Survival International appeals to UN to stop bauxite mine in Orissa

October 12th, 2009 LONDON - The British Government today blasted FTSE-100 company Vedanta Resources over its treatment of the Dongria Kondh tribe in Orissa, India. The damning verdict came after a nine month investigation into a complaint submitted by Survival International against Vedanta's proposed bauxite mine on the Dongria Kondh's sacred mountain.

October 9th, 2009 CHANGSHA - Twenty-six miners were killed when two lifts plunged into a tin ore mine in central China's Hunan province, rescuers said. Rescuers said Thursday that 19 miners were killed on the spot.

September 30th, 2009 LONDON - A diamond the size of a chicken egg and worth an estimated 12 million pounds has been found at the Cullinan mine northeast of Pretoria. One of the world's biggest-ever sparklers - a 507.55-carat whopper - was showed off by mining group Petra Diamonds' chief executive Johan Dippenaar.

September 29th, 2009 JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's Cullinan mine, the source of the world's biggest diamond, has produced yet another unusually large, high-quality diamond, the mining company that made the find announced Tuesday. Petra Diamonds said the 507-carat gem was found alongside three more rough diamonds found at the mine Sep 24.

September 24th, 2009 LA PAZ - Peasants in the southwestern Bolivian province of Oruro have taken over a gold mine to demand a share of the revenues generated by the operation, a media report said. The protesters say the operator of the Kori Kollo mine, Empresa Minera Inti Raymi S.A., should compensate them for alleged environmental damage and for the use of ancestral lands and should also provide stable employment for area residents.

September 18th, 2009 WARSAW - Seven miners were killed and about 30 suffered burns in a fire in the Wujek coal mine in southern Poland, media reports said Friday. Rescuers were attempting to save one miner who remained underground after the accident in the country's coal-rich Silesia region.

September 18th, 2009 WARSAW - Twelve miners were killed and some 16 were hospitalised with burns after a fire in the KWK Wujek Slask coal mine in southern Poland, media reports said Friday. Fifteen miners were seriously injured, TVN 24news broadcaster reported.

September 8th, 2009 ZHENGZHOU - A fire broke out Wednesday morning in a gold mine in central China's Henan province, trapping 13 miners including seven who had gone to rescue them, authorities said. The fire has not been brought under control, according to the city's coal mine industry bureau.

July 28th, 2009 LONDON - British mining giant Vedanta said Tuesday it is going ahead with plans to mine a bauxite-rich hillside in Orissa considered sacred land by local tribals, and urged two international NGOs to give up their protest campaign. "We are proceeding with the mining plans but there are still a few permissions that need to be granted," Zoe Watt, a spokeswoman for Vedanta Resources, told IANS after a high-profile protest at the Annual General Meeting of shareholders in London Monday.

July 24th, 2009 LONDON - Repeated protests by tribal people in Orissa, India, have blocked the mining plans of one of Britain's biggest companies, leading to a costly delay. Anil Agarwal, billionaire chairman (and majority owner) of Vedanta Resources, announced in January that its massive bauxite mine in the Niyamgiri Hills would start 'in a month or two', but men and women of the Dongria Kondh tribe, furious at the planned destruction of their mountain top, have blocked roads and refused to allow the company's diggers to pass.

July 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The US defence department is sending thousands of mine-proof vehicles to Afghanistan to protect its troops from improvised explosive devices, officials said. More than 3,000 such vehicles have been shipped to Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Thursday.

June 17th, 2009 JAKARTA - The toll in a coal mine blast in Indonesia reached 32 Wednesday, with one miner still trapped in a 150-metre shaft and feared dead, officials said. On Wednesday afternoon, rescuers pulled four more bodies from the West Sumatra mine, which collapsed after an explosion of methane gas the previous day, said Rustam Pakaya, head of the health ministry's crisis centre in Jakarta.

June 2nd, 2009 JOHANNESBURG - The toll in one of the worst mining accidents in South Africa in recent years rose to 67 Tuesday as more bodies of illegal miners who died at a gold mine in Free State province were brought to the surface. The police said 25 more bodies had been recovered from Harmony Gold Mining Company's Eland mine Tuesday.

May 31st, 2009 CHONGQING - The death toll from a gas explosion at a coal mine in China's southwesten Chongqing region rose to 30 as rescuers recovered five more bodies, authorities said Sunday. The accident occurred at 11 a.m.

April 17th, 2009 LONDON - Comedian Will Ferrell is certainly a survivor after successfully making it through British adventurer Bear Grylls' wilderness adventure show 'Man vs. Wild', on which he even drank his own urine.