Climate The Movie (The Real Truth)

The film that lifts the lid on the climate alarm, and the dark forces behind the climate consensus. Written and directed by Martin Durkin. Produced by Tom Nelson.

(You can ignore youtube's "context", aka propaganda and just watch the documentary ;) )
 

Coca-Cola's plastic secrets

 The plastic pollution of our oceans, fish and ourselves. 

Deadly Deception, Exposing the Dangers of Vaccines, a film by Gary Null

There is an epidemic, the likes that we have never seen in the history of this country. One in 6 children in America is learning disabled, one in 9 has asthma, one in 48 are becoming autistic, and millions more are suffering with brain and immune dysfunction, which can not be explained. Children are now exposed to more vaccinations than earlier generations. The number of vaccines is expected to increase dramatically with over 250 new vaccines in the pipeline. While there is an untold number of children and adults that have been injured from vaccines, most Americans remain skeptical of the fact that vaccines can and do cause injury, disability and death.

What will happen when vaccine-injured children, with brain and immune system dysfunction, reach adulthood and are unable to function in society? It is a tremendous cost burden to care for someone with a disability over their lifetime and the American healthcare system is incapable of handling the larger cataclysm that awaits as vaccines become mandated. Conventional medicine claims that vaccines prevent infectious diseases and are proven to be effective and safe. We are that these diseases can be eradicated if the population is fully vaccinated to achieve “herd immunity.” However, does the science support these claims?

Edited by Valerie Van Cleve

Executive Producer, Gary Null Ph.D. Directed by Gary Null, Ph.D. Produced by Valerie Van Cleve Associate Producer, Richard Gale

Science Talk: Study Finds Vitamin C Can Kill Drug-Resistant TB

Validated Independent News: Human Health

By Project Censored

Campaign to Fluoridate America Corporate media obscure an ongoing battle over water fluoridation in the U.S. While a recent New York Times editorial cites the Center for Disease Control’s claim that fluoridation is one of the top accomplishments in public health over the past century, James Tracy reports that fluoridating the nation’s water supply appears to have been a carefully coordinated plan designed to shield major aluminum and steel producers from liabilities for the substantial fluorine pollution their plants generated. Thus American industrial interests, supported by public relations firms, have been the chief forces behind water fluoridation.

Cow Hormones in Water Supply A May 2012 study published by the journal Environmental Science & Technology reported that large dairy farms are a “primary source” of estrogen contamination in the environment. Researchers found three primary estrogens in the wastewater, and further analysis revealed that, because of the rapid conversion from one form estrogen to another, these hormones do not degrade, but persist in the environment.

Potential of African-led Health Research A 2011 study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and USAid found that investing an additional $21-$36 per person on healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa would save more than 3 million lives in the year 2015. 90% of those saved would be women and children. Such an investment would also generate $100 billion in economic benefits.

Wireless Technology a Looming Health Crisis As a multitude of hazardous wireless technologies are deployed in homes, schools and workplaces, government officials and industry representatives continue to insist on their safety despite growing evidence to the contrary. A major health crisis looms that is only hastened through the extensive deployment of “smart grid” technology.

Corporate Hypocrisy in Fight against Breast Cancer Each year in October, corporations such as General Mills and Johnson & Johnson adorn their products in pink to raise awareness and money for breast cancer research; however, many of these companies’ products contain cancer-linked chemicals and toxins. As Brittany Shoot reports, “Food manufacturing giants use packaging full of cancer-linked chemicals, yet partner with breast cancer organizations to funnel money toward research.” This “pink washing” may distract consumers from how these companies actual contribute to the problem.

U.S. Health Law May Curb Rising Maternal Deaths America’s mothers are dying in increasing numbers. The U.S. had the highest rate of maternal mortality of all developed nations in 2009 with 16.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, an increase from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987, according to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. Definitive explanations for the rising maternal mortality rate are lacking, but some evidence suggests that hew health care laws, improving preventative care for pregnant women, could contribute to reversing the trend.

Should Childhood Vaccination be Mandatory? Childhood vaccines killed or injured 2,699 children last year in America, the US government has admitted – and 101 children developed autism after vaccination, even though researchers continue to insist that no link exists. Paul Offit advocates that, although vaccines are not free of risk, their benefits clearly outweigh their risks. If parents were well informed, they would choose to vaccinate their children. 

Missing Medicines in Malawi Malawi suffers from shortages of essential drugs. A 2012 Oxfam report found that only nine percent of local health facilities (54 of 585) had the full Essential Health Package list of drugs for treating 11 common diseases. 

China Acknowledges “Cancer Villages” In February 2013, China’s environmental ministry officially acknowledged the presence of cancer hot spots, known informally as “cancer villages,” throughout the country. Chinese media have reported 459 “cancer villages” throughout China, in every province and autonomous region except Qinghai and Tibet. Once a rare disease, cancer is now the biggest killer in both urban and rural China, with mortality rates as high as 80 percent in the last 30 years.

The Drugs in US Meat–We’re Eating What? Synthetic growth hormones routinely administered in the US to livestock are not listed on food package labels. Other drugs used to increase muscle mass in pigs and turkeys, including ractopamine, have been banned in 160 but remain in use in the US. A European scientific commission believes there is an association between steroid hormones and cancers, including breast and prostate cancers, and that meat consumption is the culprit. The US has the highest rates of both and also uses the most hormones in its meat production. Since 1989, Europe has banned most US meat.

Genital Mutilation in the US Although genital mutilation is concentrated in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, thousands of US girls living in immigrant communities are sent out of the country to places where genital mutilation is practiced, or relatives from practicing counties come to the US to do the procedure. The New York metropolitan area has the highest cases of female genital mutilation in the US; approximately 41,000 cases. These women face major complications to their health, including infections, post-traumatic stress disorder and painful menstruation cycles.

Routine Infant Circumcision: Exempt from American Medical Ethics The US is the only country in the world that circumcises male infants for non-religious reasons. This pro-circumcision bias of American culture is reflected in medical theory and policy. However, most proponents lack awareness of the health impact of circumcision.

South Africa “Over 25% Schoolgirls HIV Positive” About five million people in South Africa are HIV positive, which is about 10% of the total population. Those numbers are higher when looking at the school-age female population. Over 25% of school-aged girls are HIV positive, some as young as 10 years old. Many contract HIV as a result of sexual relations with older “sugar-daddies.” 

Private-Equity Firms Target the US Health-Care Industry

Private equity (PE) firms are targeting the US health-care providers. Growing PE interest in low profit or non-profit sectors like hospitals is expanding. PE investors are betting on new profit opportunities from the growing needs of the baby-boomer generation and from the Affordable Care Act, which will dramatically expand health-insurance coverage.

Federally Funded Health-Care Co-ops —Coming to Your Community With funding from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), communities are coming together to develop Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans—CO-Ops to operate community health care facilities or cooperative insurance plans. Unlike private health insurance companies, these co-ops are owned and democratically controlled by their members. Beginning in 2014, a first wave of co-ops will launch in 24 states, with an estimated 19 million previously uninsured Americans expected to use insurance exchanges to buy health coverage.

The US has left Iraq with an Epidemic of Cancers and Birth Defects After ten years of war in Iraq, Dahr Jamail reports, the US has left Iraq (and especially the city of Fallujah) with a rising epidemic of toxic contamination. After the US military used depleted uranium munitions in 2004, Iraqi medical officials have tracked twice number of cancer cases as in 1995.

Mozambique’s First HIV Vaccine Trial Heralds New Era in Local Research Mozambique’s Polana Cancio Centre for Research and Public Health has finished its first HIV vaccine trial and is preparing to start the second trial. According to the preliminary test, the vaccine is safe for use. According to Ilesh Jani, the studies mark an important step towards bolstering clinical trial and research capacity for diseases such as HIV and malaria. One goal of this research is to develop a vaccine that will be affordable in countries such as Mozambique.

Skyrocketing HIV/AIDS Rates in African American Women In August 2012 at the International AIDS Conference in Washington DC, HIV advocates met to discuss the skyrocketing HIV infection rates in black women that are increasing to levels found in sub-Sahara Africa. The recent growth in HIV cases among African-American women especially among youth has public health professionals concerned. In 2010, black women contracted 44 percent of new HIV infections. 

Background TV Poses Danger for Children A recent study conducted at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW) sheds new light on the detrimental impact background television has on children’s neural development and social skills. The UNCW study shows that children exposed to more TV are more likely to develop problems with hyperactivity and antisocial behavior. When children accustomed to such high doses of daily television stop watching all together, depression has a tendency to develop.

US Veterans Prescribed Lethal Drugs to Treat PTSD A number of US war veterans were issued a variety of potentially deadly pharmaceuticals to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) including the dangerous antipsychotic drug Seroquel. Pleas from the families of deceased veterans finally persuaded the U.S. Central Command to remove the dangerous antipsychotic from the list of military PTSD treatments. Information about Seroquel and similar drugs is often kept hidden from the public, leaving consumers of generic brands unaware of corporate deceit and veteran deaths.

Antidepressant Drugs Pose Serious Health Concerns for Unborn Babies The world’s largest drug companies are encouraging pregnant women to take prescription drugs, get vaccine shots, and even have chemotherapy. Among these are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or antidepressants, which are causing miscarriages and a variety of birth defects. Excessive prescription drug use in pregnant women is also linked to the increase of babies born with autism, preterm birth, newborn behavioral syndrome, persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn and longer-term neurobehavioral effects.

Pesticides May Lead to Cancer and Autism in Children Pesticides are harmful to the health and intelligence of America’s children, according to an October 2012 report released by the Pesticide Action Network of North America. Titled, “A Generation in Jeopardy,” the study notes how chemicals from pest control products are one key cause of a range of disorders such as ADHD, autism, cancer, disrupted metabolism, and even low IQs.

Laboratory Study of Rats Supports Dangers of GM Corn A study published in September issue of The Food & Chemical Toxicology Journal found that rats fed Monsanto’s genetically modified corn over several months showed significant health problems including premature death and tumors. The study found that over half of the male rats and 70 percent of the females who were fed a lifetime of Monsanto’s corn died prematurely with significant liver and kidney damage. Scientists also found the rats to contain cancerous tumors so large they blocked organ function. While numerous studies have examined their short-term impact, this is the first ever study to examine the long-term effects of GMO consumptions.

Project Censored

The News That Didn't Make The News

Eighteen college and universities worldwide have researched and validated 233 independent news stories for the annual Project Censored review cycle. These independent news stories have seen little if any coverage by the corporate media. The Project Censored network is currently voting on the top 25 most important stories for inclusion in Censored 2014: Fearless Speech in Fateful Times, the latest edition of our annual yearbook, scheduled for release by Seven Stories Press in October 2013. 

Please help us maintain this annual process by becoming a subscriber ($5-$10 a month) or by making a one time tax deductible donation of support here.

We thank you for your support and please review the latest Validated Independent News stories on Human Health.

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Obama, The Son of Africa, Claims a Continent’s Crown Jewels

By John Pilger

Global Research

On 14 October, President Barack Obama announced he was sending United States special forces troops to Uganda to join the civil war there. In the next few months, US combat troops will be sent to South Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic. They will only "engage" for "self-defence", says Obama, satirically. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way.

Obama’s decision is described in the press as "highly unusual" and "surprising", even "weird". It is none of these things. It is the logic of American foreign policy since 1945. Take Vietnam. The priority was to halt the influence of China, an imperial rival, and "protect" Indonesia, which President Nixon called "the region’s richest hoard of natural resources …the greatest prize". Vietnam merely got in the way; and the slaughter of more than three million Vietnamese and the devastation and poisoning of their land was the price of America achieving its goal. Like all America’s subsequent invasions, a trail of blood from Latin America to Afghanistan and Iraq, the rationale was usually "self defence" or "humanitarian", words long emptied of their dictionary meaning.

In Africa, says Obama, the "humanitarian mission" is to assist the government of Uganda defeat the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which "has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa". This is an accurate description of the LRA, evoking multiple atrocities administered by the United States, such as the bloodbath in the 1960s following the CIA-arranged murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader and first legally elected prime minister, and the CIA coup that installed Mobutu Sese Seko, regarded as Africa’s most venal tyrant.

Obama’s other justification also invites satire. This is the "national security of the United States". The LRA has been doing its nasty work for 24 years, of minimal interest to the United States. Today, it has fewer than 400 fighters and has never been weaker. However, US "national security" usually means buying a corrupt and thuggish regime that has something Washington wants. Uganda’s "president-for-life" Yoweri Museveni already receives the larger part of $45 million in US military "aid" – including Obama’s favourite drones. This is his bribe to fight a proxy war against America’s latest phantom Islamic enemy, the rag-tag al Shabaab group based in Somalia. The RTA will play a public relations role, distracting western journalists with its perennial horror stories.

However, the main reason the US is invading Africa is no different from that which ignited the Vietnam war. It is China. In the world of self-serving, institutionalised paranoia that justifies what General David Petraeus, the former US commander and now CIA director, implies is a state of perpetual war, China is replacing al-Qaeda as the official American "threat". When I interviewed Bryan Whitman, an assistant secretary of defence at the Pentagon last year, I asked him to describe the current danger to America. Struggling visibly, he repeated, "Asymmetric threats … asymmetric threats". These justify the money-laundering state-sponsored arms conglomerates and the biggest military and war budget in history. With Osama bin Laden airbrushed, China takes the mantle.

Africa is China’s success story. Where the Americans bring drones and destabilisation, the Chinese bring roads, bridges and dams. What they want is resources, especially fossil fuels. With Africa’s greatest oil reserves, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi was one of China’s most important sources of fuel. When the civil war broke out and NATO backed the "rebels" with a fabricated story about Gaddafi planning "genocide" in Benghazi, China evacuated its 30,000 workers in Libya. The subsequent UN security council resolution that allowed the west’s "humanitarian intervention" was explained succinctly in a proposal to the French government by the "rebel" National Transitional Council, disclosed last month in the newspaper Liberation, in which France was offered 35 per cent of Libya’s gross national oil production "in exchange" (the term used) for "total and permanent" French support for the NTC. Running up the Stars and Stripes in "liberated" Tripoli last month, US ambassador Gene Cretz blurted out: "We know that oil is the jewel in the crown of Libyan natural resources!"

The de facto conquest of Libya by the US and its imperial partners heralds a modern version of the "scramble for Africa" at the end of the 19th century.

Like the "victory" in Iraq, journalists have played a critical role in dividing Libyans into worthy and unworthy victims. A recent Guardian front page carried a photograph of a terrified "pro-Gaddafi" fighter and his wild-eyed captors who, says the caption, "celebrate". According to General Petraeus, there is now a war "of perception … conducted continuously through the news media".

For more than a decade the US has tried to establish a command on the continent of Africa, AFRICOM, but has been rebuffed by governments, fearful of the regional tensions this would cause. Libya, and now Uganda, South Sudan and Congo, provide the main chance. As WikiLeaks cables and the US National Strategy for Counter-terrorism reveal, American plans for Africa are part of a global design in which 60,000 special forces, including death squads, already operate in 75 countries, soon to be 120. As Dick Cheney pointed out in his 1990s "defence strategy" plan, America simply wishes to rule the world.

That this is now the gift of Barack Obama, the "Son of Africa", is supremely ironic. Or is it? As Frantz Fanon explained in Black Skin, White Masks, what matters is not so much the colour of your skin as the power you serve and the millions you betray.

For more information on John Pilger, visit his website at www.johnpilger.com

John Pilger is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by John Pilger

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27181

African farmers gathered to discuss agro-ecology in Zimbabwe

Via Campesina

By Pambazuka News

(Masvingo, 13 June, 2011) – Zimbabwean farmers’ organization are hosting a training meeting on agroecology , an encounter organized by La Via Campesina (LVC) Africa in Masvingo province in Zimbabwe, from June 13 to 19. The training workshop brings together LVC member organizations in the continent, key allies including academics, NGOs, social science practioners, and small-scale farmers.

More than 50 participants, from 10 African Countries, as well as visitors from Latin America and Asia, are gathering in Masvingo to discuss and share experiences on agroecology and sustainable peasant agriculture, and organic farming and conservation agriculture practices, that keep build on local knowledge and traditional skills to work the land and produce food ecologically.

The participants of the meeting list several challenges and difficulties that affect peasant production in their countries. Among the difficulties they face is the lack of support from their governments, climate change, the interference of multinational corporations in the agricultural sector, as well as the issue of land grabbing whereby smallholder farmers lose their traditional land, finding themselves in the risk of hunger and poverty.

Other challenges include limited access to markets with decent crop prices, donors conditionality driving anti-smallholder policies, and regulations with negative impacts on peasants. These issues need to be resolved for the peasants in Africa to develop their true productive capacity.

At the end of the seven days of the training participants will come up with proposed solutions and a strategic plan which will be implemented by their organizations and the network.

In these meetings participants are expecting to create a permanent space for the exchange and strengthening of agroecological efforts carried out by LVC organizations in Africa, in order to share experiences, methodologies, educational materials and trainers, as well as to develop a strategic action and working plan on agroecology and peasant agriculture at African level. Participants said that agroecology is the way for farmers to become independent and more productive, and to take control over their own farming systems. It puts us back in the drivers seat, they said.

Mr Nelson Mudzingwa, a smallholder farmer from Zimbabwe, speaking at the meeting, said he will open up his mind from the experience to be shared from other countries on agroecology practices. He gave evidence that organic farmers in Zimbabwe who use agroecology practices like native seeds and organic fertilizers are highly productive without dependence on private seed and fertilizer companies nor government handouts.

He said it is very important for farmers to practice agroecology rather than just theorizing, because without practicing there is no success. He also emphasized information sharing and documentation and sharing of lessons from the success stories. “As I believe in information sharing, I call upon my colleagues that we have to expose all success stories so that others they can easily adopt,” he said.

The participants of the meeting will visit strong Zimbabwean successful example of agroecology, from where they expect to learn how local farmers develop sustainable agriculture form their own seeds and techniques.

In a report titled “Sustainable Peasant Agriculture Can Feed the World” (available at www.viacampesina.org), LVC has compiled evidence at the global level to show that agroecological farming is more sustainable, more productive, and more resilient to climate change than conventional chemical and industrialized agriculture. LVC member organizations in Africa believe that agroecology is key to achieving food sovereignty and ending problems of hunger and rural poverty in the continent.

LVC Communication Team in Africa

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News

When the Nile runs dry

By Lester R. Brown

Earth Policy Institute

A new scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on imported grain are panicking. Affluent countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China and India have descended on fertile plains across the African continent, acquiring huge tracts of land to produce wheat, rice and corn for consumption back home. 

Some of these land acquisitions are enormous. South Korea, which imports 70 percent of its grain, has acquired 1.7 million acres in Sudan to grow wheat—an area twice the size of Rhode Island. In Ethiopia, a Saudi firm has leased 25,000 acres to grow rice, with the option of expanding this to 750,000 acres. And India has leased several hundred thousand acres there to grow corn, rice and other crops. 

These land grabs shrink the food supply in famine-prone African nations and anger local farmers, who see their governments selling their ancestral lands to foreigners. They also pose a grave threat to Africa's newest democracy: Egypt. 

Egypt is a nation of bread eaters. Its citizens consume 18 million tons of wheat annually, more than half of which comes from abroad. (See data at www.earth-policy.org.) Egypt is now the world's leading wheat importer, and subsidized bread—for which the government doles out approximately $2 billion per year—is seen as an entitlement by the 60 percent or so of Egyptian families who depend on it. 

As Egypt tries to fashion a functioning democracy after President Hosni Mubarak's departure, land grabs to the south are threatening its ability to put bread on the table because all of Egypt's grain is either imported or produced with water from the Nile River, which flows north through Ethiopia and Sudan before reaching Egypt. (Since rainfall in Egypt is negligible to nonexistent, its agriculture is totally dependent on the Nile.) 

Unfortunately for Egypt, two of the favorite targets for land acquisitions are Ethiopia and Sudan, which together occupy three-fourths of the Nile River Basin. Today's demands for water are such that there is little left of the river when it eventually empties into the Mediterranean. 

The Nile Waters Agreement, which Egypt and Sudan signed in 1959, gave Egypt 75 percent of the river's flow, 25 percent to Sudan and none to Ethiopia. This situation is changing abruptly as wealthy foreign governments and international agribusiness firms snatch up large swaths of arable land in the upper Basin. While these deals are typically described as land acquisitions, they are also, in effect, water acquisitions. 

Now, when competing for Nile water, Cairo must deal with several governments and commercial interests that were not party to the 1959 agreement. Moreover, Ethiopia—never enamored of the agreement—has announced plans to build a huge hydroelectric dam on its branch of the Nile that would reduce the water flow to Egypt even more. 

Because Egypt's wheat yields are already among the world's highest, it has little potential to raise its land productivity further. With its population of 81 million projected to reach 101 million by 2025, finding enough food and water is a daunting challenge. 

Egypt's plight could become part of a larger, more troubling scenario. Its upstream Nile neighbors—Sudan, with 44 million people, and Ethiopia, with 83 million—are growing even faster, increasing the need for water to produce food. Projections by the United Nations show the combined population of these three countries increasing to 272 million by 2025—and 360 million by 2050—from 208 million now. 

Growing water demand, driven by population growth and foreign land (and water) acquisitions, are straining the Nile's natural limits. Avoiding dangerous conflicts over water will require three Basin-wide initiatives. The first is for governments to address the population threat head-on by ensuring that all women have access to family planning services and by providing education for girls throughout the region. The second is to adopt more water-efficient irrigation technologies and shift to less water-intensive crops. 

Finally, for the sake of peace and future development cooperation, the nations of the Nile River Basin should come together to ban land grabs by foreign governments and agribusiness firms. Since there is no precedent for this, international help in negotiating such a ban, similar to the World Bank's role in facilitating the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan, would likely be necessary to make it a reality.

None of these initiatives will be easy to implement, but all are essential. Without them, rising bread prices could undermine Egypt's revolution of hope and competition for the Nile's water could turn deadly. 

# # # 

Lester R. Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute and author of World on the Edge. 

Data and additional resources at www.earth-policy.org

*NOTE: A version of this piece appeared in the New York Times' Op-Ed section on June 2, 2011.

Feel free to pass this information along to friends, family members, and colleagues!

Pollution: Africa's real resource curse?

By Khadija Sharife

Pambazuka News

Africa has long been synonymous as the poster child of the resource curse. Illicit financial flows, often siphoned through corruption and mis-pricing, are estimated to cost the continent $200-billion annually. Flowing back are the weapons propping up autocratic regimes, with the ‘externalised’ or hidden cost of conflict pegged at more than $300-billion during the past two decades. Despite resource revenues fueling GDP, growth does not necessarily translate into development thanks to exploitative policies implemented by the ‘human’ resources at the helm of the continent’s extractive industries.

But the nature of the ‘curse’ extends beyond ‘blood minerals’ to that of another more widespread externalised cost taking place in countries like Tanzania and Zambia: pollution. Take Tanzania: Africa’s third largest gold producer holds more than 45 million ounces of gold, economically valued at $39-billion excluding extraction costs. Since 1998, production has increased from 1-2 tonnes annually to 50 tonnes, valued at US$876 per ounce (2008). And for every ounce of gold extracted, more than 78 tonnes of mining waste is created.

Like copper and silver, gold is found in rock containing sulphide minerals that when crushed and exposed to air and water forms sulphuric acid. The acidic water dissolves other toxic metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium found in surrounding ore. If not safely contained, acid mine drainage (AMD) - a process that continues as long as sulphides from mine waste, open pits, and tailings interact with air and water - leaches toxins into the ecosystem, stripping life from everything in its wake.

The issue rose to the fore in 2009 when a tailing pond owned by Barrick Gold Corporation’s North Mara mine leaked AMD into the Tigithe River, a tributary of Mara River discharging into the world’s largest tropical basin, Lake Victoria. The process continued for three months, from May to August, when the breached lining was replaced. Ninety per cent of Tanzania’s production takes place around Lake Victoria’s ‘gold belt’.

Though the government banned the use of Tigithe’s water for consumption (samples revealed toxic concentrations of nickel and lead 260 and 168 times higher than similar tests from 2002), no substantial further action was taken. This is unsurprising given the context: during the past decade Tanzania’s rent-seeking regime has lost $400-million in gold revenue due to tax evasion and low royalty rates. Tanzania’s gold mining contracts detailing the financial and environmental requirements even remained a secret from parliament as late as 2009, evidencing secrecy as one weapon of mass destruction.

Another weapon specific to gold mining is cyanide, used to extract gold from ore, releasing lethal metals such as mercury in the process, while breaking down into toxic compounds.

Montana’s Zortman-Landusky open pit mine was one of the first to pour cyanide over heaped ore as a means of dissolving gold. ‘Water treatment will have to go on for hundreds of years, possibly forever,’ said Montana state regulator, Wayne Jepson. Though using cyanide is common practice in the industry, the risks have encouraged Montana to ban it from new open pit mines while EU Members of the European Parliament approved a resolution concerning an EU-wide ban on cyanide by end 2011 - prompted by incidents such as Romania’s cyanide spill that leaked 130,000 cubic meters of tainted water through 150 miles of the Tisza-Danube River system (2000). 

But 70 per cent of gold is mined in developing nations such as South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania. Can nations dependent on foreign investment individually, or collectively, motivate to set the standard?

‘Perhaps the issue should be high recovery of the cyanide used, better concentrations of the cyanide that is not recovered, stringent specifications for mining ponds and higher standards for water effluent treatment using existing and proven technology,’ said Muna Lakhani, coordinator of the Institute for Zero Waste in Africa (IZWA).

Currently, corporations subscribe to the standards of the voluntary International Cyanide Managament Code. Yet one aspect that the code fails to rigorously address is that of closure.

It is a lesson that Zambia’s Kabwe - a mining town inhabited by 300,000 people - has learnt the hard way. Kabwe, Zambia’s second largest city, had the dubious honour of being ranked as Africa’s most polluted city and the world’s fourth most polluted site thanks to the unregulated lead (800,000t) and zinc (1,800,000t) mining and smelter activities that took place from 1906 until 1994.

Kabwe’s Katondo township, for instance, evidenced levels of lead - a neurotoxin - as high as 10,000 parts per million, dispersed through run-offs and as wind-blown dust. The Zambian government, through the Zambian Consolidated Copper Mine Investment (ZCCM), claimed responsibility for decommissioning and rehabilitating the mine’s legacy - classified as toxic by the Kabwe Scoping and Design Study (KSDS). Kabwe’s rehabilitation is part of the broader Copperbelt Environment Project (CEP), largely funded by the World Bank.

Describing the Environmental Council of Zambia as ‘very weak’, the CEP revealed that: ‘Existing regulations are seldom enforced. The regulatory dispositions for the mining sector are currently so weak that they do not deter polluters…Identification and monitoring of environmental risks resulting from mining activities is often inadequate.’

Mining corporations operating in Zambia post-1994 were allowed to adhere to the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), taking precedence over national legislation, with little penalties save for on the spot fines of £17 and letters of warning. Like Tanzania, Zambia’s mining contracts remained secretive.

But while the legacy of ‘dirty gold’ and ‘killer copper’ is not intractable, externalised costs conceal the true impact from the public discourse, forcing the environment, communities and natural treasures such as the Serengeti Park located 10 kilometres northwest from Mara Mine to ‘subsidise’ the extractive industries.

But there is no more lethal example of AMD than South Africa, where the impact of pollution threatens not only the country’s water resources, but through the coal-focused energy complex, catalyses a domino effect. This occurs both directly, within the country, and indirectly, in neighbouring regions such as Lesotho ‘exporting’ water for South Africa’s electricity requirements. South Africa, in turn, also acts as exporters of dirty energy, supplying 45 per cent of regional energy needs, via Eskom, to client countries.

The root causes of AMD, described as the single most dangerous threat to South Africa’s environment, began with the exploitation and occupation of South Africa as a ‘resource colony’ for the British empire. The Witwatersrand region, mined for more than 100 years, is the world’s largest gold and uranium mining basin. 

According to NGO Earthlife Africa, ‘A total of 43,500 tons of gold has been removed from the Witwatersrand area’, while between the 1950s and the first democratic election, ‘a total of 73,000 tons of uranium was mined.’ The result? A gaping mine tailings dams, comprised of waste material measuring 400 square kilometres in addition to six billion tonnes of pyrite (iron sulphide), ‘one of the substances, which, when exposed to air and water, produces acid mine water’. The ‘cradle of mankind’ has already been impacted by 40 million litres of AMD. While South Africa’s agricultural sector uses ten times the water utilised by mining houses (the former is estimated to use 7,920 million m3 per annum), the costs of mitigating the AMD, externalised by mining corporations, is projected at R360-billion in specialised water treatment plants over the next 15 years.

‘Addressing acid mine drainage will be expensive, but as long as most of the mining houses are still raking in billions of rands in profits every year, how can anybody argue that “we” cannot afford to fix the problem? The argument that the mining houses of today should not be held responsible for the problems created by their predecessors over a long period of time holds water with me only up to a point,’ said Stephanie de Villiers, author of the report titled ‘H20-C02 Energy Equations for SA’, produced by the Africa Earth Observatory Network (AEON) to The Africa Report magazine. 

Ironically, the cost of mitigation, which has yet to be forthcoming, mirrors that of Eskom’s new coal plan, set to create 40 new mines while drawing water from three strained catchment systems: the Vaal, Orange and Limpopo systems.

South Africa represents four per cent of Africa’s mass. Over 98 per cent of the country is classified as arid or semi-arid. The country, receiving an annual run-off of 40 mm (from a world average of 266mm), is described by scientists as one of the globe’s most water scarce nations. Over 80 per cent of rainfall precipitation is lost by way of evaporation in Africa itself, the driest of the world’s seven continents, with an annual run-off of 114mm. For South Africa, the estimate is more than 90 per cent. Meanwhile, less than 10 per cent is converted to river run-offs. 

AEON’s report, written by de Villiers, shoots down government’s conservative estimates that future shortages will be in the range of two to 13 per cent. According to de Villiers, water demand will exceed availability by 33 per cent in 2025. Government, said de Villiers, did not take into account the reduced availability of water from pollution, in addition to global warming.

Water resources contaminated by AMD impacts the environment, the economy, chiefly agriculture, and has devastating consequences for the country’s second largest user-base - domestic consumers. Though the agricultural industry are allegedly seriously attempting to curb inefficiencies, mining houses appear concerned solely with making a profit.

De Villiers said the body appointed to look at the problem favours neutralisation as the best solution to the problem of AMD. ‘Certainly, it will be an economically viable solution, if logistics such as the reservoirs needed for the neutralization to be carried out in (continuously over a very long period of time) can be sorted out, which seems unlikely at the moment. 

‘The proposals by corporations to step in with their proposed solutions have apparently been shot down, because they wanted to sell the cleaned water back to Rand Water, making a profit in the process. 

‘I’m not sure why mining houses are allowed to pollute while making a profit, and corporations who want to clean up are apparently expected to do so without the benefit of making a profit,’ she said.

De Villiers was perplexed that government had not taken advantage of these circumstances to establish a state-owned enterprise that would have the potential to generate revenue that could be ploughed back into the state, claiming that government was bogged down by politics.

As predicted by hydrologist Garfield Krige in 1998, the Western Basin began decanting in 2002. leaching 15 mega litres per day. Meanwhile, the Central Basin may begin decanting at 60 mega litres per day within two and a half years, and the Eastern Basin, 82 mega litres per day in three years, once pumping ceases. Moreover, exploitation of gold resources (95 per cent exhausted) will no longer be viable if externalities or hidden costs are taken into account. 

But it seems that mining corporations seeking closure certificates (exonerating companies from ecological liabilities) may have found a solution: through a reverse listing on the AIM board of the London Stock Exchange (under the umbrella of Watermark Global PLC), the Western Utilities Corporation will provide mining houses - the primary ‘owners’ of the initiative - to obtain both closure certificates as well as sell ‘treated’ water to 11 million consumers in Johannesburg via Rand Water. 

‘The WUC deal will give all of the mine owners their closure certificates, and because of the way that government has fumbled the ball, it will also give them a guaranteed 16 per cent return on investment (much larger than many operating mines enjoy),” said Dr Anthony Turton, a water management and hydropolitics specialist suspended from South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) over a presentation on the looming water crisis. 

In an interview with The Africa Report, Turton said that not only will mines evade the legal minimum requirement of the ‘polluter pays principle’ but also profit from it. ‘What’s more, that profit is all but guaranteed, because it will be underwritten by the state in the form of a mooted Public Private Partnership (PPP),’ he said. The deal allows for mining houses to access a R3.5-billion deal with no tendering process, as well as select ‘treatment’ that was described by Turton as the ‘least cost option’ via a process shrouded in secrecy, enabling the WUC to act as both consultant and reviewer. 

Meanwhile, the government directive on the issue of AMD was significantly influenced by mining companies like Rand Uranium, who claimed that while the company would ‘comply with directives…there were aspects that were unachievable, and you can’t be expected to do something that is unachievable. And hence we have been working very closely with the department to get the directive and regulation around the water treatment plant to be achievable.’ (Rand Uranium CEO John Munro as told to Carte Blanche).

According to the hydrologist Garfield Krige, as told to Carte Blanche, the leniency of the directive was similar to that of raising the speed limit to 200km/h to accommodate speeders.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS 

* This article is part of a special issue on water and water privatisation in Africa produced as a joint initiative of the Transnational Institute, Ritimo and Pambazuka News. This special issue is being published in English and in French.

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