A KENYAN court has granted an injunction stopping multi-million-dollar mining operations by a Canadian firm until a suit filed by farmers opposing the project is fully heard and determined. Judge Andrew Hayanga ruled that the 250 farmers suing Tiomin Resources Inc. of Toronto had a genuine plaint and barred the Canadian company from going ahead with its proposed titanium mining operations. Local peasant farmers contend the operation would cause great environmental degradation to their environment. There is also a dispute about compensation packages that the company is offering the farmers in return for their land, believed to be holding 4.4m tonnes of titanium ore – about 12% of the world’s known deposits. The judge dismissed assertions by the firm’s lawyer, Patrick Ochwa, that the injunction might disadvantage its Kenyan operation in the Kwale district of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast. – AFP