Halifax Initiative

 
Export credit agencies seek to improve environmental standards
Thursday, September 23, 1999
By The Canadian Press

OTTAWA (CP) -- Export credit agencies, which finance many of the world's biggest industrial projects, are trying to agree on stricter standards for environmental assessment. Officials from about 20 government-owned credit agencies, including Canada's Export Development Corp., met here Thursday to discuss the environment issue, while activists denounced the record to date.

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..

James Wolfensohn
President
World Bank
1818H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
USA

August 21, 2003

Dear Mr. Wolfensohn,

The fight against corruption is a central part of the World Bank mission to reduce poverty and improve the quality of people's lives.

The World Bank response to the loss of Acres International's appeal in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project of Friday, August 15th, 2003, will be indicative of how the World Bank approaches the fight against corruption.

We urge you to debar Acres International from future Bank-financed contracts. We also ask that all existing World Bank contracts with Acres be subject to review to determine whether Acres bid was carried out in a legal manner.

European protests mount around Canadian gold-mine

Ottawa - Monday, November 10th, 2003, Today, in major cities across Europe, hundreds of people gathered outside Canadian embassies to protest Canadian Gabriel Resources proposed open cast gold mine in Rosia Montana, Romania.

The demonstrations took place in Budapest, Amsterdam, Vienna, Bratislava and Prague. In Bucharest, the protestors demanded that the Canadian Ambassador visit the site in the Apuseni Mountains to see the project's impacts for himself.