Investors signing confidential agreements with ASARCO

"
Investors show strong interest in resurgent copper producer
Arizona Republic - Phoenix,AZ,USA
Tucson copper producer Asarco LLC has so far signed confidentiality agreements with 14 investors interested in funding its eventual emergence from Chapter ...

"

David K won't talk about the Toxic waste either ... why not?

"Google Blogs Alert for: asarco

ASARCO - The eyesore effects rich people's property values
By David K
The city spent $50000 of your tax dollars to find out what I've known all along - ASARCO is about rich people wanting to increase their property values in Kern at the expense of good jobs. The city was nice enough to prove my theory. ...
Refuse the Juice - http://refusethejuice.typepad.com/thinkaboutit/
"

WHAT ABOUT THE TOXIC WASTE?

WHY don't the management ever talk about the toxic waste???

"Google News Alert for: asarco

ASARCO Plant Manager Bob Litle Responds
KTSM-TV - El Paso,TX,USA
Specifically, the majority of the businesses contacted are in favor of ASARCO opening (5-2). In addition, the most recent residential poll that was ..."

Asarco filing deadline moved from February to mid-APRIL

"Copper-miner Asarco seeks delay in filing exit plan

Associated Press - January 16, 2008 1:24 PM ET WASHINGTON (AP) - Asarco says it needs two more months to file its bankruptcy-exit plan. The Tucson-based copper-miner says its parent...
KVOA - News - http://www.kvoa.com/global/category.asp?c=40644

Tucson-based Asarco requests more time to exit bankruptcy
Tucson-based Asarco LLC needs two more months to file its bankruptcy-exit plan and says its parent company, a unit of Mexican mining company Grupo Mexico SA, is behind the delay.
All Headlines - http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/allheadlines/

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 This as-it-happens Google Alert is brought to you by Google."

WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE

"The landfill here in Pianura was shut more than a decade ago. Now, there is talk of reopening it. Local residents say no. "We understand the emergency," says Salvatore, who lives just across the street. He has a tumor which he blames on exposure to toxic waste. "We can't accept garbage anymore," he says. "We are afraid and concerned about our health.""

...."Nearby, housewife Luciana carefully recycles her trash while surrounded by a mountain of refuse. "Can you really make the difference," I ask her. "Now, it's too late," she says, "but we are all responsible, the politicians, but also people who are uncivilized and did this [i.e. dumping of illegal hazardous wastes within the dump].""

(the mob-run garbage industry in Pianura region, Italy:  http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/studentnews/01/15/transcript.wed/  )

Asarco and Arizona

"Google News Alert for: asarco

Answers to water quality hard to get
Nogales International - Nogales,AZ,USA
We didn't know what we had and didn't know what to do with it" In the mid 1990s, Asarco wanted to purchase parts of Unit 3 and, although Wilson says he does ..."

"

In Italy, clans and their middlemen earned over 65 billion dollars in just four years from waste management

"...Below the surface lies the cause. Campania, according to Legambiente, the environmental group, is the industrial dumping ground of Italy, and Europe. Just as Naples is the port that sucks in counterfeited goods and raw materials for clothing made in Campania and sent round the world, so the region is also where much comes back to be buried. And both are controlled by the Camorra, the Naples mafia.

If all of southern Italy's illegally stashed trash were piled together, estimates Legambiente, it would tower above Everest and weigh 14m tonnes."....

"It is the triangle of death," says Marco the protester....."significantly inc­reased rates" of congenital malformation and cancer in parts of Naples and Caserta."

"Understandably, Campania's residents fear that if incinerators are used, as the government has proposed for years, illegal toxic waste will simply be blasted into the atmosphere. Private "consortiu...... Mr Saviano, who lives under police protection, estimates Camorra clans and their middlemen earned €44bn ($65.5bn, £33.5bn) in just four years from waste management. Such are their skills that Chinese gangs have studied and copied their methods, turning farmland in southern China into poisoned wasteland.

In Italy a whole chain of people is involved and officials are complicit in signing off the paperwork.....

Everyone blames everyone, especially the easily targeted Camorra, but no one is taking responsibility."
15/1/2008 3:53:17 πμ
http://www.euro2day.gr/printerfriendly.asp

ASARCO hiding data

"...Grupo Mexico SAB's Asarco Inc. unit said it wants an examiner to investigate reorganization talks involving Asarco LLC, the bankrupt copper miner run by a court-appointed independent board of directors.  Asarco LLC is hiding "crucial information regarding claims and valuation," Asarco Inc. said Thursday in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi, Texas...."

Grupo Mexico: Asarco hides data
Arizona Daily Star - Tucson,AZ,USA
By Edvard Pettersson

The story of the dumps around Naples Italy, mounting rubbish, and organized crime

The rotten heart of Italy: See Naples and die (of the stench)

The Campania Italy dump scandal...

"The hunt for Pecoraro Scanio has begun. He’s the guilty one. Not Bassolino, not Jervolino, not the Presidents of the Council for the last 15 years, not the Camorra [organized crime], not the companies of the North that got rid of toxic waste in Campania to save money, not the ones that took the billions of Euro from the European Community for public works that never got done, not the municipal companies that got politicized, not the parties, not the regional cabinets, not the mayors that are a continuation of organised crime, not those who didn’t allow recycling, not the magistrates who didn’t start enquiring, not the journalists who didn’t denounce a thing, not the parliamentarians from Campania who stay in Rome, not the health authorities who should check up on food products, not those who should check up on air pollution.
No one. No damned institution is responsible for a Region that is ruined, with radioactive detritus under the tomato fields and an alarming increase in cancers.
The ones at fault are the Greens, the people who want clean water, clean air, meat, eggs and mozzarella without dioxin. The ones at fault are those who want a park, a tree, a beach without sewage,, functioning purification systems.
The ones at fault are those who want recycling, zero refuse. The ones at fault are those who think that the people of Campania are civilised people like others who can get the same results for the environment as the Danes or the Californians.
The ones at fault are those who tell the truth about incinerators and Cip6, the tax on our Enel utility bill, that has taken away billions of Euro for renewable energy to gift it to the oil barons.
One of the greatest political failures of the Italian Republic has been transformed into a problem of public order. Bassolino reigns with De Gennaro at his right hand.
The ones at fault are Pecoraro the Scapegoat and all the inhabitants of Pianura who were promised that the tip would never be reopened...."

http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/2008/01/pecoraro_the_scapegoat.html

Asarco asks court to boost Lehman's pay -- 2.6 MILLION so far.....

"Harbinger said Lehman has been paid $2.6 million for its work so far.

In August, Asarco asked the bankruptcy court to boost Lehman's monthly compensation and increase the fees the firm could earn based on a sale of Asarco's assets or the sale of debt or equity as part of a bankruptcy-exit plan."

Harbinger Blames Lehman in Asarco Case
Houston Chronicle - United States

ASARCO bond holder Harbinger trying to shoot down Lehman Brothers' bid to get paid in ASARCO bankruptcy hearing....

[it isn't called a "feeding frenzy" for nothing... note the Piranha-like effect!... meanwhile word-of-mouth gossip is that ASARCO is advertising in Louisiana for steelworkers to start work in El Paso for ASARCO when it opens....]

"Associated Press - January 9, 2008 3:15 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners is trying to shoot down Lehman Brothers Holdings' bid to get paid in Asarco LLC's bankruptcy case..."

http://www.kswo.com/global/category.asp?c=84964

Edgren on ASARCO...

"Seems as if the Asarco types have been breathing their own emissions for too long.

When City Council announced that it would use a new strategy in the fight against Asarco by citing Texas environmental rules, Asarco vice president for environmental affairs Thomas L. Aldrich lashed back with "Never in our 110 years in El Paso has there been such an anti-business council ..."

Uh, hold it right there. Tommy. Better check your gas mask; probably the air-inlet filters are clogged and you're experiencing oxygen deprivation.

Calling this City Council anti-business is like calling Attila the Hun anti-violence. It just ain't so.

This city tosses out tax abatements like confetti at a political convention. It's bending over backward to do everything possible to welcome and make comfortable the new troops and dependents at Fort Bliss. Public-private partnerships with key business entities have been expanded. Downtown revitalization on the scale we're experiencing and anticipating is hardly anti-business. The list goes on and on and on.

Asarco is a 19th century polluter trying desperately to function in a 21st century environment whose inhabitants are cognizant of the huge dangers Asarco-type pollution poses.

We don't want Asarco. We don't need Asarco. No wonder Tommy is a bit churlish these days."

Posted by Charlie Edgren on January 09, 2008 at 11:24 AM in Environment | Permalink

Charlie's Angles - http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/politicsopinion/

Naples' trash crisis tied to mob, toxic waste

"Expert: Organized crime gets garbage contracts, then mixes in pollutants

updated 10:12 a.m. MT, Wed., Jan. 9, 2008

ROME - The Italian government's plan to resolve Naples' garbage crisis may clear trash temporarily, but mafia control of waste disposal and politicians' inability to guarantee safe dumps means the problem will return, a noted expert on organized crime said Wednesday...

... But Roberto Saviano, a writer and expert on the Neapolitan organized crime syndicate, the Camorra, said such measures do not address the underlying causes of the problem: the mob and politicians who are powerless to fight it."....

"Saviano said the Camorra controls the entire cycle of garbage disposal in Campania, running the dumps, waste transport companies and other businesses, raking in what anti-mafia prosecutors estimate is $880 million per year.".......

...."Saviano said Camorra-run companies routinely win contracts to dispose of toxic waste from northern Italian industries by underbidding competitors, then dispose of it illegally and untreated in Campania's rivers and dumps. Camorra-run companies also mix toxic waste with other materials and resell it as fertilizer, he said."...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22573281/

City New Action in Asarco Legal Battle

City starting new legal battle to keep Asarco closed
"El Paso Times - El Paso,TX,USA
By David Crowder / El Paso Times The city of El Paso is starting a second legal action in its battle to keep Asarco from reopening. ..."

"by Rene Leon   City Has Takes New Action in Asarco Legal Battle

The City Council voted on Tuesday to take a new step in its legal fight to keep Asarco closed, but Asarco claims it is just part of an "anti-business" environment.

Posted on January 8, 2008

The El Paso City Council on Tuesday took a new move in its legal battle against the possible reopening of Asarco.

With a unanimous vote, the council moved to allow the city’s outside counsel to file a petition calling for the revocation of the smelter’s air emissions permit issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ...."

Toxic waste

"Google News Alert for: toxic waste

Naples rubbish crisis turns nasty
Independent - London,England,UK
... angry residents and the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, continues to make money by controlling the illegal dumping of millions of tonnes of toxic waste. ..."

Two Letters

"Readers Respond 1.2.08: "Offensive Blather"

from the NPT Inbox

The first batch of response from the New Year! Readers respond to readers respond, and Asarco, and Leon and Burton.

Posted on January 2, 2008

Readers Respond 12.27.07

.....

As a party in the Contested Case Hearing for the Camino Real Landfill in SP, NM and One Who Stand Against Asarco, we as a regional community must wake up and smell the contaminating industries and the conflicted agencies that allow them to continue to cluster. The cumulative effects of the decades of environmental injustice will continue to harm our quality of life, the air we breathe, and the water we drink.

Join in with all the people yelling out loud for the cause and help take control of our community. To them - CHEERS! To NPT thanks for covering the story, To the EP Times where were/are you? and to the rest of you - How about a New Year’s resolution of meaningful involvement!! Get UP, GET Out and Get Involved. -- Robert

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"Readers Respond to Asarco - volcanic rock?" If anyone is interested, - i.e. David claims that the hills around ASARCO are black because they are volcanic rock!!! - check out the Google Maps for ASARCO, El Paso, Texas, and you will see, that black is not volcanic rock, but the soot from ASARCO! You will see the black scar on the land and the rocks came from the smoke stacks at ASARCO. Do notbe fooled folks, as ASARCO is known for pulling the sooty wool over the public's eyes, that the real culprit is and always will be ASARCO/Grupo De Mexico. So if the Grupo De Mexico bankers want ASARCO so badly, let them dismantle the system, and smoke stacks and rebuild it in their own backyards and see how they like it. And if they don't do that, then why should they expect Americans to allow it back into smelting duty. It’s all that copper value - greed over public health and welfare. Business as usual - down and dirty. -- Lynda Duke"

Chamizal 1967

President Lyndon Johnson on Air Force One on October 28, 1967 with Senator Wayne Morse, Senator Bourke Hickenlooper flying to Andrews Air Force Base, El Paso, Texas for the visit of President Diaz Ordaz of Mexico.

--also see "Remarks at the Chamizal Ceremony, Juarez, Mexico.
October 28th, 1967" by President Johnson:

The great Mexican patriot, Benito Juarez, said: "Respect for the rights of others is peace." That principle is the foundation stone of our hemispheric relations.....we know that the American States must stand together if we are to assure that the weak are protected, that might does not make right, that our peoples are to have the privilege of democratic choice.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28509

The Railroad Bridge Sixteen Years later, in 1936

KFOX update on ASARCO permit

"...El Paso Mayor John Cook said in a written statement, “The City hopes the commissioners will consider all of the evidence and do the right thing for the citizens by denying the ASARCO renewal application. The international opposition to ASARCO’s permit requests cuts across all political, partisan and geographical lines – and includes federal, state, city and county elected officials, the mayors of Sunland Park, N.M, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, local residents, prominent business owners, civic leaders, and health officials. This widespread opposition to the ASARCO renewal application is a result of ASARCO's flagrant record of non-compliance with environmental protection rules and its threat to public health.”"
http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/14946096/detail.html