“It is time for the international community to use new ways of working, to go beyond an aid agenda and put its own house in order: to implement a swift reduction in corruption, illicit financial flows, money-laundering, tax evasion, and hidden ownership of assets,” the UN report concludes. “We must fight climate change, champion free and fair trade, technology innovation, transfer and diffusion, and promote financial stability.”
So Canada’s task is to ask if there is anything it can do to put its own house in order, a house that is built on resource extraction.
Everything about Kumtor is breathtaking — quite literally, as it’s more than 13,000 feet above sea level, surrounded by gorgeous mountains and glaciers.
In 1998, a truck accident spilled sodium cyanide into a local river. That and other environmental concerns are one reason not all the locals are happy about the mine. And there is also a perception that the mine could be doing more for Kyrgyzstan, even calls for it to be nationalized. In this revolution-prone country, the politics are volatile.
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