A foreign mining company, protected by hundreds of soldiers, extracts precious resources from a remote tropical forest. The mining enrages indigenous tribes, who resist. It may sound like a movie script, but it is in …
Read more
In Indonesia, Anger Against Mining Giant Grows
Rio Tinto subsidiary’s Bougainville Mining Lease expires
The Bougainville Mining Lease cannot be reviewed, despite its recent expiration, because of an automatic 21-year extension clause under the Bougainville Agreement.
Such is the case facing the once prolific world copper producer but the …
Read more
Keeping Tabs on Sarawak’s “corrupt” chief minister
A massive Malaysian conglomerate, headed by the chief minister of Sarawak, Abdul Taib Mahmud (“Taib”), is now being investigated by the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission. Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), which is controlled by Taib and his …
Read more
Mining and American Indians Still Don’t Mix
The Native American community has a long, troubled history with mining interests, and today that history is catching up with us in Arizona. From a new push for uranium mining at the Grand Canyon to …
Read more
Australia’s PM looking to overturn ban on India uranium sales
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s ruling Labor party will debate lifting the ban on the sales of uranium to India at its conference next month, a decision unlikely to be welcomed by the Greens.
Uranium …
Read more
Rio Tinto: what now for Alcan?
Analysis by Nostromo Research
Rio Tinto’s shutdown of its aluminium smelter at Lynemouth in Northumberland, in north east England, announced recently, marks the start of the company’s attempt to reap some dividend for, arguably, the …
Read more
Australia Passes Landmark Carbon Price Laws
Australia passed landmark laws last week to impose a price on carbon emissions in one of the biggest economic reforms in a decade and injecting new impetus into December’s global climate talks in South Africa.…
Read more
Papua: Freeport-Rio Tinto labour battles have no end in sight
Indonesian Police accused of accepting bribes
There’s no end in sight to the world’s biggest wages-related mining strike, as Freeport workers continue blockading (West) Papua’s Grasberg operations, following Indonesian police attacks that have already claimed …
Read more
Gobi mega-mine puts Mongolia on brink of world’s greatest resource boom
Mongolia’s mining boom includes a vast coal mine at Tevan Tolgoi and Rio Tinto‘s Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, which will provide some of the metal for the 2012 Olympic medals. New mega-mines …
Read more
US House of Representatives gives Native territory to Rio Tinto
It’s “nothing more than an attempt to transfer American resources from the hands of the American public to foreign interests”.
That’s what a representative of the San Carlos Apache Tribe told the UN Permanent Forum …
Read more
Lawsuit Revived Against Mining Giant Rio Tinto for War Crimes in Bougainville
A U.S. federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit accusing mining giant Rio Tinto of committing genocide and war crimes in Papua New Guinea, where it once ran one of the world’s largest copper and …
Read more