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30 Activists from Around the Globe Visit El Salvador to
Support the Fight Against Mining
May 15th, 2013
From May 10th to 13th, thirty activists from 12 different
countries, including Canada, the U.S., Germany, Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and
Honduras, participated in a fact finding mission in El Salvador to investigate
the effects of gold mining on the environment, public health and social
cohesion. The delegation was organized by the National Rountable Against Mining
in El Salvador and the International Allies against Mining, a coalition of
economic justice, environmental and human rights groups. The delegation began
with an International Conference on Water and Mining in San Salvador, after
which the delegation visited the department of Cabañas, where the Canadian
company Pacific Rim wants to open a gold mine and where community leaders have
been murdered for resisting the project. Next the delegation visited San
Sebastian, the site of the defunct and highly polluted Commerce Group mine, and
Cerro Blanco, a Canadian owned mine in Guatemala that would pollute Salvadoran
water sources.
Read more and see photos from the delegation>>
Obama and the Militarization of the “Drug War” in Mexico
and Central America
May 7th, 2013
Written by Alex Main, CEPR.net
During his trip last week to Mexico and Costa
Rica, President Obama sought to down play the U.S.’s security agenda in the
region, emphasizing trade relations, energy cooperation and other more benign themes. In a
May 3rdjoint press
conference with his Costa Rican counterpart Laura Chinchilla, Obama
stated that it was necessary “to recognize that problems like narco-trafficking
arise in part when a country is vulnerable because of poverty, because of
institutions that are not working for the people, because young people don't
see a brighter future ahead.” Asked by a journalist about the potential
use of U.S. warships to counter drug-trafficking, Obama said “I’m not
interested in militarizing the struggle against drug trafficking.” Human
rights organizations from North America and Central America have a very
different impression of the administration’s regional security policy. Read more from two articles about the militarization of
the drug war>>
May Day Marchers
Demand Minimum Wage Increase & Say No to U.S.-Backed Privatization Law
May 3rd,
2013
Thousands marched through the streets of El Salvador on May 1st demanding an
increase in the minimum wage, respect and equal treatment for female workers
and the passage of food sovereignty, anti-mining and water protection laws. Another
frequent message seen on banners and signs was opposition to the U.S. backed
Public Private Partnership Law that critics fear would lead to the privatization
of the ports and airports and other social services. CRIPDES brought out about
500 people from all over the country. The marchers were also joined by a delegation of labor unionists who saw many similiarities between the struggles of workers in El Salvador and the U.S. Read local coverage of the event and see photos of the
march and of folks from sister communities who participated>>
Pacific Rim Increases its Lawsuit against El Salvador
to $315 Million; Mesa Demands an End to Transnational Extortion
April 5, 2013
On Wednesday April 3rd, the communities and organizations that make up the
National Roundtable against Metallic Mining held a press conference rejecting
the actions by the company Pacific Rim, which increased it´s lawsuit against El
Salvador from $105 million dollars to $300 million. The Mesa declared:“This
lawsuit is an attempt to undermine the Salvadoran government’s right to
practice economic policy based on public interest. Pacific Rim's announcement
also demonstrates its contempt for the will of the Salvadoran population that
has time and again exercised their right to say no to metallic mining.” Read more and
watch a video of the press conference>>
‘Water is More
Precious than Gold’ U.S. Speaking Tour and Anti-Mining Delegation to El
Salvador
March 18th, 2013
Vidalina
Morales and Sandra Carolina Ascencio, from the
National Roundtable against Metallic Mining in El Salvador are currently touring Canada and
then heading down to the U.S. to garner support for their campaign to make El
Salvador the first country to ban metal mining. The "Water Is More
Precious than Gold" tour aims to build greater awareness about the issues
facing El Salvador and other Latin American countries, challenge the unjust
practices of US and Canadian mining companies and build relationships with groups confronting their own local environmental threats. The speaking tour
will be followed by an International Fact-Finding Mission to
El Salvador on May 9-13 in which activists and policy makers will get to see
first-hand the disastrous effects of mining in Central America and what can be
done to stop it. Read
more>>
Solidarity
Organizations and Salvadoran Unions Protest U.S. Government Pressure on Privatization Law
March
14, 2013
A hundred unionists marched to the US Embassy in Santa Elena yesterday to
demand that US Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte cease pressuring for the passage
of the Public-Private Partnership Law. This demand by the FSS was accompanied
by North American representatives of US-based organizations in El Salvador,
including the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). “We
are very concerned that the US Ambassador is vigorously pressuring El
Salvador’s Legislative Assembly to approve the Public-Private Partnership law,
even to the extent that she has threatened the approval of a second Millennium
Challenge Corporation project if the Legislative Assembly doesn’t approve this
law”, said Rosemary Ramsey, one of the organizational representatives. Read more and see
a video from the march>>
Tell Ambassador Aponte to Stop Pressuring El Salvador to
Sell Out its Workers and Citizens!
February 6th, 2013
Salvadoran workers are fighting hard against sweeping US-backed, privatization
legislation called the Public-Private
Partnership Law, or P3, which would put all
El Salvador’s public infrastructure, services and utilities on the corporate
chopping block. Salvadoran unions and social movements have united against this
law, calling it “privatization in disguise.” They have made it their highest
priority to defend public sector workers, unions, services and industries from
the P3 law, which is currently under debate in El Salvador’s Legislative
Assembly. Please sign the petition to demand that
Ambassador Aponte stop pressuring the Salvadoran government to pass the Public
Private Partnership law. Read more and sign the petition>>
Young Leaders Accused of Gang Connections Released from Jail, but Fight to Have
Charges Dropped Continues
February 14th, 2012
On Wednesday, February 6th, a special hearing was
held for the 10 young leaders from the communities of El Progreso 3 and Santa
Cecilia –members of the Movement of Popular Resistance (MPR-12) – who were
accused of illicit association. Of the
10 young men, 8 were arrested December 12th while the other two spent the past months in hiding. Seven of the eight young
activists were released on February 1st. Their speedy release and the extra-ordinary
hearing were thanks to the international solidarity from U.S.-El
Salvador Sister Cities, the SHARE Foundation, the Committee in Solidarity with
the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Voices on the Border, and Joining Hands El
Salvador. After the
February 6th hearing, the triumphant young leaders spoke about their harrowing
incarceration at a national assembly of the MPR-12 and gave thanks for the
continued support of the solidarity movement. Read more>>
Austin Sister Cities Volunteer Learning to Eat, Sleep, and Breathe Solidarity
We
talk a lot here at Sister Cities about solidarity, emphasizing that our sister communities
are working “in solidarity” with one another, but what does that mean? And even
more important, what does it look like in practice? I arrived here in El Salvador on January 5th
to start my six month volunteering adventure with Sister Cities. My role here
is a constantly fluctuating combination of accompanying the social,
developmental, and political processes of Sister Cities, CRIPDES and grassroots
organizations and organized communities, and working directly planning
assemblies for scholarship students, assisting in the English classes at the Guajoyo
primary school, drafting project work plans, etc. In short, my role is to eat, sleep, and
breathe solidarity. Read more>>
58 Members of Congress Call for Investigation into DEA-related
Killings in Honduras
February 6th, 2013
Thanks to the efforts of the Honduras
Solidarity Network, 58 members of
Congress signed the letter sponsored by Rep.
Hank Johnson (D-GA) to Secretary of State Kerry and Attorney General Holder
addressing concerns about human rights violations and the impact of U.S.
counter-narcotics efforts on Afro-descendant and indigenous communities in
Honduras. In November, Sister Cities and Cripdes hope to send electoral
observers to meet with the Garifuna organization, the Fraternal Organization of
Black People of Honduras (OFRANEH) and observe at polls in the nearby Bajo
Aguan region. Read the full letter and see if your representative
signed on>>
As Honduran Legislature Passes Pro-Mining Law, Salvadoran
Activists Reiterate Call for Mining Ban
February
4th, 2012
The National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining in El Salvador (La Mesa) reiterated in
a press conference this morning its petition for the Salvadoran Government to
introduce legislation to place a definite ban to metallic mining in the
country. The call was made as a response to a recent report released by
the El Salvador’s Human Rights Ombudsman that highlights the potential
violations to the human rights of Salvadorans by cross border contamination
stemming from the Cerro Blanco project located in Guatemala, and recent
legislation in the neighboring country of Honduras that opens the gate to a
flood of mining projects located in the border with El Salvador. Read more>>
Solidarity Organizations and Movement of Popular
Resistance Demand Release of Young Community Leaders
January 29th, 2013
On
January 28th, 60 members of the Movement of Popular Resistance
(MPR-12), international solidarity organizations and residents of the urban
communities Santa Cecilia and El Progreso 3 gathered in front of the Specialized
Chamber of Organized Crime more than month after the raid on Santa Ceclia and
El Progreso 3 that resulted in the unfair arrest and imprisonment of 8 young
community leaders.
The goal of the rally and press conference was to
bring more attention to the case of the arrested youths and to police
harassment and repression that is a daily reality in the marginalized urban
communities of El Salvador. Read more>>
Take Action to
Demand the Honduran Government Protect Threatened Gay Rights Activist Erick Martinez
On Sunday January 13th, 2013, Erik
Vidal Martinez, a well know human rights defender and gay rights activist was
assaulted and arrested by police while defending while defending patrons from
police harassment at an LGBT bar in Tegucigalpa. Erick was released but
his safety could be in danger because Honduran police are known for retaliation
and many organizers have been murdered after being released from jail. Erick's
close friend Erick Martinez Avila, was the first gay congressional
candidate and was kidnapped and murdered last June. It's important to let
Honduran and US State Department officials know that Erick has international
support. Read more and take action>>
Neoliberal
Politics in Central America: The U.S.
and the Privatization of El Salvador
January
13th, 2013
By Eric
Draitser, Counterpunch.org
As much
of Latin America braces itself for the possibility of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez’s death, observers around the world would do well to note the stark
contrasts that exist within the region. On the one hand, there are the ALBA
(Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) countries, united by Chavez in their
rejection of US imperialism and neoliberal capitalism. On the other hand, there
are those countries which are still very much living under the hegemony of the
United States. In El Salvador, this means subservience to Washington and
international investors who seek nothing less than total control of that
nation’s economic destiny. This attempt at economic monopolization can be
summed up with one word: privatization. It is precisely this strategy with all
the union-busting, wage gouging, and propaganda disinformation that it entails,
that is rearing its ugly head in El Salvador. Read
more>>
Young Organizers, Unwitting Victims of the U.S.-Funded
Fight Against Gangs in El Salvador
January
11th, 2013
by Alexandra Early, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org
On
December 12, 2012, 12 young people were arrested in the poor community of El
Progreso 3, in the northeastern part of San Salvador. Dressed all in
black with their faces covered, police from the much-feared Anti-Gang Unit
stormed the community in the middle of night, going home to home, trampling
down doors and pulling young people from a community center. The police
claimed that the goal of the raid was to arrest suspected gang members, but
several young community leaders were also apprehended, while their terrified
families and neighbors looked on. Now, nearly a month after the raid, neighbors and
members of the Movement of Popular Resistance-October 12, a
national alliance of community organizations and unions, are demanding that the
six youth leaders arrested be released from the overcrowded temporary jail
where they are being held in inhumane conditions. Read more>>
US Ambassador
Ransoms Aid for Passage of Public-Private Partnerships Law
December 11th, 2012, www.cispes.org
As the keynote speaker at a breakfast with the Salvadoran Construction
Chamber, US Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte claimed that any renewal of the
Millennium Challenge Fund (FOMILENIO), a US development aid program, would be
dependent upon the Legislative Assembly’s approval of a proposed Public-Private
Partnership (PPP) Law. The PPP Law is an initiative of the
Partnership for Growth, a bilateral US-El Salvador development framework
agreement that seeks to promote and incentivize foreign investment in El
Salvador. The proposed law creates a mechanism to auction off public services
and infrastructure to private corporations for management and partial ownership,
from airports and highways to universities and municipal services. The PPP Law
would therefore be enormously beneficial to US and transnational companies
hoping to profit off of the proposed FOMILENIO II coastal infrastructure
projects. Read more and watch
a video about the PPP threat >>
Roundtable against Mining Holds a Forum to Educate
the Public and Demand a Ban
December
10th, 2012
The conference: "Metallic Mining: Threats to Life and Human Rights in
El Salvador" was held on Wednesday Dec. 5th in San Salvador to demand urgent action to stop the threat of toxic mining. Speakers
included environmentalists and economists who discussed the environmental,
economic and institutional implications of free trade and mining and called for
a law to ban metal mining in El Salvador. About two hundred people participated
in the forum, including about 20 people from CRIPDES communities around the
country.Environmentalist Angel Ibarra noted during the forum that the price of
gold has skyrocketed in recent years, asking “is it really that Pacific Rim is
suddenly interested in the ‘development’ of Cabañas and El Salvador or is it
that gold is worth more and they see a huge economic opportunity?” Read more>>
Amid State
Repression, U.S.-El Salvador Solidarity Brigade Observes the Primaries in
Honduras
November 21st, 2012
On November 18th, Hondurans came out in droves to vote for
their preferred parties in the country´s first primary elections since the
formation of a new left-wing party, LIBRE. Since
the formation of the party, LIBRE candidates have been the targets of
repression, death threats and assassinations. In this heightened
environment of violence and repression, LIBRE and the Resistance reached out
for international support and the Honduran Solidarity Network, an umbrella
group of social justice organizations, responded, organizing a delegation of
about 40 human right observers from around the world, including El Salvador.
Read more and
see interviews taken at the polls>>
International
Community Denounces Violent Evictions of Street Vendors by San Salvador Mayor
November 21st, 2012
On November 20, twenty-four
organizations from the U.S. and Canada sent a letter to the San Salvador City
Council and to the Office of the President of El Salvador in which they
denounced and demanded justice in the case of violent evictions of vendors
executed by the Mayor of San Salvador, Norman Quijano. The page long petition
was printed in La Prensa Grafica, one of the most widely read newspapers in El
Salvador. Read more and
see the petition in La Prensa>>
Under Attack by
“Rogue NGOs” in El Salvador, “Environmentally Responsible” Gold Company Writes
Back
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/
November 11th, 2012, by Alexandra Early and Jan Morrill
On October 20th, hundreds of people marched in Cabañas, El Salvador
to voice their opposition to the proposed gold mining project of Pacific Rim, a
Canadian mining company. The anti-mining movement in El Salvador has been
growing over the past decade and in 2007, under pressure from this movement,
the Salvadoran government began to put restrictions on the burgeoning, foreign-dominated
mining industry. To support the demands of the protesters, environmental and solidarity activists from
around the world called and emailed Pacific Rim on Oct. 22nd urging the company
to drop its lawsuit and leave the country. One lucky North American e-mailer received a two-page response
from Barbara Henderson, Pacific Rim’s Corporate Secretary and V-P for Investor
Relations. Read more>>
East Coast Tour
Report Back: Connecting and Strengthening Movements for Social Justice
November 9th, 2012
From October 5th to 17th, Sister
Cities’s traveled up and down the East Coast, from Pennsylvania to Maine with CRIPDES’s
leader Zulma Hernandez who shared the challenges, successes and lessons of the
Salvadoran social movement . Some of the
most well-received presentations on the
tour included a presentation on gold mining and gas fracking at Binghamton
University, a presentation on women’s organizing at the University of Maine, a
presentation on sustainable agriculture at Unity College and a forum on organizing
to confront environmental threats at Power in Community Alliances (PICA). Read more and
see photos from the tour>>
The Movement of Popular Resistance, CRIPDES and the FMLN Seal
Sociopolitical Alliance
October 13th, 2012, Diario CoLatino
On its
tenth anniversary, the Movement of Popular Resistance - October 12 (MPR-12),
signed an agreement of political partnership
with the FMLN presidential candidate, Salvador Sanchez Ceren. As part of this alliance, the MPR-12, demands that the
"future president" continue the development of social programs to
benefit the country's poorest families.In a celebration held at the sports
arena of the University of El Salvador (UES) hundreds of members of the MPR-12 celebrated
its 10-years of struggle for the social and economic demands of the Salvadoran
people, against the political power of the oligarchy and in defense of national
sovereignty and revolutionary internationalism. Read more>>
Honduras News: More
Violence in the Aguan & Protests against Post-Coup Wave of Mining
Concessions
September 14, 2012
A member
of the September La Voz de los de
Abajo delegation talks about violence, impunity and immigration in Honduras,
and the recent deaths of two campesinos in the Bajo Aguan which bring the total
number of campesinos killed in the Bajo Aguan since 2009 to 79 people. Also, Hondurans protests in the department of
Santa Barbara against the power of mining companies operating with
the collusion of the National Congress. In Honduras, “31 square kilometers out of every 100 square kilometers of national
territory having been concessioned to mining companies but for every 100
lempiras the companies earn only 16 lempiras stayed in the country.” Read the two
articles here>>
Honduran
Resistance calls for Observers for Primary Elections and Support to stop Neoliberal
Model Cities Project
September 4th, 2012
The Honduran social movement is
preparing for primary elections for candidates
for President and the National Assembly on November 18, 2012 for the Resistance
Front´s LIBRE party and are calling for observers to accompany what is sure to
be a tense and important process. The Honduras Solidarity network, an alliance
of various organizations including Sister Cities, is recruiting solidarity
folks to go to Honduras to participate in an election observation delegation. Honduran
activists have also been pushing forward a constitutional challenge to the Special Development Regions (RED) law
which allows foreign companies and governments to create model cities of
capitalist development outside of the laws of the Honduras. Read more about
the delegation and sign on to the petition against the Model Cities
project >>
Mining for Gold
in El Salvador and Guatemala: Commerce Group and GoldCorps “Pact with the Devil”
August 30th, 2012
Journalists
John Cavanagh and Robin Broad write about the environmental damage at the site of the Commerce Group gold mine, El Salvador’s
moratorium on new mining permits and the ICSID lawsuits. Meanwhile, Commerce Group has paid the World Bank Tribunal the fees necessary to try to have the decision throwing out their case against El Salvador annuled. And Mining Watch Canada reports on the
attempts of Canadian mining giant GoldCorp to use Canadian parliamentarians to
influence the mining laws and environmental regulations in Guatemala. Read both
stories here>>
Thanks to
Grassroots Pressure, U.S. Withholds Funds to Honduran Police
August
24, 2012
Over the last few weeks, thousands of you around
the country have sent messages to your members of Congress, urging them to ask
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to suspend U.S. assistance to the
Honduran military and police, given the widespread, serious human rights
violations by the U.S.-trained Honduran security forces.Now, the U.S. government is responding to the grassroots
pressure by withholding funds to
Honduran law enforcement units directly supervised by Juan Carlos "El
Tigre" Bonilla, the SOA graduate who became the new national police chief.
Funding will be withheld until the U.S. can investigate allegations that he ran
a death squad a decade ago. Read more>>
The Salvadoran
Government Proposes a Bill That Would Temporarily Suspend Mining
On August
7th, the Ministry of the Environment (MARN) and the Ministry of the
Economy (MINEC) presented a bill to the Legislative Assembly that would temporary
suspend all mining activity in El Salvador. The bill states that there are not
the necessary conditions for mining in El Salvador and if passed, it would
nullify all current mining permits, block the application for future permits
and retroactively suspend all past permits. However, the bill is not the
same as the ban the anti-mining movement has been pushing for. The government’s
bill would create a ten-person committee of international experts, civil
society representatives and two mining company representatives, that could
recommend revoking the suspension. The National Roundtable Against Mining has
spoken out about the many weaknesses of the bill. Read
more>>
Salvadoran Ministry Confirms High Levels of Metals in
River Polluted by U.S Owned Mine
Diario CoLatino, July 15, 2012
The results of water samples taken by the Ministry
of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARN), which were collected two
thousand five hundred meters from the bed of the San Sebastian River, in the
area of the hamlet of El Comercio in Santa Rosa de Lima, confirmed the presence
of cyanide and iron, among other substances. The main source of
contamination that was identified is a discharge of acid water that is rust
colored following down from the higher ground on the Cosiguina mountain, an
area where industrial mining was in operation for a number of decades. Read more>>
On 3rd Anniversary
of Coup in Honduras, Salvadoran and Solidarity Organizations Denounce Attack on Democracy
July 9th, 2012
On
June 27th, about two hundred people from around El Salvador, gathered
in front of the Honduran embassy to denounce the coup in
Honduras and demand an end to U.S. support for militarization in Latin America.
After the rally and press conference in front of the embassy, protesters
marched down to the Salvador del Mundo monument where performances by student drumming
collectives and Honduran and Salvadoran bands continued into the night. The
protest came just days after Paraguayan president was removed
from power by a the Paraguayan Legislature and Supreme Court, an act widely
condemned by other Latin American presidents, including Mauricio
Funes. The event, which was covered by international news outlets like TeleSur
and CNN en Español, featured the participation by telephone of illegally
removed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. Read more and
see photos of the event>>
World Bank Tribunal Rules the Pacific Rim Lawsuit Will
Continue
May 6, 2012
On June 1st, the International Centre for the Settlement of
Investment Disputes (ICSID) released its ruling in the Pacific Rim vs. the
Government of El Salvador case. The ICSID tribunal, a wing of the World Bank, ruled
that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case under Central American
Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). However, the tribunal did consider the ICSID to
have jurisdiction under Salvadoran investment law. Therefore, the case will proceed to a third
round of hearings judging the merits of the case. Members of the anti-mining
movement in El Salvador and North America, were quick to show their repudiation
for the decision to allow the case to continue. Read more>>
Honduras: Which
Side Is the US On?
By Dana Frank
May 22, 2012,from the June
11, 2012 edition of The Nation
In some
ways, it was just one more bloody episode in a blood-soaked country. In the
early hours of the morning on May 11, a group of indigenous people traveling by
canoe on a river in the northeast Mosquitia region of Honduras came under
helicopter fire. When the shooting was over, at least four persons lay dead,
including, by some accounts, two pregnant women. In Honduras, such grisly
violence is no longer out of the ordinary. But what this incident threw into
stark relief was the powerful role the United States is playing in a Honduran
war… Only in the post-coup context, however, can we
understand the very real crisis of drug trafficking in Honduras. A vicious drug
culture already existed before the coup, along with gangs and corrupt
officials. But the thoroughgoing criminality of the coup regime opened the door
for it to flourish on an unprecedented scale. Read
more>>
On the 32 Anniversary of the Sumpul Massacre, Las Aradas
Named Cultural Patrimony Site
May 16th , 2012
On May 14th, hundreds of family members and community members from the
department of Chalatenango and elsewhere around the country gathered in Las
Aradas, near the shores of the Sumpul River to commemorate the massacre of over
600 civilians by the armed forces of El Salvador and Honduras on May 14th,
1980. The event was marked by a mass, the testimonies of survivors and speeches
by representatives from The Ministry of Culture, the UN High Commission on
Refugees and Tutela Legal, the Catholic Church’s human rights arm in El
Salvador. Sajid
Herrera, National Director of the Investigation of Culture and Art for the
Secretary of Culture, spoke before the crowd and read the official document
declaring the site of the massacre a cultural patrimony site. Read more and see photos from the event>>
Sister City Committee Member Reflects on Human Rights
Delegation to Honduras
By Libby Pappalardo
On our first morning in Honduras, we awoke to news of a horrendous fire at
Comayagua Prison where 370 prisoners burned to death. Held at gunpoint,
prisoners were kept from fleeing the fire and the dead were left on a curb
outside the prison to decompose in 90 degree heat. This total lack of respect for human life
became a central theme throughout our 8-day human rights delegation to
Honduras, organized by the Chicago based organization, La Voz de los de Abajo. Read more>>
Permanent Residency Now for Central Americans with
Temporary Protective Status!
On March 8th, CRIPDES, the Share Foundation, Centro
Romero of Chicago and Causa Oregon held a press conference and rally
to launch the Residency Now campaign in El Salvador. The Residency Now campaign
is aimed at getting Permanent Residency status for the approximately 64,000
Hondurans, 212,000 Salvadorans, and 3,000 Nicaraguans who have been awarded Temporary
Protective Status (TPS) between the late 1990´s and today. To show support, the Sister Cities’ election
delegation participated in the event and we are asking committees to write
letters of support for the campaign, as did the Chicago-Cinquera sister city
committee on May 6th. Read more>>
Sister City Mainers React to Attack on Environmental Protections by Mining Interests
March 30, 2012
Mining
companies are not just aiming to start operating in El Salvador, they
also are trying to loosen regulations and move in to states like
Wisconsin and Maine. As we reported in February, Wisconsin is facing the
destructive effects of corporate mining with proposed gold and iron
mines and the expansion of sand mining for hydraulic fracturing. The
mining companies interested in Wisconsin are promoting a bill (AB 426)
that would drastically speed up the mine permitting process and
eliminate environmental protections that are part of Wisconsin’s
existing mine regulations. Similarly, environmental groups and members
of the Sister Cities committees in Maine, were recently alerted to the
efforts of a mining company to change the environmental protections in
that state. Read more>>
Legislative
Elections in El Salvador: Even with “Radical Political Project” FMLN Doesn´t Carry the Day
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