FINANCE: Groups Fear Canadian Funding for Romanian Mine

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Nov 16 (IPS) - The World Bank's refusal to help fund a Canadian company's controversial development of a huge open pit gold mine in Romania has raised concerns the Canadian government will step in with money.

Last Monday hundreds of people gathered outside Canadian embassies in major European cities, including Budapest, Amsterdam, Vienna, Bratislava and Prague, to protest the 400-million-U.S.-dollar Rosia Montana gold mine in Romania. · Export Development Corporation· Romanian NGO Alburnus Maior· Gabriel Resources

''The Canadian government has to act to stop this mine. It will destroy the homes, churches and livelihoods of my people,” said Sorana Ciura, a member of Alburnus Maior, the Romanian group spearheading the protests, speaking at a news conference in Ottawa..

The Cobwebs on Credit

 

 

World Press Review correspondent

Paris, France

Nov. 11, 2003

Orange Farm says no to water meters

Navigation Tips for a trade storm

With two-fifths of global trade falling under preferential trade agreements and numerous trade disputes hampering export flows in various parts of the world , plotting a secure route through the storms is not easy. Post the failure of WTO negotiations in Cancun, David Clarke examines the scene and assesses which path global trade is moving along and what impact this is having on financing.

The case against Candu, if only Parliament would talk about it

Susan Riley
The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien will be trying to sell more Candu nuclear reactors to China when he travels abroad next week. Which raises the question: When did we have the national debate on whether we should be continuing to promote nuclear power?

Private Interest and the Public Good

Tela sits astride a slow, meandering river of the same name. It looks out over a rim of white-sand beaches onto Tela Bay. A warm Caribbean sun forces you to lather up with sunscreen,and nolch back your pace a couple of strides per minute as you stroll around this small Honduran town.

A mixed population of Garifuna -or more prop­erly Garinagu - a people with a unique blend of Carib Indian and African roots, and folk of Spanish ancestry call this century- old, clapboard,. tin-roofed port town home. It holds about the same pop­ulation as the whole of the Yukon.

Canada’s position on Third World debt

Canadian Business Journal

BY MATTHEW McCLEARN

COVER DATE: Sept. 2, 2003

Many Canadians cannot point to Lesotho on a map. Some have never heard of it. In the cruel calculus of world politics, business, trade and finance, it is almost completely irrelevant. And yet, this tiny nation landlocked by South Africa must loom large on the minds of executives at Acres International Ltd., an engineering consulting firm based in Oakville, Ont. Its legal representatives are now in the capital, Maseru, for what could be the endgame of the most important battle in the company's 79-year history.

The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)
September 2, 2003 Tuesday Final Edition

By Michelle Lalonde

HEADLINE:
Noranda puts off aluminum smelter in Chile's Patagonia region: Company cites economic factors but environmentalists claim victory 

Noranda Inc. has put on ice a proposed aluminum smelter in the pristine Patagonia region of Chile, blaming a lack of investors and a prolonged downturn in world aluminum markets.

Acres loses appeal on bribery charge in Lesotho
Canadian engineering firm convicted of bribing top official has fine reduced

By KAREN MacGREGOR
Special to The Globe and Mail
Monday, August 18, 2003 - Page B3
 
DURBAN -- Canadian engineering firm Acres International Ltd. lost an appeal against conviction on a charge of bribery in a high-profile corruption case in Lesotho on Friday -- but won its fight against a second graft conviction and had a whopping fine of $4.2-million reduced to $2.8-million.
 
The Oakville, Ont., firm -- the first of three multinationals charged with bribing a top official to win lucrative contracts in the $3.3-billion Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which delivers water to Lesotho and South Africa -- was convicted last year of two counts of corruption.
It was the first conviction by a developing country of a bribe-giving western company.