THE GREAT PLANE ROBBERY: DRAMATIC GOLD HEIST AT THE MULATOS MINE / 7 Geotech_Earlug_2016_Alt2.pdf 1 2016-06-24 4:27:20 PM
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South America divided on coronavirus measures DEBATE
| Future mining projects in question as demand craters
BY KELSEY ROLFE
S
Special to The Northern Miner
outh American countries have taken varying approaches to containing the spread of COVID-19, ranging from leaving it to states and cities to handle the virus to implementing aggressive lockdowns and curfews that have forced mining companies to reduce or shutter their operations. While all have moved in recent
weeks to deal with the disease, some countries are seeing more success than others. Argentina has already started to bend its curve thanks to early and aggressive shutdown measures. The country, which had its first confirmed case in early March, first closed its borders and suspended schools on March 15. Four days later, centreleftist President Alberto Fernández See SOUTH AMERICA / 8
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and Minister of the Economy Paulo Guedes. CREDIT: MARCOS CORRÊA/PALACIODOPLANALTO
Russia slams Trump order to mine Moon, asteroids
PM40069240
SPACE MINING
| U.S. opens door to commercial resource extraction of celestial bodies
BY CECILIA JAMASMIE
R
MINING.COM
ussia’s space agency Roscosmos has condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s order that encourages citizens to mine the moon and other celestial bodies for commercial purposes. The government body likened the policy to colonialism and said it “hardly sets the countries to fruitful cooperation.” “There have already been examples in history when one country decided to start seizing territories in its interest — everyone remembers what came of it,” Roscosmos deputy general director for international cooperation, Sergey Saveliev, said in a statement. Trump’s order classifies outer space as a “legally and physically unique domain of human activity” instead of a “global commons,” paving the way for mining the moon without any sort of international treaty. “Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration,
recovery, and use of resources in outer space,” the document states, noting that the U.S. had never signed a 1979 agreement known as the Moon Treaty. This agreement stipulates that any activities in space should conform to international law. This is not the first time the U.S. addresses space mining by issuing a law. In 2015, the U.S. Congress passed a bill explicitly allowing companies and citizens to mine, sell and own any space material. That piece of legislation included a very important clause, stating that it did not grant “sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any celestial body.” The section ratified the Outer Space Treaty, signed in 1966 by the U.S., Russia, and a number of other countries, which states that nations can’t own territory in space. Trump has taken a consistent interest in asserting American power in space, forming the Space Force within the U.S. military last year See SPACE MINING / 8
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