MINING INDUSTRY “PHILANTHROPY” - ROBIN HOOD BACKWARDS:
Take from the poor and give to the rich
As the list grows of environmental and development harms and human rights violations caused directly or indirectly by Goldcorp’s open-pit, cyanide leeching mining operations in Honduras and Guatemala, the company is donating some of its enormous profits to well-funded universities in Canada. In addition to harms and violations, Goldcorp leaves 1% of its profits in Guatemala!
All benefits from this “development” model flow north. All harms and violations stay in the exploited countries.
BELOW: a Vancouver Sun article.
WHAT TO DO: see below. To get on-off this elist: info@rightsaction.org. Please redistribute this info all around … in particular to students, professors and alumni you know of from UBC.
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MINING COMPANIES OPEN THEIR WALLETS
[Vancouver Sun, January 15, 2008]
Fourteen donors from the B.C. mining community have come up with more than $20 million toward the $32.5 million in private funding required for a new Earth Systems Science Building at the University of B.C. Construction of the $75-million building is expected to begin next year, with completion scheduled for the fall of 2010. Simon Peacock, dean of science at UBC, said everyone in the industry is being approached about helping finance the project, and he expects that the private-sector financing will be in place by the end of this year.
Donors include Goldcorp, the Lundin Group, Pan American Silver Corp., Breakwater Resources, Silver Wheaton Corp., Selwyn Resources, Northern
Peru Copper, Global Copper, Imperial Metals, Northern Dynasty Minerals, Western Copper, Silver Standard Resources, as well as Ross Beatty, and Catherine McLeod-Seltzer. The new building will contain about 95,000 square feet of teaching and research facilities -- including theatres, research labs, seminar spaces and offices. Peacock said he is extremely grateful for the mining industry's generous contributions. "It's relatively rare to find tremendous industry support like this for what is fundamentally an academic building," he said in an interview.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
For further information: www.science.ubc.ca/essb, Contact: Briar Wells, Wilcox Group, 604-488-1100.
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WHAT TO DO: info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org
ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE … EVERY DAY
Rights Action (a tax-deductible organization in Canada and USA) funds and works with community-based development, environment and human rights organizations in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and southern Mexico (Oaxaca, Chiapas); and educates about and is involved in activism related to global development, environmental and human rights struggles.
FOR MORE INFORMATION about Canadian mining companies operating globally (www.miningwatch.ca) or in southern Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras (info@rightsaction.org).
EDUCATIONAL SPEAKING TOUR: In March-April 2008, Rights Action is organizing an educational speaking tour in Canada (and parts of western USA) on the global mining industry, the interests of North American investors, and human rights violations and environmental and development harms caused by the mining industry in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
EDUCATIONAL DELEGATIONS: In July, and possibly April 2008, Rights Action is hosting an educational delegation to Guatemala to learn more about community based resistance to the harms of Canadian/ US mining companies.
MAKE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS for indigenous and community-based organizations that are working to mitigate the harms caused by North American mining companies and implement their own development, human rights and environment projects. Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to: UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887; CANADA: 422 Parliament St, Box 82552, Toronto ON, M5A 4N8. CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: www.rightsaction.org.
JOIN: Rights Action’s listserv and newsletter lists.
CREATE YOUR OWN E-MAIL LIST: and re-distribute this and other information.
LISTEN: to the www.democracynow.org news program every day.
READ: Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America; Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.
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