2 weeks ago the Romanian government made a proposal for a law, passing it to the government for approval, which basically would give the right to Gabriel Resources Ltd, a canadian mining corporation, to start mining gold and silver in Rosia Montana ( a complex of villages in Romania ) using cyanide as filtering agent. They plan on mining the location for around 10-16 years and they'll be using about 13.000t of cyanide per year in the process. For a comparison, the rest of the mining locations in Europe combined use around 1000t per year. After the 10-16 year period all that cyanide + other heavy metals are going to be stored in a gigantic 185 meter basin. People in Romania have started to protest against the opening of this mine, having several reasons to do so, but the most relevant I would say is the environmental cost that it would bring. You can read more about it here : http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1030279. The reason for this post is mainly to draw attention to a potential environmental disaster in the area waiting to happen in the next few years, that will not affect only Romania but our neighbours as well. So I am talking to people from Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria specifically ( given the location of Rosia Montana), read up on that mining project and take any small steps you can and are willing to against it. If this law goes through this is one gigantic environmental disaster waiting to happen. Some hungarians can maybe remember the cyanide spill of Baia Mare in 2000 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Baia_Mare_cyanide_spill. That had "only" 100,000 t of cyanide in the basin, this one is going to have a few millions, you do the math on what's gonna happen.
Romania’s Deputy Prime Minister Liviu Dragnea was charged with abuse of influence during last year’s referendum for impeaching the president, the country’s anti-corruption prosecutors said. “I’m as guilty as mister Dragnea of wanting to rid the country of Basescu,” Ponta said in a televised speech today, adding that he won’t oust Dragnea, who also said he wouldn’t resign. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...minister-charged-with-abuse-of-influence.html
