Friday, September 14, 2012

Blog #3- To Mine or Not To Mine? - 9/14/12 Steven Sciacchitano

South African Marikana workers disappointingly turn down a low payment offer from the world's biggest platinum producers while Mongolia miners suffer to help their country prosper. Miners working for huge corporations like Xstrata an Anglo American Platinum (Amlpats) receive minimal payment while under lax environmental conditions and very detrimental living sustainability. Currently, miners are known for extracting core materials and resources to help produce income and increase economic growth for their nation. 
In Marikana, the military is on high alert due from the increasingly amount of strikes and murder. The National Union of Miners (NUM) is concerned about the amount of violence and the number of job losses within the mining sector. Workers in Mongolia seem to be increasing, but have developed some kind of lung disease which could possibly be inherited due to the amount of dust traveling through the air. Just like Marikana, water supply is diminishing and electricity is only allowed to be used at a bare minimum, "The development is inexorably altering the area, for good and ill" (Khanbogd Journal). 
           While the South African Marikana workers purpose a general strike because their demands are not met, Mongolia workers are living off of lower than $2 (U.S) and have experienced the destruction of their home land. Mongolian workers are trapped under an economic resource filtration in order to support their families. Many workers used herd goats and sheep for their basic income, but now since the mining companies have destroyed their land there is no way out of this misery, but to only help their nation prosper in dust. The land was an unlimited resource for them to make cheese, milk and other foods, but mining is limitedly destroying their ultimate resource for herding their animals. Many of the workers see this as an introduction to prosperity for their nation because the mining companies are helping get the most out of their resources which ultimately brings them an expanding economy by thirty five percent and will potentially double their exports.


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