Ottawa compensates Siksika tribe Can$1.3 bn for taken land

MSN - AFP, 2 June 2022

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, pictured in March 2022, said Ottawa had
'acted dishonourably' in taking the Siksika community's land in 1910. © JOHN THYS

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday signed a Can$1.3 billion (US$1.0 billion) deal -- one of the largest of its kind -- to settle a Blackfoot tribe's century-old land claim. 

"We're gathered today to right a wrong from the past," Trudeau said at a signing ceremony on the Siksika First Nation's traditional lands in western Canada. 

The government took almost half of the tribe's reserve lands in Alberta province in 1910 to use for resources development and to sell to settlers. 

The land grab came even though the 115,000 acres (46,000 hectares) in the western prairies region had been secured for the community in a treaty 30 years earlier. 

Trudeau said Ottawa had "acted dishonourably" in taking the community's "most productive agricultural and mineral-rich lands for the benefit of others." 

Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller noted that the Siksika had lost out on a share of the wealth created from these lands, as well as access to many sacred sites. 

He said it was important to recognize such "exploitative bargains and lands surrenders." 

"While this settlement doesn't make up for the past, we hope it will lead to a better and brighter future for this generation and those to come," he added. 

Under the settlement, the Siksika may acquire over time lands for addition to their reserve, to make up for those surrendered in 1910. 

"Our way of life has changed. It will never be the same as it was before," said Siksika Chief Ouray Crowfoot, wearing a feather headdress. 

"This land claim, yeah, $1.3 billion, that's a lot of money. It'll never make it whole of what it was before. But we got to move forward," he said. 

The community, he added, is starting to see a revival of its culture and traditions, as well as the Blackfoot language -- now used on local road signage, for example. 

He also pointed to a nearby archeological dig that is unearthing artifacts dating back thousands of years that show the Blackfoot "survived on these plains since time immemorial." 

"We're a resilient people here at Siksika. We're overcoming and now we're not just surviving, we're moving into an era of thriving."

First global pact backing indigenous land rights launched

MSN – AFP, Marlowe HOOD, 3 October 2017

Provided by AFP Brazilian natives demonstrate in front of the Planalto Palace in
Brasilia, during the National Mobilization Week to protest and demand their rights, in 2015

Native peoples struggling to retain or regain stewardship of forests that sustained them for countless generations may finally have backing from an organisation with both swag and sway.

The International Land and Forest Tenure Facility -- the first and only global institution dedicated to securing the land rights of indigenous communities worldwide -- was formally launched in Stockholm on Tuesday.

Funded by Sweden, Norway and the Ford Foundation, a major US philanthropy, the Tenure Facility has already provided grants and guidance for pilot projects in Peru, Mali, and Indonesia, helping local communities leverage rarely enforced laws to protect their land and resources.

Disputes over land rights in tropical forests teeming with exploitable resources -- from hard woods to precious stones to oil -- can quickly escalate into deadly conflict, and local peoples more often than not wind up on the losing end.

More than 200 environmental campaigners, nearly half from indigenous tribes, were murdered around the world in 2016 alone, according to watchdog NGO Global Witness.

Restoring some measure of control to the original inhabitants of forests appropriated by corrupt governments or extraction industries has also proven an effective bulkhead against global warming, according to a 2014 global survey by the US-based World Resources Institute, a think tank.

In Brazil, for example, deforestation in indigenous community forests from 2000 to 2012 was less than 1 percent, compared with 7 percent outside those areas.

'Unrelenting conflicts'

Provided by AFP Representatives of indigenous communities and activists protest
in front of the Chinese Embassy in Lima, Peru, on September 22, 2017, to support the
Achuar, Kichwa and Quechua Amazonic tribes affected by oil industry activities on their
ancestral lands

Tropical vegetation soaks up planet-warming CO2 emitted by the burning of fossil fuels.

Destroying these forests outright not only reduces the area available to absorb carbon dioxide, it also releases CO2 into the atmosphere, accounting in recent decades -- along with agriculture and livestock -- for more than a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

"We see climate change and inequality as two of the greatest existential threats facing the planet," said Ford Foundation president Darren Walker.

"Creating mechanisms that allow indigenous peoples and local communities to gain tenure over their land or forests is a way to tackle both these problems," he told AFP ahead of a conference keyed to the launch.

Walker has pledged five million dollars, and expects -- based on other grants in the pipeline -- the facility to have 100 million within a year.

The project aims over the span of a decade to boost forestland properly titled to indigenous peoples by 40 million hectares, an area twice the size of Spain.

Such efforts, they calculate, would prevent deforestation of one million hectares and the release of 500 million tonnes of CO2, more than the annual emissions of Britain or Brazil.

"The Tenure Facility provides a powerful solution to save the world's forests from the ground up," said Carin Jamtin, director general of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, a key funder.

Corruption and abuses

More than two billion people live on and manage half the world's land area in customary or traditional systems, yet indigenous communities have formal legal ownership of only 10 percent.

And even where they do have title, corruption and abuses have led to protracted conflicts with local and national governments, companies and migrant workers.

Native populations can even run afoul of major green initiatives to fight climate change or stem biodiversity loss.

A controversial UN-backed programme, for example, known as REDD+ -- Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation -- creates incentives to keep forests intact, paid for by rich nations or companies seeking to offset pollution under carbon trading schemes.

But the projects that REDD+ finances can push aside the needs and rights of indigenous peoples who are often most directly affected by the changes set in motion, critics say.

A peer-reviewed 2013 study -- one of the few to examine the impacts on local communities -- concluded that less than half of 50-odd projects in Africa, Latin America and Asia did anything to alleviate the poverty of forest-dependent peoples.

But many did enhance their land tenure rights, they concluded.

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Indigenous peoples need better protection

The UN General Assembly is holding its first World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. Yvonne Bangert from the Society for Threatened Peoples is convinced that Germany needs to do more in this area.

Deutsche Welle, 22 Sep 2014

DW: When we talk about indigenous peoples, how many people are we talking about and in how many countries?

Yvonne Bangert: Various estimates exist, ranging from 350 to 400 million people. There are 7,000 indigenous peoples in total, across all continents. Most people think that there are no indigenous people left in Europe, but there are the Sami (pictured above), who are mainly in Norway.

Why do these ethnic groups need special protection?

Mainly because they are losing their land. It's worth pointing out that indigenous peoples often feel a close connection to the land and the soil they live on. They often talk about "Mother Earth" - which tells you a lot. It's important for their survival - in a spiritual as well as a physical sense - that they have their own land with a degree of autonomy.

But they are increasingly losing that land, as it often contains natural resources like oil, gas, coal and uranium, so there are economic interests there. They often have to defend themselves and have their backs to the wall. They often say "Our land is our supermarket and our church. If we lose it, we lose everything."

How do these people live? Are they reclusive, or perhaps living on reservations, or have some of them adapted to modern urban life?

There is a great variety, just like in the non-indigenous world. For example, in the rainforest areas along the Amazon, people have chosen to live an isolated life, but there are also peoples who live in both worlds - like the Huaorani in Ecuador or the Ashaninka in Brazil.

Among them, there is now a young generation of people who have a good education and who can both uphold the traditional ways of their communities and represent their interests politically and internationally.

As the Society for Threatened Peoples, we also often have guests from these indigenous groups who come to Germany and deal critically with development projects in their country. Through us, they hope to make contact with policymakers in Berlin.

There is the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, also known as ILO 169, which is meant to protect indigenous peoples. Why has it only been ratified by 22 countries?

We suspect that it is very strongly due to the fear that if the indigenous peoples are taken seriously as a negotiating partner on an equal footing, some economic projects can no longer be carried out as might be desired - as some politicians have argued openly, even here in Germany. There is then a fear of financial losses.

So far, Germany has not ratified the Convention either. What is the political mood at the moment?

We are working tirelessly toward the ultimate goal of German ratification. By this I mean not only the Society for Threatened Peoples, but an alliance of numerous NGOs, church aid agencies and other groups who have come together in the interest of ILO 169 and are lobbying for it together with receptive politicians.

There have been several times in the past when the German government was ready to ratify it, but it always failed because of a change of government. We have a good base of support with the SPD and the Greens, and it will surely not be long before the issue comes up again.

What is the German government now doing to ensure the protection of indigenous peoples?

It says that it is committed strongly to working at the UN level. I certainly believe that the colleagues there are working with a sense of goodwill. But there's still little sign that the interests of the affected people are taken seriously.

For example, there's the highly controversial Belo Monte dam in Brazil, where German companies are earning money by building the pipeline, as they are with the pipeline in Ecuador, which was partly finaced by German bank WestLB. The pipeline has burst several times and contaminated the soil.

Another matter is the negotiations on free trade agreements with Canada and the US: Whoever wants to import natural gas from fracking needs to know that this often takes place on Native American land.

This year, for the first time, a World Conference on Indigenous Peoples is being held at the United Nations in New York (22-23.09.2014). How did this come about?

The conference is taking place now because the UN's Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People comes to an end this year. It's a kind of closing conference, in which we will assess what has been achieved in the last 20 years, what goals we can still aspire to and how things should go from here in terms of organization.

What do you expect from this event? What are you hoping for?

The indigenous speakers are already voicing criticism about the way it has been organized. They wanted to take equal part in organizing it, but they are not sitting together with the others on the podium.

This is about their rights. They have complained that they feel excluded. And although this has happened, we can look on the bright side and hope that a mechanism can be found to allow the structures and working methods of the previous two decades to continue. Mechanisms already exist, but they must be further improved.

Yvonne Bangert works in the Office for Indigenous Peoples of the Society for Threatened Peoples in Göttingen, Germany.

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Israel estimates cost of Gaza conflict at £1.5bn

Education sector likely to be hardest hit as Binyamin Netanyahu seeks 2% cut to government spending to offset cost of Gaza war

theguardian.com, Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem, Sunday 31 August 2014

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is looking to reduce government
spending by 2% this year. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPA

Israel has been presented with a hefty bill for 50 days of war in Gaza, as the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, moved to slash government spending by 2% this year to offset the $2.52 bn (£1.51bn) cost of the conflict.

With only the Israeli military and domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet exempt from the sharp spending reductions, the area to be hit hardest emerged as the Israeli education system, with critics – including members of Netanyahu's cabinet – predicting that the poorest Israelis will feel the brunt of the cuts.

Among those protesting was the welfare minister, Meir Cohen, who insisted there was no more fat in his budget to trim.

"From whom will we take? From those who have nothing to put in their children's sandwiches for school?" he complained on Israeli army radio.

Amid estimates by some economic observers that the war may have cost Israel a decline of 0.5% in its growth in GDP, Netanyahu defended the stringent across-the-board cuts before a cabinet meeting in the country's south on Sunday, insisting: "Security comes first."

The proposed emergency budget reductions, amounting to about $561m, will help fund a sharp hike in the budget of Israel's armed forces and Shin Bet amid estimates that the latest round of fighting in Gaza cost Israel $50m for each day of the war.

The Israeli budget for this year – even before the war and the latest proposed cuts – had already heralded a bout of belt-tightening that had seen a fierce fight over spending cuts, later reversed, to the Israeli defence forces.

On the Palestinian side experts have estimated that the bill for reconstruction after the conflict could be upwards of $6bn and take 20 years to accomplish under the current Israeli and Egyptian restrictions on imports of building materials into Gaza.

The Israeli budget cuts come amid evidence that Israel's economy – which had already been slowing to a sluggish 1.7% growth in the second quarter of this year, including the key hi-tech sector – had been hard hit by the weeks of conflict, not least tourism.

Netanyahu has also been facing demands to increase the scope of an already large compensation package for southern Israeli communities close to the Gaza Strip.

Speaking ahead of the cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu insisted: "We are starting to fill in what is lacking in the defence budget, As we saw recently, defence comes before all else.

"We will start to fill in what is missing in the defence establishment. This reflects our understanding of the priorities, with security coming before all else. We did great things, but this requires us to roll up our sleeves to enable the IDF, the Israel security agency [Shin Bet], and the security services to continue to defend Israel effectively."

The new austerity programme – which had been anticipated – emerged amid continuing criticism by Israelis of Netanyahu and his government, whose approval has plummeted since a long-term cease fire with Hamas was agreed last week.

The scale of the cuts have been dictated by the insistence of Netanyahu's finance minister, Yair Lapid, that he will not raise taxes to cover any shortfall.

The disclosure of the scope and potential impact of the proposed cuts came as Israel announced on Sunday a land appropriation in the occupied West Bank that an anti-settlement group termed the biggest in 30 years and a Palestinian official said would cause only more friction after the Gaza war.

Four hundred hectares (988 acres) in the Etzion settlement bloc near Bethlehem were declared "state land, on the instructions of the political echelon" by the military-run civil administration.

Israel Radio said the step was taken in response to the kidnapping and killing of three Jewish teenagers by Hamas militants in the area in June. The notice published by the military gave no reason for the decision.

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Putin 'will help recover bodies, black boxes': Dutch PM

Yahoo – AFP, 20 July 2014

Dutch Prime minister Mark Rutte gives a press conference in The Hague, on
July 20, 2014, about the situation of the crashed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17
in eastern Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday promised Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte he will help retrieve bodies and black boxes from the Ukrainian rebel-held crash site of flight MH17.

Putin, who is believed to exert influence on the pro-Russia rebels, made the promise in his third conversation with Rutte since Thursday's crash, the Dutch government press service RVD said, amid growing international anger over the stranded bodies.

"Besides allowing unrestricted access to the crash site, the conversation focused on practical matters, namely the departure of the train that has many bodies and the handing over of the black boxes," a spokeswoman for the government press service RVD told AFP, asking not to be named.

"On both points Putin promised his full cooperation," the spokesman said.

Most of the 298 people on the Malaysia Airways flight, likely brought down by a pro-Russian rebel missile, were Dutch.

Around 200 bodies taken from the site in eastern Ukraine are being held in refrigerated trains nearby, pending the arrival of international investigators.

Ukrainian rebels have said that they have the black boxes, crucial in the crash investigation.

OSCE inspectors, part of the monitoring mission to Ukraine, document bodybags

 from MH17 in a refrigerated wagon at Torez train station, near the crash site,

on Sunday. Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA

Members of the security council vote on a resolution concerning access to the crash

site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 during a security council meeting at United

Nations headquarters, Monday, July 21, 2014. The resolution was adopted by a

unanimous vote. Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy,Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) -(Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

Florida jury slaps RJ Reynolds with $23.6 bn in damages

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Brazil 'to write off' almost $900m of African debt

BBC News, 25 May 2013

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Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff (L)
wants to boost trade with Africa

Brazil has announced that it will cancel or restructure almost $900m (£600m) worth of debt with Africa.

Oil- and gas-rich Congo-Brazzaville, Tanzania and Zambia are among the 12 African countries to benefit.

The move is seen as an effort to boost economic ties between the world's seventh largest economy and the African continent.

Official data in Brazil show that its trade with Africa has increased fivefold in the past decade.

The debt announcement was made during the third visit in three months to Africa by Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, who attended the African Union summit in Ethiopia.

'Strategic'

"Almost all (aid) is cancellation," Ms Rousseff's spokesman, Thomas Traumann, told reporters.

"To maintain a special relationship with Africa is strategic for Brazil's foreign policy."

He added that most of the debt was accumulated in the 1970s and had been renegotiated before.

A spokesman for Brazil's Foreign Ministry told Efe news agency that the debt restructuring for some countries would consist of more favourable interest rates and longer repayment terms.

Congo-Brazzaville owes the most to Brazil - $352m - followed by Tanzania ($237m) and Zambia ($113.4m).

The other countries to benefit are Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, and Sudan.

Resource-hungry

Brazil has been increasingly expanding its economic ties with resource-rich Africa as part of the so-called South-South cooperation.

Trade between the two blocks went from $5bn (£3.3bn) in 2000 to $26.5bn (£17.5bn) in 2012. 

Trade between Brazil and Africa has grown fivefold in the
 last decade, fuelled by South America's hunger for
natural resources

Brazilian companies invest heavily in oil and mining in Africa, and have taken on big infrastructure projects.

Latin America's economic powerhouse has also opened 19 new embassies in Africa in the last decade, and is forecast to grow 3.5 percent this year.

But Brazil's hunt for natural resources has not always been easy in Africa.

Last month, hundreds of protesters in Mozambique blocked the entrance to a Brazilian coal mine in a row over a compensation deal agreed after they were displaced.

Human Rights Watch, a rights group, said farming communities had been resettled on arid lands and had suffered food shortages.

The Brazilian giant Vale, which owns the mine, and the government of Mozambique said improvements were being made.

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version) 

“… The Future of the Illuminati

Now, I want to tell you something that you didn't expect and something I've reported only one other time. What about all of the money that the Illuminati has? There are trillions and trillions of euro in banks, under their control, waiting. What are they going to do with it and where are they going to use it? It's still here. They're waiting.

This group is waiting for something to happen that they know is going to happen, for they see it coming as much as I do. However, I would like to tell you something that they don't expect. With awareness comes generational shift. Those in charge of this money will not always be elders. The indigos eventually will have it.

They are waiting for something to happen in Africa - the building of a new civilization, a continent that has nothing to unlearn. Once Africa is cured, once it's ready, a new civilization can be created from the ground up. Africans will be ready to learn everything about building a foundation for the most advanced civilization ever and will do it with the most modern and inventive systems available. Eventually, this new continent will even beat the economics of China.

This is the prediction and always has been, and the Illuminati's money will fund it. Did I say the Illuminati will fund it? [Kryon laugh] The Illuminati's money will fund it, but there is a difference from the past, dear ones. The ones who inherit the positions in the Illuminati will be a different consciousness. Listen, they are not suddenly going to be the ones who have the good of everyone in their hearts - hardly. They want to make money, but what they will see instead is a way to make a great deal of money through this investment. In the process, it will automatically help hundreds of thousands, and they will be at the beginning, the foundation, that builds the new Africa. The new African states of unification eventually will create a continent stronger than any of the others, and it will have one currency. The resources alone will dwarf anything in the world. ...”

FBI arrest agent over bribery cover up claim in battle over $10bn mountain

Frenchman is accused destroying evidence of how an Israeli billionaire gained control of a mountain rich in iron ore in Guinea

The Guardian, Ian Cobain, Tuesday 16 April 2013

Simandou in Guinea. The mountain is said to contain iron ore worth $10bn.

A battle over one of the world's richest mineral deposits has taken a dramatic turn after the FBI announced the arrest of a representative of the billionaire businessman who had acquired it in deal that raised eyebrows, even within the buccaneering world of African mining.

The arrest follows years of bitter claim and counter-claim over Simandou, a mountain in the remote interior of the impoverished west African country of Guinea that is so laden with iron ore that its exploitation rights are valued at around $10bn.

Beny Steinmetz, one of the world's wealthiest men, acquired the rights to extract half the ore at Simandou by pledging to invest just $165m to develop a mine at the mountain. Shortly afterwards, he sold half of his stake for £2.5bn. It was hailed as the most stunning private mining deal for decades: the world's finest untapped iron ore deposit, one worth billions of dollars, had been snapped up for a song.

After the wind of democratic change swept through Guinea, however – and after the US justice department decided to mount an investigation into circumstances in which the glittering prize at Simandou changed hands – that deal was appearing to look distinctly less attractive.

On Sunday evening, Frederic Cilins, an agent for Steinmetz's company, was arrested in Jacksonville, Florida, after federal agents had covertly recorded a series of meetings. The recording shows, it is alleged, that Cilins plotted the destruction of documents which it is claimed could have shown the Simandou exploitation rights were acquired after millions of dollars were paid in bribes to Guinea government officials.

Unknown to either Steinmetz or Cilins, the FBI launched an investigation in January into whether payments allegedly made on behalf of Beny Steinmetz Group Resources, the Guernsey-registered mining arm of the tycoon's business empire that acquired the rights, were in breach of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

According to a statement by an FBI special agent that was filed at the southern district court of New York yesterday, Cilins had been under surveillance during four meetings at Jacksonville airport with an individual who, it is claimed, had agreed to help the agency mount a sting operation. Sources familiar with the investigation say that this person was Mamadie Toure, the widow of Lansana Conté, the dictator who ruled Guinea for 24 years until his death in 2008.

Cilins, a 50-year-old Frenchman, was arrested by FBI agents shortly after the final meeting. He appeared in court on Monday facing three charges: interfering with a witness, obstructing a federal criminal investigation and conspiring to destroy evidence in a federal criminal investigation. The charges carry a penalty of up to 20 years' imprisonment.

According to the FBI agent's filed statement – which did not name BSG Resources – Cilins had in the past offered to pay $12m in bribes in order to influence the award of mining concessions. He had also paid out several million dollars, and had called the meetings in order to arrange for the destruction of documents concerning bribe payments and mining concessions.

"Cilins repeated the word 'urgently' several times," the statement claims. "Cilins told the CW [co-operating witness] that Cilins was asked to be present in person to witness the documents being burned in order to guarantee that nothing is left behind."

The filed complaint states that a federal grand jury is investigating whether an unnamed mining company and its affiliates – on whose behalf it claims Cilins has been working – allegedly transferred into the United States bribery money for the valuable mining concessions in Simandou.

After Cilins was remanded in custody, Mythili Raman, the US acting assistant attorney general, said: "The justice department is committed to rooting out foreign bribery, and we will not tolerate criminal attempts to thwart our efforts." BSG Resources confirmed that Cilins had worked for the company. Asked about the arrest and the bribery allegations, a spokesman declined to comment.

While Cilins was flying to Jacksonville last week, Steinmetz was embarking on litigation at the high court in London, accusing Mark Malloch-Brown, the former Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister and deputy secretary general of the United Nations, of being involved in a smear campaign against BSG Resources. Malloch-Brown and FTI Consulting, the city PR firm he works for, deny the allegation.

Guinea, a former French colony, has almost half of the world's bauxite reserves and significant reserves of iron ore, gold and diamond reserves, but the majority of its 11 million people live in poverty as a result of years of corruption that has deterred many would-be investors.

The rights to extract iron ore from Simandou had been held by Rio Tinto until late 2008 when Conté stripped the Anglo-Australian mining giant of half its stake. Apparently, the president signed the necessary paperwork while on his deathbed, one of the final acts of his dictatorial government. BSG Resources then acquired those rights, agreeing in return to invest $165m to develop what it described as "a world-class integrated mining project".

In April 2010, Steinmetz negotiated to sell half his company's stake – a quarter of the mountain's ore – to Vale of Brazil, the world's biggest iron ore miner. BSG Resources and Vale formed a joint venture company called VBG which would produce around 2m tons of iron ore a year.

When Vale agreed to pay $2.5bn, one veteran of African mining was quoted in the financial press as saying that Steinmetz had hit "the jackpot". The 57-year-old Israeli tycoon was estimated by Forbes magazine to have a net worth of $4bn. But while Steinmetz's corporation defended the deal in which it acquired the rights, others were highly critical: the African telecoms billionaire Mo Ibrahim, for example, asked publicly: "Are the Guineans who did that deal idiots, or criminals, or both?"

When Guinea's first democratic government was elected later in 2010, Alpha Condé, the new president, began scrutinising the terms of several mining concessions granted under Conté's rule. He focused firmly on the Simandou deal.

With the assistance of one of his advisers, the wealthy investor and philanthropist George Soros, the new president assembled a team of investigators who, it is understood, have unearthed a number of documents that shed light on the way in which the Simandou deal had been sealed.

There were reports that a number of luxury gifts and payments had been made to relatives and associates of Lansana Conté, and to senior officials in the short-lived military dictatorship that followed his death. They included claims that a gold-and-diamond encrusted miniature Formula One car was given to a former government minister. BSG Resources responded to this allegation by saying that the car was worth no more than $2,000, and had been given to the mining ministry, not an individual, in a ceremony that was held in public.

Claims that Conté had been given a diamond-studded gold watch, and that a substantial commission – as much as $2.5m – had been made to his wife, Mamadie Toure, were flatly denied.

The development of the mine stalled after Conde's election. During talks between BSG Resources, Vale and the government of Guinea – which were held in London last month – it became clear that the Steinmetz group's control of the Simandou rights were under threat, a situation that the company described as "bizarre".

During the talks, the president of BSG Resources was barred from Guinea, and Vale told its business partner that it would not be paying the $2bn that was outstanding on the $2.5bn deal.

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EU deal to tackle mining corruption

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EU deal to tackle mining corruption

Google – AFP, 10 April 2013

Spanish coal miners demonstrate with their lamps lit through the streets

of the city of Leon, Spain, on June 12, 2012 (AFP/File, Cesar Manso)

BRUSSELS — EU legislators struck an anti-corruption deal Tuesday that aims to force big mining companies to make public the payments they make to governments where they operate, officials said.

Bargaining between EU member states and European Parliament MEPs delivered the deal focused on companies with turnovers of at least 40 million euros, total assets worth 20 million or 250 employees, European Union Markets Commissioner Michel Barnier said in a statement.

The agreement covers "disclosure requirements for the extractive industry and loggers of primary forests and on simpler accounting requirements for small companies."

Barnier, a former French foreign minister, said the extractive business was "far too often shrouded in secrecy", and that the new legislation would therefore "help fight tax evasion and corruption."

It "shows how EU legislation can be a catalyst for change in developing countries," he added, arguing that communities in resource-rich territories "will finally be better informed about what their governments are being paid by multinationals for exploiting oil and gas fields, mineral deposits and forests."

The Oxfam charity, which campaigns on behalf of developing countries, said the accord was to be welcomed.

"It's excellent news that the EU is moving towards a law that will help ordinary people harness the natural resource wealth of their countries to be lifted out of poverty," said Catherine Olier, Oxfam's EU development expert.

But at the same time, the "EU politicians today could have taken a bolder stance against tax evasion and corruption by including other sectors such as telecommunications or construction," Olier said in a statement.

"Strikingly, poor countries lose more to tax dodging than they receive in aid each year."

The accord must now go to be approved by the 27 EU member states.

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