Lihir Gold has reported a 26% rise in annual gold production to 882,000
\nounces and forecast output this year would exceed 1 million ounces as new
\nmines in Africa and Australia are fully developed.<\/p>\n
Armed police guarded cinemas in eastern India after slum dwellers ransacked
\na picture house showing Slumdog Millionaire because they didn’t like the
\nuse of the word “dog” in the title.<\/p>\n
Seven officers were hurt in an attack and the blame is being attributed to
\nthe illegal home-brew alcohol known as kwaso.<\/p>\n
Expectations for a higher gold yield come despite a landowner wrangle over
\nroyalties at the company’s main mine in Papua New Guinea that brought it to
\na standstill.<\/p>\n
Several hundred people rampaged through the cinema in Patna, capital of the
\neastern state of Bihar and tore down posters advertising the film. They
\nsaid the title was humiliating and vowed to continue their protests until
\nit was changed.<\/p>\n
Around 1500 litres of the brew was seized but that is considered to be only
\na tiny drop in a very big ocean.<\/p>\n
Lihir chief executive Arthur Hood said he was hoping for a quick resolution
\nthat would enable the mine to restart but conceded he did not know how long
\nit would take. “I’d like to think we could get back to work in the next day
\nor so, but I’ve worked in Papua New Guinea a long time and these things are
\nalways a little bit unpredictable,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n
The protest was organised by Tateshwar Vishwakarma, a social activist who
\nfiled a lawsuit over the title against four Indians involved in its
\nproduction – a lead actor, the music director and two others.<\/p>\n
The explosion of the illegal trade, which results in potentially volatile
\nsituations, is not easy for the police trying to contain it.<\/p>\n
The dispute involves local islanders in the province of New Ireland, about
\n700 kilometres north-east of the capital Port Moresby, who want a bigger
\nshare of the mine’s revenues.<\/p>\n
Mr Hood said the company was already paying a 2% royalty to islanders on
\nall gold produced at the mine as well as awarding supply contracts worth
\nmillions of dollars to local firms.<\/p>\n
“Referring to people living in slums as dogs is a violation of human
\nrights,” said Mr Vishwakarma, who works for a group promoting the rights of
\nslum dwellers. We will burn Danny Boyle [the film’s British director]
\neffigies in 56 slums here.”<\/p>\n
“The police can only do so much. We have a licensing squad of about 12
\nmembers and the community, chiefs and religious people have to get stuck in
\ntoo,” says Peter Marshall, Solomons Acting Police Commissioner.<\/p>\n
“Last year we were looking at about $US130 million ($195 million) worth of
\nour supply contracts going to Lihirians,” he said.<\/p>\n
The case will be heard in a Patna court, according to police. Kishori Das,
\nanother activist, said: “We are in touch with like-minded organisations
\nacross India to take the issue on a large scale.”<\/p>\n
Prime Minister John Key visited Honiara to assess New Zealand’s role in the
\nregional assistance mission and he says it will be some time before NZ
\nassistance in the islands can be pulled out. “At least three to five years
\nand it could in all probability be longer than that,” Key says.<\/p>\n
The overall increase in the company’s gold production was boosted by a
\nrecord yield of 315,000 ounces in the fourth quarter, Mr Hood said. It cost
\non average $US400 to mine each ounce in 2008 but only $US353 per ounce for
\nthe fourth quarter, he said. “This is exactly where we want to be,” he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Social, political and religious activists in India often organise violent
\nprotests over films to try to win publicity for their cause. In 1996, Fire,
\na film about lesbianism, enraged Hindu fundamentalists who burnt down
\nseveral cinemas. In 2000, production of Water, a film about Hindu
\nwidowhood, was moved from India to Sri Lanka after violence by Hindu
\nnationalists.<\/p>\n
An organised gang member who agreed to talk on the condition of anonymity
\nsays the gangs sell 60-70 litres of kwaso a day. The sellers, mostly in
\nvillage based gangs, take a quarter of the takings.<\/p>\n
Gold currently sells for around $US900 an ounce. The Lihir mine produced
\n247,000 ounces in the last quarter, taking full year production to 771,000
\nounces.<\/p>\n
Slumdog Millionaire, which recently opened in India has been generally well
\nreceived, especially since it won four Golden Globes and 10 Oscar
\nnominations – including one for AR Rahman, the veteran composer.<\/p>\n
Police believe the potent home-brew is fuelling violence and crime.<\/p>\n
In the fourth quarter some 22% of the company’s gold was derived from
\nnewly-developed mines in Australia and Ivory Coast, reflecting efforts to
\ngeographically diversify operations, according to Mr Hood.<\/p>\n
However, some reviewers, commentators and film industry insiders have
\ncriticised it as “poverty porn” which glamourises the squalor of slums and
\nperpetuates Western stereotypes of India.<\/p>\n
A carton of beer costs around 165 Solomon dollars but for the same effect
\nyou can buy a bottle of kwaso for just $10. A small joint of marijuana
\ncosts 50 cents (NZ$).<\/p>\n
There had been no violence against employees or vandalism at the Lihir mine
\nsite stemming from the dispute, he said.<\/p>\n
About 40 Mumbai slum dwellers, organised by another social activist, held
\nup banners reading “Poverty for Sale” and “I am not a dog” outside the home
\nof Anil Kapoor, one of the film’s stars.<\/p>\n
Many sellers say they do so for survival as the Solomon Islands are filled
\nwith a lot of young unemployed people.<\/p>\n
Lihir’s shares were up 4% at $3.15 in early afternoon trade, outpacing a
\ngain of 1% in the benchmark S&P\/ASX 200 index. Analysts expect Lihir to
\nreport 2008 net profit of $US135 million, against a $US24 million loss in
\n2007.<\/p>\n
Amitabh Bachchan, the veteran Bollywood star, also caused a stir when he
\naccused the film in his blog of portraying India as a “third-world, dirty,
\nunderbelly developing nation”. Mr Bachchan has since apologised to Mr
\nBoyle, but was conspicuously absent from the film’s star-studded premiere
\nin Mumbai.<\/p>\n
“Money is very hard to come by and the making of kwaso is an easy way of
\nmaking money,” says Marshall<\/p>\n
After selling $1.2 billion in shares in 2007 to close out an unprofitable
\ngold hedge book, Mr Hood said the company was now benefiting from exposure
\nto rising prices of gold, one of the few commodities not ravaged by the
\nfinancial crisis.<\/p>\n
Mr Kapoor, who grew up in a Mumbai slum, has denied that “slumdog” is
\noffensive, saying that children from the slums are called many worse things
\nin India. Simon Beaufoy, the screenwriter, said last week: “I just made up
\nthe word. I liked the idea. I didn’t mean to offend anyone.” Two hours
\nafter opening, the pediatric waiting room at All India Institute of Medical
\nSciences is like the anteroom to hell. Families, anxious, restless, sweaty
\nin the soupy air, cram into plastic chairs, crouch in corners, crowd
\ndoorways, clog up aisles. Cries jangle off the ceiling. Feces litter the
\nfloor. Signs in the corridor attempt to impose order on the chaos:<\/p>\n
Don’t spit.<\/p>\n
Don’t feed the monkeys.<\/p>\n
Don’t pay bribes.<\/p>\n
“I think gold will remain very strong,” he said, adding that a weak US
\ndollar and the requirements for a flight to quality were keeping the yellow
\nmetal from falling.<\/p>\n
This overstretched government hospital and medical college treats about
\n4-million people a year. It’s also one of a growing number of Indian
\nhospitals that use their patients to gather data on experimental drugs
\ndestined for Western markets. It recently was revealed that 49 children
\nhave died during clinical trials at the institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lihir Gold has reported a 26% rise in annual gold production to 882,000 ounces and forecast output this year would exceed 1 million ounces as new mines in Africa and Australia are fully developed. Armed police guarded cinemas in eastern India after slum dwellers ransacked a picture house showing Slumdog Millionaire because they didn’t like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[6,8,14,16,22,25,30,35,42,45],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}