Category Archives: Mining

Trump order encourages US to mine the moon

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Executive order says US will oppose any international effort to bar it from removing chunks of moon, Mars or elsewhere in space

The world may be racked by the coronavirus, but Donald Trump has less earthly concerns on his mind, too, after signing an executive order encouraging the US to mine the moon for minerals.

The executive order makes clear that the US doesn’t view space as a “global commons”, opening the way for the mining of the moon without any sort of international treaty.

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Human rights activist ‘forced to flee DRC’ over child cobalt mining lawsuit

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Landmark legal action against world’s biggest tech companies lead to death threats, says activist Auguste Mutombo

A Congolese human rights activist has said he was forced to flee the country with his family after being linked to a lawsuit accusing the world’s largest tech companies of being complicit in the deaths of children in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In December, the Guardian revealed that a group of families from DRC were launching landmark legal action against Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft and Dell. They claim they aided and abetted the deaths and injuries of their children, who were working in mines that they say were linked to the tech companies.

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Canada mining firm accused of slavery abroad can be sued at home, supreme court rules

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Case brought by three Eritreans against Nevsun Resources can continue as companies operating overseas face new legal risk

A Vancouver-based mining company can be sued in Canada for alleged human rights abuses overseas including allegations of modern slavery, Canada’s supreme court has ruled.

The decision means three Eritreans who filed a civil suit against Nevsun Resources in British Columbia can continue their case in a lower court.

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Clive Palmer charged with criminal offences by corporate regulator

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Asic boss confirms mining magnate and former politician charged with four offences by the regulator for conduct dating back to 2013

Mining magnate and former politician Clive Palmer has been charged with criminal offences that could see him jailed by Australia’s corporate regulator.

The head of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, John Price, revealed on Friday that the Queensland businessman had been charged with four offences by the regulator for conduct dating back to 2013.

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Rio Tinto announces $1bn spend to reach net zero emissions by 2050

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World’s second biggest miner says it will reduce emissions by 15% by 2030, but ‘will not set targets for our customers’

Mining giant Rio Tinto says it wants its globe-spanning operations to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and will spend US$1bn over the next five years to reduce its carbon footprint.

The second biggest miner in the world has also committed to reducing its emissions by 15% by 2030.

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‘Coal workers are orphans’: the children and slaves mining Pakistan’s coal

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Injuries and fatalities are common among thousands of debt-bonded men and children toiling in one of the world’s harshest work environments

All photographs by Mashal Baloch

The spectre of death hovers over the coal mines of Balochistan. Under scorching skies, this turbulent south-west region of Pakistan is home to one of the world’s harshest work environments, where tens of thousands of men and children descend below the surface each day to dig up thousands of tonnes of coal.

The threats of underground explosions, methane gas poisoning, suffocation, or mine walls collapsing are omnipresent and there is barely a single worker across the state’s five massive commercial coal mines who has not been touched by the fatalities that are common here.

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‘Gold pits have become tombs’: mining leaves a tragic legacy in Cameroon

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The ruthless quest for gold in eastern Cameroon has left the landscape peppered with deadly open pits

It was the last day of the summer holidays when, on his way to meet friends in his hometown of Batouri, eastern Cameroon, 12-year-old Saustem Brandon Samba slipped on reddish mud and fell into what at first looked like a large puddle.

The puddle turned out to be an abandoned gold mine, with a steep drop, 18 metres deep. Samba tried to get out, his arms and legs scrambling frantically in search of something to grip on to as muddy water choked him.

His father, Sah, still carries a photo of his son’s lifeless body after it was recovered from the mining pit in September 2017.

Between 2017 and 2019, at least 115 children and adults drowned or were buried alive by landfalls in the mostly abandoned pits in the East and Adamawa regions of Cameroon, according to Forests and Rural Development (Foder), a local watchdog that is alone in tracking the accidents and deaths.

“The whole area was not at all secure,” says Sah, whose fury is clear as he describes how gold mining pits in the region – which locals call “tombs” – have been left open and abandoned by Chinese companies, among others.

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Race to exploit the world’s seabed set to wreak havoc on marine life

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New research warns that ‘blue acceleration’ – a global goldrush to claim the ocean floor – is already impacting on the environment.

The scaly-foot snail is one of Earth’s strangest creatures. It lives more than 2,300 metres below the surface of the sea on a trio of deep-sea hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Here it has evolved a remarkable form of protection against the crushing, grim conditions found at these Stygian depths. It grows a shell made of iron.

Discovered in 1999, the multi-layered iron sulphide armour of Chrysomallon squamiferum – which measures a few centimetres in diameter – has already attracted the interest of the US defence department, whose scientists are now studying its genes in a bid to discover how it grows its own metal armour.

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Brazil prosecutors charge 16 people with murder in dam collapse that killed 270

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  • Former CEO of mining giant Vale among those charged
  • Vale ‘acted directly to create false impression of safety in dams’

Brazilian prosecutors have charged 16 people – including the former CEO of mining giant Vale – with murder and environmental crimes over the collapse of a tailings dam which killed 270 people on 25 January 2019.

The charges were announced by state prosecutors in Minas Gerais days before the first anniversary of the disaster, which sent a torrent of liquid mining waste across the picturesque countryside, flattening Vale’s plant, offices and canteen, and killing guests at a nearby countryside guesthouse.

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How the race for cobalt risks turning it from miracle metal to deadly chemical

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As a case in the US alleges links between tech companies and child miners in Congo, the Guardian’s global environment editor assesses the dangers of element in high demand for batteries

If the prophets of technology are to be believed, the best hope for solving the climate crisis is ever more efficient batteries. But the race to produce enough materials for this energy-storage revolution is creating a host of other environmental problems, as cobalt-producing nations like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Cuba are discovering.

Lung disease and heart failure have been linked to high levels of this element, while the mines that produce it are blamed for devastated landscapes, water pollution, contaminated crops and a loss of soil fertility. Scientists are also investigating a possible link to cancer.

As with any chemical, the risks depend on the amount and duration of exposure. Cobalt is a metal that occurs naturally in rocks, water, plants, and animals. It is less toxic than many other metals. At low levels, it is beneficial to human health and is a component of vitamin B12.

Related: Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

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I saw the unbearable grief inflicted on families by cobalt mining. I pray for change

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When Raphael turned 15, he started digging tunnels at the cobalt mine where he worked – two years later he was dead

Bisette sits before me, her face drawn with woe. Even though this is my second research trip to the cobalt provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I am ill-prepared for the torment I will witness. We thank Bisette for her courage, for we know she is fearful that even a rumour that she is speaking to us could result in brutal reprisals against her and her family. She inhales sharply and recounts a tale of unimaginable grief.

Raphael was born to Bisette’s sister, but after both his parents died when he was a baby, Bisette raised Raphael as her own son. She says he was a bright and cheerful child. Raphael loved to learn but, when he was 12 years old, the family could no longer afford the $6 (£4) a month required to send him to school. Instead, Bisette says Raphael did what most children in his village had to do: he went to work as a surface digger at a nearby industrial cobalt mine near Kolwezi.

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Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

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Dell, Microsoft and Tesla also among tech firms named in case brought by families of children killed or injured while mining in DRC

A landmark legal case has been launched against the world’s largest tech companies by Congolese families who say their children were killed or maimed while mining for cobalt used to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars, the Guardian can reveal.

Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC by human rights firm International Rights Advocates on behalf of 14 parents and children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The lawsuit accuses the companies of aiding and abetting in the death and serious injury of children who they claim were working in cobalt mines in their supply chain.

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Australian litigation funding giant rejects Christian Porter’s ‘lawfare’ claim

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Exclusive: IMF Bentham says several class actions against mining sector companies are for corporate breaches, not environmental

Australia’s biggest litigation funder, IMF Bentham, has rejected the attorney general’s suggestion the industry is engaging in “lawfare” against mining companies.

The company also hit back at claims by the chief executive of employer body AI Group, Innes Willox, that the industry is out of control, costing Australian business billions of dollars and needs urgent regulation.

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Clive Palmer company reapplies for mine four times size of Adani’s Carmichael

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Exclusive: public notice on proposal was placed in classifieds of paper in Queensland town of Emerald

A Clive Palmer-controlled company has applied for a mining lease and environmental authority to build a massive coalmine four times the size of Adani’s in the Queensland Galilee Basin.

The Galilee Coal project – formerly called China First – has not progressed since it gained federal environmental approval in late 2013.

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Cook Islands: manager of world’s biggest marine park says she lost job for backing sea mining moratorium

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Environmentalist Jacqueline Evans says she was dismissed from the Marae Moana for urging caution on deep-sea mining

The public champion of the world’s largest marine reserve – the Cook Islands’ Marae Moana – has said she lost her job managing it because she supported a moratorium on seabed mining in the Pacific.

Six months ago, Jacqueline Evans won the Goldman Environmental prize – the world’s foremost environmental award – for her work establishing Marae Moana (meaning “sacred ocean”), which covers the Cook Islands’ entire exclusive economic zone of more than 1.9m sq km.

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Dam collapses at Siberian gold mine, killing at least 15 people

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Investigation launched into safety regime at alluvial mine in remote Krasnoyarsk region

At least 15 gold miners were killed when a dam collapsed, flooding a mining encampment in a remote part of Siberia, officials have said.

Heavy rains weakened the dam and water broke through, sweeping away several cabins where the miners lived, about 100 miles south of the city of Krasnoyarsk.

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‘Human rights before mining rights’: German villagers take on coal firm

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Residents say they will not be ousted by energy firm seeking to expand the Garzweiler mine

A group of villagers living on the edge of one of Germany’s biggest surface coalmines have vowed not sell their properties to the energy company RWE, and to mount a legal challenge against any attempt to oust them from their homes.

The protest alliance is the first coordinated effort in more than 10 years against the expansion of the Garzweiler mine in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which threatens the existence of 12 villages that are home to 7,600 residents. Demolition of the first four villages is scheduled to begin in 2023.

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Collapse of PNG deep-sea mining venture sparks calls for moratorium

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Papua New Guinea out of pocket $157m from failed attempt at mining material from deep-sea vents as opponents point to environmental risk

The “total failure” of PNG’s controversial deep sea mining project Solwara 1 has spurred calls for a Pacific-wide moratorium on seabed mining for a decade.

The company behind Solwara 1, Nautilus, has gone into administration, with major creditors seeking a restructure to recoup hundreds of millions sunk into the controversial project.

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Out of the jungle and into a death trap: the fate of Malaysia’s last nomadic people

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The Batek started to die after being forced from their land. Were they poisoned by the plantations and mines that replaced their homes? The government is in no hurry to find out…

It swept over the settlement like a plague. First came a fever, then their throats swelled up, their eyes became bloodshot and their lungs rattled with coughing. And then they began to die.

Over two weeks in May, 15 members of Malaysia’s last nomadic people, the Batek, were killed by this mysterious disease, while more than 100 were hospitalised. By the end, only about 20 of the 186 people in the tribe living in their Kuala Koh settlement were left untouched.

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‘Most renewable energy companies’ linked with claims of abuses in mines

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Corporate watchdog urges clean-up of supply chains as analysis finds weak regulation and enforcement has led to lack of scrutiny

Most of the world’s top companies extracting key minerals for electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines have been linked with human rights abuses in their mines, research has found.

Analysis published by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), an international corporate watchdog, revealed that 87% of the 23 largest companies mining cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc – the six minerals essential to the renewable energy industry – have faced allegations of abuse including land rights infringements, corruption, violence or death over the past 10 years.

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