Asbestos: embarrassing photos for a Quebec mine

This story comes to us courtesy of Laurie Kazan-Allen of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat. The original story (in French Canadian) can be found at La Presse Newspaper here
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Photos taken by Indonesian activist Muchamad Darisman show people, including children, walking in a dump full of asbestos. The dump contains waste from the Djabesmen factory, the biggest manufacturer of chrysotile asbestos roofs in Indonesia. One can see bags with the logo of Lab Chrysotile, an asbestos mine situation at Thetford Mines, Quebec. Photo: Muchamad Darisman, collaboration spéciale
 
“Bent over in the middle of a dump, a child rummages in waste with bare hands. Behind the child, adults are using large bags to recycle plastic, wood and pieces of cement. Their bags carry the logo of Lab Chrysotile, an asbestos mine situated at Thetford Mines, Quebec.
These photos were taken on August 6 in a waste site of the factory Djabesmen, the biggest manufacturer of chrysotile asbestos roofs in Indonesia. They “clearly establish that our national policy of exporting asbestos is so negligent as to be criminal,” states indignantly Dr Fernand Turcotte, professor emeritus in preventative medicine at Laval University.
Dr Turcotte says he was shocked on seeing these photos, which prove according to him “the impossibility of putting into practice the rules thought to make asbestos safe for human health. When we hear our politicians speak all the time about safe use of asbestos in order to justify its export to countries in the third world, it is completely outrageous!”
Chrysotile asbestos is a cancerous product that is forbidden in most western countries. Canada does not use this material in its own construction work, but encourages its export to developing countries, a policy that is judged immoral by numerous health professionals in Quebec and around the world.
According to Dr Turcotte, if the waste site was situated in Quebec, “access would be forbidden unless one was wearing a special outfit”. But, about ten people wearing simple sandals were collecting waste from the factory when Muchamad Darisman, an Indonesian activist who took these photos, was in the area. The factory is situated to the east of the capital, Jakarta.
“ These people are very poor and depend on the what the factory throws out. They collect plastic, wood and asbestos from the waste and then offer it to re-sellers. One of them told me that he earned a dollar a day when he was lucky. His house is situated 300 metres away, right close to the dump site. He did not know that asbestos was dangerous,” explained Mr Darisman.
There are warnings in several languages written on the Lab Chrysotile bags that are littering the ground outside the factory. But according to Mr Darisman, none of these languages is understood by the majority of Indonesians.
“Asbestos-cement is collected by poor families to build houses. “That can be seen everywhere in Asia,” said Kathleen Ruff, anadian activists who is fighting to get asbestos banned. “ Families construct houses and cut asbestos-cement with small mechanical saws. That creates a large quantity of fibres that they breath. It’s fatal.”
«Out of context »
The president of Lab Chrysotile, Simon Dupéré, says that he assures himself that his clients use asbestos in a safe manner. He has several times visited the factories in Indonesia that import asbestos from Thetford Mines without ever having noted any serious failings. “ When we send chrysotile, it’s done according to the rules of the art. Otherwise, we don’t send it.”
The bags of chrysotile “are usually torn up in the factory and integrated directly into the finished product,” explains Mr Dupéré. He promises to assure himself that the Djabesmen factory is operating “according to the rules of responsible use”. But the photos leave him doubtful. “This would not be the first time that we see something staged. Our detractors specialize in sensationalism out of context.”
Indonesia imports 78,000 tonnes of chrysotile a year, most of it from Russia, Brazil and Canada. Contrary to other Asian countries, such as India, the campaign to ban asbestos is still timid there. The “Ban Asbestos Network in Indonesia”, or INA-BAN, will be officially launched on October 17.
The task for the activists will not be easy, according to Mr Darisman. “One Indonesian asbestos factory belongs to the president of one of the biggest political parties in the country, he says. We lack experts interested in the subject and there is a control of information by the government and businesses regarding the dangers of asbestos.”
The 26 asbestos factories, which employ 7,000 Indonesian workers, can also count on the support of Canada. In March 2006, an “International Scientific Symposium” was organized in Jakarta. According to the group BAN-Asbestos, this symposium, financed by the asbestos industry, only presented scientists won over to the industry.
Clément Godbout, president of the Chrysotile Institute, was among the invited speakers. The Jakarta Post cited a study ordered by this Institute based in Montreal – which is, in fact, the lobby for the world asbestos industry – according to which chrysotile has no negative effect on human health.
The symposium concluded with a cocktail at the Canadian embassy.”

http://apheda.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/asbestos-embarrassing-photos-for-a-quebec-mine/

WIR MACHEN ALLES!

The Bagger 288 (Excavator 288), built by the German company Krupp for the energy and mining firm Rheinbraun, is a bucket-wheel excavator or mobile strip mining machine. When its construction was completed in 1978, Bagger 288 superseded NASA's Crawler-Transporter, used to carry the Space Shuttle and Apollo Saturn V launch vehicle, as the largest tracked vehicle in the world at 13,500 tons. However, the Bagger is powered from an external source and is more correctly described as a mining machine which can be moved, while the crawler-transporter was built as a self-powered, load-carrying vehicle.



The Krupp family (pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1999 it merged with Thyssen AG to form ThyssenKrupp AG, a large industrial conglomerate


The three rings were the symbol for Krupp, based on the radreifen - the seamless railway wheels patented by Alfred Krupp. The rings are currently part of the ThyssenKrupp logotype.

Roles played in important historical events

The Franco-Prussian War
The unexpected victory of Prussia over France demonstrated the superiority of breech-loaded steel cannon over muzzle-loaded brass. Krupp artillery was a significant factor at the battles of Wissembourg and Gravelotte, and was used during the siege of Paris. Krupp's anti-balloon guns were the first anti-aircraft guns. Prussia fortified the major North German ports with batteries that could hit French ships from a distance of 4,000 yards, inhibiting invasion.

World War I
Krupp produced most of the artillery of the Imperial German Army, including its big ones: The 1914 420 mm Big Bertha, the 1916 Lange Max, and the seven Paris Guns in 1917 and 1918. In addition, Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft built German warships and submarines in Kiel.

World War II
Krupp received its first order for 135 Panzer I tanks in 1933, and during WWII made tanks, artillery, naval guns, armor plate, munitions and other armaments for the German military. Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft shipyard launched the German cruiser Prinz Eugen, as well as many of Germany's U-boats (130 between 1934 and 1945) using preassembled parts supplied by other Krupp factories in a process similar to the construction of the U.S. liberty ships.
In the 1930s, Krupp developed two 800 mm railway guns, the Schwerer Gustav and the Dora. These guns were the largest artillery pieces ever fielded by an army during wartime, and weighed almost 1,344 tons. They could fire a 7-ton shell over a distance of 37 kilometers. More crucial to the operations of the German military was Krupp's development of the famed 88 mm anti-aircraft cannon which found use as a notoriously effective anti-tank gun.
In an address to the Hitler Youth, Adolf Hitler stated "In our eyes, the German boy of the future must be slim and slender, as fast as a greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel" („... der deutsche Junge der Zukunft muß schlank und rank sein, flink wie Windhunde, zäh wie Leder und hart wie Kruppstahl.")
Krupp Industries employed workers conscripted by the Nazi regime from across Europe. These workers were initially paid, but as Nazi fortunes declined they were kept as slave workers.[citation needed] They were abused, beaten, and starved by the thousands, as detailed in the book The Arms of Krupp.


1893 Krupp Gun Exhibit Building
By The Field Museum Library

RUST BELT

The Rust Belt, also known as the Manufacturing Belt or The Factory Belt, is an area in parts of the Northeastern United States, Mid-Atlantic States, and portions of the eastern Midwest. The region can be broadly defined as the region beginning west of the Northeast Megalopolis and running west through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, to the western shore of Lake Michigan. Some definitions include cities as far north and west as the city of Duluth and the Iron Range. The area immediate to Lake Erie is considered to be the "hub" of the Rust Belt. The region extends southward to the beginnings of the coal-mining regions of Appalachia, north to the Great Lakes and includes manufacturing regions of Southern Ontario and Quebec in Canada.
The name 'Rust Belt' came about due to the decline of industry in the 1970s, when many of the region's factories had been closed, and the resulting shuttered buildings were guarded only by rusting gates.



The Industrial Heartland attracted a huge number of immigrants from 1890-1930. The Polish came in droves, especially to Pittsburgh and the Chicago-Milwaukee area. Italians immigrated also, explaining why eight of the 24 Mafia families in America were located in the region. Some other immigrants were Irish, Greek, Slovak, Slovenian, Lituanian, and Hungarian, among others. African-Americans came from the Southern U.S. looking for opportunity as well. All of these people were added to the German and Scots-Irish population that was already present in the area. Echoes of this diversity in the Industrial Heartland today are heard in radio shows and various festivals.


After the steel mill closed the coke works continued to be operated under the name New Boston Coke. This operation closed in 2002 but here are the remaining coke ovens and coal processing building that remain. The metal doors on the ovens have been removed, leaving the refractory brick lining of the ovens naked.

http://www.coalcampusa.com/rustbelt/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_belt

MATIA GUBEC (RESEARCH ON ST. MARK SQUARE GORNJI GRAD'S UNDERGOUND TUNNEL SYSTEM)

"Matija" Gubec (Hungarian: Gubecz Máté) (before 1556 – 15 February 1573) was a Croatian peasant and a revolutionary, best known as the leader of the Croatian-Slovenian peasant revolt. Before the revolt, Gubec was a serf on the estate of the landowner Franjo Tahy.[1]

When the revolt erupted, the peasants elected Matija Gubec to be one of the leaders, and renowned for his personal qualities, he became the most influentual leader of the rebelion.[1] During his brief tenure he showed ability as a capable administrator and inspiring leader that would later create a legend. He earned the nickname Gubec Beg.[1]





Matija Gubec led the peasant army during its last stand at the Battle of Stubičko Polje on 9 February 1573. Before the battle he made a speech trying to convince the men that only victory could bring them freedom, while the defeat would bring more misery. After the defeat he was captured and taken to Zagreb. On 15 February, he was publicly tortured at ST. MARK's SQUARE, forced to wear a red-hot iron crown and was subsequently quartered.



Oton Ivekovic: Killing of Matija Gubec (at the square in front of st. Mark's Church in Zagreb)


HISTORY ST. MARK'S SQUARE AND IT'S UNDERGROUND TUNNEL SYSTEM:

It is very difficult to decide which period in the town's history should be placed under the heading of "Old Zagreb", which was made popular by Djuro Szabo, the admirer of the Zagreb antiquities and the promoter of their conservation. Zagreb's origins go back into the distant past and are enveloped in the mists of legend since there are no extant manuscripts or sufficient archaeological finds from those times. It would be much easier, therefore, to take a short walk and look at Zagreb's history. In that case Old Zagreb is represented by two settlements situated on two neighboring hills: Gradec (the Upper Town) and Kaptol, with the houses lying in the valley between them along the former Medvescak Stream (today's Tkalciceva Street) and those at the beginning of VIaska Street beneath the bishopric (later archbishopric).

Although most buildings in this area do not originate from the Middle Ages, but from the 18th century, they nevertheless display the continuity of medieval urban settlements. The existence of Kaptol, the settlement on the east slope, was confirmed in 1094 when King Ladislav founded the Zagreb bishopric. The bishop, his residence and the Cathedral had their seat in the southeast part of the Kaptol hill. VIaska Ves situated in the close vicinity of the Cathedral and under the bishop's jurisdiction was first mentioned in 1198. Kaptol Street ran from the south to the north across the Kaptol terrace with canons' residences arranged in rows alongside. As the Latin word for a group or body of canons is "capitulum" (kaptol), it is clear how Kaptol got its name. The canons also ruled this settlement.

The Cathedral was consecrated in 1217, but later in 1242 it was badly damaged by the Tartar raids. After 1263 it was restored and rebuilt. As a settlement, Kaptol was an unsymmetrical rectangle which was entered at its south end in Bakaceva Street, and existed at its north end near the present day Kaptol School. In the Middle Ages Kaptol had no fortifications; it was merely enclosed with wooden fences or palisades which had been recurrently destroyed and rebuilt. The defensive walls and towers around Kaptol were built between 1469 and 1473. The Prislin Tower near the Kaptol School is one of the best-preserved from those times. In 1493 the Turks reached Sisak trying to capture it but were defeated there.

Therefore, fearing the Turkish invasion, the Bishop of Zagreb had the fortifications built around the Cathedral and his residence. The defensive towers and walls built between 1512 and 1520 have been preserved until the present day except those which were directly facing the front of the Cathedral situated at Kaptol Square. This section of the wall was pulled down in 1907. In the 13th century two Gothic churches were built in Kaptol, St. Francis with the Franciscan monastery and St. Maria's which underwent considerable reconstruction works in the 17th and the 18th centuries. In Opatovina small dwelling houses of former Kaptol inhabitants can still be seen, but at Dolac a number of little and narrow streets were pulled down in 1926 when the market place started to be built. In 1334 the canons of Zagreb established a colony of Kaptol serfs in the vicinity of their residences, north of Kaptol; that was the beginning of a new settlement called Nova Ves (the present day Nova Ves Street).

The other part of the Old Zagreb nucleus, Gradec on the Upper Town hill, was given a royal charter by King Bela in 1242. The royal charter, also called the Golden Bull, was a very important document by which Gradec was declared and proclaimed "a free royal city on Gradec, the hill of Zagreb". This act made Gradec a feudal holding responsible directly to the king. The citizens were given rights of different kinds; among other things they were entitled to elect their own "City Judge" (the mayor) and to manage their own affairs. The citizens engaged themselves in building defensive walls and towers around their settlement, fearing a new Tartar invasion. They fulfilled their obligation between 1242 and 1261. It could be rightly assumed that by building its fortification walls in the middle of the 13th century, Gradec acquired its outward appearance that can be clearly seen in today's Upper Town.

The defensive walls enclosed the settlement in the shape of a triangle, its top located near the tower called Popov Toranj and its base at the south end (the Strossmayer Promenade), which could be explained by the shape of the hill. In some places, rectangular and semicircular towers fortified the defensive walls. There were four main gates leading to the town: the Mesnicka Gate in the west, the new, later Opaticka Gate in the north, Dverce in the south and the Stone Gate in the east. The Stone Gate is the only one preserved until the present day.

Undoubtedly, the focal point of the Upper Town is the square around St. Mark's Church that had been called St. Mark's Square for years. St. Mark's Church is the parish church of Old Zagreb. The Romanesque window found in its south facade is the best evidence that the church must have been built as early as the 13th century as is also the semicircular groundplan of St. Mary's chapel (later altered). In the second half of the 14th century the church was radically reconstructed. It was then turned into a late Gothic church of the three-nave type. Massive round columns support heavy ribbed vaults cut in stone and an air of peace and sublimity characterizes the church interior in its simplicity. The most valuable part of St. Mark's Church is its south portal, considered being the work of sculptors of the family Parler from Prague (the end of the 14th century). The Gothic composition of the portal consists of fifteen effigies placed in eleven shallow niches. On top are the statues of Joseph and Mary with the infant Jesus, and below them one can see St. Mark and the Lion; the Twelve Apostles are placed on both sides of the portal (four wooden statues replaced the original ones which had been destroyed). In its artistic composition and the number of statues, this portal is the richest and the most valuable Gothic portal in South Eastern Europe. When guilds developed in Gradec in the 15th, and later in the 17th centuries, being the societies of craftsmen, their members including masters, journeymen and apprentices would gather regularly in St. Mark's Church. Outside, on the northwest wall of the church lies the oldest coat of arms of Zagreb with the year 1499 engraved in it (the original is kept in the Zagreb Town Museum).

As the corner of St. Mark's Square and the present day Cirilometodska Street, was a Town Hall, the seat of the city administration in medieval times. The building has gone through a number of alteration and reconstruction phases, and today this old Town Hall still keeps its doors open for the meetings of the Zagreb Town Council. On the opposite side of the Square at the corner of Basaritekova Street lies St. Mark's parish office. The house has been standing there since the 16th century, although it underwent reconstruction in the 18th century and had an extension added in the 19th century. At the west end of St. Mark's Square, the mansion called Dvori, the former residence of the Civil Governor of Croatia, was built at the beginning of the 19th century and yet, it can be classed among the Zagreb antiquities. The government of the Republic of Croatia meets in the Baroque mansion beside it. Since 1734, the Croatian Sabor (parliament) has taken up the east side of St. Mark's Square.

Very little is known today of the outward appearance of medieval Vlaska Street. The name of the settlement was Vlaska Ves, of Vicus Latinorum in Latin. In the old part of the present day VIaska Street, below the archbishop's residence and gardens, lies a row of houses built at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, and thus the line of their facades shows the course of the old road.

In medieval documents a mention was made of watermills and public baths which existed along the Medvestak Stream in the valley between Gradec and Kaptol. The road construction in that area began in the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries. The east bank of the stream was under the jurisdiction of Kaptol, and the west bank under Gradec.

Given that St. Mark's square was the main town square, the two century old governor's palace was built there, and in 1907, on the opposite side of the square, the parliament building was erected. that was the first case in Zagreb that applications for a building project were invited publically. the fact that the space was politically conditonned influenced the building of the underground tunnels beneith Gornji Grad, used as shelter or a potential escape route for the fascist leadership during WWII.

ASбECT - ASBESTOS

Asbestos (Russian: Асбест) is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, 86 km northeast of Yekaterinburg, named after the mineral asbestos. The city is geographically on the eastern foothills of the Central Urals on the river Bolshoy Reft (tributary of the Pyshma).



The site was created in 1889 as the settlement Koedelka at the start of the mining of the largest chrysotile (white) asbestos deposit in Russia: the Bazjenovskogo ore layer, which was discovered in 1885. Kammenaja Koedelka (Koedelkasteen) is the name for asbestos in the vernacular. In 1897 was the first Asbestos enrichment plant in Russia opened. This plant produced about 85% of all asbestos in Russia and 13% of the world. Then came some mines and in 1904 became the first narrow gauge railway to the mines laid. In subsequent years appeared more railway lines and roads. By 1917 there were four companies working in the deposit, which were all subsequently nationalized by the Soviets in 1918. In 1922, the asbestos mines in the regions Bazjenovski, and Nevjanski Rezjevski (and later Alapajevski) united under the state Ural Asbestos. From then began the systematic mining of asbestos from the ore Bazjenovskogo layer. In 1923 the volispolkom (Executive Committee volost) Asbestos transformed into a workers town board under the jurisdiction of the district Belojarski. In 1931 the asbestos industry under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry on top. On June 10 of that year the workers settlement asbestos as an independent district under the jurisdiction moved from the oblispolkom (implementation committee of the oblastraad of delegates to work) of Oblast Urals and on June 20, 1933 got the status of town under the jurisdiction of the oblast .
In 1936, the town has a railway station. In 1938, 4 Ural asbestos mines and enrichment plants 4. During the war, in 1942, the factory was founded OeralATI where asbestos products are made since then. In 1950 the only Institute for Asbestos Asbestos Industry of the Soviet Union. The asbestos production was further increased after the war in relation to an increased demand by industry. In 1958 the main asbestos producer and Canada surpassed it in 1969, No 6 factory built, the largest asbestos enrichment plant in the world. In 1971 exceeded the population of the city including surrounding areas under the jurisdiction despite the 100,000 inhabitants. In 1997 the city got a new road to the place Belojarski south of it.

The Bazjenovskogo-deposit is the largest asbestos layer of Russia. The asbestos mine (surface) is 11.5 km long and 1.8 km wide, almost 300 meters deep and covers an area where approximately 90 km ². Over 10,000 employees Urals Asbestos mining here has more than 500,000 tons of chrysotile asbestos. [2] Currently Ural Best, consisting of 19 factories and workshops is the largest producer of asbestos in the world and in 2003 was Russia with an annual production of 870,000 tonnes well top the list of Asbestos producers, which was 60% in Russia was deposed. [3] Ural Asbestos is thus one of the fiercest opponents of restrictions on the use of Asbestos, as the law of the European Union, which decreed that any Asbestos banned in 2005 from the EU regarding the risk of several cancer types by people who come into contact with loose particles of the mineral. The asbestos industry is very important to the city, where 10% of the population works and 70% of households have someone working. It is therefore sometimes called an example of a monogorod.
In 2007 the Ural Asbestos in collaboration with the SUAL group started the construction of a large magnesium factory in the city.
Other factories are OeralATI Asbestos, Zaretsjny, Asbostroj, a chicken factory (Asbestovskaja) and a plant for concrete. In asbestos include asbestos, brick, china, furniture, and metal structures produced.

Translated by Google Translation

HIGHWAY ACROSS AN ANTITANK CANAL

The antitank canal offers fine riding from Oelegem on the Albert Canal to Sint-Job-in-'t-Goor on the Turnhout. Combined with the Albert west to Schoten and then the Turnhout northeast to Sint-Job, you have a nice loop of 40 km. This is marked in the clockwise direction "Waterwegenroute", and is route 46 in the GeoCart cycle guide for Antwerp province.

The antitank canal (the line of squares north and east of Antwerpen on the Kempen map) was constructed as a defense (modern moat) for Antwerp. At the east end it started from the Albert canal at Oelegem and ran northwest though Schilde, 's-Gravenwezel, St.-Job-in-'t-Goor, Schoten, Brasschaat, Kapellen, Putte, and Stabroek to Berendrecht at the north end of the port of Antwerp. The overall length is 46 km, bottom width 5 m, with a water depth of 2 meters. The embankments of either side were 14 to 18 m wide. Due to a difference in water level of 15 m over the 45 km, 17 fortified locks (sluisbunkers) (actually fortified culverts) were required. It was finished in the first weeks of 1940.
The canal was only the latest in numerous attempts to protect Antwerp from invaders. There had been two different city walls. Then in the years before WW1 a ring of eighteen forts was built around the city. The antitank canal (or ditch) was designed to strengthen six of the forts by connecting them with a modern moat that would be capable of stopping tanks. And as with all other passive defenses, from the Walls of Jericho to Hitler's Atlantic Wall, the antitank canal was a failure against a determined army. The German forces did not attack Antwerp at all in their charge to the sea.

In 1948 most of the canal was filled. In the early 1970s an Antwerp bypass canal using the antitank canal route was proposed. Barge convoys of up to 9,000 tons could travel from the Albert to the north end of the Antwerp docks. Highway bridges (including the E34) were (re)built with that in mind. However, NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) protests led to indefinite postponement. In 1985 renovation of the original canal was started. The fill was removed, and a crushed limestone biker/hiker path laid between St.-Job-in-'t-Goor and Oelegem. This was later marked as part of the Waterwegenroute.

The path runs practically straight from the Albert Canal. From the peak of the intended junction on the Albert (junction 56), follow the limestone path north toward junction 57 under the E34 bridge. In about 2 km (just past junction 57, direction 26) you reach the first fort, named Oelegem for the neighboring town. The area is now privately owned and a nature preserve. The fort itself houses a bat colony. A bit over 2 km later (past junction 26 direction 45) near Koeputten you reach a lunette - a strong point. The fortifications have been partly destroyed. The area is now used by a fishing club. Two km further is another fort, 's-Gravenwezel. This is a designated recreation zone that has been partly taken over by illegal county houses. Nearly 4 km later past junction 42 direction 41 you reach the north end of the path at St-Job-in-'t-Goor where you turn right and then left to the bridge over the Turnhout Canal (junction 41). (Route description based on material from André Maes December 2002) (Junction numbers added 21 November 2008)
Dan Gamber