In a potential landmark legal case, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), a constitutional body with the power to investigate human rights violations, has sent 47 “carbon majors” including Shell, BP, Chevron, BHP Billiton and Anglo American, a 60-page document accusing them of breaching people’s fundamental rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and to self determination”.
Friends of the Earth condemns Coal Authority for granting licences for underground coal gasification at 19 UK sites.
These articles track the recent decision of the Australian mining company, MRC, to divest from the Xolobeni mineral sands mining project (See: Protestors stand in solidarity with South African communities opposing mining). The withdrawal of MRC is seen as an important win – and one welcomed by the Amadiba community’s legal representatives. However, it is still not clear whether the company has truly disinvested, or whether it will retain some form of covert financial interest in the proposed mine. Also MRC’s decision has not affected the situation on the ground, where the bitter divisions the proposed project has brought continue to manifest themselves in serious confrontation. There is also ongoing intimidation of anti-mining activists, including allegedly from local police.
On the Global Day Against mega Mining, discover how communities are standing up to defend life and land for future generations… and winning against giant mining corporations!
Rio Tinto is one of the major investors in a bauxite mine threatening Indigenous and quilombola communities in Brazil. The quilombolas (descendants of the black people who, in the 19th century, fled slavery), with the support of the indigenous people, resist the destruction of their forests.
