Thursday, January 9, 2014

¿Dónde están las turbas?

Socialist Party (PS) Sen. Isabel Allende .... represents the region where the controversial mine from the world’s largest gold producer is under legal attack for failing to meet its environmental obligations.
A Chilean court suspended operations at Barrick Gold’s Pascua-Lama mine in early April, responding to the indigenous Diaguita community’s allegations that the company is endangering the fragile ecosystem they share on the Argentine border.
....Mounting costs, delays and resistance have compelled Barrick’s directors to threaten permanently closing the idle mine.
Allende heard the concerns of Pascua-Lama’s four labor unions in a meeting with the Senate’s Environmental Commission.
We'll just bet she did. And the laborers probably have a better appreciation of the benefits of capitalism than either she or her deceased father. So the newspaper asks the obvious question;
Did meeting with Barrick’s labor union directors change your opinion about the Pascua-Lama mine suspension?
And the weaseling begins;
Not entirely. I think that, until this point, the company has been incapable of complying with environmental standards and hasn’t met its agreements. It has accumulated sanctions, including various fines relating to work conditions.
It’s true that I also have to acknowledge the concerns the workers have about the future of their jobs. We are talking about more than 4,000 workers, but I think that [the current situation] is an enormous act of negligence by this company.
Someone will get the shaft, who will get the blame?

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