M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have taken control of Rubaya, a key mining town for the smartphone mineral coltan, following days of intense fighting, a rebel spokesman said.
Congo’s east has been plagued by violence since the 1990s, killing millions as struggles over national identity, ethnicity, and resources saw neighbouring countries invade and a myriad of armed groups spring up.
(Bloomberg) — BHP Group Ltd. has deployed a senior team including its chief executive officer to South Africa as the world’s largest miner ramps up efforts to win over government officials, regulators and local shareholders, all of whom could yet determine the outcome of its proposed tie-up with rival Anglo American Plc.
The executives have already begun conversations with key stakeholders, focusing on explaining the detail of the existing $39 billion proposal — currently back on the drawing board after it was rapidly rejected by its target — and its benefits, according to people familiar with the matter. Melbourne-based CEO Mike Henry has flown to South Africa and was in the country on Thursday, the people said.
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Barrick Gold Corp. is signalling it could be in for a protracted slog in Mali, as the big Canadian gold miner pushes back on the military government’s demands for a greater share of the country’s mining spoils.
Barrick on Wednesday said Mali is seeking unspecified changes to the tax, financial and legal regime at its Loulo-Gounkoto mining operations. The site is on track to produce 535,000 ounces of gold this year and is the company’s biggest operation by far in Africa.
Johannesburg — The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has threatened U.S. tech giant Apple with legal action over what it says are “illegally exploited” minerals from the impoverished nation in its products. U.S. and French lawyers representing the DRC’s government sent a letter to Apple on April 22 warning the company it could face legal action if it continues with the alleged practice.
The letter accuses Apple of purchasing minerals smuggled out of the DRC into Rwanda, where their origin is allegedly obscured so they can find their way into the global technology supply chain. It makes clear that the DRC government intends to address the matter and is looking into legal options to do so.
Earlier this year, Ai Qing was woken up in the middle of the night by angry chants outside her dormitory in northern Argentina. She peered out of the window to see Argentine workers surrounding the compound and blockading the entrance with flaming tyres.
“It was getting scary because I could see the sky being lit up by the fire. It had become a riot,” says Ms Ai, who works for a Chinese company extracting lithium from salt flats in the Andes mountains, for use in batteries.
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Barrick Gold Corp. is facing mounting pressure in Mali as the country’s military regime seeks to boost its control of the multibillion-dollar mining sector at a time of growing Russian influence over its economy.
Mali’s junta, which seized power in a coup in 2021 and later forged an alliance with Russian troops, has been targeting the mining sector for more than a year with a controversial audit of the industry and a new mining code to authorize greater state control of mining companies.
JOHANNESBURG/WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) – The U.S. must boost commercial ties with African countries to curb reliance on China for supplies of critical minerals, a Washington-based think tank said on Tuesday.
“U.S. economic and national security depend on securing a reliable supply of critical minerals, including from Africa,” the United States Institute of Peace said in a report.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
A rush for Madagascar’s gemstones is exacerbating destruction of critical wildlife habitat.
AMBATONDRAZAKA, MADAGASCAR — Indris, at two feet tall the largest of Madagascar’s lemurs, are big sleepers. The primates awaken two or three hours after sunrise, forage for leaves high in the canopy during the day (amid frequent naps), and choose their spot for the night well before dark.
On our trek into the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor, a protected area known by its French acronym, CAZ, photographer Adriane Ohanesian, translator-guide Safidy Andrianantenaina, and I often heard their calls. The sound, a bit like someone blowing a trombone for the first time, can carry up to a mile through the dense forest.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/
China’s influence over the lives of Africa’s 1.5 billion people is now so broad it includes food production, resource mining, and military leadership schools.
JOHANNESBURG—China’s influence in and over the lives of Africa’s 1.5 billion people is now so broad that it extends into almost all aspects of African societies.
The communist regime’s footprint is stamped across the continent in almost all economic sectors, including agriculture, natural resources, and trade and logistics. Chinese companies are deeply invested in manufacturing, services, and real estate.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States and its Western allies are feuding with Russia over its diamond production, but they joined forces Wednesday to keep supporting the Kimberley Process, which aims to eliminate the trade in “blood diamonds” that helped fuel devastating conflicts in Africa.
At a U.N. General Assembly meeting, its 193 member nations adopted a resolution by consensus recognizing that the Kimberley Process, which certifies rough diamond exports, “contributes to the prevention of conflicts fueled by diamonds” and helps the Security Council implement sanctions on the trade in conflict diamonds.
(Bloomberg) — A third of Africa’s gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees are at risk because they live in areas that overlap with mining operations for metals critical to the global clean energy transition.
Nearly 180,000 great apes in Africa are under threat as mining activities drive deforestation, according to a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances. The true impact might be even higher because mining companies are not required to make biodiversity data public, the researchers wrote.
The African Sahel is revolting against western neocolonialism – ejecting foreign troops and bases, devising alternative currencies, and challenging the old multinationals. Multipolarity, after all, cannot flower without resistance paving its path.
The emergence of Axes of Resistance in various geographies is an inextricable byproduct of the long and winding process leading us toward a multipolar world. These two things – resistance to the Hegemon and the emergence of multipolarity – are absolutely complementary.
The Axis of Resistance in West Asia – across Arab and Muslim states – now finds as its soul sister the Axis of Resistance spanning the Sahel in Africa, west to east, from Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.
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Barrick Gold Corp. says its subsidiaries have settled a British court case with 10 Tanzanian villagers who alleged that police and security guards had caused deaths and injuries near the company’s North Mara gold mine.
The two subsidiaries in Tanzania did not admit any liability in the case at the High Court of Justice in London, Barrick said in a terse one-sentence statement on its website this week. It gave no other details.
Hungry to diversify their economies beyond fossil fuels, Middle Eastern powers are investing in the resources needed to produce clean energy
In the summer of 2023, Rothschild bankers working for Zambia’s government were close to finalising a shortlist of buyers for a prized copper mine.
Mopani, a troubled but rare asset formerly owned by resources giant Glencore, had drawn offers worth hundreds of millions of dollars from big names in the mining world eager to gain access to a metal that is crucial to clean energy technologies of the future.
Precious gemstones miner Gemfields (LON: GEM) warned on Friday that it expects to swing to a loss of $2.8 million in 2023 from a $74.3 million profit the previous year due to a write-down in its platinum group metals investments, lower output and the cancellation of an emerald auction.
The London-based company, which has a 6.54% stake in South African platinum group miner Sedibelo Resources, said that plummeting prices for platinum group metals (PGMs) has affected its bottom line.
