Al Gore Dumps Barrick Gold Sponsorship For Chilean Visit

[Bobbieo]

http://nativeunity.blogspot.com

Hooray for Al -

[DCKit]

1. Read it folks. More hypocrites outed. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

2. Oh, my God. Heart attack barely averted reading this article!

So glad Al Gore discovered who was co-sponsoring his trip to Chile in time.

From the article:

Glaciers are one of the world's precious fresh water reserves – as Gore pointed out in his documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth," – and are one of the ecosystems most at risk from climate change.
(snip)

Barrick's quest for gold in Chile may prove similarly devastating. The company initially drafted a plan to build an open-pit mine and to remove or "relocate" three glaciers impeding Pascua Lama's development. The company eventually received the environmental go-ahead from Chile's National Environment Commission (Conama) in early 2006, but on the condition that the ice mass not be touched. A tunnelled mine, rather than an open pit mine, would have to be used, said Chile's Conama.

Environmental watchdog, the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA) has already reported partial destruction of three glaciers: Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza, which all sit astride Barrick Gold's Pascua Lama mine.

Still, Chile's lax environmental controls and dismally poor environmental track record suggest Barrick will be allowed to continue developing the mine without any significant penalty or oversight. Residents in the Huasco Valley below the Pascua Lama mine site – many of whom are from the Diaguita Huasco Altina indigenous community - fear residue from the mining process will contaminate the Estrecho River which flows out of the valley. The community also claims it has lost 50,000 hectares of land which Barrick Gold acquired illegally.

"It does not make sense that one of the principal leaders of world public opinion on the threat global warming presents to our planet would come to Chile financed by the same mining company responsible for the destruction of glaciers and water contamination in so many parts of the world," read a statement from OLCA. The organization referred to the sponsorship as an "image-laundering operation" on the part of Barrick Gold.
(snip/...)

From another source, on Barrick:

In it, Palast wrote about a $148,000 contribution made by Barrick (ABX : Barrick Gold Corporation) to the GOP; allegations about Munk's having helped Iran-contra figure and Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi win a pardon from then-President George H.W. Bush; Barrick's 1992 takeover of U.S. government property estimated to contain $10 billion in gold for $10,000; and George H.W. Bush's job on Barrick's payroll in which the ex-president supposedly interceded with two Third World dictators on the company's behalf.

The part that upset Barrick the most, however, was Palast's reference to allegations made by Amnesty International and reports by Tanzanian newspapers that a company subsidiary in the East African nation carried out the "extrajudicial killings" of 50 independent miners by burying them alive when they refused to vacate a company concession.
(snip)

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BEB28FEB3-F4F6-4E47-B7CB-FAB4B1FC84F9%7D&siteID=mktw

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George W. Bush: Barrick Gold Honorary Senior Advisor (fancy words for "dealmaker")
http://www.nndb.com/people/362/000022296/

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It's worth everything to see Al Gore backing away from these monsters. My God!