Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalA corporate warning to El Salvador: Give up your gold or pay $315 million
Jamie Stark August 1, 2014 07:52
A corporate warning to El Salvador: Give up your gold or pay $315 million
As Salvadorans debate a mining ban due to pollution concerns, a large mining company has filed suit against the government.
SAN SEBASTIAN, El Salvador — Vasita Escobar is certain that chemicals from the abandoned gold mine upriver from her house are slowly killing her family.
“This company that has destroyed life, wanted to keep going,” said Escobar, in reference to Commerce Group Corp., a Wisconsin-based outfit that stopped mining for gold in San Sebastian in 2006 after permit difficulties. “My kids never get better—they’re always skinny. They always breathe the river water, they play in there. When I see my kids suffering, I know others’ are too.”
A 2012 study confirmed Escobar’s fears: the river next to her home is contaminated with 9 times the acceptable limit of cyanide, and 1,000 times the acceptable level of iron. Cyanide is part of the chemical cocktail used on such mining sites to separate precious metals from excavated rock, and can run off into land and water.
In El Salvador as around the world, the process of digging up and crushing rock during gold mining releases naturally-occurring arsenic. But here, some of that arsenic filters through into the nearby river. When swallowed by children, it can lead to poisoning and even death.
More:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/rights/el-salvador-gold-mining-lawsuit
Why Latin American diplomats are pulling out of Israel
Saturday, Aug 2, 2014 11:00 AM CDT
Why Latin American diplomats are pulling out of Israel
More and more of the region's governments are yanking their ambassadors out of the country in protest
Simeon Tegel, Alex Leff and Noga Tarnopolsky, GlobalPost
LIMA, Peru and JERUSALEM — Latin American nations are expressing their revulsion at the bloodshed in Gaza — and squarely pinning the blame on Israel.
Chile, Peru and El Salvador said this week they are recalling their ambassadors from Israel for consultation. That was after Ecuador and Brazil did the same last week.
And on Wednesday, Bolivian President Evo Morales declared Israel a “terrorist state.”
Lots of world leaders have denounced the violence on both sides of Israel’s 3-week-old war against Hamas in Gaza. Palestinian casualties have reached 1,328, according to Gaza health authorities, while the Israeli death toll is close to 60.
But the Latin Americans appear to be leading a diplomatic storm, flying envoys out of Tel Aviv.
Recalling an ambassador for consultation falls short of breaking off relations outright, but it can lead to that.
So, why are they doing it?
In a statement on Tuesday, Chile condemned Hamas for launching rockets at Israeli towns, but slammed the Israel Defense Forces’ bombardment of Palestinian civilians.
More:
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/02/why_latin_american_diplomats_are_pulling_out_of_israel_partner/
Peru court order US mining firm to pay $163 million
Peru court order US mining firm to pay $163 million
AFP
August 3, 2014, 4:02 am
Lima (AFP) - American mining concern Doe Run must pay $163 million for failing to take sufficient environmental measures at its site in La Oraya, Peru's high court announced Saturday.
One of the world's largest producers of lead, Doe Run at the Peru site also produces copper and other metals that create large amounts of polluting byproducts.
Its contract, which Peru says the company failed to honor, requires that it take stringent preventive measures to safeguard the environment in the area.
Peru sued the company after it failed to build a treatment plant to reduce the emissions, and the court has ruled in its favor, officials announced.
A report last year by the International Federation for Human Rights found that "the air been contaminated by emissions of lead and other heavy metals spewed from the chimneys of the refinery," run by Doe Run and that the water and soil also had been contaminated.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/world/a/24617907/
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The Doe Run company has been a vicious threat to the people in the area, owned by US citizen,
Ira Rennert:
Poisoned city fights to save its children
Families in a Peruvian valley choked by toxic gas from a smelter are taking on a US metals giant
Hugh O'Shaughnessy in La Oroya, Peru
Sunday August 12, 2007
The Observer
Children wearing masks play near the towering chimneys
of Peru's La Oroya refinery and metals processing
plant. Photograph: Reuters
At an altitude of 13,000ft the Andean air is clear. A plume of white smoke rises from the chimney at the La Oroya smelter, hard at work refining arsenic and metals such as lead, cadmium and copper. But today the company is not discharging any gases over this city in central Peru. 'It's a nice day, so the company won't be letting off any gases,' says Hugo Villa, a neurologist at the local hospital. 'They keep the worst emissions to overcast days or after dark.'
When the gases are released, they make this one of the most polluted places on the planet, with La Oroya ranking alongside Chernobyl for environmental devastation, according to a US think-tank, the Blacksmith Institute.
The company is a US corporation, Renco Doe Run. The gases are the product from the main smelter a mile or two down the valley. The high mountains around keep out the cleansing winds, meaning that airborne metals are concentrated in the valley. Neither humans nor nature can escape the company's outpourings of poisons. And, despite evidence that gases have been behind the premature deaths of workers and residents young and old, the business-oriented, pro-US government of President Alan Garcia is too afraid of foreign investors to do anything about it.
Now, however, the townspeople, once muted by their worries about losing their jobs with the valley's biggest employer, are turning their attention towards Ira Rennert, Renco's proprietor.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/12/environment.pollution
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Ira Rennert's Hamptons home
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More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3558450
Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Marine Life
Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Marine Life
Marcus Eriksen | August 1, 2014 9:33 am
The revolution of plastic in the fishing industry has fed billions, but left a paucity of life in the oceans and more suffering than we understand. A lost nylon fishing net or tangled mass of hook and line does not stop fishing, the results are horrifying and solutions hard won.
The big things living in the ocean usually sink when they die, which is why any estimate of ecological impacts, from propeller scars to entanglement in fishing nets, are nearly impossible. They always underestimate the numbers of true deaths and dismemberment. The ones that are still alive near the surface are the messengers. A recent report from scientists studying loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) near the Azores, report gruesome amputations from entanglement and intestinal lesions and bleeding from hooks making their way through their bodies.
So what can fix this?
Lost fishing gear, called ghost nets, are more costly than you might think. Scientist studying the economics of subsidizing recovery of lost nets in Puget Sound reported that the fish and crabs that are caught and die in lost traps and nets was worth more than 12 times the cost of recovery programs. Incentivizing recovery works, but who will pay for it? In Chesapeake Bay researchers have had success with a program to equip crabbers with side-scanning sonar and a grapple hook to snare the hundreds of lost traps that litter the bay. The program works, thanks to taxpayer funds through the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.
But in the ocean, where marine mammals and reptiles interact with thousands of tons of plastic waste in international waters, the economic incentives are not there. Voluntary programs for fishermen to bring garbage back from the sea, or report lost gear, are not impactful on a large scale. What is needed are economic incentives, which will largely need to be subsidized by the industries producing the gear in the first place, to create a reward for the return of derelict gear.
More:
http://ecowatch.com/2014/08/01/plastic-pollution-marine-life/
Six guilty of plot to kill Ecuador president
Six guilty of plot to kill Ecuador president
August 2, 2014 - 10:04AM
Quito: A court in Ecuador convicted six police officers on Friday of attempting to assassinate President Rafael Correa during a 2010 rebellion that left 10 people dead and 274 wounded.
During the police mutiny, which erupted over bonus cuts, protesting officers besieged Mr Correa for 12 hours inside a hospital where he had taken refuge, killing one of his bodyguards and opening fire on his armoured car before he finally escaped with an elite rescue unit.
Prosecutor Gustavo Benitez said the six convicted police had all been caught on video with "weapons, their faces covered and ready to open fire on the President".
In all, 40 people have been convicted of involvement in the rebellion.
More:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/six-guilty-of-plot-to-kill-ecuador-president-20140802-zzph6.html#ixzz39CwpBnTS
Brazil: Gunmen threaten to assassinate leading Amazon shaman
Brazil: Gunmen threaten to assassinate leading Amazon shaman
Friday, 1 August 2014, 1:39 pm
Press Release: Survival International
Brazil: Gunmen threaten to assassinate leading Amazon shaman
July 29, 2014
Davi Kopenawa, shaman and internationally renowned spokesman for the Yanomami tribe in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, has demanded urgent police protection following a series of death threats by armed thugs reportedly hired by goldminers operating illegally on Yanomami land.
In June 2014, armed men on motorbikes raided the Boa Vista office of Brazilian organization ISA, which works closely with the Yanomami, asking for Davi. The men threatened ISA’s staff with guns and stole computers and other equipment. After the assault, one of the men was arrested and reported that he had been hired by goldminers.
In May, Yanomami Association Hutukara – headed by Davi – received a message from goldminers that Davi would not be alive by the end of the year.
Davi said, “They want to kill me. I don’t do what the white people do, who go after someone to kill them. I don’t get in the way of their work. But they are getting in the way of our work and our fight. I’ll continue to fight and to work for my people. Because defending the Yanomami people and their land is my work.”
Since the attack, a climate of fear has surrounded the offices of Hutukara and ISA, as men on motorbikes intimidate the staff and repeatedly ask for Davi’s whereabouts.
More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1408/S00039/brazil-gunmen-threaten-to-assassinate-leading-amazon-shaman.htm
Colombia’s largest hydro-dam project stirs violence, human rights abuses: report
Colombia’s largest hydro-dam project stirs violence, human rights abuses: report
Aug 1, 2014 posted by Nicolas Bedoya
Colombian human rights and environmental NGO has released a report condemning human rights abuses and violations surrounding the construction of a mega-dam on Colombia’s second largest river.
Colombia was ranked second as the country with the most environmental conflicts in the world by the Environmental Justice Atlas, according to Colombia’s El Pais newspaper.
The group says that the state’s failure to recognize the environmental and social conflicts caused by mining and hydro-projects make the situation much more difficult to solve.
The Ituango hydro project was started in 2008 by the the state of Antioquia’s energy company EPM, along with various international corporations, with the intention of harvesting the Cauca River’s power generating potential. The damming of Colombia’s second biggest river is intended to satisfy 18% of Colombia’s electricity demand by 2022, according to the project’s website.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/water-mega-projects-raising-violence-human-rights-abuses-report/
Bones found near dictatorship torture chamber in Chile
Source: Agence France-Presse
Bones found near dictatorship torture chamber in Chile
By AFP
41 mins ago
Human bones have been found near a military base in central Chile where political prisoners were tortured during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, officials said Friday.
"They are human remains, but what has not been determined yet is the date" of death, forensics director Patricio Bustos told journalists, saying specialists continued working in the area under heavy police guard.
He said the remains appeared to be from more than one person.
An estimated 3,200 people died or went missing during Chile's bloody 1973-1990 dictatorship. Another 38,000 were tortured under Pinochet, who died in 2006.
The bones were found on a farm near the Tejas Verdes military base outside the resort town of Santo Domingo on the central coast.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/bones-found-near-dictatorship-torture-chamber-in-chile/article/394322#ixzz39B7tpG1C
Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm
Five Latin American Countries Withdraw Envoys From Israel
Five Latin American Countries Withdraw Envoys From Israel
By Anadolu Agency, www.middleeastmonitor.com
July 31st, 2014
The decision of the Latin American countries to recall their ambassadors in Tel Aviv is a “deep disappointment”, says Israel.
El Salvador on Wednesday became the fifth Latin American country to withdraw its ambassador from Israel in protest at Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru have already recalled their ambassadors.
Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor said that the move encourages Hamas; “this decision encourages Hamas which has been recognized as a terrorist organization by several countries. The countries standing against terror must act responsibly and should not reward them. While Hamas has been responsible for hindering a ceasfire, El Salvador, Peru and Chile were expected to support international attitude for peace and demilitarization of Gaza”, the statement said.
Earlier Israel criticized Brazil over its decision to recall its ambassador in protest at Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Brazil was one of 29 countries in the UN Human Rights Council that voted last Wednesday to investigate Israel over its military offensive in Gaza.
More:
http://www.popularresistance.org/five-latin-american-countries-withdraw-envoys-from-israel/
Food & Water Watch Denounces USDA Plans to Privatize Poultry Inspection
Thursday, July 31, 2014 - 4:45pm
Food & Water Watch Denounces USDA Plans to Privatize Poultry Inspection
Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter
WASHINGTON - “Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the final rule that will transfer most poultry inspection from government inspectors to the companies so they can police themselves. With the poultry industry standing to gain financially due to increased production and fewer regulatory requirements, the plan is a gift from the Obama administration to the industry, one that will undermine consumer and worker safety, as well as animal welfare.
“One of the changes that has been made to the original proposed rule is to cap the line speed in chicken slaughter facilities at 140 birds per minute, instead of 175 birds per minute. This is not a meaningful victory because there are not accompanying worker safety regulations to deal with the musculoskeletal disorders and other work-related injuries that both the plant workers and USDA inspectors suffer every day working in the poultry slaughter plants. In addition, the one USDA inspector left on the slaughter line under this new rule will still have to inspect 2.33 birds every second – an impossible task that leaves consumers at risk.
“The change in regulations was first proposed in January of 2012, but after strong opposition from consumer organizations, worker safety advocates and animal welfare groups, its implementation was delayed. When the comment period closed on the proposed rule, USDA had received over 175,000 public comments – most of them opposed to the proposal. Since then, other petitions have been sent to USDA and the White House containing hundreds of thousands of signatures urging the withdrawal of the rule. There have also been several congressional letters sent to USDA urging reconsideration of the rule. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in August of 2013 that called into question whether USDA had sufficient data to justify this radical change in poultry inspection.
“The fast turnaround on this rule does a disservice to consumers and workers in poultry plants. Rather than making the contents of a revised rule public and creating a new comment period, the USDA and the White House are making a dramatic change to how poultry is inspected based on incomplete data and limited public review. Food & Water Watch is exploring if there are any further options to stop the rule.”
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2014/07/31/food-water-watch-denounces-usda-plans-privatize-poultry-inspection
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