Grupo Mexico (asarco/Carlyle group/Bush) pays dead miners families $70,500 each

06 Oct 2007 01:54:44 GMT Source: Reuters - Mexico Congress blames mining company for disaster
MEXICO CITY, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Mining company Grupo Mexico <GMEXICOB.MX> is largely to blame for an explosion that killed 65 men in A northern Mexican coal pit last year, a Congressional commission said on Friday. Negligence on the part of Grupo Mexico, one of the world's top copper producers, allowed a build-up of methane gas and coal dust which exploded deep in the shaft and caused most of the mine to collapse, the commission said in a report on the accident. The lawmakers also said blame for the February 2006 explosion was shared by government labor officials and the mineworkers union, who allowed work to carry on despite evident danger. In April, a manslaughter trial of Grupo Mexico executives ended without prison sentences after one of the defendants paid damages of about $16,500 to each of the victims' families.   In Friday's report, the congressional commission recommended officials and company executives linked to the explosion be removed form their posts and banned from working in the industry. Only two bodies have been recovered since the blast. Industrial Minera Mexico, the Grupo Mexico subsidiary that ran the mine, abandoned the search because of unstable conditions in the mine. Grupo Mexico says it paid each family a one-off sum of close to $70,000 after the accident, plus several monthly payments." http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05252332.htm

"What are local democrats like Shapleigh doing to promote high paying jobs with benefits that include health insurance for the kiddies?  Well, they are protesting ASARCO is what they are doing."-- a quote from David Karlsruher (David K. El Paso radio host) in his column/blog http://refusethejuice.typepad.com/thinkaboutit/  [maybe they are protesting a company who hired executives that Mexico congress now recommend be removed form their posts and banned from working in the [mining] industry... (see above)]