In the Censored News pick for the Best of the Best in 2011, Wikileaks claims first prize. Wikileaks exposed the US corporate schemes, espionage, promotion of mining and efforts globally to halt passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Please stand up to corporate lobbying against proposed EU laws requiring oil, gas and mining companies to publish payments to foreign governments. Pass strong laws that will help citizens spot corruption and ensure the money is used to lift millions of people out of poverty.
February 1, 2013 "A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way. The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger. Reported by Associated Press on Christmas Day, this was missing from most Anglo-American media."
Christine Marie, in Socialist Action, February 5, 2013: "The profits from France’s mines in Niger have been the target of the MNJ, the Niger Movement for Justice. The MNJ is a mostly Tuareg group that has been demanding a share of the revenues and an environmental cleanup. Kidal, one of the northern Malian towns recently taken by French forces, and the heart of Tuareg spiritual life, is at the center of a uranium-prospecting project given a 2007 go-ahead by the Malian government of over 20,000 square kilometers. Oklo Resources was due, as late as last October, to start drilling in May 2013. Malian uranium reserves have been estimated at 5200 tons"
William F. Engdahl. " Mali for the Pentagon is but the next building block in the militarization of all of Africa by AFRICOM using proxy forces like France to do the dirty work. "
"The biggest Brazilian investor in Africa - and one of the biggest investors in the continent from anywhere - is Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, which is usually known as Vale. It is one of the three biggest mining companies in the world and is the world's biggest iron ore miner, controlling about 27% of the global market. It also produces coal, nickel, copper, bauxite, alumina, aluminium and a wide range of other commodities. As a result of the needs of its mining operations, it also invests heavily in power plants, railways and port infrastructure. Vale currently has investments totalling $7.7bn in nine African countries and plans to invest more than $18bn in Africa over the next five years but much will depend on the direction of global markets over that time." "The firm's biggest investment, however, is its Moatize coal mining project in the Moatize Basin of Tete Province in northwestern Mozambique."
" “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” he said. One of the world’s largest dealers of petroleum coke is the Oxbow Corporation, which sells about 11 million tons of fuel-grade coke a year. It is owned by William I. Koch, a brother of David and Charles. Lorne Stockman, who recently published a study on petroleum coke for the environmental group Oil Change International, says, “It’s really the dirtiest residue from the dirtiest oil on earth,” he said. "
Patrice Lumumba. Etienne Davignon. Bilderberg. Umicore "brags that it shares 50% of the global market in materials for lithium-ion batteries". David Cronin’s book Corporate Europe: How Big Business Sets Policies on Food, Climate and War will be published in August. It is available for pre-ordering from Pluto Press (www.plutobooks.com).