Trapped miners suffer from overweight

Due to loads of work lately, this has been a story largely overlooked by me. Since August 5, 33 miners have been trapped in the San José copper and gold mine in Chile. On August 18, the authorities managed to establish contact with the trapped miners and showed a note saying 'all 33 are ok'.

Apparently it's gonna be a big fuzz to get them out, as it might take up to three or four months before they could dig an escape shaft. The chilean president Pinera already stated the trapped will have to spend their national holiday - September, 18 - inside the mine, and plans have been made for the Chilean and Bolivian president to meet in November to have a joint meeting talking with the miners (one of them is Bolivian).

Have to dig into it later on today, but wanted to share with you already the following CNN coverage, commenting the request on behalf of the chilean authorities for NASA to send a psychologist and a nutritionist:

Also, according to medical records, there are at least nine miners who would be too overweight to fit through the proposed shaft to rescue them, Manalich said.

The miners are believed to have lost about 8 kg (17 pounds) so far during their time in the mine, and officials expect that the overweight miners will be able to be rescued by the time the shaft is completed.

"Believe me, they will lose weight," Manalich said.

Gudynas: The agony and failure of the extractive development model

It's been a while since my last post, I admit. Life has been pretty hectic and surprisingly beautiful at the same time. I'll try to write some stuff down the coming weeks, and randomly post some interesting stuff. In that series - Eduardo Gudynas, from the Centre for Latin American Social Ecology (CLAES) talking about the agony and failure of the extractive development model: