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Panama Explodes With Protests Against Canadian Copper Mine

Unions on strike. School classes cancelled. Workers, teachers and indigenous groups are in the streets. They’re protesting the government’s approval of a renegotiated contract with a Canadian mining firm for the operation of Central America’s largest open-pit copper mine.  The copper mine is run by Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, with investors including the Chinese state,…

Written by

Michael Fox

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Originally Published in

Unions on strike. School classes cancelled. Workers, teachers and indigenous groups are in the streets. They’re protesting the government’s approval of a renegotiated contract with a Canadian mining firm for the operation of Central America’s largest open-pit copper mine.  The copper mine is run by Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, with investors including the Chinese state, the U.S. Capital Group, Fidelity, Vanguard, and BlackRock, among many others. It has been in production since 2019, and extracting 300,000 tons of copper a year. But two years ago, Panama’s Supreme Court ruled that the state contract with the mine was unconstitutional, because it did not serve the public good. The contract was renegotiated. This one, government officials said, was a huge improvement, offering windfall profits for the state. Last week, it was fast-tracked through Congress and signed into law by the president.