Chile's divisive mountain of gold (BBC) {Pascua Lama}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Luisa Baldini
BBC News, Chile

High in the Andes, on the border of Chile and Argentina, lies a mountain of hidden gold.

It is called Pascua Lama and contains so much of the precious metal it will take 20 years to extract.

That is exactly what Canada's Barrick Gold Corporation plans to do after being given the go-ahead by both Chile and Argentina.

Already Pascua Lama is criss-crossed with roads built by the company when it was carrying out exploratory missions, and within a few years the mountain will be stripped bare as the digging begins.
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"Barrick are attacking our rivers, our glaciers, our ancestral water rights. And that is why I think I should go on fighting them," he says.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6214939.stm

Hardly the first time this has been mentioned on E/E (or GD for that matter) but the BBC article gives brief background for those not familiar.

[whistle]

1. Go check out Kirkland Lake and other gold rush towns in Canada

....these mining companies just rape the environment and leave a mess.