...an Ontario judge ruled that former Canadian Ambassador to Guatemala, Kenneth Cook, slandered Ph.D. student and videographer Steven Schnoor by making false statements about a documentary video that Schnoor made that was critical of the practices of a Canadian mining company [Guatemala Nickel Company (CGN), wholly owned subsidiary of Skye Resources (part of HudBay)]. In January 2007, Schnoor made a short documentary depicting the violent eviction of Mayan subsistence farmers from their homes in rural Guatemala at the behest of a Canadian mining company...Ambassador Cook said that the woman in the documentary was paid to act in the video...Justice Thomson held that the Ambassador’s statements were defamatory and were not true...In the months since the Ambassador’s comments, the situation around El Estor has gotten worse. In September 2009...it has been reported that the mine’s private security forces shot eight individuals...