South African union heats up rivalry via Twitter

As commemorations took place for the 34 people killed last year at the Lonmin (LON:LMI) mine in Marikana, a major labour union took to Twitter to release a stream of grievances and semi-hostile remarks at a rival and its supporters.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has been venting on the social media site after announcing that it will not participate in today's ceremonies – an event organized by NUM's main competitor, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) took a firm decision to not be party to tomorrow ‘s commemoration of the Marikana tragedy

— NUM (@NUM_Media) August 15, 2013

Hosting the event is a group calling itself the Marikana Support Group – a group which NUM considers "illegitimate." The ceremonies, according to NUM, have been "hijacked."

The union had so much to say about today's event that it split its Tweets into several sections, releasing a flurry of angry remarks.

Read more: Sierra Leone diamond exports up 43% in first half

Sierra Leone exported $102 million worth of diamonds in the first half of 2013, up from $71 million in the same period last year, largely due to higher output from the country's main producer, the National Mineral Agency said on Friday.

The government collected $5.1 million in taxes in line with the mining code's 5 percent levy on exports, highlighting progress in channelling diamond revenues through the government.

"At the end of the first half of 2013, exports exceeded those of 2012 by 42.95 percent, an improvement of $30.71 million," Ibrahim Mohmed, who oversees the diamond sector at the NMA, told Reuters.

"The total diamonds exported ... amounted to 331,471 carats valued at $102,205,588," he said.

Sierra Leone exported 296,334 carats of diamonds in 2012.

The NMA said that increased production from Koidu Holdings had been primarily responsible for the rise in output. Koidu is Sierra Leone's only commercial pit mining operation. It is privately-owned by Israeli diamond trader Beny Steinmetz's BSG Resources through its Octea diamond unit.

Kimberlite, or industrial, production accounted for 62 percent of the diamond exports with a total of 205,834 carats over the six month period.

Other artisanal production accounted for the rest, producing some 125,637 carats.

The United Nations in 2003 lifted a worldwide ban on diamonds exported from Sierra Leone and the country is now a member of the Kimberley Process.

The Kimberley Process certification scheme was established by the industry, producer countries and civil society groups in the wake of diamond-fueled wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia to ensure that revenues from diamonds sold on the world market were not financing violence.

UPDATE 2-Zuma draws fire on South Africa mine killings anniversary

Ruling ANC shuns event dominated by hostile mines union

* Critics say Zuma, ANC have miners' blood on their hands

* Row over Marikana anniversary betrays labour tensions

* Amnesty criticises government over slow inquiry progress

MARIKANA, South Africa, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Opponents of President Jacob Zuma turned the anniversary of South Africa's bloodiest post-apartheid mine violence into an attack on his failure to tackle poverty and inequality on Friday after his government shunned a memorial event for slain miners.

In a decision highlighting the ruling African National Congress (ANC)'s loss of support among many mineworkers, Zuma's government backed out of the ceremony commemorating 34 striking platinum workers killed by police at Lonmin's Marikana mine.

Last year's so-called "Marikana massacre" was the deadliest incident of its kind since the 1994 end of white-minority rule. It shocked South Africans and the world and drew attention to growing workers' dissatisfaction with Zuma and the ANC's rule.

Instead of attending the Marikana memorial event, Zuma flew to a regional summit in neighbouring Malawi.

While seats reserved for cabinet ministers at the memorial remained empty, leading critics of Zuma who plan to challenge him and the ANC in elections next year pilloried his government's handling of labour unrest and popular protests against widespread poverty and unemployment.

Addressing thousands of miners gathered at the rocky outcrop where their colleagues died last year in hail of police gunfire, former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema told the president and his party: "You've got blood on your hands!"

Malema, who was expelled from the ANC for ill-discipline and has launched a new political movement advocating nationalisation of the mines, accused Zuma and his government of failing to take responsibility for the miners' deaths. A government inquiry into the mines violence has made little progress.

"We will never want to be friends of the murderous government," Malema, wearing his trademark red beret, told the crowd, which had greeted him with songs.

Another government critic at the memorial, leading anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele who has also formed a new party to contest the 2014 elections, blamed the Marikana violence on persisting inequalities in South Africa.

Prayers were offered and a moment of silence was observed for the Marikana victims. They were among 60 deaths during a wave of illegal strikes and labour violence in the country's mines that started last year and spilled over into this year.

Lonmin CEO Ben Magara told families of the victims he was sorry for what had happened. The mines violence helped trigger credit downgrades for Africa's biggest economy.

Zuma's government had planned a unifying day of prayer and reflection, but hours before the planned commemoration went ahead at the mine northeast of Johannesburg, a government spokeswoman said no one from the government would be there.

Zuma's ruling ANC said it would not participate because the event was being organised by a group including the hardline Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).

"People are taking advantage of a tragedy for their own political benefit," ANC spokesman Ishmael Mnisi told Reuters.

SAFETY FEARS

The labour union ally of Zuma's ANC, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which has been displaced by the more hardline AMCU as the dominant union among miners in the area, said it was also staying away, for safety reasons.

"The possibility of losing further lives is great," NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said.

The two unions have been involved in a deadly war for members among South Africa's mineworkers, accusing each other of being behind killings of members over the past few months.

The more radical AMCU accuses the ANC government and its NUM union allies of siding with mining bosses over the interests of workers fighting for better pay and conditions.

At Marikana, thousands, many of them wearing green AMCU T-shirts, gathered on and around the rocky outcrop dubbed by media the "Hill of Horror" where the strikers were killed last year.

Paulos Mpahlela, 60, was angry. "The government should be here. They should have taken the trouble to come," he said.

The ANC, Nelson Mandela's liberation movement which has dominated South Africa since the end of apartheid, is still expected to win the elections easily next year, but increasingly draws accusations it is now the party of the rich and powerful.

"What it shows is that the ANC, the NUM and the government have lost their legitimacy in that region which has become enemy territory," political analyst Nic Borain told Reuters.

AMCU denies aggressive recruitment tactics are behind the unrest in the mines, which has added tension to the latest round of wage bargaining underway between mining companies and unions.

Rights group Amnesty International urged the government to ensure the Marikana inquiry was fully completed.

"There seems to be a critical lack of political will to ensure that the police and those responsible for the police fully account for their actions," Amnesty's Deputy Programme Director for Africa Noel Kututwa said in a statement.

IHC Merwede Launches DCI DREDGE XXI (The Netherlands)

IHC Merwede has successfully named and launched the 5,500m³ trailing suction hopper dredger, DCI DREDGE XXI, in a ceremony on 8 August 2013 at the company’s shipyard in Kinderdijk, The Netherlands.

It is building the innovative vessel for the Dredging Corporation of India Ltd (DCI).

The ceremony was performed by Mrs R Mohanty, the spouse of DCI Chairman and Managing Director Captain DK Mohanty.

The DCI DREDGE XXI is the third vessel in a series of three dredgers – including the DCI DREDGE XIX and DCI DREDGE XX – and is being constructed under the dual classes of Lloyd’s Register and Indian Register of Shipping.

IHC Merwede has previously supplied ten vessels to DCI, having been selected as a preferred supplier due to its efficiency and reliability in delivering previous orders on time.

The vessel will be deployed – along with the DCI DREDGE XIX and DCI DREDGE XX – for the maintenance-dredging project on the Hooghly River, which is a tributary of the Ganges River in West Bengal.

These new DCI vessels are specially designed for this task, taking into account the Hooghly River’s soil properties, strong current and shallow depth.

These dredgers feature high levels of productivity, reliability and efficiency.

The DCI DREDGE

XIX and DCI DREDGE XX have already been successfully utilised in operations, and the DCI DREDGE XXI will be delivered in the first quarter of 2014.

“IHC Merwede is looking forward to continuing its successful working relationship with DCI”, says Bram Roelse, Managing Director of IHC Merwede’s Dredging division.

“Infrastructure developments in India have increased the need to improve the navigability of rivers and ports and this has in turn led to a greater requirement for dredging vessels and equipment. This class of dredgers will boost the performance of DCI to considerable heights and further strengthen its position on the Indian continent.”

Australia: Improved Dredge Material Management Report Introduced

WWF stated that the ‘Fight for the Reef’ campaign has seized on a new report on the impact of dredging on the Great Barrier Reef as further evidence that the practice of dumping dredge waste should be banned.

The Improved Dredge Material Management for the Great Barrier Reef Region report is one of a number of research projects commissioned by the government to support the comprehensive strategic assessment of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and adjacent coastal zone.

This research, funded by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Populations and Communities and managed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority made use of independent expertise to improve decision making with regards to dredge material disposal in the Great Barrier Reef Region.

GBRMPA and external expert consultants worked closely with the Queensland Ports Association to inform the research and to ensure site specific information on type of dredging, amount of dredging and sediment composition was accurately reflected in the modelling.

The report provides a comparative analysis of dredge material dispersal at existing and hypothecial alternative disposal sites near the five major ports in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area—Cairns, Townsville, Gladstone, Abbot Point and Hay Point—and the marina at Rosslyn Bay.

The research was the first to incorporate the combined influence of waves, tides, local winds and large-scale currents when modelling the movement of dredge material over 12 months at multiple locations.

Scientists and stakeholders agreed that the model was robust, but recognised there were some limitations and uncertainties associated with some of the model inputs.

The information generated by this study is high level and is not intended to replace the detail required as part of an environmental impact assessment process for any future dredge material placement operations.

Iron Ore Rally Means Think Again About Miners, China

The price of iron ore is rallying sharply.  It has risen by 15% since June and nearly 50% from a low last September. Iron ore costs more now than it did in 2007.

Why should you care? Because iron ore is the primary raw material needed to make steel, and steel is the primary material needed to build buildings and cars, among other bedrock economic drivers. So prices for iron ore and its still more ubiquitous cousin copper are meaningful proxies for manufacturing dynamism around the world, and particularly in China, the great making-things engine of our age.

It has been a rough few years for these proxies. Iron and copper both peaked in early 2011 along with the pace of Chinese economic growth.  Since then both metals have gotten about 30% cheaper on world markets, and turned into evidence for a now-established market narrative:  The age of a burgeoning China driving high commodity prices is over. China, where the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index has also lost one-third of its value, has stumbled, afflicted by plagues of smog, banking shenanigans, and who knows what else. The future belongs again to the USA and companies that live on brainpower.

The rally in iron ore indicates that this big story line may be shifting again. Whatever existential challenges confront semi-Communist China, its huge financial reserves still enable its leaders to step on the economic accelerator pretty much at will by upping spending on the country’s vast infrastructure campaign.

That is apparently just what happened in the first half of this year. Chinese steel production increased by 7.45%. At the same time, world iron ore prices slumped to $110 per ton, a point where imports became cheaper than products of Chinese domestic suppliers.  The inevitable result: China’s iron imports rebounded to a record 73 million tons in July, a strapping 26% jump from a year earlier.  Prices have snapped back to some $130 per ton.

Can the market keep tightening? China’s bosses seem to think so, considering that they are trying to jawbone iron ore prices down rather than calmly waiting for them to subside on their own.  Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang personally told Andrew Mackenzie, chief executive of iron mining power BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP), that Beijing is looking for lower costs, Mackenzie lately told an Australian newspaper. The miners are in no mood to deal, though, judging by the response of Sam Walsh, CEO at rival Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO).  Producers have “heard similar commentary from China since iron ore was discovered,” the plainspoken Aussie boss fired back.

Signs of a recovery in copper are more tentative.  The retail investor’s most common window into the “professor of metals,” the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Copper Subindex Total Return ETN (NYSEARCA:JJC), has bounced up about 8% over the past six weeks, but still remains one-third (a fraction that is becoming eerily familiar) off of its 2011 highs.  Copper did have its best week in a year last week, gaining more than 4% on – what else? – Chinese manufacturing growth, which accelerated to a robust 9.7% in July. The country’s copper imports increased by 12% year-on-year last month.

The most obvious response to the two essential metals’ signs of life is to take another look at battered miners’ stocks.  Rio Tinto and BHP, the No. 2 and 3 iron producers in the world, have both already rebounded by 20% over the last month, but remain nearly 20% down year-to-date.  Top producer Vale (NYSE:VALE), which adds the perceived risk of its native Brazil to iron price risk, has been more volatile – dropping 27% since Jan. 1, but regaining 25% during the recent upturn.

The traded company that comes closest to a pure copper play is Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE:FCX), the No. 2 global producer after Chile’s state-owned Codelco.  Freeport, which also mines gold, is trading at half of its 2011 peak and has barely begun to creep back.  So if you believe copper is on the mend, there are gains to be made there.

In broader terms, the movements in iron ore and copper – not to mention oil, which has also climbed by some 10% since mid-June – tell us that financial markets are still challenged to soberly evaluate the rise of China and its tremendous centrifugal pull on commodities prices among other things.

In 2010-11, investors were gripped by the vision that China could keep growing at close to double digits indefinitely and would soon displace the US as the world’s hegemonic power. That swung over the past two years to speculation that the miracle would prove illusory, and China, in some unforeseen fashion, would crash back to the stone age.

It is clear by now that the reality is somewhere in between. Investors who can get China at least sort-of right stand to gain handsomely.

Mining industry accused of dividing Hunter Valley communities

A group opposed to the expansion of Rio Tinto's Warkworth coal mine in the Hunter Valley says the mining industry is attempting to buy community support.

The Bulga Milbrodale Progress Association' John Krey, is also accusing coal companies of dividing communities by offering some landholders acquisition deals but not others.

A Court of Appeal hearing starts in Sydney tomorrow, with Rio Tinto and the state government seeking to overturn a Land and Environment Court decision to refuse the mine extension.

Mr Krey says the threat of mass layoffs, should the mine expansion not go ahead, is fuelling ill-will in the region against opponents of the mine.

"The miners talk often about what they're contributing to the community in the way of these school projects, they support football teams and whatever," he said.

"(They) use that as justification for their continuation but as the Judge of the Land and Environment court said that does not offset the damage which is being caused by an open cut mining company."

Mr Krey, says over 20 homes in the town were initially under an acquisition offer when the Warkworth mine extension was due to go ahead.

When the Land and Environment Court overturned the company's approval to mine, the offer was revoked and Rio Tinto began warning of mass job losses.

Mr Krey says it has caused serious divisions in the community.

"There is this divide, not caused by us, but I believe it's caused by the mining industry.

"This is a full scale onslaught against villages such as ours.

"We're being accused of being activists, greenies, and whatever, and we're not, we're simply a progress association that is protecting our village."

A former corporate lawyer appointed by Singleton Council to negotiate a royalties deal on its behalf for the Warkworth mine, Rod McGeoch, has also weighed into the debate on the Warkworth mine.

Best known for having led the bid for the Sydney Olympics, Mr McGeoch says he cannot understand why the New South Wales government appears to be using the mine as justification to change planning laws.

"I think it's very unfortunate that the first time out under the potential force of the new SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy) it happens to point at Warkworth," he said.

"It's a bad case to allow the force of the new SEPP to be applied to in my view, because that deed is an instrument the government signed itself and so did the mining company."

A self-professed supporter of coal seam gas and mining, he says the NSW Government is showing no signs of wanting to make planning laws fairer.

"All the new SEPP is doing is actually re-stating how the government has behaved in the past and that is that this is the primary matter to be considered ie: the economic benefit arising out of mining and I get that.

"My point is you can still do much much better and there's no sign that they want to do it that way."

China Mining Association urges steelmakers to buy into Australian mines

THE China Mining Association has called for Chinese steelmakers to take stakes in Australian iron ore mines, saying cheap Chinese production and high raw materials prices are unstainable.

Wang Jiahua, CMA executive vice president, told a Melbourne Mining Club lunch that Australia and China needed to co-operate more and that Chinese investment in Australia had fallen because of a confusing mining tax, poor infrastructure and labour and indigenous issues.

"The key to China's steel industry and Australian ore supplier cooperation is to find a balance between the interests," he said. "Can the two sides discuss and perhaps adopt a cross-shareholding approach to establish a long-term mutually beneficial China-Australian iron ore partnership?"

Following today's revelation in The Australian that China's premier had urged BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie to lower commodities prices, Mr Wang said there was a "lack of a fair mineral pricing mechanism”.

"It is hard to imagine whatever the Chinese sell will be cheap, whatever the Chinese buy will be expensive," he said.