Monday, September 13, 2004
Toledo’s Numbers Rise: Canada's Centre for Public Opinion and Democracy reviews the new Datum Internacional poll showing public support for Alejandro Toledo has increased in Lima. According to the poll, "15% of respondents in Lima and El Callao approve of the president’s performance, an 8% increase since June." (The poll does not seem readily available on Datum's site.)
Toledo in DC Again: A press release announces President Toledo will be at the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian (part of the Smithsonian Institution) on September 21. Today's Washington Post leads into their story on the new museum with this: "More than 500 years ago a Chimu Indian living in Peru hammered a sheet of gold into a mask. For centuries, few people have seen this object. But in eight days, visitors will [view it at]the National Museum of the American Indian opens on the Mall." The USA State Department's Washington File also offers a story on the museum.
Toledo in DC Again: A press release announces President Toledo will be at the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian (part of the Smithsonian Institution) on September 21. Today's Washington Post leads into their story on the new museum with this: "More than 500 years ago a Chimu Indian living in Peru hammered a sheet of gold into a mask. For centuries, few people have seen this object. But in eight days, visitors will [view it at]the National Museum of the American Indian opens on the Mall." The USA State Department's Washington File also offers a story on the museum.
War of the Pacific via Fishing: MercoPress reports that Peru and Chile "are again at odds over maritime borders which directly affect fisheries. Chile officially reiterated this week that it will not reconsider its position regarding maritime borders in spite of Peruvian decision to seek international arbitration." CITED: Soledad Alvear, Chile’s Foreign Secretary and Chilean Congressmnan Jorge Tarud. ALSO: A story in El Comercio said that "the Peruvian Foreign Affairs release actually referred to the International Tribunal of The Hague, which was specifically mentioned almost two months ago when Peru proposed maritime border talks to Chile."
Free Trade Talks: Reuters interviews Peru's Deputy Foreign Trade Minister Pablo de la Flor who states that Peru "will fight to keep duty-free U.S. access for the vegetable at talks on a U.S.-Andean free-trade treaty this week [saying] 'We will ask the United States to improve its (agricultural) offer and in particular to include asparagus, which is of great interest to Peru, among products which will have duties lifted immediately." NOTE: De la Flor suggests that "the initial U.S. proposal, which is part of their strategy of negotiation, is to keep our asparagus hostage until the end in order to obtain immediate duty-free status for those products that they consider a priority." ALSO: "Peru wants duty-free status for its sensitive products -- such as rice, cotton, corn, wheat and sugar -- plus mechanisms to compensate for trade distortions caused by U.S. subsidies."
Port Unions Question Development: BNAmericas reports that "port workers union FENTENAPU predicts that Peru's national port development plan will create conflict between regional and national authorities given its bias toward private-sector interests," according to the union's general secretary Adolfo Granadino. NOTE: Fentenapu "recieved a pre-publication copy of the national port authority's (Autoridad Portuaria Nacional) 397-page plan Friday. ... Under the plan, regional port authorities are to be created for the south, north, center and east regions of Peru that would in effect "liquidate" the central administration of the Empresa Nacional de Puertos del Perú (ENAPU)."
Peruvian Pain: The BBC runs a story on Peruvian suffering - - in football and focuses mainly on Coach Paulo Autori who "refuses to talk to the Peruvian media - a stance he intends to maintain while he holds his current job, which may not be for very long."
Peruvian Ex-Pats in Japan: The Miami Herald runs an older Associated Press piece on remittances from Japan to Peru where "foreign workers in Japan have become an economic juggernaut back home." CITED: Armando Ouchida, executive director of Convenio Kyodai, a cooperative that many of Japan's 52,000 Peruvians.
Petro-Tech Gets Ex-Im Money: An Export-Import Bank press release and the Houston Business Journal report that Petro-Tech Peruana, the Peruvian subsidiary of Houston-based oil and gas services company Petro-Tech International, "was awarded a $15.9 million credit facility Monday by the Export-Import Bank of the United States," according to said Bank Chairman Philip Merrill. NOTE: "The credit will enable Petro-Tech Peruana S.A. to procure goods and services from a variety of U.S. companies for oil and gas exploration and development off Peru's northern coast."
Strike At Southern Over? Trying to get on both labour and management sides of the work dispute at Souther Copper, Reuters reports that about 1,500 miners "ended a 13-day stoppage over pay demands [today] after failing to win a raise, but vowed to strike again in 30 days if the company did not grant them a salary hike," according to Clemente Trujillo, who was quoted as he entered the Toquepala pit to start to work. However, Guillermo Panca, secretary general at the Toquepala union, said "We will only go back to work for 30 days, because our strategy is to hold a truce with Southern to regroup and negotiate a salary increase." Reuters also offers management's side and reports that Southern Peru Copper Corp. "is still hoping to meet its 2004 output target despite a 13-day pay strike that halved production," according to Southern President Oscar Gonzalez. NOTE: "Gonzalez said production at Southern Peru's mines fell to half of normal levels during the strike to around 150,000 tonnes a day. But sales were not affected because the company was able to draw on inventories at the company's smelter in Ilo on the southern coast, which was not involved in the strike." ALSO: "[N]o pay negotiations could begin until miners' current contracts expire in May 2007." Earlier: Reuters reports that strike at Southern is 'over.' Bloomberg quotes an analyst on copper saying that "Supply disruption at mines in Turkey and Peru are keeping sentiment bubbling along." See Also: 'Strike at Southern' in Setpember 2's Peruvia.
Newmont's Troubles: A Boston Globe editorial charges Newmont Mining Corp with unethical disposal practices that affect human populations with gold mining dross like arsenic, mercury, and lead. Though the editorial focuses on Indonesia (and refers to a recent New York Times piece on Newmont's work there), it also states that "in Peru last Friday, farmers blocked a highway to stop exploration by Newmont in an area where several hundred people had to be treated for a mercury spill in 2000." Separately, EthicalCorporation.com reports that "Newmont gold dispute in Peru is near resolution." NOTE: The blocking of the highway in Cajamarca has been going on for over a week.
MORE MINING:
- Galaxy Minerals announced in a press release that their Culebrillas Gold Mine situated in the Pataz Gold Belt of Northern Peru "has a potential Gold Resource in excess of 3,000,000 ounces, based upon independent historical data calculations."
- Fluor Corporation announced in a press release that it had begun "construction on the first smelter modernization of its kind in South America. The smelter is owned by Southern Peru Copper Corporation ... [and] when complete, the Ilo smelter will be the first modernized copper smelter in South America to use ISASMELT technology (by Xstrata Plc)."
- Shane Resources announced in a press release that they have "acquired 50% interest in a 100-hectare gold property in Peru. The purchase price is $120,000 and will close on Oct. 1, 2004. To date, the vein has averaged one metre in width for a length of over 30 metres, and is averaging assays of 29 grams per tonne."
- BNAmericas and Canadian Press report that Toronto-based Canadian Shield Resources "has signed an agreement to buy 44.7% of the company which operates the Poderosa gold mine in La Libertad."
People:
- The Miami Herald notes the presence of Consul General of Peru Jose Marcos Rodriguez Chacon at Amika, "a new lounge on South Beach, for the unveiling of this year's Miami Book Fair International poster." The Book Fair is in November.
- College Sports reports on Valeria Tipiana, a Peruvian and University of Miami senior on their volleyball team who was named to the Furama Hotel Invitational All-Tournament team.
- Reuters reports that it was Peruvian photographer Mario Testino who took the official pic of Prince Harry's 20th birthday.
- An Associated Press report from Florida on cheap internet-based telephone calls, leads with used-car dealer Jorge Chavez, "sitting in his office on a used car lot in Hollywood, picks up the phone and dials his sister in Peru. Nothing unusual about that - except that the call went out over the Internet, sounded as clear as if he had been calling Fort Lauderdale, and cost just a few pennies."
Tragedy on the Cotahuasi: Scotland's The Herald offers a sad story on Sarah Jones, a British tourister who died while white-water rafting on the Cotahuasi River in May of 2000. Her parents have now authored a book on losing a child in a different country titled, 'First Year, Worst Year: Coping with the unexpected death of our grown-up daughter.' You can read the first chapter here.
AeroContinente Bashing? The Arizona Republic runs a column that begins like this: "American Express saved me from a Peruvian drug lord." The backstory is that the author purchased tickets on Aero Continente in April and tried to cancel the charge in June (which American Express did). The author suggests that the lesson is somehow on "why you should avoid foreign narcotic kingpins."
US Gov’t Official in Peru on Iraq: Iraq Procurement.com reports on the talk that US Under Secretary of the Treasury John Taylor gave at the Central Reserve Bank of Peru last Tuesday on "how the United States has helped Iraq introduce a new unified and stable currency to replace the two separate currencies used before the toppling of former dictator Saddam Hussein."
|
