Thursday, September 20, 2007



By Steven Milloy



Is billionaire investor George Soros using environmental pressure
groups to block a gold-mining project for his own financial
benefit?



Last week the Romanian government suspended the environmental
review process for Canadian company Gabriel Resources' proposed
gold-mining project in the Transylvanian village of Rosia
Montana.



The ostensible reason for the suspension was a court challenge
filed by the local anti-development activist group and the
U.S.-based Open Society Institute about some paperwork unrelated
to the environmental review.



As discussed previously in this column and in the documentary
"Mine Your Own Business," controversy over the mine has been
fabricated by what has seemed to be a leaderless and slapdash
international collection of green non-governmental organizations,
or NGOs, all oddly focused on this one mining project in a remote
part of eastern Europe.



But the curtain is rising on the NGOs' efforts to stop the mine
and it seems that Soros, through the Open Society Institute he
chairs, may be at the controls for reasons that have little to do
with protecting the environment.



A leaked October 2006 internal memo from an eastern European
branch of Soros' Open Society Institute pleads for help from
other central and eastern European NGOs to pressure the Romanian
government to stop the Rosia Montana mine, which the memo
emphatically (and bizarrely) refers to as a "resource curse."



The memo says the Rosia Montana project "could become a landmark
case for keeping bad government in check" where "bad government,"
according to the tone of the memo, seems to mean any action of
which Open Society disapproves.



Could this memo reflect nothing more than overzealous underlings
acting without Soros' personal approval and direction? That
explanation seems unlikely given Soros' April 17, 2007, letter to
Wayne Murdy, the chairman and CEO of Newmont Mining Corp., a
corporate shareholder in Gabriel Resources.



In the letter, Soros pressures Murdy to use Newmont's shareholder
status to, in turn, pressure Gabriel Resources. "I feel it is my
duty to advise you to consider carefully any further involvement
with Gabriel Resources and the Rosia Montana project," Soros
wrote.



This advice came with a not-so-veiled threat to Newmont's
reputation: "I understand that Newmont is committed to the
highest standards of environmental management, employee health
and community safety. An investment in a dubious project such as
Rosia Montana should not be allowed to call such admirable
commitments into question," Soros closed the letter.



But what's really dubious is the game Soros seems to be playing.



The Rosia Montana is a project that is designed to comply with
all European and international standards and will include a
voluntary clean-up of a nearby mine that was in operation from
the time of the Roman Empire until the fall of the communist
Romanian government at the end of the Cold War. But while Soros
and his NGO minions bemoan the proposed Rosia Montana mine, Soros
has his own extensive mining interests.



According to a review by MineWeb.com, U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission filings indicate that the Soros Fund owns $25
million worth of stock in the Aluminum Corporation of China and
more than $40 million of stock in several gold-mining companies.



It's quite possible that Soros' mining interests are even more
extensive since the filings do not cover his personal investments
and other investments that don't require reporting to the SEC.



While Soros noted in his letter to the Newmont CEO that the
Romanian legislature was considering a ban on the use of cyanide
in mining, Soros recently purchased an interest in Gabriel
Resources' competitor Goldcorp, which uses cyanide in its mining.



Soros' criticism of Gabriel Resources' use of cyanide is even
more bizarre given that the standard for cyanide in mining waste
under which the Rosia Montana project would operate is about 10
times stricter than the Nevada state standard under which
Goldcorp operates.



The Soros groups in Romania oppose the relocation of part of the
village of Rosia Montana, yet no similar opposition appeared when
a village was moved so that the Soros-owned mining company Apex
Silver could develop the San Cristobal mine in Bolivia in the
1990s.



What's with all this hypocrisy on the part of Soros? Could it be
that the estimated $10 billion in gold that might be extracted
from Rosia Montana would put downward pressure on gold prices and
adversely impact Soros' gold investments?



Is it possible that Soros is trying to torpedo Gabriel Resources'
project so that one of his own mining interests can take over the
Rosia Montana mine?



I would have liked to ask George Soros these questions, but a
call to the Open Society Institute was not returned.



Soros' shenanigans aside, none of this inspires confidence in the
Romanian government, which needs foreign direct investment to
fuel much-needed economic growth.



Although Gabriel Resources so far has complied with the rule of
law, the Romanian government nevertheless seems to have bowed
temporarily, at least to pressure from Soros-led NGOs.



This action should give serious pause to Western companies
contemplating investing in Romania.



Despite compliance with applicable standards and substantial
direct investments, Western companies may well find themselves in
a "Banana Republic" atmosphere where the rule of law is
disregarded, anti-development activists fronting for outside
special interests call the shots and anything goes.



Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He
is a junk science expert, and advocate of free enterprise and an
adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.




-- 

Regards

Bonzo

"The track record of any kind of long-distance prediction is
really bad, but everyone's still really interested in it. It's
sort of a way of picturing the future. But we can't make
long-term predictions of the economy, and we can't make long-term
predictions of the climate," Dr. Orrell, author and
mathematician, University College London

"HangEveryRepubliKKKan"  wrote
>> 1998 14.57  *********************o*****
>> 1999 14.33  *****************>>>>o
>> 2000 14.33  *****************>>>>>o
>> 2001 14.48  ************************o
>> 2002 14.56  *************************o**
>> 2003 14.55  **************************o*
>> 2004 14.49  *************************>>o
>> 2005 14.63  *****************************o**
>> 2006 14.54  ***************************>>>o
>>
>>   Look at all those "o"'s lined up there.

"Bonzo"  wrote
> The "0"'s are NOT THE DATA!
> They have created a trend which does not exist in the data.
> Voodoo statistics!

  Ahahahahahahahahaha... Stupid KKKonservative KKKlown. A trendline skirts
across the top of the data leaving equal portions of the data above and
below.  In this instane 10 dots above, and 14 below as a result of the crude
nature of ascii graphics.  Nevertheless it represents the best line that can
be fitted to the data based on minimizing the square of the distance between
the line and the real data.  It's called a least squares curve fit.

  You are completely ignorant when it comes to statistics and mathematics in
general aren't you Bonzo.

  Ahahahahahaha.. You don't know what statistics are, where it comes from,
how it is used, or how to use it, and yet in your vast ignorance, you seem
to think that you know more about science than all of the worlds scientists.

  "Voodoo statistics"  Ahahahahahahahah...  You need to go back to public
school and take a refresher course in basic technical literacy.

  Stupid... Stupid.. KKKonservative KKKlown....


"Bonzo"  wrote
> Here is the data which shows NO TREND!
>
> 1998 366.50 2.5721     14.57
> 1999 368.14 2.6148     14.33
> 2000 369.41 2.6399     14.33
> 2001 371.07 2.6672     14.48
> 2002 373.16 2.7032     14.56
> 2003 375.80 2.7487     14.55
> 2004 377.55 NA            14.49
> 2005 379.75 NA            14.63
> 2006 381.90 NA            14.54

  No?  Lets plot the data and find out shall we?  Here it is along with the
best linear fit to the data shown as "o".

1998 14.57  *********************o*****
1999 14.33  *****************>>>>o
2000 14.33  *****************>>>>>o
2001 14.48  ************************o
2002 14.56  *************************o**
2003 14.55  **************************o*
2004 14.49  *************************>>o
2005 14.63  *****************************o**
2006 14.54  ***************************>>>o

Look at all those "o"'s lined up there. The trend is up, Up, UP.

So Bonzo, who is paying you to post lies to this newsgroup?