London’s renowned Chelsea Football team hasn’t been doing that brilliantly of late – it’s slipped to third place in Barclay’s Premier League. This may have given the club’s owner, Roman Abramovich, a spate of the blues as he pored...
Embattled Indonesian miner Bumi has decided to toss its lot in with the Bakries following a protracted shareholder dispute between the prominent Sumatran business dynasty and European financier Nat Rothschild. See...
He’s not the world’s wealthiest mining billionaire (Mexico’s Carlos Slim owns that dubious accolade). But he’s certainly its most notorious. Known from student days as “Toxic Bob” (probably referring to his alleged drug dealing at...
Hot on the heels of an announcement that it is closing its open-pit operations at Australia’s Ranger mine, Rio Tinto says it will sell its majority-stake in South Africa’s Palabora copper mining company to a South-African-Chinese consortium; along with this will go...
On 6 December, demonstrations were mounted in both Orissa and Britain, calling for the closure of Vedanta Resources’ Lanjigarh alumina refinery. Several thousand tribal people gathered at the site itself, while supporters threw mud onto the steps of...
What is the future for mining in Colombia, if and when an abiding peace deal is signed between the government and armed opposition forces? That’s a question prompted by a new report which accuses FARC of using income from gold mining to finance its illegal...
“The real reason for conflict with leftwing opponents of Correa…has been his government’s decision to allow large-scale mining and oil exploration in the highly eco-sensitive areas of Ecuador’s Amazon basin”. So says New Delhi journalist,...
Social opposition to mining projects in Peru reached new heights in 2012, according to the 11th mining conflict observatory report that was presented recently in Lima. The report found 2012 to be one of the worst years of social conflict in recent history and cited...
Over the past month, Guatemalan “security” forces have attacked demonstrators who are seeking to halt the advance of a number of Canadian and US-owned mining projects. According to a statement issued by Rights Action: “The North American governments...
The number of killings of mining opponents, in countries like India, Mexico, and Ecuador, has been rising at an horrendous rate. But the Philippines must hold the unenviable record of suffering the highest rate of such atrocities. Three more such activists were...
Following delays in obtaining regulator approval in South Africa, commodities trader Glencore International has announced it has extended the deadline to complete its $33 billion proposed takeover of Xstrata by a month to Jan. 31. The company was expected to defend...
London-listed Centamin had seemed to be going from strength to strength with the successful development and early mining operations of Egypt’s first modern gold mine. But then came the ‘Arab Spring’, which dented the share price, but not initially the operations which...
