A protest planned outside the company headquarters in Sydney will be matched by others around the world by people affected by Glencore mines
The McArthur River mine in the Northern Territory – one of the world’s biggest zinc, lead and silver mines – must shut immediately and owner Glencore must cover the clean-up costs, say traditional owners who will protest outside the company’s headquarters in Sydney on Thursday. Coinciding with Glencore’s annual general meeting in Switzerland on Thursday, a delegation of the four groups that share responsibility for the river – the Gudanji, Garawa, Yanyula and Mara people – will be joined by protests in other communities impacted by Glencore mines around the world. Protests will occur in Bangladesh, South Africa, Zambia and London, organising under the banner #makethempay. A 2014 independent report found the mine contaminated the McArthur river, concluding 90% of fish stock in a nearby creek had shown dangerously high levels of lead. Residents and environmentalists have also complained of a large pile of smouldering waste, which the independent report said was polluting surrounding water and emitting poisonous fumes. Glencore then delayed erecting signs warning of the contaminated fish for over a year, despite members of the clans that control the river fishing extensively from it for food. The mining group, which turned five executives into paper billionaires when it floated on the London stock market in 2011, later said it was waiting for regulatory approval from authorities for the signs. Government documents later showed the Northern Territory government and Glencore knew about the signs of contamination but did not fully inform the communities. Glencore now has plans to double the size of the mine, but will need to submit an application to the federal government for approval. The company has denied polluting the river, pointing to other 2014 findings which did not show evidence of “mine-derived lead” in McArthur river and Surprise creek, and only recorded elevated levels in “small non-eating fish deep within the mine itself”. “Glencore had no right to poison our river and damage the land,” said Gadian Hoosan, spokesman for the Garawa Land Trust, whose land is situated downstream of the mine. “All four clan groups rely on that river. It was our main food source and livelihood and they took that away from us.” Lauren Mellor from the Mineral Policy Institute’s legacy mines project, said the mine has been a disaster for people living downstream. “Instead of digging itself into a bigger hole by pursuing expansion plans, Glencore must move its operations to a closure and clean-up phase and guarantee rehabilitation of the site.”ActionAid helped facilitate the protests, and have been fighting what they say is Glencore’s “tax dodging” around the world. Archie Law, the executive director of ActionAid, said: “Glencore is robbing communities all over the world of their livelihood and the public funds that should be paying for basic infrastructure and public services.” original story Michael Slezak https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/19/glencore-zinc-mine-must-be-shut-down-say-traditional-owners
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Have you heard about TTIP? If your answer is no, don’t get too worried; you’re not meant to have
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and US. As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, as John Hilary, Executive Director of campaign group War on Want, said: “An assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations.” Since before TTIP negotiations began last February, the process has been secretive and undemocratic. This secrecy is on-going, with nearly all information on negotiations coming from leaked documents and Freedom of Information requests. But worryingly, the covert nature of the talks may well be the least of our problems. Here are six other reasons why we should be scared of TTIP, very scared indeed: 1 The NHS Public services, especially the NHS, are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe’s public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS. The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. However, according to the Huffington Post, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table. 2 Food and environmental safety TTIP’s ‘regulatory convergence’ agenda will seek to bring EU standards on food safety and the environment closer to those of the US. But US regulations are much less strict, with 70 per cent of all processed foods sold in US supermarkets now containing genetically modified ingredients. By contrast, the EU allows virtually no GM foods. The US also has far laxer restrictions on the use of pesticides. It also uses growth hormones in its beef which are restricted in Europe due to links to cancer. US farmers have tried to have these restrictions lifted repeatedly in the past through the World Trade Organisation and it is likely that they will use TTIP to do so again. The same goes for the environment, where the EU’s REACH regulations are far tougher on potentially toxic substances. In Europe a company has to prove a substance is safe before it can be used; in the US the opposite is true: any substance can be used until it is proven unsafe. As an example, the EU currently bans 1,200 substances from use in cosmetics; the US just 12. 3 Banking regulations TTIP cuts both ways. The UK, under the influence of the all-powerful City of London, is thought to be seeking a loosening of US banking regulations. America’s financial rules are tougher than ours. They were put into place after the financial crisis to directly curb the powers of bankers and avoid a similar crisis happening again. TTIP, it is feared, will remove those restrictions, effectively handing all those powers back to the bankers. 4 Privacy Remember ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)? It was thrown out by a massive majority in the European Parliament in 2012 after a huge public backlash against what was rightly seen as an attack on individual privacy where internet service providers would be required to monitor people’s online activity. Well, it’s feared that TTIP could be bringing back ACTA’s central elements, proving that if the democratic approach doesn’t work, there’s always the back door. An easing of data privacy laws and a restriction of public access to pharmaceutical companies’ clinical trials are also thought to be on the cards. 5 Jobs The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. It has even advised EU members to draw on European support funds to compensate for the expected unemployment. Examples from other similar bi-lateral trade agreements around the world support the case for job losses. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico caused the loss of one million US jobs over 12 years, instead of the hundreds of thousands of extra that were promised. 6 Democracy TTIP’s biggest threat to society is its inherent assault on democracy. One of the main aims of TTIP is the introduction of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which allow companies to sue governments if those governments’ policies cause a loss of profits. In effect it means unelected transnational corporations can dictate the policies of democratically elected governments. ISDSs are already in place in other bi-lateral trade agreements around the world and have led to such injustices as in Germany where Swedish energy company Vattenfall is suing the German government for billions of dollars over its decision to phase out nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Here we see a public health policy put into place by a democratically elected government being threatened by an energy giant because of a potential loss of profit. Nothing could be more cynically anti-democratic. There are around 500 similar cases of businesses versus nations going on around the world at the moment and they are all taking place before ‘arbitration tribunals’ made up of corporate lawyers appointed on an ad hoc basis, which according to War on Want’s John Hilary, are “little more than kangaroo courts” with “a vested interest in ruling in favour of business.” So I don’t know about you, but I’m scared. I would vote against TTIP, except… hang on a minute… I can’t. Like you, I have no say whatsoever in whether TTIP goes through or not. All I can do is tell as many people about it as possible, as I hope, will you. We may be forced to accept an attack on democracy but we can at least fight against the conspiracy of silence.
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