Canadian mining company settles with Alaska Eskimos
Recent Cases
Canadian-based Teck Cominco Ltd. asked US District Court Judge John Sedwick Wednesday to approve a $120M settlement agreement with six Eskimo plaintiffs from the Alaskan village of Kivalino. The agreement stems from a 2002 lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Alaska by residents living near the company's Red Dog Mine, claiming the company - the world's second largest zinc producer - dumped more than the Clean Water Act's legal limit of toxic discharge into Red Dog Creek. Kivalino residents fish and draw their drinking water from the creek. The parties had initially given notice of a settlement agreement in May, but the plaintiffs allegedly changed their minds before filing a proposed settlement with the court.
Other mining companies elsewhere around the world have in recent years faced legal challenges, complaints and protests from indigenous and aboriginal groups claiming that mining activity has infringed their rights or their enjoyment of property. In July, the Philippines Commission on Human Rights announced it would investigate Australian mining company Oceana Gold for possible human rights violations at the site of a planned gold and copper mine in Didipio, Philippines. Also in July, the Court of Appeal for Ontario in Canada ruled that sentences imposed on seven aboriginal protesters in March for opposing mining company operations on community land were too severe.
Related listings
-
Wextrust Is A $225 Million Ponzi Scheme The SEC Says
Recent Cases 09/04/2008Joseph Shereshevsky, a felon, and his partner Steven Byers fraudulently raised $225 million from nearly 1,200 investors, the SEC claims in Federal Court. The SEC says the men are running a Ponzi scheme through Wextrust Capital, other Wextrust entitie...
-
Harass A Republican, Lose Your Phone
Recent Cases 09/02/2008Ramsey County has obtained an emergency order allowing it to order telephone companies to turn over the names and numbers of anyone who makes harassing phone calls during the Republican National Convention, and to cut off those people's phone service...
-
Racism Alleged In Bizarre Punishment
Recent Cases 08/28/2008Top administrators at a Camden middle school forced an entire bilingual class of Hispanic children to eat on the cafeteria floor for a week because one student accidentally spilled some water, and when the teacher complained, the principal and vice p...
Texas Adopts Statewide Texting-While-Driving Ban
Effective September 1, 2017, Texas will become the 47th state to pass a statewide ban on texting while driving. Governor Abbott’s signing of House Bill 62 is an effort to unify Texas under a uniform ban and remedy the “patchwork quilt of regulations that dictate driving practices in Texas.”
The bill specifically prohibits drivers from reading, writing, or sending an electronic message on a device unless the vehicle is stopped. That includes texting and emailing. It does not, however, prohibit dialing a number to call someone, talking on the phone using a hands-free device, or using the phone’s GPS system.
Violations would be punishable by a fine ranging from $25 to $99, to be set by each municipality. Although penalties could rise to as much as $200 for repeat offenders.
Studies have found that a driver’s reaction time is half as much when a driver is distracted by sending or reading a text message. According to state officials, in 2015 more than 105,000 traffic accidents in Texas involved distracted driving, leading to at least 476 fatalities.