Exchange controls are blocking South African investment in Africa’s mining boom while China extends its reach on the continent, a conference heard on Wednesday. Soaring commodity prices in recent years, largely fuelled by China’s insatiable appetite for resources, has spurred a rebound in exploration activity on the continent.
The chief executive of South Africa’s Gold Fields said on Wednesday he was aware of a bid rumour that sent its shares surging, but that the firm has not been approached about a takeover. Bloomberg News reported that United States financier Edward Pastorini may lead a bid for Gold Fields, the world’s fourth biggest gold producer.
The Italian owners of two granite firms are suing South Africa for â,¬266-million (about R2,5-billion), arguing that laws which force firms to sell stakes to black investors violated international investment treaties, the investors’ lawyer said on Friday. The action marks the first legal action alleging that South Africa’s mining charter amounts to expropriation.
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/ 18 December 2006
Smangele Mngomezulu worked for 15 years at South African mining giant Anglo American, but apartheid-era laws banned her from donning a hard hat and shovelling ore. Now, over a decade after the collapse of race laws, she heads down into sweltering underground mines as the owner of her own company, with Anglo as one of her customers.
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/ 13 November 2006
Kenalemang Moitsheki squints through an eyepiece at a tiny diamond as a cutting tool etches heart-shaped facets on the gem. Moitsheki had never seen a raw diamond before she secured a training place at Botswana’s new Eurostar cutting factory, even though her country produces a quarter of global supply.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of South Africa’s largest black opposition party, has warned an ethnic war could be started by supporters of former deputy president Jacob Zuma complaining of an anti-Zulu conspiracy. South African President Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma last year after he was implicated in a corruption scandal, but the charges were thrown out of court last month.
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/ 21 September 2006
Tests may have been mistaken showing that South African gold miners contracted a highly drug resistant strain of tuberculosis, health officials and a gold firm said on Thursday. A statement by the provincial department of health late on Tuesday that XDR-TB (extremely drug resistant tuberculosis) had been identified in six gold miners in the Free State, south-west of Johannesburg, sparked panic there.
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/ 12 September 2006
Mining firms in South Africa, the world’s biggest producer of precious metals, must make greater efforts to share proceeds from a commodities boom with workers and those who live near mines, the government said on Tuesday. South Africa’s mining charter, which seeks to spur more ownership by the black majority, also demands that companies help develop workers and communities.