Vedantoxics

Vedanta and its subsidiaries have been accused of numerous violations of the law. Apart from various legal cases against it because of its Lanjigarh smelter and its Niyamgiri project, mining researcher Roger Moody has produced the following list of just some of the...

Vedanta's top dog is biting on coal

Vedanta Resources plc spent $1.8bn in the six months to September 30, to expand capacities in aluminium, zinc, copper, iron ore and electricity. Since March this year, the company has raised $3.35bn for expenditure in 2010 – which it calls a “peak...

Lead-mining: the ugly truth about Xstrata's Mount Isa

Daphne Hare moved to Mount Isa, a remote Queensland mining town, in 2002, hoping for a share of the good times. The town, situated next to Australia’s biggest lead mine and smelter, was booming, thanks to global demand for the metal, used mainly in car...

Bank bailout with no strings attached

If you had £54bn, what would you do with it? How about lending some to a hard-up extractive company scrambling for oil in the civil-war ravaged Congo? Or maybe backing a few climate-wrecking coal power plants? Or, if that gets boring, how about supporting a mining...

Peru: Rio Blanco Copper mining camp attacked, two guards killed

Two security officers were killed and seven are still missing after a group of 20 people attacked and burned a Rio Blanco Cooper mining camp, said the company’s general manager, Jian Wu. The bizarre incident occurred early Sunday in Carmen de la Frontera...

BHP Billiton challenged at AGM

Another year – and another BHP Billiton AGM, held in London on October 29 2009. This year the company more than ever boasted of its continual march to world domination (or at least, domination of the mining industry); as well as a sage-like ability to guess...

C of E investing in company accused of human rights abuses

A company in which the Church of England has a £29 million shareholding will face allegations of human rights abuses and widespread environmental destruction as campaigners publish an ‘alternative report’ into its activities. The Church is seeking to profit from a...

Farmers take on BHP Billiton

A GROUP of irate farmers has launched a legal challenge against BHP Billiton in to bid to stop the company from developing coalfields in the north-west of New South Wales, Australia. See http://www.theage.com.au/business/farmers-take-on-bhp-20091026-hgol.html.

Philippines: mining or food?

Philippines: Working Group on Mining comments on company responses to “Mining or Food?” report BHP Billiton declines to comment. See http://www.business-humanrights.org/Documents/MiningorFood.