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[Aboriginal Issues] Column: Defending a ‘free speech’ hero in Sudbury – by Barbara Kay (Sudbury Star – September 4, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Last February the Sudbury branch of Chapters abruptly cancelled an upcoming book-signing event. A clue to their decision may be found in the politically incorrect title of the book in question, by area lawyer Peter Best: There Is No Difference: An Argument for the Abolition of the Indian Reserve System and Special Race-based Laws and Entitlements for Canada’s Indians.

Best is one of my free-speech Canadian heroes (full disclosure: I not only considered Best’s book a trenchantly-argued and comprehensively researched dissertation on this most important of national themes, I wrote a positive blurb for the cover).

Few and far between are disinterested scholars of Canada’s aboriginal history who have the tough hide and principled will to publicly depart from the approved Indigenous “nation-to-nation” narrative that keeps the guilt and money flowing, but perpetuates a dysfunctional status quo on many reserves.

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Canadian Voters Must Treat Climate Change ‘As If It’s War,’ Leading Activists Say – by Mia Rabson (Canadian Press/Huffington Post – September 4, 2019)

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

David Suzuki, Stephen Lewis are planning events to engage people during the campaign.

OTTAWA — Two leading Canadian activists say voters need to think about climate change as if we are country at war against greenhouse-gas emissions.

“There’s never been a moment quite like this in human history,” said Stephen Lewis, a former Ontario NDP leader, who chaired a 1988 international conference on climate change on the initiative of then prime minister Brian Mulroney.

He said similar scientific conclusions were drawn then as from more recent climate science, but three decades of little action have put humanity in a much more worrying position.

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Nickel’s perfect bull storm as Indonesia bans exports again – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – September 3, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Whatever happened to that old market adage of buying the rumor and selling the fact? Nickel investors bought heavily into rumors that the Indonesian government was thinking about bringing forward a ban on nickel ore exports.

Now the ban has been confirmed for the start of next year rather than the original 2022 deadline, they have bought some more. London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month nickel hit a five-year high of $18,850 per tonne on Monday with the Shanghai Futures Exchange scaling life-of-contract highs amid surging open interest.

Goldman Sachs added fuel to the bull fires with a forecast that the nickel price could spike to $20,000 over three months. An Indonesian export ban could impact up to 10% of global supply, according to the bank.

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Rapidly rising gold price squelching M&A activity – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – September 3, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The big run in gold bullion means potentially higher profits for miners, but investors say the same dynamic is stifling mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, as both buyers and sellers struggle to come to grips with where the commodity price will eventually land.

“When the gold price is rising, it’s going to be hard to get deals done. But if you saw it settle at US$1,500 [an ounce] for five or six months, I think you’d start seeing deals again,” said Jonathan Goodman, chief executive of investment manager Dundee Corp., and chairman of gold-mining company Dundee Precious Metals Inc.

After trading sideways for the best part of three years, gold has risen by about 20 per cent in 2019, as investors buy the precious metal as a hedge against macroeconomic troubles, including a global economic slowdown, and geopolitical tremors, such as the continuing trade war between the United States and China. On Friday, gold futures traded at around US$1,520 an ounce.

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Ring of Fire negotiation model has failed – by Ian Pattison (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – September 1, 2019)

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/

THIS TIME nine years ago the potential of the Ring of Fire mineral belt in Northwestern Ontario was being realized. More than 30 mining exploration companies were digging around the James Bay lowlands and finding immense evidence of mineral deposits, chiefly chromite — the main ingredient in stainless steel.

People salivated over the economic impact and potential job creation. Then-premier Dalton McGuinty called the project key to Ontario economic recovery. His northern development minister, Thunder Bay’s Michael Gravelle, began the first of many meetings with First Nations in the region.

Initially, few in the business world took seriously the need to consult with First Nations before putting development plans in motion. This led to protests by those communities and eventually to a whole new legal framework ensuring such consultation would precede any development.

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Leo Gerard, retired president of United Steel Workers: ‘No one believed more in workers’ – by David Shribman (Globe and Mail – September 2, 2019)

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/

Canadian labour activist Leo Gerard recently retired after 18 years as international president of the United Steel Workers (USW) – the largest industrial union in North America. The onetime smelter worker devoted his career to battling the wealth gap.

Mr. Gerard faced numerous headwinds as a labour leader. He has grappled with declining rates of union membership. He has taken on leaders of both U.S. political parties, whose free-trade orthodoxy collided with his members’ concerns about imports of steel and other products. And he has struggled with members of his own union who have little in common culturally with U.S. President Donald Trump, but are nonetheless drawn to the Manhattan tycoon because of his populist approach and his nationalistic rhetoric.

The discord roiled Mr. Gerard’s union and placed him in a difficult political position. He argued just after the Trump triumph that the new President was elected “by stealing our agenda.”

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Nickel Ore Export Ban Is Good for Indonesia: Vale – by Nur Yasmin (Jakarta Globe – August 27, 2019)

https://jakartaglobe.id/

Jakarta. Vale Indonesia, the country’s largest nickel producer, said the government’s planned ore export ban will give the country a strategic advantage and bring positive impact to the local nickel industry and the Indonesian economy in the long term.

The government now wants the ban to start taking effect in October, three years earlier than the initial plan’s 2022 target.

The Indonesian Nickel Mining Association has voiced their objection to the plan, saying that it would disrupt their members’ contractual obligations and business plans.

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AMC fights to save South China tigers from extinction – by Laura Cornish (Mining Review Africa – August 29, 2019)

Mining Review Africa

According to the World Wildlife Fund, South China tigers area “critically endangered” species and considered “functionally extinct” having not been sighted in the wild for more than 25 years.

The non-profit Laohu Valley Reserve near Philippolis in the Free State, South Africa, has dedicated its resources to growing the South China tiger population, with the ultimate intention of re-wilding them in their origin home in China.

LAURA CORNISH visited the reserve to learn about the project which one of South Africa’s major crushing contractors, African Mining & Crushing (AMC) is supporting.

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Tiffany beat profit expectations—and it conflicts with the idea that millennials aren’t buying diamonds – by Anna Hecht (CNBC.com – August 29, 2019)

https://www.cnbc.com/

Despite a drop in tourist spending in the U.S. and protests in Hong Kong slowing sales, American luxury jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co still beat estimates on its quarterly profits, although the company’s revenue fell short, it announced in its earnings report on Wednesday.

Tiffany’s relatively successful performance contrasts with the widespread idea that young people aren’t buying as many diamonds as they used to. While Tiffany & Co doesn’t represent the entire jewelry industry, it still provides an interesting look into how the diamond industry is responding to changing tastes.

Currently, the jewelry industry as a whole is struggling. It shrunk 4% between 2017 and 2018, and last year alone, 852 U.S. jewelry retailers shut down, according to a report from the Jewelers Board of Trade (JBT).

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Voisey’s Bay underground development hits 10% completion (CBC News Newfoundland and Labrador – August 28, 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/

Workers staying on floating hotel while work on new living quarters underway

The quest to mine nickel from beneath the ground at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador is picking up steam with more than 430 workers on site. Joao Zanon, the project director for Vale, said the team ran into challenges in the early stages of the project during the harsh northern Labrador winter.

Once the snow melted and summer arrived, the project ramped up. A little over 10 per cent of the underground development is now complete, with a goal to be operational in the first half of 2020.

“We’ve picked up the development quite a lot in the past months and the speed will continue to increase as we … are able to mobilize more people to work underground,” Zanon said.

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South Africa Will Rely on Coal for Decades, Key Miner Says – by Paul Burkhardt (Bloomberg News – August 28, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Seriti Resources Holdings Ltd., poised to become Africa’s second biggest coal producer, is betting that South Africa will rely on coal for decades even as Africa’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases implements carbon taxes and is under pressure to improve air quality.

The most-industrialized economy on the continent will soon release an energy blueprint to outline the sources it will get its power from in the future. The carbon tax, designed to incentivize a move away from the coal that accounts for almost all power generation, could eventually cost state-owned power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. about 11.5 billion rand ($751 million) a year.

“When you operate in the coal-mining space the impression created is like you’re an environmental denialist. We are not,” Mike Teke, Seriti’s chief executive officer, said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Johannesburg on Monday. “We operate in a developing economy” where alternatives will need to be phased in gradually, he said.

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Ontario government ends Ring of Fire regional agreement with Matawa First Nations – by Matt Prokopchuk (CBC News Thunder Bay – August 27, 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/

Funding for regional talks between province, 9 Matawa First Nations ran out in late 2018

The provincial government has officially ended the regional framework agreement between Queen’s Park and the First Nations closest to the Ring of Fire, pledging to move forward with a series of bilateral agreements that the province’s Indigenous Affairs minister says will remove delays to completing projects that communities themselves want to see.

At the top of that list, Greg Rickford said in an interview with CBC News, is a north-south corridor that, not only could lead to road access to the mineral-rich James Bay lowlands, but can also connect by road, as well as add to the provincial power grid and expand modern telecommunications to, “at least four, five Indigenous communities.”

“That has additional health and social and economic benefits that move beyond the more obvious opportunities of creating mines,” he said. “To the extent that Noront [Resources] or other mining companies could build mines on that corridor, then we have a great value proposition.”

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Papua New Guinea may shut Chinese-owned nickel plant after spill – by Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – August 29, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – A nickel processing plant owned by Metallurgical Corp of China (MCC) that spilled mine waste into Papua New Guinea’s Basamuk Bay faces compensation claims and possibly closure, the head of the country’s minerals authority said on Thursday.

MCC’s Ramu nickel plant located in Madang, on the country’s northeastern coast, spilled waste into the bay over the weekend which caused the surrounding ocean to turn red and left a muddy residue on the rocky shoreline, according to locals and photographs of the incident.

The spillage occurred when a plant operator did not notice a pump failure during a maintenance shutdown, causing a tank to overflow and mining waste to disperse into the ocean, Jerry Garry, managing director of PNG’s Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) said.

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Greenland’s Rare-Earth Minerals Make It Trump’s Treasure Island – by Kiliii Yuya and David Stringer (Bloomberg News – August 28, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The country’s hostile wilderness becomes a new front in the trade war.

Cast an ultraviolet flashlight on the hills around Narsaq, a coastal town in southern Greenland, after dusk, and the rocks light up like embers.

With a land mass larger than Mexico and a population of only about 56,000 people, Greenland is a small economy, heavily reliant on fishing, agriculture, and about $500 million of annual subsidies from Denmark, which has claimed the island as a territory since the early 18th century. The fluorescence in the hills, however, could change all that.

Greenland’s minerals, metals, gems, and potentially oil are of particular interest to those who want full independence from Denmark by 2021, the 300th anniversary of colonization. The island has won back some rights to self-rule over the years, most recently in a 2008 referendum that transferred powers including authority over mineral resources to the Parliament of Greenland.

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Talks on Guinea’s iron ore advance, BHP nears deal on Nimba-sources – by Saliou Samb and Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – August 29, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

CONAKRY/LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Leading miner BHP is near a deal to divest its stake in Guinea’s Nimba iron ore deposit, while three big miners are vying to develop half of the country’s Simandou, the largest known untapped iron ore reserve, sources close to the talks said.

Guinea has struggled for decades to extract money from its iron ore, which has been left undeveloped because of protracted legal disputes and the cost of infrastructure.

BHP has also tried for years to sell its stake in the Nimba prospect, which does not fit the company’s preference for operating in stable, developed economies. Banking sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the price would be insignificant as BHP is keen to seal a deal.

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