Criminal Complaint Filed Against Barrick Over Cyanide Spill In Argentina

[Judi Lynn]

Criminal Complaint Filed Against Barrick Over Cyanide Spill In Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Sept 11 (BERNAMA-NNN-EFE)-- Prosecutors in the western Argentine province of San Juan have filed a criminal complaint over a cyanide spill at a gold mine operated by Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold, while hundreds of local residents demanded Wednesday that authorities halt work at the deposit.

"We want all investigative measures taken to determine if there's a crime ... and if there's criminal liability," provincial prosecutor Guillermo de Sanctis told EFE, referring to the complaint filed Tuesday with a provincial court.

Barrick Gold said in a statement that the spill occurred Sunday when a pipe carrying cyanide suffered a valve failure at its Veladero gold mine, although it insisted the leak did not contaminate local water supplies.

The San Juan provincial government recommended that the inhabitants of three towns located near Veladero "avoid and/or reduce their consumption of water from the Blanco River" as a precautionary measure until tests results are known.

More:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v8/wn/newsworld.php?id=1172115

[Judi Lynn]

1. The President, the Gold Mine and the Politics of Greed

The President, the Gold Mine and the Politics of Greed

The Parable of the Golden Parachute

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR , CounterPunch
July 11th, 2009


This is an excerpt from Born Under a Bad Sky.



At the precise moment George H. W. Bush, famous sky-diver, burst back into the headlines by renouncing his long-standing and ill-used membership in the National Rifle Association, the putative architect of the New World Order quietly sold his services to a much more invidious enterprise: American Barrick Resources Company.

In May 1994, I learned that Bush had signed on as a senior advisor on international affairs for this transnational mining company, breaching a promise he had made prior to leaving presidential office not to serve on any corporate boards. “President Bush doesn’t do boards,” Bush spokesman Jim McGrath told me. “This is the exception that proves the rule. President Bush is very concerned about avoiding any apparent conflicts of interest.”

In fact, Bush’s position with Barrick appeared to be a direct payoff for the special attention his administration lavished on the multi-billion-dollar Canadian company.

Barrick is the most profitable gold mining company in North America, owed largely to its ownership of the vast Goldstrike mine near Elko, Nevada. The 1,800-acre Goldstrike mine contains an estimated $10 billion worth of gold; yet, under the 1872 Mining Act, the land was “patented” by Barrick from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for less than $10,000. When Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt handed Barrick the title of the land in the spring of 1993, he called it the “greatest gold heist since Butch Cassidy”—a comment notable for its grotesque understatement.

More:
http://protestbarrick.net/article.php?id=512

[Judi Lynn]

2. Poppy Strikes Gold

Poppy Strikes Gold

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Originally Posted July 9, 2003
By Greg Palast

This excerpt is taken from Greg Palast's book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy available from www.gregpalast.com

George W. could not have amassed this pile if his surname were Jones or Smith. While other candidates begged, pleaded and wheedled for donations, the Bushes added a creative, lucrative new twist to the money chase that contenders couldn't imitate: "Poppy" Bush's post–White House work. It laid the foundation for Dubya's campaign kitty corpulence and, not incidentally, raised the family's net worth by several hundred percent.

In 1998, for example, the former president and famed Desert Stormtrooper-in-Chief wrote to the oil minister of Kuwait on behalf of Chevron Oil Corporation. Bush says, honestly, that he "had no stake in the Chevron operation." True, but following this selfless use of his influence, the oil company put $657,000 into the Republican Party coffers.

That year Bush père created a storm in Argentina when he lobbied his close political ally, President Carlos Menem, to grant a gambling license to Mirage Casino Corporation. Once again, the senior Bush wrote that he had no personal interest in the deal. However, Bush fils made out quite nicely: After the casino fiap, Mirage dropped $449,000 into the Republican Party war chest.

Much of Bush's loot, reports the Center for Responsive Politics, came in the form of "bundled" and "soft" money. That's the squishy stuff corporations use to ooze around U.S. law, which prohibits any direct donations from corporations.

More:
http://www.gregpalast.com/poppy-strikes-gold/