Panama will allow controversial mine to export already mined copper to fund maintenance
PANAMA CITY (AP) — Panama will allow a controversial mine that was closed after months of protests to export more than 120,000 tons of already mined copper concentrate to pay the costs of maintaining the inactive mine site, government officials announced Friday.
Opposition to the massive copper mine led to some of Panama's most widespread protests in recent years before the country's Supreme Court rejected a deal that allowed a Canadian company to operate it.
Toronto-based First Quantum Minerals said Friday that exporting the material that's sitting at the site will fund maintenance and environmental protection measures.
Panama's President José Raúl Mulino called for those steps in March, when business groups were lobbying him to reopen the mine. Income from the mine accounted for nearly 5% of Panama gross domestic product the last year it operated.
'The purpose is to avoid, above all else, environmental damage,' Trade and Industry Minister Julio Moltó said Friday. He emphasized that the mine was not reopening, but said that the plan would ensure the site remained safe.
The open-pit mine was temporarily closed in 2022 when talks between the government and First Quantum broke down over payments the government wanted. In March 2023, Panama's Congress reached an agreement with First Quantum, allowing subsidiary Panama Copper to continue operating the mine in a biodiverse jungle on the Atlantic coast west of the capital for at least 20 more years.
The deal faced opposition from those who believed Panama wasn't getting as much as it should and from environmentalists and Indigenous groups who raised concerns about the mine's impact.
Protests included a blockade of the mine's power plant. Protesters also blocked parts of the Pan American highway, including a stretch near the border with Costa Rica.
On Nov. 28, 2023, Panama's Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the 20-year concession was unconstitutional and then-President Laurentino Cortizo announced the start of a process to close the mine.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
32 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
The UK seeks to send a message to Moscow as it outlines higher defense spending
LONDON (AP) — The U.K. is about to see the biggest increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War as it seeks to send "a message to Moscow," the British defense secretary said Sunday. John Healey said the Labour government's current plans for defense spending will be enough to transform the country's military following decades of retrenchment, though he does not expect the number of soldiers — currently at a historic low — to rise until the early 2030s. He said plans for defense spending to hit 2.5% of national income by 2027, which amounts to an extra 13 billion pounds ($17 billion) or so a year, were 'on track' and that there was 'no doubt' it would hit 3% in the next parliament in the early 2030s. The government will on Monday respond to a strategic defense review, overseen by Healey and led by Lord George Robertson, a former NATO secretary general and defense secretary in a previous Labour government. It is expected to be the most consequential review since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and make a series of recommendations for the U.K. to deal with the new threat environment, both on the military front and in cyberspace. Like other NATO members, the U.K. has been compelled to take a closer look at its defense spending since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 'This is a message to Moscow,' Healey told the BBC. 'This is Britain standing behind, making our armed forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight, if required.' U.S. President Donald Trump has also piled pressure on NATO members to bolster their defense spending. And in recent months, European countries, led by the U.K. and France, have scrambled to coordinate their defense posture as Trump transforms American foreign policy, seemingly sidelining Europe as he looks to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has long questioned the value of NATO and complained that the U.S. provides security to European countries that don't pull their weight. Healey also said Russia is 'attacking the U.K. daily' as part of some 90,000 cyber attacks from state-linked sources that were directed at the U.K,'s defense over the last two years. A cyber command to counter such threats is expected to be set up as part of the review. 'The tensions are greater but we prepare for war in order to secure the peace,' he said. 'If you're strong enough to defeat an enemy, you deter them from attacking in the first place.' While on a visit to a factory on Saturday where Storm Shadow missiles are assembled, Healey said the government would support the procurement of up to 7,000 U.K.-built long-range weapons and that new funding will see U.K. munitions spending hitting 6 billion pounds in the coming years. 'Six billion over the next five years in factories like this which allow us not just to produce the munitions that equip our forces for the future but to create the jobs in every part of the U.K.,' he said. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary for the main opposition Conservative Party, welcomed the government's pledge to increase defense spending but said he was 'skeptical' as to whether the Treasury would deliver. He called on the government to be more ambitious and raise spending to 3% of national income within this parliament, which can run until 2029.
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
12 Ukrainian soldiers killed in Russian strike on army training unit
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At least 12 Ukrainian service members were killed and more than 60 were injured in a Russian missile strike on the location of a Ukrainian army training unit Sunday, according to a statement from the Ukrainian Ground Forces. The strike occurred at 12:50 p.m. the statement said, emphasizing that no formations or mass gatherings of personnel were being held at the time. An investigative commission was created to uncover the circumstances around the attack that led to such a loss in personnel, the statement said. The training unit is located to the rear of the 1,000-kilometer active front line, where Russian reconnaissance and strike drones are able to strike. Ukraine's forces suffer from manpower shortages and take extra precautions to avoid mass gatherings as the skies across the front line are saturated with Russian drones looking for targets. 'If it is established that the actions or inaction of officials led to the death or injury of servicemen, those responsible will be held strictly accountable,' the Ukrainian Ground Forces' statement said. Russia's Ministry of Defense said Sunday that it had taken control of the village of Oleksiivka in Ukraine's northern Sumy region. Ukrainian authorities in Sumy ordered mandatory evacuations in 11 more settlements Saturday as Russian forces make steady gains in the area. Speaking Saturday, Ukraine's top army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area. The strikes come amid continuing uncertainty as to whether Kyiv diplomats will attend a new round of peace talks proposed by Moscow for early next week in Istanbul. Ukrainian officials have called on the Kremlin to provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the more than three-year war before the meeting takes place. Moscow previously said it would share its memorandum during the talks. In his evening address Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Moscow to stop 'playing with diplomacy' by withholding the document. 'At this point, we don't have any clear information about what the Russians are planning to do in Istanbul,' he said. 'Of course, everyone in the world wants diplomacy to work and a real ceasefire to happen. Everyone wants Russia to stop playing with diplomacy and end the war. Everyone wants serious peace, and Russia must agree to this.'
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Supreme Court tackles birthright citizenship case injunctions
The U.S. Supreme Court spent more than two hours Thursday hearing arguments on President Donald Trump's attempt to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants without ever discussing whether the U.S. Constitution grants birthright citizenship, as the court decided in 1898. Instead, the justices debated whether individual judges could block Trump's order nationwide, as three judges have already done. 'We survived until the 1960s without universal injunctions,' said Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's most outspoken opponent of allowing lower-court judges who decide that a policy is unconstitutional to block it nationwide. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another member of the court's conservative majority, observed that U.S. District Court orders halting presidential policies can remain in place for a year or more before reaching the Supreme Court. 'Presidents want to get things done,' he said. The justices appeared to be divided on the issue, with several conservatives expressing concerns about wide-ranging injunctions issued by federal judges while members of the court's liberal minority said such orders may be necessary to protect vulnerable populations such as immigrant families. A few justices kept their opinions to themselves. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the Trump administration's lawyer, urged the court to narrow or lift the lower-court orders but put off any arguments on the legality of birthright citizenship. 'The merits argument we are presenting to lower courts,' Sauer said, is that 'the original meaning of the (Constitution's) citizenship clause extended citizenship to descendants of former slaves, not to children of those who were unlawfully in the United States.' That is not what the court said in the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to parents who had emigrated from China. The court upheld his U.S. citizenship based on the 14th Amendment, which was adopted in 1868 after the Civil War and grants citizenship to 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.' 'The 14th Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens,' the justices said in a 6-2 ruling. The only stated exceptions are the children born to foreign diplomats or to soldiers of invading armies. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the ruling in 1982 and 1985, in decisions that approved citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. 'The president cannot rewrite the Constitution and contradict the Supreme Court's own holdings with the stroke of a pen,' California Attorney General Rob Bonta, and colleagues from 18 other states that challenged Trump's action, said in a statement after the hearing. Trump issued an executive order after taking office in January declaring an end to birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants and to parents temporarily visiting the United States. Federal judges in Washington state, Maryland and Massachusetts have ordered a nationwide halt to his order in lawsuits by Democratic-controlled states and the city of San Francisco and by immigrant-rights advocates. The issue in Thursday's hearing, and in other cases pending before the Supreme Court, is the scope of U.S. District Court judges' authority to block executive orders they consider unconstitutional. Allowing individual judges to issue nationwide injunctions 'encourages rampant court-shopping,' said Sauer, urging the court to allow only individuals who filed the suits to benefit from the rulings while they are being appealed. He also disputed the lower-court decisions that the states could show they were harmed by Trump's order and therefore had the right to challenge it on behalf of their residents. That was disputed by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court's three liberal members. 'When the (judge) says, 'Follow the law,' everybody in the world who is hurt by your not following the law benefits,' regardless of whether they filed the original lawsuit, she told Sauer. 'We are just doing what courts do, just telling institutions they have to stop doing something unlawful.' The states' lawyer, New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum, said, 'Our country has never allowed citizenship to vary based on the state in which one resides.' Unless the injunctions were applied nationally while the case was pending, he said, children and their families would rapidly migrate to states that recognized their citizenship, driving up costs and causing instability. But that only means that 'the practical problem would not be solved' by granting states legal standing to sue, said Justice Samuel Alito, another member of the court's conservative majority. And Kavanaugh said immigrant families could file class action lawsuits on behalf of those affected by the policy, rather than relying on nationwide injunctions. The cases are Trump v. Casa Inc., 24A884; Trump v. Washington, 24A885; and Trump v. New Jersey, 24A886. A ruling is due by the end of June.
