, 2024)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Already the dominant producer of rare minerals, Beijing is using export restrictions and its power over state-owned companies to further control access.

The vise-tight grip that China wields over the mining and refining of rare minerals, crucial ingredients of today’s most advanced technologies, is about to become even stronger.

In a series of steps made in recent weeks, the Chinese government has made it considerably harder for foreign companies, particularly semiconductor manufacturers, to purchase the many rare earth metals and other minerals mined and refined mainly in China.

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Conservationists raise alarm bells over James Bay lowlands (Timmins Daily Press – October 26, 2024)

https://www.timminspress.com/

First Nation says plan is crucial for global climate goals

Mushkegowuk Council released a statement Thursday, Oct. 24, urging Ontario to join as a partner on a conservation plan they say is crucial to the global efforts to protect land and water. For their part, the province says their talks with the federal government on conservation efforts are ongoing.

“Minister Rickford has met with Mushkegowuk council on several occasions to discuss shared priorities,” wrote Curtis Lindsay, spokesperson for the minister of Indigenous affairs, in an email. “Ontario is continuing discussions with the federal government on how to move forward collaboratively on conservation projects that fall under provincial jurisdiction,” Lindsay wrote.

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Why this town in the Northwest Territories was called the ‘Village of Widows’ – by Nina Dragicevic (CBC Docs – October 25, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/

The discovery of a rare rock amidst the tundra of Canada’s Far North nearly 100 years ago set in motion one of mankind’s most destructive legacies: Decades of mining, workers getting sick and, finally, a pair of atomic bombs that killed tens of thousands of civilians in an instant — and changed the world forever.

As author and professor Peter van Wyck says in the documentary Atomic Reaction: “This is a piece of Canadian history that doesn’t get talked about much.” It all started near Délı̨nę, a community on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, where the Sahtu Dene people have lived for thousands of years. Originally a nomadic people, they started settling more firmly at Délı̨nę in the 1940s.

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Vault Minerals drags out the drama on a White River mine restart – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – October 25, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Australian gold producer sees open-ended potential to boost ounces at idled Sugar Zone Mine

The idled Sugar Zone gold mine, near White River, “represents a rare and profitable production opportunity” for Vault Minerals to restart at very little cost. But company management remains tight-lipped on when mining will resume at the underground operation, 30 kilometres north of town.

The Australian mid-tier gold miner is big on its enthusiasm for the practically turn-key underground mine, but is short on divulging definite timelines on a restart and how large the gold resource could grow to, despite conducting more than 90,000 metres of drilling in 2024.

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Wall Street and Main Street rein in their optimism on gold prices for next week – by Ernest Hoffman (Kitco News – October 25, 2024)

https://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) – After delivering one of its strongest weekly performances of the year last week, gold picked up right where it left off, but a midweek stall after fresh all-time highs has market participants more divided on the yellow metal’s near-term direction.

Spot gold kicked off the week trading at $2,722 per ounce, and traders in the Asian and European sessions pushed the yellow metal to the edge of $2,740 by the North American open. But U.S. traders woke up filled with doubt about the precious metal, and they drove the spot price all the way down to $2,716 by 2:45 p.m. EDT.

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Nevada lithium mine wins final approval despite potential harm to endangered wildflower – by Scott Sonner (Associated Press – October 24, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

RENO, Nev. (AP) — For the first time under President Joe Biden, a federal permit for a new lithium-boron mine has been approved for a Nevada project essential to his clean energy agenda, despite conservationists’ vows to sue over the plan they insist will drive an endangered wildflower to extinction.

Ioneer Ltd.’s mine will help expedite production of a key mineral in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles at the center of Biden’s push to cut greenhouse gas emissions, administration officials said Thursday in Reno. Acting Deputy Interior Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said bolstering domestic lithium supplies is “essential to advancing the clean energy transition and powering the economy of the future.”

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Millennial mining heirs bet the family business on Argentine copper – by Jacob Lornic (Bloomberg News – October 25, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

When he was 16, Adam Lundin was lowered by helicopter into the remote wilderness of northern Canada. For the son of a wealthy mining mogul, this was something of an initiation. He spent the summer hunting for gold — shadowing grizzled prospectors and geologists, bushwhacking through the Boréal forest.

He even dug holes for where the outhouses would go. “I just wanted to be kept busy,” he said. Adam, 37, is now the chairman of Lundin Mining Corp., a publicly traded Canadian metals producer. His younger brother, Jack, 34, is the company’s chief executive officer.

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