Ecuador court gives green light for Silvercorp, Salazar’s El Domo project
The ruling removes the last major obstacle for the $250 million project, located 150 km northeast of Guayaquil.
The Swiss village of Hedingen, near Zurich, decided Sunday to give about $121,000 (110,000 Swiss francs) of taxes paid by Glencore Xstrata’s (LON:GLEN) chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, to countries where the firm has been accused of shady business practices.
About 350,000 inhabitants backed an initiative to donate about 10% of the tax money the town received in the wake of Glencore’s initial public offering in 2011 to overseas charities in Africa and South America.
Under the country’s laws, a large cut of income tax has to be paid directly to the local community. Some of those funds are diverted to the poorest towns.
According to South China Morning Post, Glasenberg’s village of Rüschlikon is also planning to call a referendum to decide what to do with the $395 million it received from the mining executive two years ago.
The paper reports villagers didn’t want to take the money because they considered it tainted. The London-listed mining and commodity trading giant has been accused of exploiting people and resources in several of the countries where it operates.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
