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Caterpillar 797F, 795F-AC & 793F Trucks
Some great pictures of the new F-series trucks, the 797F, 795F-AC & 793F Trucks.
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Mine yields one of world's largest diamonds
The near-flawless white gem weighs nearly 500 carats, mining group says
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Mountain Gorilla Expedition | Morris Animal Foundation
Morris Animal Foundation (MAF) withalong with the Mountain Gorillas Veterinary Project (MVGP) .
Up close & personal with the highly endangered mountain gorilla made famous by the late Dian Fossey. There are less than 700 of these incredible, gentle giants.
This video is a web exclusive. Morris Animal Foundation (MAF) withalong with the Mountain Gorillas Veterinary Project (MVGP) . ... more -
Endangered Mountain Gorillas Featured on Morris Animal Foundation
Endangered Mountain Gorillas Featured on Morris Animal Foundation Web Exclusive, MAF Responded to Dian Fossey's Request for Veterinary Care--
DENVER, Sept 15, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Morris Animal Foundation (MAF) has posted a Web exclusive, http://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org/gorilla/index.htm..., featuring an up close and personal visit with the magnificent, though highly endangered, mountain gorillas of Rwanda. In the exclusive video, MAF visits the site of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP), an innovative gorilla health initiative first established in 1985 when Dian Fossey asked MAF for help in response to a crisis situation for these gorillas. Their very survival was at stake. MAF accepted the daunting challenge and established veterinary care and health resources in the Rwanda jungles. Thousands of loyal MAF donors and friends also stepped up to answer the call for help. The MGVP is a testament to the kindness, generosity and commitment of people to saving a species.
MAF Chief Operating Officer John Taylor takes viewers to the MGVP headquarters and into the mountains where these gorillas live, explains how the project came about and allows the audience to enjoy these inspiring creatures at very close range. In fact, in one segment Taylor explains how one of the gorillas harmlessly reached out and grabbed one of the human members of the group.
In recent years the program was transitioned from MAF to MGVP, Inc., but MAF remains the primary funding source. Today, ecotourism plays a crucial role in the gorillas' survival and protection, inasmuch as they represent an important economic asset to the nation's economy. Information on how to visit the gorillas is provided as well as some good tips on making the trip.
About Morris Animal Foundation:
Morris Animal Foundation, established in 1948, is dedicated to funding animal health research that protects, treats and cures companion animals and wildlife. MAF has been at the forefront of funding breakthrough research studies benefiting animals in some 100 countries, spanning all seven continents. MAF has its headquarters in Denver. The Foundation has funded more than 1,500 humane animal health studies. Charity Navigator ranks MAF as a four-star charity, the highest rating.
For more information, call 800.243.2345, or visit http://www.MorrisAnimalFoundation.org.
SOURCE Morris Animal Foundation
http://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org Endangered Mountain Gorillas Featured on Morris Animal Foundation Web Exclusive, MAF Responded to Dian Fossey's Request for Veter... more -
Russia says it must stake claim to Arctic resources
Russia must stake its claim to a slice of the Arctic's vast resources, the secretary of Russia's Security Council said on Friday at an unprecedented session of the council held on a desolate Arctic island.
Russia, the world's second biggest oil exporter, is in a race with Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States for control of the oil, gas and precious metals that would become more accessible if global warming shrinks the Arctic ice cap...
(Read the rest of this story at the link and then try to wrap your mind around it. Several countries are waiting for the Arctic ice cap to melt to get at precious resources...) Russia must stake its claim to a slice of the Arctic's vast resources, the secretary of Russia's Security Council said on Fr... more -
Death toll from China slide tops 150 - China- msnbc.com
Mining incidents provides three stories of mud!!!!
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Fossilized forest found in Illinois mines
Researchers from the US and the UK have found a fossil forest in the coal mines of Illinois.
The team reported a similar discovery last year, but has recently found five other examples.
The petrified vegetation is visible in the mine ceilings covering thousands of hectares.
Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang believes they are among the first forests to evolve on Earth.
"Theses are the largest fossil forests found anywhere in the world at any point in geological time," Dr. Falcon-Lang said.
"It is quite extraordinary to find a fossil landscape preserved over such a vast area; and we are talking about an area the size of (the British city of) Bristol."
The forests are stacked on top of each other in the rock, and grew just a few million years apart.
The forests appear to have suffered many periods of flooding and subsidence.
The forests have become visible thanks to extensive mining in the border region between Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky.
When the coal seams are removed, researchers are able to see the forests from the bottom-up.
"It's kind of an odd view looking at a forest bottom-up. You can actually see upright tree stumps that are pointed vertically up above your head with the roots coming down; and adjacent to those tree stumps you see all the litter. We found 30m-long trunks that had fallen with their crowns perfectly preserved," researchers reported.
The team believes the study of these forests could give clues as to how modern rainforests might respond to a warmer world. Researchers from the US and the UK have found a fossil forest in the coal mines of Illinois. ... more -
Loopholes Make the 'Roadless Area' Rules Meaningless - Care2 News Networ...
'Truce' is reached in battle over Idaho forest land after years of political battles with the Bush administration pushing for "less-restrictive" rules. *CONSERVATION CAN NOT ENDURE IF THE PEOPLE MOST AFFECTED BY IT DO NOT SUPPORT IT*
Legal and political battles over the future of national forest land have raged since 2001, with the Clinton administration’s “roadless rule” protecting millions of acres from loggers, miners and development, and the Bush administration pushing for less-restrictive rules.
Other wilderness-protection groups opposed the plan released on Friday. Some, like the Wilderness Society, based in Washington, were concerned about the likelihood of phosphate mining in the acreage with less protection, and continued to press for the full measure of safeguards afforded by the Clinton-era rule.
Craig Gehrke, the regional director of the Wilderness Society, said on Friday that the organization’s position had been that all the national forest land protected by the 2001 rule “should be left roadless and undeveloped.”
The compromise on forest protections was embraced in the federal government’s final environmental impact statement, which will be open to public comment for 30 days. Final adoption would probably come late in the fall.
The new regulation covers only Idaho. The original Clinton rule applied to the entire country. That rule and a Bush administration substitute have been tangled in two-track litigation in federal courts, and it is not clear whether the new Idaho compromise plan will remain free of this tangle.
While the compromise was being hailed in a news conference in Boise, Idaho’s capital, in Colorado the battle continued unabated. That state, where 4.1 million acres were protected by the original roadless rule, has proposed a plan that has drawn fierce criticism from environmental groups for provisions that, they say, cater to ski resorts, ranchers and other commercial interests.
Mike King, the deputy director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, said the draft proposal had exempted some categories of land from roadless protections but had not delineated the boundaries of the land. This prompted assertions from environmental groups that the loopholes made the rule meaningless.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/30forest.html?ref=... 'Truce' is reached in battle over Idaho forest land after years of political battles with the Bush administration pushing fo... more -
An End To Mountaintop Removal Mining?
Mountaintop removal could be ended by as early as next year, said a leader in an environmental group working to halt the destructive mining practices.
“Now there is an increasingly powerful and vocal national movement to stop mountaintop removal,” said Matt Wasson, an ecologist and director of programs for Appalachian Voices. “I’m saying we’re going to have it stopped by the end of next year … the end of 2009.”
“Mountaintop removal” is, to some, a controversial term. It refers to the blasting away of mountain ridges to get to the coal underneath, a process that evolved with technological advancements over the decades from traditional contour mining.
What makes this type of mining cost-effective is a valley-fill permit, which allows the overburden - dirt and rock removed to expose the coal - to be dumped into adjacent valleys.
The practice has been criticized as degrading to the environment and hazardous to nearby residents, who must endure the noise, dust and danger of blasting on the mountains above their homes, as well as flooding when stream courses are changed.
“Mountaintop removal mining is a national disgrace,” said Aaron Isherwood, staff attorney for the Sierra Club. “If the American people knew what was happening in Appalachia, I feel certain that they would demand an end to this practice.”
Coal producers argue that their industry is one of the nation’s most regulated - and as long as they follow regulations, they should be allowed to extract the fuel that fires half of the nation’s electricity generation.
Wasson pins his hopes on two distinct possibilities - a pending U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on a West Virginia court case and the election of a new U.S. president who will take office in January.
Other activists agree that both have the potential to put a stop to the issuance of new permits for mountaintop removal mining.
“I think if we get a new president, It’ll be stopped, and I guess we’re going to get a new president by next year,” said Joe Lovett, director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment.
Legal ramifications
With a long list of plaintiffs and defendants, the West Virginia lawsuit seeks to put a stop to valley-fill permits, which are issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Central to the issue is the question of whether the discard from mining should be considered waste under the 1977 Clean Water Act, which limits the release of pollutants into streams.
“I don’t know what will happen in the future,” Lovett said. “I can tell you we haven’t had any significant permits issued since March 2007 because the court found that the federal government was illegally issuing permits at that time.”
When a federal court in West Virginia issued an order rescinding permits in question, the permits were sent back to the Corps. The Corps of Engineers contested the ruling in the Richmond appellate court. The case also includes an issue related to sediment discharge.
Lovett said three different decisions on valley fills have been overturned by the 4th Circuit since 2000, “but we’re much more optimistic this time.”
He said if the appeals court upholds the decision, the federal government, which he said loosened its regulations during the current administration, would have to completely change its permitting processes.
“How can they approve the filling of hundreds and a couple thousand miles of mountain streams in this region and say that’s not significantly degrading the water?” Lovett said. “All I can say is the Corps hasn’t been doing its job up until now.”
He said in addition to the West Virginia case, which will also affect Virginia, legal action also is under way in Kentucky, and the proposed Ison Rock Ridge mining permit in Wise County, Va., is being watched closely as it moves through the regulatory process, as is the court ruling expected soon in a lawsuit over logging on the site.
**continues, please click link to read** Mountaintop removal could be ended by as early as next year, said a leader in an environmental group working to halt the destructive m... more -
In Cambodia, land seizures push thousands of the poor into homelessness
When the monsoon rain pours through Mao Sein's torn thatch roof, she pulls a straw sleeping mat over herself and her three small children and waits until it stops.
She and her children sit on a low table as floodwater rises, bringing with it the sewage that runs along the mud paths outside their shack.
Mao Sein, 34, was resettled by the government here in an empty field two years ago, when the police raided the squatters' colony where she lived in Phnom Penh, the capital, 12 miles away.
She is a widow and a scavenger. The area where she lives has no clean water or electricity, no paved roads or permanent buildings. But there is land to live on, and that has drawn scores of new homeless families to settle here, squatting among the squatters.
With its shacks and its sewage, Andong looks very much like the refugee camps that were home to those who were forced from their homes by the brutal Communist Khmer Rouge three decades ago.
Like tens of thousands of people around the country, those living here are victims of what experts say has become the most serious human rights abuse in the country: land seizures that lead to evictions and homelessness.
"Expropriation of the land of Cambodia's poor is reaching a disastrous level," Basil Fernando, executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, a private monitoring group, said in December. "The courts are politicized and corrupt, and impunity for human rights violators remains the norm."
With the economy on the rise, land is being seized for logging, agriculture, mining, tourism and fisheries, and in Phnom Penh, soaring land prices have touched off what one official called a frenzy of land grabs by the rich and powerful. The seizures can be violent, including late-night raids by the police and military. Sometimes, shanty neighborhoods burn down, apparently victims of arson.
"They came at 2 a.m.," said Ku Srey, 37, who was evicted with Mao Sein and most of their neighbors in June 2006.
"They were vicious," Ku Srey said of the police and soldiers who evicted her.
"They had electric batons" — and she imitated the sound made by the devices: "chk-chk-chk-chk." She said, "They pushed us into trucks, they threw all our stuff into trucks and they brought us here."
In a report in February, Amnesty International estimated that 150,000 people around the country were now at risk of forcible eviction as a result of land disputes, land seizures and new development projects.
These include 4,000 families who live around a lake in the center of Phnom Penh, Boeung Kak Lake, which is the city's main catchment for monsoon rains and is being filled in for upscale development.
**article continues, click link to read** When the monsoon rain pours through Mao Sein's torn thatch roof, she pulls a straw sleeping mat over herself and her three small ... more -
AS THE BANKING BUBBLE POPS IS ANOTHER BUBBLE BURST ON THE HORIZON?
"For the normally staid mining sector, these are heady times. Sector indices have easily outpaced the Dow Jones Industrial Average for five years running (see chart below). Now some industry watchers see signs of a bubble (FT). At the same time, one industry giant, the British-Australian firm BHP Billiton, is attempting a hostile takeover of another British-Australian conglomerate, Rio Tinto. Whether or not the bid goes through—it initially met a sharp response from Rio's board and is currently under EU scrutiny (AFP)—some analysts say it could spawn a period of consolidation that will have geopolitical consequences for years to come...
Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of mining sector's wild ride has been the push toward consolidation it has ushered. A Financial Times article says BHP's bid for Rio Tinto sparked a turf war that could lead to a major sector consolidation in the coming years (a fair amount has already happened—"the volume of mining deals in recent years has actually been staggering," says the CEO of the Swiss firm Xstrata in a recent interview with Reuters). The FT article says Rio may seek to buy up smaller firms, or team up with Vale, to make the firm too large for BHP to buy a controlling stake. But Vale, if it wants to protect itself, might seek a similar strategy, possibly teaming with Xstrata or the U.S.-headquartered Alcoa. Indeed, dozens of global players—even those not directly related to the BHP-Rio deal—might seek similar moves in the next few years.
The impact of such a shake-up would be felt globally. Several smaller U.S. firms could emerge as takeover targets, particularly given the weakness of the dollar. Depending which buyers are interested, such moves could prompt the kind of protectionist reaction seen in 2006 when a Dubai-based company tried to buy a company that ran U.S. ports. Other analysts question whether resource nationalism could increasingly grip the sector, adding unknown geopolitical twists to the rush for access to materials. Even putting these concerns aside, a major sector consolidation would have ramifications for the mining business itself. Investors Chronicle notes that a period of rapid acquisitions isn't necessarily the best way for the sector to boost growth at a time of rapidly rising global demand."
Read entire article at http://www.cfr.org/publication/16753/mining_turf_wars.h... "For the normally staid mining sector, these are heady times. Sector indices have easily outpaced the Dow Jones Industrial Averag... more -
Tribe takes on global mining firm
High in the monsoon mists in eastern India there is place called Golgola where witchdoctors still make sacrifices to the gods and where the tribes believe the hills are sacred, but where they fear their way of life is under threat.
Just 7,950 Dongria Kondh are left today.
The Dongria have lived in the Niyamgiri hills in a remote part of eastern India's Orissa state for centuries. They survive by gathering fruit, growing small crops of millet and selling jungle plants in the towns at the foot of the hills. The modern world has yet to reach Golgola - there's no electricity, no school, no television, no telephones.
"We get everything from the jungle like the fruits we take to the market. This is like our source of life for our Dongria Kondh peoples," says Jitu Jakeskia, a young Dongria Kondh activist. He's one of the few Dongria to have got a formal education, and he's now fighting to preserve his tribe's way of life.
The Dongria are animists. Every hill is home to its own god.
"Niyam Raja is our supreme god. His name means Lord of Law, he made all things," explains Jitu. "Niyamgiri mountain is the most important place for Dongria Kondh people, it is like Niyam Rajah's temple, that is why our people worship nature, they have to protect nature."
But an arm of the mining giant Vedanta Resources, one of Britain's biggest listed companies, wants the minerals from Niyamgiri hill.
The range is rich in bauxite, from which aluminium is derived. Critics say mining the hills may cause severe environmental damage, and could disrupt the Dongria's way of life.
Sitting outside his hut, Adu made a cutting gesture across his throat when I asked him about Vedanta. "If they come I will take my axe to them," he said.
Just over the hills, Vedanta has already arrived. An Indian subsidiary Vedanta Aluminium Limited has invested $1bn in a giant alumina refinery at Lanjigarh. It's a vast sprawling site right at the foot of Niyamgiri hill. A tangle of pipes, silos and vast processing towers cover around six square kilometres (3.75 miles).
Orissa is one of India's poorest states, but also one of the richest in natural resources, so the government is keen to tap its potential.
The bauxite in Orissa is extremely high quality which makes it relatively cheap to refine into aluminium. Vedanta wants to expand the site fivefold and make it the largest of its kind in the world.
However there are many who are against mining the Niyamgiri hills.
India's Wildlife Institute has said that mining threatens an important ecosystem with irreversible changes.
When we visited a village in the shadow of the refinery people told us their fields and homes were illegally seized without consent and police beat up those who protested.
The Supreme Court committee also reported similar claims, saying those who didn't want to move were beaten up, coerced and threatened, and "an atmosphere of fear was created through the hired goons, the police and the administration".
But in Golgola village many of the Dongria Kondh are suspicious of Vedanta. Jitu Jakesika insists they won't let mining happen in their sacred hills without a fight.
"If the Supreme Court will give a decision to allow mining here, all our Dongria Kondh people from children to old women will go to the factory and sleep on the road and say first you will kill us then you can mine, because we cannot live without our mountain," he says.
The way of life of the Dongria is still, in many ways, primitive and harsh. But they fear the sort of development Vedanta wants to bring, as they worry it may mean an end to their ancient way of life. High in the monsoon mists in eastern India there is place called Golgola where witchdoctors still make sacrifices to the gods and wher... more -
Irish strike gold
The small village of Clontibret in County Monaghan, Ireland, may have just hit the jackpot. It was announced yesterday that the village might be sitting on the largest gold reserves in the British Isles with more than 1million ounces. And with the rising price of gold, estimates suggest the deposits may be worth as much as £450 million. Although investigations still have to be carried out to determine the economic viability of extraxting the gold and the gold is thought to be low grade, it may yet still totally transform the village. The small village of Clontibret in County Monaghan, Ireland, may have just hit the jackpot. It was announced yesterday that the villag... more
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Peru mine protesters capture police
Thousands of demonstrators have overpowered riot police sent to break up a week-long blockade in a mining region in southern Peru. People in the town of Moquegua have been blocking roads to demand a greater share of taxes paid by the country's biggest copper producer for their area.
[Click image to watch video]
Police fired tear gas at the crowd, put at 20,000, who beat them back and took some 65 officers hostage.
"The situation in Moquegua is no longer under police control. I have wounded here and I am in trouble, so I urge police to draw back," a police chief, Alberto Jordan told the RPP radio station at the height of the violence.
Protesters argue that Peru's economic boom, largely the result of high mineral and commodity prices, is not benefiting them.
(BBC News - click to read complete article)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7458517.stm Thousands of demonstrators have overpowered riot police sent to break up a week-long blockade in a mining region in southern Peru. Peo... more -
Which industries need to shape up?
Forget Leonardo DiCaprio and his Prius. The true face of Hollywood is one of waste and environmental malaise. According to a UCLA report, Tinseltown is a strange mix of green forward thinkers and those entrenched in the old ways. Studios build and tear down tons of set materials without recycling, use thousands of diesel generators, and the industry as a whole emits almost eight million tons of carbon dioxide. Many studios have begun greening programs, but it’s going to take more than a couple eco-celebs to make up for a century of waste.
Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-06/five-... Forget Leonardo DiCaprio and his Prius. The true face of Hollywood is one of waste and environmental malaise. According to a UCLA repo... more -
Race to the Moon for Nuclear Fuel
Mining the moon for fun and profit.
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Uranium will last for thousands of years
There are those out there saying uranium reserves wont last long. They're been proven very very wrong by the latest figures which show that the increase in uranium prices over recent years has spurred prospectors to boost known reserves by 17%.
The International Atomic Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy published the figures in their Red Book, which is brought out every two years. They say the currently economically recoverable reserves are enough to continue using nuclear energy at the current level for at least a century.
If we move on to use advanced reactors and reprocess the used fuel to recover and reuse uranium, the fuel can last for thousands of years. There are those out there saying uranium reserves wont last long. They're been proven very very wrong by the latest figures which... more -
One Earth Blog: Money Rock
Can uranium mining be safe? NO. NO. NO. from TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.
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Mining for Bling
Christof Putzel traces gold to its origins in one of Africas biggest gold mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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YouTube - canoe protest: moratorium on uranium mining - Nadema's story Part I...
Indians Call for Moratorium on Uranium Mining
Part II of Nadema's Story from REAL AND FAKE INDIANS (PD 2009) by Charleen Touchette and S. Barry Paisner.
“His dad Anfind Olson, your grandfather, had died in 1966. It was one of the first cancer deaths in their tiny village of Deline. He was just forty-nine years old. Elders had always lived to their nineties among the Dene. But one day, Anfind lifted his leg to brace himself as he reached down to start the outboard motor on his fishing boat and his foot fell right off and plopped into the now yellow and fouled water of Great Bear Lake. The doctors diagnosed a virulent rare bone cancer, and Anfind died a wretched death. As a young man he had carried burlap sacks of uranium ore weighing forty-five kilograms on his back to barges for the Canadian Crown's Eldorado Mine, twelve hours a day, six days a week for three dollars a day. Anfind was thirteen when Beyonnie found the black rock, gave it to the white trapper and got the flour, baking powder, and lard. The Eldorado Mine dredged for uranium ore and dumped radioactive waste rock and tailings right into Great Bear Lake where the Dene had hunted caribou and fished for tens of thousands of years,” Nadema's mother said, and took a deep breath.
“They extracted seven thousand tons of ore, but left one point seven million tons of radioactive waste exposed or dumped in the lake,” her stepdad, added.
“At first, the people called the ore Money Rock,” her mother continued, “but then the grandfathers started to die of cancers of the bone, lung, stomach, and kidney. Now they call it, Death Rock. Only five grandfathers are left in Deline.”
“Your father Lars said there was a prophet in the village who told the people, ‘Under this rock is a matter so powerful no man can survive it.’ He had a vision of this material ‘put into a big stick on to what looked like a metal bird. It was dropped on people that looked like us and burned them all.’ When the people in Deline learned what had been done with the Money Rock, the Elders went to Japan and visited with those people fifty-three years after they dropped the bomb that killed all those people's relatives and told them how sorry they were,” Louise said, and used her shawl to dry her eyes.
“They built the atomic bomb on Pueblo Indian land down in New Mexico, and tested it sixty miles from the Mescalero Apache reservation. Now they want to store it on Western Shoshone land in Nevada,” Jack explained.
“Both governments knew. They gave the white miners protective clothes and made them shower off the uranium dust after every single shift,” Nadema’s mother said. “They called the Dene ‘coolies’, and never told them the dangers.”
Nadema still remembers every word her parents said the first time they told her about what happened to her Dene relatives. She is inspired by the Dene women who told the people about the dangers of uranium mining.
“That girl Cindy, up on the Deline Uranium Team, is helping the widows,” Nadema's mom said.
“Her grandfather was one of the ones who carried the uranium,” said Nadema's stepdad Jack McLeod who always knew the historic facts and details behind every news story. “Cindy Kinney-Gilday said ‘the government knew the dust of the ore would kill the Dene, and now we have a village of widows.’”
“And it's not over. The Dene think their fish, caribou, and moose at Great Bear Lake are contaminated. Who knows how many more will die?” Louise added. “Not the young women, that's for sure. I never thought I'd be a widow so young. You were just a toddler learning to talk when your dad died from lung cancer. He was only twenty-eight years old.”
“He slept in tents made with the sacks and played in the tailings,” Jack said.
“Lars told me the dust was everywhere when he was a boy,” Louise said. “Back then, ndns meant nothing.”
“Still don't,” Nadema said.
NUCLEAR MINING< NUCLEAR WEAPONS < NUCLEAR ENERGY CAN NEVER BE SAFE
One Earth/Think About It/Act Like It Indians Call for Moratorium on Uranium Mining ... more
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