The Argentine province of Río Negro has provided the latest sign of opposition here to the use of cyanide in mining, enacting the country’s first province-wide ban on the practice. The ban, which cleared the unicameral provincial legislature on July 21, sent concern rippling through Argentina’s mining sector, which is wary of jeopardizing an ongoing surge of foreign investment. But Río Negro Gov. Miguel Saiz, the ban’s foremost supporter, was expected to sign the legislation this month. “We’re not going to put the health of a single Rio Negran at risk, no matter how many grams, kilos or tons of gold can be extracted,” declares Saiz, a member of the centrist Radical Party, the leading opposition to the Justicialist Party of President Néstor Kirchner... [Log in to read more]