| ECUADOR: Amazon Indians Appeal Texaco Case Ruling by Gail Appleson, Reuters March 11th, 2002 Rainforest Indians of Ecuador and Peru urged a U.S. appeals court on Monday to reinstate nine-year-old litigation against Texaco, alleging that toxic dumping devastated their environment and exposed residents to cancer-causing pollutants. |
| INDIA: Novelist Roy is Grassroots Hero by Madeleine Bunting, The Guardian (UK) March 7th, 2002 When Arundhati Roy woke up at 5.30am this morning in Tihar prison, New Delhi, it must have struck her that reality was proving stranger than any fiction. Over the past week terrible communal violence in India has claimed hundreds of lives while the forces of law and order stood by. This has now been juxtaposed with the spectacle of a diminutive, softly spoken novelist being sent to one of the country's most notorious prisons to uphold what the supreme court called the ''glory of the law'' because she dared to criticize it. |
| INDONESIA: Man Shot at Australian Gold Mine Environment News Service January 23rd, 2002 An Indonesian man was shot by security police at an Australian gold mine in Indonesian Borneo. The gold mine is located in a remote area of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, inhabited mainly by indigenous Dayak people. |
| Ghana: Cyanide Spill Worst Disaster Ever in West African Nation by Mike Anane, Environment News Service October 24th, 2001 Villages in the Wassa West District of Ghana's western region have been hit by the spillage of thousands of cubic metres of mine wastewater contaminated with cyanide and heavy metals. The cyanide-laced waste contaminated the River Asuman on October 16 when a tailings dam ruptured at a mine operation owned by the South African company, Goldfields Ltd. |
| Peru: Mining Companies Invade Andean Cloud Forests Environment News Service August 17th, 2001 The recent discovery of gold deposits in northwestern Peru has split the population between those who support proposed mineral extraction and those who fear it will cause irreparable ecological damage to human health, agriculture and endangered species. |
| FIJI: Japanese Mine Wants to Dump 100,000 Tons of Waste Daily Drillbits and Tailings (Project Underground) June 30th, 2001 Japanese mining magnate Nittetsu-Nippon has set its sights on the copper-rich hills of Fiji, endangering the ecologically fragile Waisoi Valley and the Coral Coast. Because the ore contains such low-grade (only .5%) copper, the proposed Namosi mine would be among the biggest producers of crushed rock among copper mines worldwide. |
| Indonesia: International Ban on Dumping Mine Waste Urged Environment News Service May 2nd, 2001 An international conference here on the dumping of mine waste at sea, known as submarine tailings disposal, concluded Monday with a declaration which calls for an international ban on the practice. |
| Africa: U.S. Covert Action Exposed by Eric Ture Muhammad, Final Call April 25th, 2001 Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) led the voices of castigation that claimed the U.S. Government, the UN, private militias and western economic interests possessed complete knowledge of pending civil unrest in Africa and fed the fray between African nations. Their aim was to use war, disease, hunger and poverty as covers while continuing the centuries-old practice of rape and exploitation of the continent's human and mineral resources, testimonies charged. |
| US: 2001 Goldman Prize Winners Fight Greed Environment News Service April 23rd, 2001 The Goldman Environmental Prize for North America goes this year to Akre and Wilson. Winners in five other geographic areas are honored too with the world's largest prize for environmental activists. |
| Turkey: Anti-Mining Activist Jailed by Jon Gorvett, Environment News Service March 30th, 2001 The leader of one of Turkey's longest running environmental campaigns was jailed for a year and a half this week under the country's tough anti-protest laws written by the Turkish military. |
| ECUADOR: Nationwide Protests End with Triumph by Indians by Kintto Lucas, Inter Press Service February 7th, 2001 The nationwide protests or ''uprising'' by Ecuador's indigenous people that has brought much of this Andean nation to a standstill over the past two weeks ended Wednesday with the signing of a pact with President Gustavo Noboa, who agreed to lower the price of gasoline, one of the demonstrators' main demands. |
| TURKEY: Court Bans Cyanide Gold Process Near Ancient Town by Jon Gorvett, Environment News Service January 16th, 2001 Despite an order from the country's Supreme Court backing up environmentalists, the pressure is mounting this week for the reopening of a controversial mine in one of Turkey's most visited tourist areas. |
| World: Enviromentalists Call for Mining Standards by Danielle Knight, Inter Press Service October 25th, 2000 Following January's cyanide spill in Romania and new reports on mining disasters from China, environmentalists are calling for governments worldwide to adopt international mining standards. |
| PERU: Mercury from Gold Mine Dumped in Transit Environment News Service June 16th, 2000 Eight people have been hospitalized including a woman in critical condition following a mercury spill near the Minera Yanacocha mine, 600 kilometers (375 miles) north of Lima, Peru. |
| AFRICA: Illegal Diamond Trade Funds War in Sierra Leone UMCOR April 19th, 2000 Peace cannot be sustained in Sierra Leone until controls are imposed on the illegal selling of diamonds used to finance its civil war, according to a recent study. |
| SRI LANKA: Massive Protest Against US Mining Project Inter Press Service March 30th, 2000 Scientists, trade unionists and priests joined farmers from a northeast Sri Lanka village on Thursday in a massive protest in the capital against government plans to hand over phosphate mines to a US-based transnational company (TNC). |
| ZAMBIA: Environmentalists Caution New Mine Investors The Times of Zambia (Lusaka) March 6th, 2000 A non-governmental organisation has cautioned the new mine investors not to willfully pollute the environment despite a bill which indemnifies them from litigation against environmental degradation. Citizens for a better environment, a Kitwe based NGO, warned that should the new mines violate the rights of the people to a clean environment, they would face the wrath of the public. |
| US: Vermiculite Products Could Expose Consumers to Asbestos by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service February 15th, 2000 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether products made from vermiculite could expose consumers to asbestos. Preliminary test results on common household products indicate that a particularly lethal form of asbestos fibers contaminates some attic insulation, but researchers do not yet know whether normal use of these products could endanger consumers. |
| US: Asbestos Tainted Ore Affected Thousands, Suit Charges by Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service February 1st, 2000 A class action lawsuit filed Monday seeks cleanup and medical monitoring funds to help more than 26,000 people exposed to asbestos from contaminated vermiculite ore. The suit alleges that decades of unsafe mining operations in Libby, Montana have led to illness and death for thousands of mineworkers, processing plant employees, and Libby residents. |
| The Mexican Version of Pulpwood Plantations by Alejandro Villamar, World Rainforest Movement Bulletin August 1st, 1998 In response to pressure from the maquiladora industry, the Mexican government is now paving the way for the large-scale pulpwood plantations in order to provide industry with raw material to produce cheap pulp and paper. |