Stories of mines and resistance from around the hemisphere:

Ecuador: Social movements are preparing for a showdown with President Rafael Correa over a proposed Mining Law, which is due to come up for a final vote in the National Assembly this week. The last few weeks of struggle have been marked by protest and police violence, and a national mobilization has been called for January 20.

The Mining Law, if passed, would replaced the temporary Mining Mandate passed in May 2008. which froze all mining operations in Ecuador. Rejecting the indigenous and anti-mines movements’ demands for prior consent from affected communities, the proposed Mining Law would limit community power to affect mining projects and allow mining anywhere in the country, including in protected areas and indigenous territories. The law has been heavily lobbied for by foreign mining companies, especially Canadian ones.

Correa has made “responsible mining” a key part of his plan to “develop” Ecuador. The country currently has no significant metal mining.

Indigenous and anti-mines protesters have rejected the president’s logic: “We will never let them into our territory, which provides our water,” said Kichwa protester Juan Francisco. “Responsible mining is a miserable lie that the government wants to sell to us.” He said that better development would come from government support of organic farming.

Canadian companies hold the majority of mining concessions in Ecuador and are pressing for a new law that would allow for large-scale, open pit metal mining.

While protests over the proposed law have been taking place for months, the tempo picked up on December 21 with a march to the National Assembly in the capital of Quito, where protesters seeking to meet with legislators were pepper sprayed by police. On the same day, campesinos in the south of the country staged road blockades against the law and defended them against police attacks.

The Assembly responded by holding meetings with protesters, but continued to move forward with the law. Protest picked back up on January 5, with massive road blockades in Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-largest city. The police responded with a further escalation of repression: officers attacked a press conference at the Court of Justice, arresting a member of the Water Board; tear gassing protesters who attempted to defend him; and dragging hunger strikers along the ground by their necks.

Road blockades spread to three other provinces, and protesters have been beaten or shot in at least five different communities. Two of the most notorious cases involved a Special Forces raid on a village to arrest a protest leader that included the tear-gassing of a school, and the arrest of a campesino leader who was later found in a hospital with bullet wounds in his head.

Even as Correa has tried to discredit his opponents by calling them terrorists, they have accused him of being “racist” and “dictatorial.” They charge that the proposed Mining Law violates sections of the recently approved Constitution that protect indigenous, ecological and water rights.

Correa portrays the new Constitution as one of his great achievements as a supposedly leftist president. But the president is meeting increasing opposition from his former support base, which accuse him of selling them out. In May, the influential Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) formally declared its opposition to his government. A new group, the Coordinator for the Unity of the Left and for Life, has also formed to remobilize social movements against Correa. On January 8, the country’s largest labor union also came out against Correa’s minimum wage policy.

USA: The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has been responsible for three mining-related toxic waste spills in the past three weeks. On December 22, a retaining wall at the Kingston Fossil coal-fired power plant in eastern Tennessee broke, sending a billion gallons of coal ash pouring into the Emory River. On January 10, the gypsum pond at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant in Stevenson, Alabama, ruptured, spilling 10,000 gallons of toxic water. “If this don’t stick a finger in the whole clean coal myth,” said Alabama resident John Wathen of Hurricane Creekkeeper, “then I don’t know what will.”

Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that TVA had released toxic sediment into east Tennessee’s Ocoee River on the weekend of January 2. The agency had been repairing a dam when the structure ruptured, releasing decades worth of toxic sediment (due to copper mining in the area).

Canada: First Nations in two separate Canadian provinces have taken legal action against mining in the past week. A subgroup of the Tsilhqot’in Nation in British Columbia filed a lawsuit on Jan. 6 to prevent Taseko Mines from opening a new gold and copper mine that would befoul traditional Tsilhqot’in territory. The lawsuit seeks to block Taseko from reclassifying Teztan Biny lake as a “tailings impoundment area” rather than a natural body of water. This reclassification would allow Taseko to dump mine tailings into the lake, thus poisoning the fish and other living beings that depend on the lake.

Never fear, though, Taseko claims that it plans to build a new lake to replace Teztan Biny!

“Normally, only God creates lakes,” said attorney Jack Woodward. “The idea that there is some empty niche where you could find a habitat for 85,000 fish is a denial of what we know about how biological systems work.”

In Ontario, the Mushkegowuk Council First Nations has passed a resolution banning all exploration or mining for minerals within its traditional territory. Taking a position similar to indigenous groups in Ecuador, the Mushkegowuk Council says that no current mining shall continue or any new mines go forward without the full consent of First Nations, in the context of First Nations approved land use plans and environmental assessments. The resolution applies to the Attawapiskat, Fort Albany, Kasechewan, Moose Cree, Taykwa Tagamou and Chapleau Cree First Nations.

Brazil: The world’s second largest mining company, Rio Tinto, has announced that it is indefinitely postponing an expansion of its Corumbá iron ore mine in western Brazil. The project, which included increased mining and the construction of two ports, has been taken off the table due to the global recession.

“Resources available are costly,” said the company’s Brazil CFO, Aloisio do Pinho Oliveira. “As soon as recovery signals appear we will resume all investments.”

Peru: Protests coupled with a global recession have forced Monterrico Metals, controlled by China’s Zijn Mining Group, to back off on plans to develop the Rio Blanco copper-molybdenum mine in northern Peru.

In a 2007 popular vote, affected community members overwhelmingly rejected the proposed mine .