While sifting through some of the rumours swirling around the Bre-X fiasco, I came across some fascinating muckraking regarding Freeport McMoRan, the Louisiana-based company brought in to develop the Bre-x find. There now appear to be two equally bizarre possibilities: 1. the Bre-x discovery was a fraud or 2. the collapse of the Bre-x bubble was a brazen armed robbery of gargantuan proportions. Of course, it could all just be a big misunderstanding ;-) Check out this web site: http://www.webcom.com/lpease/pr596-fp.html if you're not completely allergic to conspiracy theorists. The page contains the second part of a two part story about Freeport McMoRan, the CIA, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the JFK assassination, the 1965 coup and bloodbath in Indonesia, Henry Kissinger, the invasion of East Timor, etc. etc. To put it mildly, the article suggests that Freeport McMoRan has been at the centre of some very, very nasty business. See also a message from Pratap Chatterjee to NATIVE-L (December 1995): INDONESIA: US mining giant implicated in Indonesian atrocities: http://bioc09.uthscsa.edu/natnet/archive/nl/9512/0135.html And here's a few more web pages that offer a taste of how this "corporate citizen" operates. http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/boyer/fp/official-fcm-minutes.html http://www.auschron.com/issues/vol14/issue40/slusher.40.html http://www.auschron.com/issues/vol15/issue11/pols.cunningham.html http://www.cedar.univie.ac.at/arch/infoterra/96mar/msg00005.html Regards, Tom Walker ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] | does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286 | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm