Africa Update
Published by MAC on 2007-01-04
Africa update
4 January 2007
As the New Year broke, Anglo American's most remunerative subsidiary, Anglo Platinum, continued to ignore community rights at one of its South African mines.
In December, a Kenyan court dismissed land claims by farmers which now appears to provide the final go-ahead to Tiomin's mineral sands excavations of Kwale.
Following revelations of Vedanta's hapless lack of environmental controls over pollution from the huge Konkola copper mine in Zambia, the Financial Times reveals that all is still far from well..
Robert Mugabe has announced a long-awaited new minerals law, designed to give "rights to locals." However, the move obviously doesn't include thousands of small-scale miners, desperately trying to eke out a living while the country's economy continues to founder.
The world's dominant "steel king", Lakshmi Mittal, has managed to climb back successfuly in Liberia after heavy criticisms that he had tried to manipulate a dishonest deal last year.