Central America
Central America’s biggest mine faces closure over tax spat
| By AFP | Francisco Jara |
Rising up through the lush vegetation of Panama’s Caribbean coast, a 125-meter chimney serves as a beacon for helicopters approaching the largest mine in Central America, which faces closure next week over a contract dispute.
Gigantic 400-tonne trucks slowly wind around the stepped slopes of a massive gash in the earth one kilometer wide, the ochre and grey of the copper mine standing in stark contrast to the verdant jungle surrounding it.
The activity could grind to an expensive halt in a matter of days.
Canadian mining giant First Quantum Minerals has until next Wednesday to sign a new contract with the government, which is demanding the company multiply the taxes it pays by 10.
If the parties do not agree, the disagreement could halt the work of a mining project considered the largest private investment in Panama’s history, contributing four percent of the country’s GDP and 75 percent of export revenues.
“We have been given a deadline to sign the new contract by December 14, to accept the new terms,” First Quantum’s manager in Panama, Keith Green, who is Scottish, told AFP.
“We intend to reach an agreement, but negotiations are a bit deadlocked,” he added.
First Quantum, one of the largest copper miners in the world, began commercial copper production at the site in Donoso in 2019, through its subsidiary Minera Panama.
It has spent $10 billion on earthworks, construction buildings to house more than 7,000 employees, the purchase of heavy machinery, a power plant, a port for deep-draft merchant ships, access roads, and re-forestation plans.
‘Fair income’
President Laurentino Cortizo in January announced plans to toughen the conditions of the mining license, with a new contract that would oblige the mining company to pay “at least” $375 million to Panama annually — ten times what it is currently paying.
“Panama has the inalienable right to receive fair income from the extraction of its mineral resources, because the copper is Panamanian,” he said.
This mine is “the biggest in Central America,” producing 300,000 tons of copper concentrate per year, said Green.
The deposit, discovered in 1968, lies on the Caribbean coast, 240 kilometers by road from the capital Panama City.
The company, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, built the Punta Rincon International Port next to the mine to transport the copper by ship, due to a lack of roads connecting the Colon port, 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.
Despite the uncertainty over the mine’s future, activity has not slowed and the company has continued to invest in the site.
A new 200-tonne drilling rig — as tall as a three-story building — was inaugurated in a ceremony on Tuesday, causing heavy air traffic.
Helicopter pilot Oldemar Arauz explains that most officials visiting the mine prefer the one-hour air trip to the four-hour drive on a narrow road from the capital.
The drilling rig, made in the United States by the Swedish company Epiroc, cost $6 million, and was transported to the mine in 10 trucks.
“Latin America has 200 of these drills, 50 in Chile and now three in Panama,” said Epiroc’s Latin America manager Hans Traub.
The drill was assembled by Chilean engineer Alex Gonzalez, who previously worked in Chuquicamata, the world’s largest open pit copper mine, situated in the Atacama desert, which has been operating since 1915.
Central America does not have the same mining tradition seen further south. Mining is illegal in Costa Rica and El Salvador, and while there is much potential for growth in Panama, the industry’s future is now hanging in the balance.
Central America
Arévalo warns of ‘Dark Interests’ targeting human rights defenders in Guatemala
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo de León warned on Thursday that human rights defenders are facing serious threats, aggression, and criminalization by “dark interests” embedded within the structures of the State.
“Today we are facing serious levels of threats, aggression, and criminalization against people who promote respect for human rights, coming from actors and criminal networks—sometimes embedded in State institutions—that refuse to accept that Guatemala is changing,” Arévalo said during a public event held at the former Government Palace.
During the event, authorities presented the Public Policy for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders 2025–2035, an initiative developed in compliance with a 2014 resolution from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), issued in response to the killing of activist Florentín Gudiel Ramos in 2004.
Central America
Newborn found in Costa Rican dump survives two days in unsanitary conditions
Costa Rican media outlets report that a newborn baby was found in a garbage dump, where he had reportedly spent two days in unsanitary conditions.
Police located the infant after a resident alerted authorities upon hearing crying coming from a clandestine dumping site in the Rancho Guanacaste area. The newborn was discovered alive inside a drainage channel, covered in waste. He was immediately taken to the National Children’s Hospital, where he received medical care and is now in stable condition.
“The National Children’s Hospital confirms that we indeed received a newborn approximately four or five days old who was found in a wooded area near the Alajuelita roundabout. He was first taken to the Solón Núñez Clinic and then transferred to this hospital. As of now, the baby is in the emergency department in good condition. He arrived a bit cold, but he has been warmed, fed, and his initial physical exam is completely normal,” explained hospital director Carlos Jiménez Herrera, according to CR Hoy.
Central America
Arévalo accuses Porras and judge of undermining democracy in Guatemala
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo denounced a new attempt at a “coup” orchestrated by the Attorney General’s Office. He also requested an extraordinary session at the Organization of American States (OAS) to address the country’s ongoing political crisis.
The president has been at odds with Attorney General Consuelo Porras, who has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for being “corrupt” and “anti-democratic.” Since 2023, Arévalo has accused Porras of launching investigations against his party, Semilla, and the 2023 elections as part of a scheme to prevent his inauguration in January 2024.
From the presidential office, Arévalo has said he continues to “resist” the “coup plotters,” but tensions escalated last Friday when Judge Fredy Orellana, at the request of the Attorney General’s Office, ordered the electoral court to annul the Semilla party’s promoter group. Arévalo interpreted this as an attempt to revoke the positions won by the party.
“Orellana, a hitman who distorts the law in service of Consuelo Porras, is attempting to force […] the unconstitutional removal of a mayor, 23 elected deputies […], the vice president, and the president of the country,” Arévalo said in a televised address on Sunday.
“We call on the international community not to turn a blind eye to the coup being attempted in Guatemala,” he added, speaking alongside his cabinet and congressional members at the National Palace in Guatemala City.
Arévalo requested that the Organization of American States hold an extraordinary session to present “the serious threats” to the Guatemalan Constitution and democracy perpetrated by Porras and Orellana.
Yesterday, Guatemalan Foreign Minister Carlos Ramiro Martínez reaffirmed the president’s statements, emphasizing the need “to go and expose the situation” Guatemala has been facing since last week due to the actions of the Attorney General’s Office.
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