http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9612a/friedland.html
[Editor's note: Robert Friedland's company Galactic Resources owned 30 percent of the "Cyanide River" mine in Guyana, which has the latest developments posted elsewhere in this issue. The company also was a part owner in a mining company elsewhere in Guyana, drilling for diamonds on the land of the Akawaio people.]

Investor Beats Mining Disaster Charges

by Pratap Chatteee

Costliest mining disaster in U.S. history

(IPS) SAN FRANCISCO -- The man allegedly responsible for the costliest mining disaster in U.S. history has beaten the latest government efforts to make him pay to clean up the resulting mess. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice argued successfully for Canadian courts to freeze $152 million in assets owned by Robert Friedland in order to pay for the clean-up of the cyanide and heavy metal contamination of a mine in the San Juan mountains of southwestern Colorado. But a Canadian judge early last month lifted the asset freeze, ruling that there wasn't enough evidence to hold the dual Canadian-U.S. citizen responsible for the toxic spill at the Summitville mine.

"Toxic Bob's" Global Search for Gold

http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9612a/toxicbob.html

by Pratap Chatterjee

Interests in the Amazon, Siberia, Rocky Mountains, Africa, and more

(IPS) SAN FRANCISCO -- In his search for the proverbial pot of gold, Robert "Toxic Bob" Friedland has followed the end of the rainbow to the heart of the Venezuelan Amazon, the vast native grasslands of Siberia, high up in the Rocky Mountains, and the Atlantic coast of southern Africa, to name just a few places. Gold speculator extraordinaire Robert Friedland, a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, acquired the nickname "Toxic Bob" in 1969 when he was busted for trying to sell 8,000 "hits" of the hallucinogenic drug LSD to an undercover drug agent in Portland, Maine. But it remains a fitting moniker. Early last month, the U.S. Department of Justice lost a bid to seize $152 million in Friedland's assets in order to pay for the clean-up of cyanide and heavy metal contamination at a mine he financed and developed in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. Contamination at the Summitville mine -- stemming from the use of cyanide to extract gold from ore and resulting in the costliest mining disaster ever in this country -- hasn't been Friedland's only encounter with environmental woes.