Tag: mining

Global forest loss shattered records in 2024

AmazonGlobal forest loss surged to record highs in 2024, driven by a catastrophic rise in fires, according to new data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis & Discovery (GLAD) Lab, made available on the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch platform. Loss of tropical primary forests alone reached 6.7 million hectares—nearly twice as much as in 2023 and an area nearly the size of Panama, at a rate of 18 soccer fields each minute. For the first time on record, fires—not agriculture—were the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss, accounting for nearly 50% of all destruction. This marks a dramatic shift from recent years, when fires averaged just 20%. Meanwhile, tropical primary forest loss driven by other causes also jumped by 14%, the sharpest increase since 2016. (Photo via Mongabay)

Israel, UAE to assist Ecuador drug war

EcuadorEcuador's President Daniel Noboa says he is seeking assistance from Israel and the United Arab Emirates to combat the drug cartels that are terrorizing the South American country. The hardline rightist who won re-election last month said Israel and the UAE have agreed to provide intelligence aid "to help" fight the narco gangs. A day after Noboa's comments, Ecuadoran authorities announced that 11 soldiers were killed while carrying out an operation to combat illegal mining in a region near the border with Colombia. The Prosecutor General's office said the troops were attacked by the Comandos de la Frontera, a "dissident" faction of Colombia's FARC guerillas that controls cross-border drug trafficking and illegal gold-mining operations in the eastern province of Orellana. (Photo: Presidencia de la República del Ecuador via WikimediaCommons)

Peru: emergency measures against illegal mining

PatazThe bodies of 13 security guards at a major Peruvian gold mine were found a week after the men were abducted from the site. Poderosa, the Peruvian company that owns and operates the mine in the northern province of Pataz, La Libertad region, confirmed the deaths after a police search-and-rescue unit recovered their bodies. Poderosa said the guards "were cruelly murdered by criminals allied with illegal mining." In response, President Dina Boluarte has instated a curfew in Pataz province, and announced that the armed forces will take full control of the area around the mining concession. A new military base will be also established in the area. Boluarte additionally said that she will ask Congress for extraordinary powers to crack down on criminal networks, and have their activities defined as "terrorism." (Photo: Comando Unificado Pataz via Mining.com)

Panamanian workers on indefinite strike

SUNTRACSPanamanian construction workers, teachers' unions, and popular organizations launched an indefinite strike to protest the government's proposed reforms to the pension system and to demand an end to US interference in the country. Protestors, led by the construction union SUNTRACS, were met by police repression in various parts of the country, including tear gas aimed directly at students. In addition to fears that reforms to the country's social security system will lead to its privatization, the country's grassroots organizations believe that President José Raúl Mulino has undermined Panamanian sovereignty by not being firm enough in his negotiations with the Trump administration over control of the Panama Canal. (Image: SUNTRACS)

Tatar Mejlis opposes betrayal of Crimea

MejlisThe representative body of the Crimean Tatar people has vowed to oppose any international recognition of Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The Tatar Mejlis, now sitting in exile in Kyiv, said that any move to recognize Crimea as Russian territory would violate international law. Refat Chubarov, the body's chairman, asserted in a statement: "Crimea is the homeland of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people and an integral part of Ukraine. Accordingly, no one can decide the fate of Crimea under any circumstances, except for the Ukrainian state and the Crimean Tatar people." The statement comes amid reports that the Trump White House is pressuring Kyiv to accept a peace formula that includes formal US recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea. (Photo: Crimean Tatar Mejlis)

Trump prepares arms-for-minerals deal with DRC

DRCFormer Blackwater CEO and and mercenary boss Erik Prince is to lead a team helping the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) secure and tax its extensive mineral wealth, news reports reveal. The deal, reached before the M23 rebels launched a major offensive in January, was just confirmed to Reuters by Congolese officials and diplomats. M23 has since January seized the eastern DRC's two largest cities, Goma and Bukavu, and is threatening to march on Kinshasa, the capital. The Prince-led initiative runs parallel to a broader minerals-for-security deal being negotiated between the DRC and the Trump White House. (Photo: Abel Kavanagh/MONUSCO via Wikimedia Commons)

Syria

Trump tariffs ‘inexplicably cruel’ for Africa

ZimbabweSome of the world's poorest countries, including nations grappling with protracted humanitarian crises, are among those most affected by President Donald Trump's new trade tariffs regime, which has compounded pre-existing economic strains and debt woes. Among the worst effects will likely be felt in Africa, where Trump's decision has created an "inexplicably cruel situation," according to the Center for Global Development (CGD). "It is hard to fathom that the administration set out to destabilize poor African countries and unclear what they hope to gain," wrote CGD researchers. The tariffs have effectively tanked the African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allowed duty-free imports to the US for 32 countries and was credited with helping economic growth. Amid existential financial worries in the international aid sector—triggered by Trump's closure of USAID—economists have also raised the possibility of a global trade war, with far-reaching ramifications for inflation and the cost of living worldwide. (Photo: Down To Earth)

Isolated people under threat in Andaman Islands

SentinaleseA US national was arrested on North Sentinel Island, in India's remote Andaman & Nicobar archipelago, for illegally seeking to make contact with the isolated Sentinelese people, an officially designated "particularly vulnerable tribal group" (PVTG). London-based Survival International expressed relief at the arrest, but called the news deeply disturbing, saying the adventurer's actions "put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk," due to their lack of immunity to common outside diseases. Within days of the arrest, a journalist with local news channel Republic Andaman was found dead—apparently targeted for his reportage on illegal logging and mining in the archipelago. And far greater threats loom; Survival warns that isolated peoples could be wiped out if New Delhi goes ahead with its plan to transform Great Nicobar Island into the "Hong Kong of India," with massive new port facilities and rapid urbanization. (Photo: Survival International)

Canada high court allows Métis challenge of mine leases

MNSThe Supreme Court of Canada allowed an application by the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MNS) for judicial review of the Saskatchewan government's approval of mining permits to proceed. The court ruled that the application, launched in 2021, was not an abuse of process because previous proceedings between the parties had not addressed the dispute in the present case. At issue are three uranium exploration permits within territory over which the MNS asserts Aboriginal title and rights. (Image: MNS)

Podcast: MAGA-fascism and the future of Europe

rendezvousThe revised deal for US access to Ukraine's mineral wealth (with no security guarantees for Kyiv) collapsed in the unseemly Oval Office donnybrook, and European leaders now convene their own summit—faced with the prospect of supporting Ukraine without the US. But Hungary and Slovakia represent an authoritarian bloc that supports Ukraine's betrayal—and Romania could be next to defect to this Russia-aligned bloc. In Europe and America alike, elements of the "tankie" pseudo-left no longer even bother to hide their convergence with MAGA. In Episode 267 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls for a clean break at both the international and grassroots levels. Europe must realize that the Atlantic alliance is effectively dead, and there are no prospects of reviving it while Trump is in the White House; whether or not the rumors are true that he was recruited as a KGB agent in the '80s, he is now on Putin's side. And progressives must repudiate pseudo-left misleaders who shill for Trump and and spread lies for Putin, and seek a new leadership that mobilizes to oppose them. (Image: Chris Rywalt/CounterVortex, after "Rendezvous" by British cartoonist David Low, 1939)

Peru: ’emergency’ of illegal mining in Amazon

WampisLeaders of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation (GTANW) in Peru denounced the use of local children as "human shields" to protect illegal mining activities and demanded the declaration of a state of emergency in the northern Amazon region. GTANW president Teófilo Kukush Pati said that when the police and armed forces carry out interdictions at mining sites, illegal miners forcibly gather community children to defend their operations. The leader also reported that the illegal mining outfits threaten to kill opponents. Pati stressed that the mercury produced by illegal mining in the Santiago River basin contaminates waters, which local communities depend on for fishing and drinking. The statement came as Pati arrived in Lima to meet with the government's high commissioner for the fight against illegal mining. (Photo: JYB Devot via Wikimedia Commons)