More Munk-Key Business

After blogging about Barrick Gold Meister Peter Munk yesterday, today another Munk key business is in the news.

Brookfield, Blackstone to Buy Trizec for $8.9 Bln

une 5 (Bloomberg) -- Brookfield Properties Corp., owner of the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan, and buyout firm Blackstone Group LP agreed to acquire Trizec Properties Inc. for $8.9 billion including debt, the second-largest takeover of a real estate investment trust.

Trizec, whose chairman is Canadian real estate mogul Peter Munk, will almost triple Brookfield's U.S. properties, especially in New York, Washington and Los Angeles. Half of Brookfield's 48-million-square-foot portfolio is in Canada.

Even though Trizec's shares have outperformed most other office REITs in the past year, ``the company continues to be undervalued in the public markets,'' Tim Callahan, the Chicago- based company's chief executive officer, said today in a statement.

Office REITs Jump on Merger Speculation
NEW YORK — Shares of office real estate investment trusts rose in afternoon trading Monday after Brookfield Properties Corp. agreed to buy Trizec Properties Inc. at an 18 percent premium.

Munk is the man with the golden thumb. But not all that glitters is gold. Munks Trizec has major problems in its West Coast investments.

For Trizec, the deal marks the end of a turbulent and fascinating history that saw a company with a major stake in retail development transformed into a leading office market player. Two attempts at grand-scale retail development, in L.A. and Las Vegas, proved disastrous, and frequent course changes under Peter Munk's guidance in the late 1990s also marred the stock's performance.

Los Angeles the city of light and darkness, the contrasts of poverty and excess, of working class enclaves and big city development. As Marxist Urban Historian Mike Davis has documented in his books on Los Angeles.

"The ultimate world-historical significance---and oddity---of Los Angeles is that it has come to play the double role of utopia and dystopia for advanced capitalism," writes Davis, in City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. "The same place, as Brecht noted, symbolized both heaven and hell. Correspondingly, it is the essential destination on the itinerary of any late 20th century intellectual, who must eventually come to take a peep and render some opinion on whether 'Los Angeles Brings It All Together' (official slogan), or is, rather, the nightmare at the terminus of American history (as depicted in noir)."

Trizec led that development which disposed of older working class communities in favour of large scale downtown buildings, with tax breaks and tax incentives from the generous ruling class of the city.

City of Quartz, Fortress LA

Eighty years later, the martial spirit of General Otis pervades the design of Los Angeles's new Downtown, whose skyscrapers march from Bunker Hill down the Figueroa corridor. Two billion dollars of public tax subsidies have enticed big banks and corporate headquarters back to a central city they almost abandoned in the 1960s. Into a waiting grid, cleared of tenement housing by the city's powerful and largely unaccountable redevelopment agency, local developers and offshore investors (increasingly Japanese) have planted a series of block-square complexes: Crocker Center, the Bonaventure Hotel and Shopping Mall, the World Trade Center, California Plaza, Arco Center, and so on. With an increasingly dense and self-contained circulation system linking these superblocks, the new financial district is best conceived as a single, self-referential hyperstructure, a Miesian skyscape of fantastic proportions.

Like similar megalomaniacal complexes tethered to fragmented and desolate downtowns--such as the Renaissance Center in Detroit and the Peachtree and Omni centers in Atlanta--Bunker Hill and the Figueroa corridor have provoked a storm of objections to their abuse of scale and composition, their denigration of street life, and their confiscation of the vital energy of the center, now sequestered within their subterranean concourses or privatized plazas. Sam Hall Kaplan, the former design critic of the Times, has vociferously denounced the antistreet bias of redevelopment; in his view, the superimposition of "hermetically sealed fortresses" and random "pieces of suburbia" onto Downtown has "killed the street" and "dammed the rivers of life."'

Yet Kaplan's vigorous defense of pedestrian democracy remains grounded in liberal complaints about "bland design" and "elitist planning practices." Like most architectural critics, he rails against the oversights of urban design without conceding a dimension of foresight, and even of deliberate repressive intent. For when Downtown's new "Gold Coast" is seen in relation to other social landscapes in the central city, the "fortress effect" emerges, not as an inadvertent failure of design, but as an explicit--and, in its own terms, successful socio-spatial strategy.

The goals of this strategy may be summarized as a double repression: to obliterate all connection with Downtown's past and to prevent any dynamic association with the non-Anglo urbanism of its future. Los Angeles is unusual among major urban centers in having preserved, however negligently, most of its Beaux Arts commercial core. Yet the city chose to transplant--at immense public cost--the entire corporate and financial district from around Broadway and Spring Street to Bunker Hill, a half-dozen blocks further west.

Once again Munk has benefited from State Capitalism, as with his Clairtone business in Nova Scotia which sucked millions from taxpayers before going belly up. In the case of Trizec from municipal state capitalism as they were inticed with tax give ways to invest in the redevelopment of downtown LA.

TRIZEK ANNOUNCES DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES PROPERTY ACQUISITION

Trizec again reports poor Hollywood sale

In another indication of the continued struggles at the Hollywood & Highland complex, developer Trizec Properties Inc. has disclosed that operating income will be sharply lower than expected this year and that the adjoining Hollywood Renaissance Hotel had average occupancy during the first six months of 54 percent, far below break-even levels.

The dismal results, revealed as part of New York-based Trizec's earnings report, provide the most revealing glimpse to date on how badly the once-ballyhooed project has been performing. While much of the sluggish business can be tied to factors beyond the developer's control--in particular the post-Sept. 11 slowdown in Asian tourist business-the numbers are certain to renew questions on the project's long-term viability.

In Los Angeles Trizec benefited from insider real estate deals that Davis documents, and of course from Proposition 13 which boosted the real estate and development sectors bank accounts. That wealth went into the pockets of companies like Trizec which are tax free trusts.

City Beat Interview with Mike Davis

Remember, California had a lot of poor immigrants in the ’30s and, ’40s, but that generation went to good schools and got free higher education. The same level of opportunity is not being made available to this generation. Their future has been looted in advance by the selfish policies of Proposition 13. Who benefited most massively from it and the reason it was a fraud were commercial and industrial property owners. They got untold billions. This grew out of a very justified complaint in a period of rapid land inflation. Poor people and retired people were faced with punitive tax bills. But the solution was to simply destroy progressive property tax as a source of revenue. It had the most perverse effect – taking away funds from schools. It has led to newer home buyers paying sometimes 10 to15 times more taxes than their neighbors. It has allowed a lot of wealth to escape taxation.

The looting of LA which Davies links to the Rodney King riots today continues in the merger and acquisition orgy on Wall Street and the sale of Trizec Truist into private hands. More capital flows out of LA and into the world market.

Also check this interview this Davis.

Tomdispatch Interview: Mike Davis, Turning a Planet into a Slum

Tomdispatch Interview: Mike Davis, Green Zones and Slum Cities

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Russian Oligarchy

The New Zealand Herald has published a mini bio of the ruling class in Russia. Ruling Class. Not party apparatchiks, not the central committee, though many of them came out of the ruling one party state. The AZ of Russian oligarchs
Contrary to the ideological mythology of the liberaltarians, when state capitalist regimes embrace capitalism they do not become free markets, or markets period. They merely become monopoly capitalism. And the difference between state capitalism and monopoly capitalism (the military industrial complex) is an illusion.


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Irony

Here is the definition of irony in the tradition of Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce or H.L. Mencken. Freedom of The Press Conference....in Moscow.

Moscow Hosts International Press Congress

MosNews

The WAN press freedom roundtable was held Sunday, on the eve of the World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2006, the global meetings of the world’s press. More than 1,700 newspaper publishers, editors, other senior newspaper executives and their guests are in Moscow for the events, which open Monday.

Free Russian media guarantees democracy - Putin

Yep the only free press belongs to those that own one. And Putin owns the press in Russia.Many have complained that Putin has suppressed the free press in Russia, which is an old Bolshevik tradition. And Putin is an old Bolshevik.
World’s Press Appeals to Putin for Press Freedom

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Living In The Past

As I have said before the Bank of Canada is living in the past with its anti-inflation fetish for raising interest rates. And I am not the only one who noticed they are stuck in the Mulroney era with their policies.

During the 1985-90 period, for example, when oil prices were very low, inflation in Calgary was well below the national average, while inflation in Toronto and Montreal generally outpaced the national average. That episode also underscores that the net effect of an oil shock on overall inflation need not be a wash -- national inflation actually rose during that period of cheap oil, from about four per cent to five per cent, but Toronto's inflation rose more, to 6.3 per cent.

The bottom line? There can be little doubt that the current energy boom contains some inflation risks for Canada. However, so far, the inflation risks in oil-producing regions are being at least partly offset by disinflationary pressures in regions that do not produce oil, but use a lot of it.

Stephen S. Poloz is senior vice-president corporate affairs and chief economist for Export Development Canada.

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Asymmetrical Federalism

The Harpocrite government has created a new form of asymmetrical federalism, with its denial of the Kyoto agreement.

First it was Quebec that said it would go it alone as a province in meeting its Kyoto targets.Provinces can pay Kyoto tab, PM says

Now this; Mayors to go it alone on Kyoto

And this: Greenpeace teams with Quebec separatist parties to pressure feds on Kyoto

But it seems that less than 25 years after Trudeau left office, the stamp he put on Canada “is being undermined by a new generation of politicians who have no regard whatever for his belief in the need to maintain a strong central government,” says Michael Bliss.The historian may be right. The notions of “asymmetrical federalism” promoted by Paul Martin and Stephen Harper’s decentralist idea of “open federalism” (never mind the behaviour of the Chrétien government that all but delegitimized the federal presence in Quebec) would be anathema to Trudeau. He would denounce such practices as weakening the national government. Trudeau deconstructed

And maybe instead of a Made In Canada policy modeled on the US we should model it on China, who also didn't sign Kyoto. So says political hack Maurice Strong who created the Kyoto accord.

See: Kyoto

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Anybody But Chavez

In Peru the right wing celebrates a victory over Hugo Chavez. No he was not running in their Presidental election. The US and its right wing allies in Latin America a cheering a victory, mind you a pyrhic one, since the winner is a fascist who is particularly inept.

Victory for Garcia in Peru election

With 77 percent of the ballot papers counted, Garcia has won 55 percent of the vote with Humala on 45 percent. Commentators say the public has had to choose between the lesser of two evils.The news will come as a blow to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who, as Garcia says, made no secret of his support for Humala: "Today, Peru has sent a message of national sovereignty and has defeated efforts by Hugo Chavez to incorporate us in the expansion strategy of his military and backward-looking model, which he has tried to implant in Latin America," said Garcia. Garcia's opponent has conceded defeat.

If the results hold up, it would make official a political comeback for Garcia after his previous administration ended in economic ruin, rebel violence and accusations of rights abuses.

Former president wins in Peru
García , 57, who once faced corruption charges and ended his first presidency in disgrace, sounded a note of contrition during a spellbinding victory speech before a throng of supporters. Voters had seen the race as an unappealing choice between a former president whose first administration had been an unmitigated disaster and a former army officer who once led a military rebellion. But voters saw García as the lesser of two evils.

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Historical Revisionism

Right Whing Whiner Michael Coren takes on CUPE over their boycott of Israel. In his latest Toronto Sun column, which was published in other Sun papers across Canada, Coren engages in historical revisionism that one expects from the likes of Ernst Zundel.

Coren justifies the oppression of the Palestinian peoples by claiming the continous existence of a State of Israel, and denies the existence of the Palestinian peoples.

"The Jewish state, Israel, came into existence more than 1300 years before the birth of Jesus Christ and 2000 years before Islam existed. The Jewish people have lived in the country for more than 3000 years and resisted Greeks, Persians, Syrians, Romans and legions of other tyrants. There never was a Palestine. After the Romans murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews and destroyed entire cities they attempted to expunge any trace of Jews and Judaism from Israel. Thus they renamed the land after the ancient Philistines, a people who had creased to exist."

Gee Michael what state would that be again? The one ruled by King Solomon perhaps or the one founded by the terrorists of the Stern Gang.

United Monarchy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The United Monarchy refers to a period in the History of Israel where the Twelve tribes of Israel were united into one monarchy under King Saul in roughly 1050 BC. The empire according to the Torah reached its height under the reign of King Solomon. Some scholars and historians doubt the extent of the monarchy described in the Torah, and instead suggest a smaller localized kingdom while others go further to doubt its existence

Because there is big difference between them.

You see the Palestinian peoples did exist at the time of Solomon, in fact you can check your bible to see. It's recorded in the Song of Songs, the Holy of Holies. The daughters of Jerusalem, indeed the main female voice in the song are; I am black but comely, O daughters of Jerusalem! Like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

Where upon the threshing dance that is referred to in the text is a "Palestinian peasant dance, a wedding dance" according to Marvin H. Pope in his Biblical exegesis of the Song of Songs.

"Return, return, O Shulammite; return, return, and let us gaze upon you." "What will you see for the Shulammite, as in the dance of the two camps?

The Jewish Encyclopedia states:
Still another view regards the book as picturing the popular festivities held in Palestine in connection with the wedding-week. Of such festivities there are hints in the Old Testament (Judges xiv. 10-12; Jer. xvi. 9; Ps. xix. 6 [5]; comp. Matt. xxv. 1 et seq.); and Wetzstein (in his article "Die Syrische Dreschtafel," in Bastian's "Zeitschrift für Ethnologie," 1873, pp. 270 et seq., and in the appendix to Delitzsch's commentary on the Song) has given the details of the modern Syrian marriage celebration, in which he finds parallels to those of the poem. In the week succeeding the marriage the villagers assemble; the thrashing-board is set up as a throne, on which the newly married pair take their seats as "king" and "queen"; there are songs in praise of the physical charms of the pair, and dances, in which bridegroom and bride take part; especially noteworthy is the "sword-dance," performed by the bride with a naked sword in one hand (see vii. 1 [R. V. vi. 13]). In accordance with this view the "king" of the poem, sometimes called "Solomon" (an imaginative designation of a person of ideal beauty), is the bridegroom; the "daughters of Jerusalem" are the village maidens in attendance on the bride; the royal procession of iii. 6-11 is that of the bridegroom (comp. Ps. xix. 6 [5]); the dialogues, descriptions of bodily charms, and other pieces are folk-songs; according to Budde, the name "Shulamite," given to the bride once (vii. 1 [vi. 13]), is equivalent to "Shunemmite," and isan imaginative reminiscence of the fair Abishag (I Kings i. 3).

You see it was not the State of Israel, but the Kingdom of Solomon. "The kingdom of Solomon," says George Rawlinson, "is one of the most striking facts in Biblical history. A petty nation, which for hundreds of years has with difficulty maintained a separate existence in the midst of warlike tribes, each of which has in turn exercised dominion over it and oppressed it, is suddenly raised by the genius of a soldier-monarch to glory and greatness." Song of Solomon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And this Kingdom was ruled by a solar phallic prince who was crowned not by his father, David, but by his mother. Much to the chagrin of the patriarchs of the various semitic tribes, which included not just Jews but Arabs as well. As the Song says; Go out, O daughters of Zion, and gaze upon King Solomon, upon the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his nuptials and on the day of the joy of his heart.

His truimph was his communal, polygamous marriage to hundreds of priestesses of various goddess religions of the time, as well as marriage into a variety of Semitic ruling families of the twelve tribes. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and innumerable maidens.

Solomon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The first half of his reign was, however, by far the brighter and more prosperous; the latter half was clouded by the idolatries into which he fell, mainly, according to the scribes, from his intermarriages. According to 1 Kings 11:4, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. As soon as he had settled himself in his kingdom, and arranged the affairs of his extensive empire, he entered into an alliance with Egypt by a marriage with the daughter of the Pharaoh.


This as well as his trade deals with the King of Tyre, created a stable peaceful state. One that had not existed previously. The Kingdom of Jeruslaem (NOT the State of Israel) prior to Solomon was at war with their neighbours, and each other. Sound familar.

In fact Solomon's importance is such that he is Shlomo in Jewish and Suliman in Arabic. Hence his respect by all in the region is still held today as children are named after him. Qur'anic account of Solomon

There was no State of Israel but there was a Palestine and a Palestinian peoples, they were Semites just like the Jews. There were twelve tribes, there was a Kingdom of Jerusalem, and that is what is defined as Israel in the Old Testament. Michael Coren a self professed old Catholic should know his bible, but being a demagouge he prefers to revise history for his own ends whic is historical revisionism to justify the continuing Zionist State's oppression of the Palestinian peoples.

See Jay C. Treasts interesting website The Song of Songs


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Cold Gold

The Canadian ethical investment fund Jantzi recommends Goldcorp as a socially responsible Goldminer. However considering how bad the mining industry, especially Gold miners, are in Canada that is not saying much.

Barrick Gold Canada's biggest Gold miner, owned by long time Conservative backer Peter Munk, is in trouble in Chile where it wants to melt glaciers for water for its gold mining operations.Barrick says Pascua Lama on track

CorpWatch: Barrick Gold Strikes Opposition in South America

Barrick Gold, a powerful multinational already notorious for its dealings in North America, Australia and Africa, plans to extract an estimated 500,000 kilograms of gold (along with silver, copper and mercury) from the site over a 20 year period. Before doing so, however, the company will relocate significant parts of the Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza, three giant Andean glaciers. Barrick hopes to transfer the three glaciers to an area with similar surface characteristics and elevation by merging the three into the larger Guanaco glacier.

The anticipated environmental impact, coupled with the removal of a major source of water for surrounding communities, has local Chileans up in arms. But Barrick Gold appears un-phased by the opposition. After all, Pascua Lama is one of the largest foreign investments in Chile in recent years, totaling US$1.5 billion.


FUTURE UNCERTAIN FOR CHILE’S PASCUA LAMA GOLD MINE

Presidential Candidates Voice Doubts About The Project

The problem of mining in the Andes? You have to move glaciers [Chile]

Battle over gold under glaciers is far from over
Canadian company vows not to move ice, but some Chileans still concerned

SANTIAGO, Chile - As the world’s largest gold mining company, Barrick Gold Corp. of Canada is used to thinking big.

So perhaps it wasn’t all that shocking that the company planned to relocate three huge ice fields — Barrick hates to call them glaciers — to dig for gold high up on the spine of the Andes mountains.

Oceana, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have raised an outcry over the proposed open pit mine, and Barrick countered with a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign seeking Chile’s approval for the $1.5 billion Pascua Lama project.

Cyanide concerns
And even if the glaciers are preserved, some Chileans fear the open pit mine will contaminate their water or make their rivers run dry. Antonia Fortt, an environmental engineer with Oceana, said “the fears about cyanide are justified because this chemical is used to separate the gold from the sterile material, rock and dust, it comes mixed with.”

Barrick counters that the project has been designed to ensure the continued flow of unpolluted water into the valley. The cyanide will be kept in a closed, lined area, and after it’s used to extract the gold, it will be collected and destroyed, spokesman Vince Borg said from Toronto.

As with other Canadian Gold mining companies, cyanide is a major source of environmental toxins that the population around mines are exposed to. And the record of Canadian miners is not good when it comes to cyanide leaks. The closed lined cyanide ponds have had disastorous leaks. Like the Cambior mining disaster in the South American country of Guyana.

Mining spill? What mining spill?

Head of panel that probed Cambior cyanide accident can't recall committee's findings

And Barrick which now owns Placer Mines, faces law suits over cyanide spillage in a number of countries. So their assurances to the Chileans should be taken with huge doses of salt.

Protesters vow to continue gold mine protest

Environmentalists are continuing to picket a New South Wales gold mine over the use of cyanide, which they claim will permanently poison the local water supply.

The Lake Cowal open pit mine, in the state's central west, began processing recently but operations were shut down yesterday and a delivery of cyanide has reportedly been delayed.

Eight protesters have been charged with trespassing but Graham Dunstan from Cyanide Watch says the protest will continue until the mine is closed.

"This mining company has been granted water leases by the NSW Government to pump up 3,650 megalitres a year for this cyanide operation," he said.

"They leave this water behind permanently poisoned. Now in a time of drought giving people the equivalent of a Dubbo's water supply each year is profligate."

The company running the mine, Barrick Gold, says it has all the environmental approvals but is not commenting today.

Philippines Orders Cleanup of Mines Before Rains

MANILA - The Philippines said on Tuesday it had ordered owners of two mining areas in the country to clean up and improve their infrastructures before the start of the rainy season.

The province of Marinduque served a lawsuit in the United States last October against Placer Dome, Canada's second-largest gold miner which previously owned 40 percent of Marcopper.

The government of Marinduque is seeking compensation for damage caused when tonnes of mine waste from a copper mill owned by Marcopper spilt in to the Boac River, 150 km (94 miles) south of Manila in March 1996.

Besides environmental disasters Barrick Gold like other corporations goes where angels fear to tread. And its board of directors is a who's who of the ruling class in North America.

Behind the numbers: Untold Suffering in the Congo

Several multinational mining companies have rarely if ever been mentioned in any human rights report. One is Barrick Gold, who operates in the town of Watsa, northwest of the town of Bunia, located in the most violent corner of the Congo. The Ugandan People's Defense Force (UPDF) controlled the mines intermittently during the war. Officials in Bunia claim that Barrick executives flew into the region, with UPDF and RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) escorts, to survey and inspect their mining interests (6).

George H.W. Bush served as a paid advisor for Barrick Gold. Barrick directors include: Brian Mulroney, former PM of Canada; Edward Neys, former U.S. ambassador to Canada and chairman of the private PR firm Burston-Marsteller; former U.S. Senator Howard Baker; J. Trevor Eyton, a member of the Canadian Senate; and Vernon Jordan, one of Bill Clinton's lawyers (7).

Barrick Gold is one of the client companies of Andrew Young's Goodworks International lobbying firm. Andrew Young is the former Mayor of Atlanta, and a key organizer of the U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council. Young was chosen by President Clinton to chair the Southern Africa Enterprise Development Fund in October 1994. Goodworks' clients-or business partners in some cases-include Coke, Chevron-Texaco, Monsanto, and the governments of Angola and Nigeria (note weapons transfers from Nigeria cited below).

Young is a director of Cox Communications and Archers Daniels Midland-the "supermarket to the world" and National Public Radio sponsor whose directors include Brian Mulroney (Barrick) and G. Allen Andreas, a member of the European Advisory Board of The Carlyle Group.

Barrick Gold's mining partners have included Adastra Mining - formerly named America Mineral Fields (AMFI, AMX, other names), formerly based in Hope, Arkansas, Bill Clinton's hometown. Adastra had close ties with Lazare Kaplan International Inc., the largest diamond brokerage firm in the U.S., whose president, Maurice Tempelsman, has been an advisor on African Affairs to the U.S. Government and has been the U.S. Honorary Consul General of the Congo since 1977

And of course Munk is pals with the Bush family.

MORE BARRICKS, BUSH, MUNK AND THREATS TO PALAST

In retaliation for the investigative story about the finances of the George W. Bush campaign, Barrick Gold Mining of Canada has sued my paper, the Observer of London, for libel. The company, which hired the elder Bush after his leaving the White House, is charging the newspaper with libel for quoting an Amnesty International report, which alleged that 50 miners might
have been buried alive in Tanzania by a company now owned by Barrick.

The company has also demanded the Observer and its parent, Guardian Newspapers, force me to remove the article from my US website, a frightening extension of Britain's punitive libel laws into the World Wide Web. The company has also issued legal threats against Tanzanian human rights lawyer Tundu Lissu, one of the Observer's independent sources and an investigator of the mine-site allegations.

The attack by Barrick and its controversial Chairman, Peter Munk, one of the wealthiest men in Canada, who boasts of his propensity to sue, also aims to gag my reporting on his company's purchase of rights to a gold mine in Nevada -- containing $10 billion in gold -- for a payment of under $10,000 to the US Treasury.

My Observer story, ''Best Democracy Money Can Buy,'' looked into the activities of several corporations linked to the Bushes. It was in that article I first disclosed that over 50,000 Florida voters, most of them Black, were wrongly tagged as 'felons,' and targeted for removal from the voter rolls. My follow-up reports in Salon.com, The Nation, and the Washington Post as well as on BBC-TV's Newsnight provided the basis for the US Civil Rights Commission finding of massive, wrongful voter disenfranchisement in Florida.

As a pal of Brian Mulroney's, Munk took advantage of the Conservatives FTA and NAFTA deals when he bought Barrick in 1983.

In return he placed Mulroney on the Board of Barrick international in 1995, along with George Bush senior, and other assorted American free trade politicians who make the board a truly global giant in this age of globalization.

Munk himself is no stranger to controversy either in his business dealings or in the world of post holocaust politics.Munk counters accusations against Swiss
For a white wash biography of Munk see: Golden Phoenix: The Biography of Peter Munk

Despite being an engineer, Munk's rise came from a career in business. He is Chairman and founder of Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold mining corporation. Munk was founder, chairman and CEO of Trizec Corporation, the precursor to the real estate multinational TrizecHahn Corporation, where he remains Chairman.

In 1958, he founded Clairtone of Canada with business partner David Gilmour. This company manufactured high-end console stereos and later televisions, which were recognizable icons of their day. The most famous Clairtone designs were the "Project G" series which was seen in the film The Graduate. Later, he founded and was chairman and CEO of Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation, the largest hotel and restaurant chain in Australasia in the 1970s.

Nor are all his business practices above board. He benefited from generous state capitalism in Canada to become the wealthy businessman he is today. You know like all the other self made millionaires, thanks to taxpayer investments.

As far back as the mid-1960s Mr. Munk was angling  for the top spot.
His first major business,Clairtone Sound Corp., was a stylish high-end
hi-fi maker that angled $23-million if taxpayer money out of the
government of Nova Scotia before going down in flames.
Peter Munk: The golden king at last

Of course like other socially irresponsible corporations Barrick uses its profits for effective PR in Canada.Barrick Gold's Peter Munk Gives $33.6 Mln to Toronto Hospital Of course such generosity comes with strings, the fact that this is tax write off for Munk thanks to his pals in the new Conservative government.

But the real story is that Barrick is the worlds largest Gold Monopoly and its play to take over Gold Miner #2 Placer Dome has made it just that.

Mr. Munk said Barrick's recent $10-billion (U.S.) acquisition of Placer Dome Inc., which made it the number one producer, was necessary to make Barrick a global player. “Do not fool yourselves. there is a new world out there and woe to those in the mining industry who do not recognize that,” he said. “Today you are dealing in a world of global giants.”

The takeover of Placer Dome made Barrick the largest Gold Miner in South Africa however that too has not been without its disasters for workers and the community.

Barrick's South Deep Output May Halve After Accident

South Africa's gold lies in narrow seams and is mined from a network of tunnels deep below the surface, placing miners at risk from earthquakes and gas explosions. In 2004, 110 miners were killed and 2,861 injured in the country's gold mines by falling rocks, machines and fires, according to the mines ministry.

In 1995, 105 workers plunged more than 2 kilometers to their deaths at the Vaal Reefs mine after a cable supporting a cage, used by miners to travel down shafts, was severed by a runaway ore train.

South Deep's reserves of 29.2 million ounces, a measure of gold that can be profitably mined, would be worth about $20.5 billion dollars at the current gold price of $702.8 an ounce. It's the world's largest mainly gold deposit and is slated to be in production for more than 72 years.

Shafted

A container, used to hoist rock from underground, and a 6.7-kilometer (4.2 miles) steel rope, together weighing about 99 metric tons, ``bulleted down the shaft'' during routine maintenance, Gordon Thompson, South Deep's manager, said in an interview from the mine.

But with Gold at record prices and climbing this has meant bigger profits which does not translate into more social responsibility rather it means there is less risk aversion. Africa expected to chip in close to million Barrick ounces

Barrick reported a net income of $224 million (2-cents per share) for the first quarter of this year, a threefold increase over the previous year's first-quarter net earnings of $66 million or 12-cents per share. During the first quarter of 2006, Barrick completed its $10 billion acquisition of fellow Canadian gold miner Placer Dome. Wilkins said he expected the integration process between the two companies to be completed at the end of June.
Equity gold production for the first quarter was reported at 1.96 million ounces at total cash costs of $283/ounce (compared to $241/oz in 2005), while copper production was 72 million pounds at a total average cash cost of 77-cents per pound. The company expects to produce 8.6 million to 8.9 million ounces of gold this year at total cash costs of $275-$290/oz, and 350 million pounds of copper at total cash costs ranging from 75-80 cents/lb.
Barrick also expects to receive $1.6 billion in cash this month from Goldcorp for Placer Dome's former Canadian assets and an interest in the Pueblo Viejo project in the Dominican Republic.

Barricks investment in Chile is part of Munks long time interest in the country and defense of its former Dictator and privateer Augusto Pinochet. Barricks investments in Chile benefited from the Dictators free trade regime, as he did from Mulroney's free trade deals.

Pinochet supporters come forward, arguing that the coup was necessary to save Chile's economy. Peter Munk, head of the Canadian mining firm Barrick Gold, praises Pinochet. Time Magazine has Munk saying: "Maybe I'm less sensitive to these issues because I see that what people need first is economic security, and only when they have that can they afford to focus on human rights." It's not clear whether Munk's reference to people needing economic security is a reference to the people of Chile or the security of his own investments. Margaret Thatcher, stalwart Pinochet friend and apologist, elevates the former strongman to the pantheon of champions of democracy, calling to mind Phil Ochs' line, "The name for their profits is democracy." Apparently, saving the economy from the reformist depredations of socialists and Marxists is democracy distilled. It can't happen here

And Latin American dictators are not the only pals Barrick has. When faced with the new populist governments in Latin America, once again economic security trumps human rights, and Barrick feels comfortable with dining at the tables of dictators.

Barrick leery of Latin left

Mr. Wilkins contrasted South America's growing economic nationalism with the welcome he recently received in Pakistan, where Barrick has a $20-million joint-venture exploration project. Mr. Wilkins was welcomed by President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. Both pledged full support for Barrick's investment, he said.

“President Musharraf said to us, ‘We are aware of foreign investors who are making 50, 70, 80 per cent profits in our country and we applaud that',” Mr. Wilkins recalled. “I'm not sure we'd get that reaction in Canada.”

He said Barrick is pursuing the venture and noted that it is part of a geological belt that runs through Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. “We'll be looking to take advantage if we can...We are very interested.”

For an excellent review of Canadian Mining Companies and their poor international reputation see Oxfams: "Dirty Metals: Mining Communities and the Environment"

This campaign by Oxfam is having a major impact on the Gold Mining community. U.S. Goldsmiths Demand Ethically Mined Gold

For peoples news on mining in general see: Mines & Communities Website

For an excellent source of fair and balanced commercial news on mining see:
Mineweb.

And as for Barrick's plan to open up Pascua Lama there is still an ongoing protest you can join.

Barrick Gold - Pascua Lama- Chile

In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from 2 rivers, fed

by 2 glaciers. Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought

for it. Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they

provide the second largest source of income for the area. Under the glaciers

has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get at

these, it would be necessary to break, and destroy the glaciers - something

never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make 2 huge holes,

each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's

rubbish tip.

The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold. The

operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members is

George Bush Senior. The Chilean Government has approved the project to start

this year, 2006. The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the

farmers have got a temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the

glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of especially pure water,

but they will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again

be fit for human or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and

sulphuric acid in the extraction process. Every last gram of gold will go

abroad to the multinational company and not one will be left with the people

whose land it is. They will only be left with the poisoned water and the

resulting illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been

forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior.

Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get help from

international justice. The world must know what is happening in Chile. The

only place to start changing the world is from here.

We ask you to circulate this message amongst your friends in the following

way. Please copy this text, paste it into a new email adding your signature

and send it to everyone in your address book. Please will the 100th person

to receive and sign the petition send it to noapascualama@yahoo.ca <> to be

forwarded to the Chilean government.

No to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the

Chilean-Argentine frontier.

We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize the Pascua Lama project to

protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the purity of the water of the San Felix

Valley and El Transito, the quality of the agricultural land of the region

of Atacama, the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the whole

population of the region.

Signature, City, Country

Email to: Sam Lanfranco lanfran@yorku.ca



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Gold, mining, Canada, Chile, Pakistan, South-Africa, Barrick, Goldcorp, Munk, Mulroney, Bush, Kashoggi, Clairtone, Trizac, Placer-Dome, Australia, Pakistan, Bush, NAFTA, FTA

Green Capitalism

Yep its all about green, green backs and green investing; socially responsible investing. Which I blogged about yesterday and has apparently come to the attention of the Toronto Stars investment columnist in her column in todays paper.

I reccomend reading it for the links included. It is well rounded and a good follow up on the Motely Fool article I linked to in my previous post.

Socially responsible investing has come of age on Bay St."We've seen a real sea change in Canada, just in the last year or so," says Eugene Ellmen, executive director of the Social Investment Organization.

And like its counterparts in the US socially responsible investment funds in Canada have made money.

Jantzi Research is the main sponsor of the Jantzi Social Index, which is modelled on the S&P/TSX 60 index. It consists of 60 companies that pass a set of broadly based social and environmental screens.The Jantzi Social Index has outperformed the Canadian indexes that are not screened.From its inception in January 2000 to the end of April 2006, the Jantzi Social Index has an annualized return of 7.91 per cent. That compares to a 6.97 per cent return for the S&P/TSX 60 index in the same period and a 7.75 per cent return for the S&P/TSX composite index.

And guess who does not like Socially Responsible investment funds, why the Banks of course! Who of course are the epitome of gouge and screw business practices.

Applying ethical screens used to be frowned on by the financial community. If you removed companies from your investment universe because you disapproved of what they did, you were sure to get lower returns.Canada's major banks still think that way. None offer socially responsible investment portfolios, either for individual or institutional investors.

In total, SRI assets represented about 3.6 per cent of the Canadian mutual fund and institutional investment market."The relatively small number of firms offering SRI services is surprising to those of us who work in the SRI industry," the Social Investment Organization said in its report."Numerous surveys suggest that a majority of Canadians are interested in socially responsible mutual funds, want their pension funds to invest in responsible companies and believe that financial advisers should incorporate social and environmental considerations into investments."Yet only about one in five financial services firms in Canada offer SRI products or services."



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