#african mining

[workersolidarity]

The truth about Congolese Cobalt Mines and the mothers and children working them so you can have a fancy iPhone.

"The most fortunate tunnel diggers in Kasulo (DRC) earn around $3'000 per year, the most fortunate. By way of comparison, the CEO's of the technology and car companies that buy the Cobalt mined from Kosulo earn $3'000 in an hour and they do so without having to put their lives at risk each day that they go to work."

[dekierey153]

ASX-listed Danakali is looking to raise A$6.7-million through the issue of 20.2-million shares, at A$0.33 apiece, which will be used to advance the development of its Colluli potash project, in Eritrea. MD Paul Donaldson said on Friday that the placement was testimony to how the international profile of the project, with an estimated mine life of over 200 years, has grown. “This is a clear endorsement of the project, the jurisdiction and the company. It also demonstrates the attractiveness of the Colluli project and Danakali as an emerging agri-commodity company,” he added.

[5centsapound]

Paolo Woods: Chinafrica  

"We have turned east, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the west, where the sun sets” Robert Mugabe speaking about the relationship between Africa, the West and China. To quench its thirst for oil, its hunger for copper, uranium and wood, Beijing has sent out its state companies and its adventurous entrepreneurs to conquer Africa. For the 500.000 Chinese who have emigrated to the ‘dark continent’ there is the promise of a 21st century Wild West. Some have struck gold and run large conglomerates that span whole regions of Africa, others are still selling their cheap goods on the burning hot roadsides of the poorest countries in the world. For the Africans, the arrival of the Chinese is perhaps the most important event of the forty years of independence. The Chinese do not look like the former colonialists. They build roads, dams and hospitals and win over the people. They speak neither of democracy nor transparency and they win over the dictators. In 2007, Paolo Woods set out with journalist Serge Michel to meet the Chinese stirring up Africa. They accompanied them along the railroads of Angola, through the forests of the Congo and the karaoke bars of Nigeria. From the barren countryside of Central China to the leather armchairs of African ministries, the photographs capture the adventures of the Chinese who came to Africa to make their fortunes and who invested their lives and their money in a continent that the West has long considered fit only for hand outs. These are rare images: Beijing wants to keep a low profile for its conquest. But though it remains largely unexposed these photographs portray a phenomenon and a new dimension that is not just a product of globalization, but is its ultimate realization.

* Go to the artist’s site for full photo details.

**I'm reposting this because these issues and their repercussions are not getting enough attention.

[5centsapound]

Valentino Bellini: Akwatia, Bodies at Work

Artist Statement: Ghana is a country rich in natural resources, especially of gold, which is extracted with bare hands by a lowcost labor force, to be sold at competitive prices on the international market. Since the sixteenth century, during the British colonial era, Ghana was one of the main areas of gold exportation: the breadth of the annual production of Ghanaian mines place today the country in second place worldwide after South Africa. In Akwatia outdated equipment and techniques are used and the situation is compounded by the complicity of the government. The first factor of the environmental impact of gold mining is in the artificial diversion of rivers: after the completion of mining activities, the river is not redirected to its original course, causing water pollution and destruction of flora and fauna - the commons at the base of social reproduction - and impoverishing living conditions of the workers themselves, already exhausted by industrial fordist work/life patterns. Pollution, in extreme cases, leads to desertification and permanent inability to use the land for subsistence economy.

This series of photographs was shot in April 2012. They highlight the working conditions faced by miners, where the value of gold (white, rich, western) is the value of capitalist exploitation of black bodies. The complicity between the governmental elite and the economic systems of developed countries satisfy the greed of the lobbyes themselves, not only preventing human development of the Ghanaian population, but causing irreversible damage to the territory. This trend actualizes and increases a colonialist slavery condition. The imperial capitalist domination and governmental powers related to post-colonial powers are the advocates of an unlimited exploitation of life and work. In this sense, immaterial/post-fordist (western) labor and material/fordist (outsourced) labor are necessary to each other. Physical effort - labor marks on the skin - of workers is the focus of this documentary work, that explores the physical traces of an old but effective vision of the current functioning of the world economy, in the era of the domain of 'knowledge-based and immaterial economy.

The bodies at work are bodies whose life is all set to work: feature, this, which is generalized to all forms of life, to all the new forms of contemporary work. The raw material (gold) that is extracted is life itself.

[resourceinventory]

Australia will invest more in African mining projects

At the Africa Downunder conference in Perth on Thursday, Australian political and business leaders expressed similar interests in increasing their country's involvement in the African mining sector.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr urged local companies to invest in Africa's mining sector. Africa, he said in his speech, offered a lot of investment opportunities. He also assured that Australia's own mining sector would not suffer as a consequence.

The Herald Sun reported Minister Carr describing Australia and Africa as "natural partners." The Foreign Minister claimed that the Australian resources boom was "spilling over" to Africa, and pointed out that Australian firms have struck both figurative and literal gold in African.

According to Carr, 40% of Australian overseas mining projects are in Africa. Around 5% of Australian listed companies have invested in the resource-rich continent.

At around the same time, Australia's Commonwealth Business Council is likewise urging Australian miners to invest more money in African mining enterprises. According to The Australian, the CBC has set a target of AUD$10 billion in deals by tbe end of 2012. The CBC also plans to hold investment forums in Zambia, Nigeria and Mozambique over the next three months.

Also present at the same conference was Mr. Ian Kramer, Mining Head of KPMG. Mr. Kramer said that Australian companies ignored Africa at their own peril. He acknowledged the higher risks involved, but he also sought to remind his fellow miners and potential investors that the rewards were more than worth the risks.

Just last week week, Australians were arguing if Australia's mining sector was petering out. Resources Minister Martin Ferguson triggered a furious debate on the matter when he said that Australia's mining boom had come to an end. Other officials have countered Minister Ferguson's controversial statements.

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