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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Seydi Sow, a landowner in Djogo, Senegal, contemplated his eviction by a mining company with joint headquarters in Australia and France and which mines zircon in central Senegal.
The elderly landowner said he was wronged in the compensation process.
With two fields over two hectares in size, he complained he received a small payment, much less than others with smaller farms.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — In one of the deadliest explosions in years, fire and blast shook south-eastern Nigeria, Imo state, possibly the result of illegal oil refining of stolen crude or “kpofire”.
News reports described charred bodies left scattered among burnt palms, cars and vans after the weekend explosion which killed more than 100 people at an illegal depot on the border of Nigeria's Rivers and Imo states.
By Sugeeswara Senadhira
COLOMBO (IDN) — This week, Sri Lanka is hosting the fifth Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit in the backdrop of member nations struggling to shake-off the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The summit would provide the leaders of the seven members—India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka—to finalise the much delayed BIMSTEC Charter and initiate tangible measures for economic cooperation.
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW | JOHANNESBURG (IDN) — South Africa is in frantic search of foreign investors to boost its economy exposed to turbulences caused by two years of struggle to contain the global pandemic that triggered almost complete shutdown of businesses and production under lockdowns, which threaten economic efforts since the ambitious investment plan was initiated in 2018 under President Cyril Ramaphosa.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Africa’s richest man is in the sights of a labour union in Zambia where his cement plant has been outsourcing labour that pays low wages for its 1,300-workforce.
After a wildcat strike last month, unionized workers at the Dangote Industries Zambia Limited cement plant outside Ndola, the country’s Copperbelt province, won an increase of $55 a month, according to the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ). The workers were seeking monthly minimum wage hikes of $136. An average monthly salary is US$210 or 3,530 Zambian kwachas.
By Gorethy Kenneth
The writer is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. This article was issued by Asia Pacific Report on 15 February and is being republished with permission.
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (IDN) — The dormant Bougainville Copper Limited share value has more than doubled overnight on the Australian Stock Exchange following a resolution to reopen the rich but controversial Panguna copper mine.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | GABORONE (IDN) — There may be a lump of coal in Botswana’s Christmas stocking if the southern African country goes through with plans to wind down its famed diamond industry and replace it with unsustainable dirty coal.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi, at the Investing in African Mining Indaba, unveiled the country’s new direction acknowledging an abysmal year for the diamond market which hurt government revenue. It is “more imperative than ever”, he said, “to diversify into other commodities and curb the nation’s overdependence on precious stones".
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW | DURBAN (IDN) — South Africa is hosting a weeklong Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF2021), which provides a unique and valuable platform for businesses to access an integrated African market of over 1.2 billion people with a GDP of over US$2.5 trillion.
Organized by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), in collaboration with the African Union and the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), it is the 2nd edition of the IATF, taking place in Durban from November 15-21.
By Josefa Babitu
* The writer is a final year Journalism student at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji Islands. This article is a collaboration between University of South Pacific’s student’s newspaper Wansolwara and IDN-InDepthNews.
SUVA, Fiji Islands (IDN) — “I have never been in a situation where I’ve had to fight for our right to breathe clean air,” says Sydel Whippy, a resident of Lami, an urban township north-west of the Fijian capital Suva.
By Lisa Vives. Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — “Gold mining is one (of the) most destructive industries in the world. It can displace communities, contaminate drinking water, hurt workers, and destroy pristine environments. It pollutes water and land with mercury and cyanide, endangering the health of people and ecosystems.”
Those factors alone, cited by Earthworks.org, a Washington, DC environmental organization, would appear to be reason enough to reconsider expansion of the Kibali gold mine—already one of the largest gold mines in Africa—in the northeast part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.