Das neue Südafrika

@ Edel Man

Bezueglich zu den Artikel in search of Eldorado .

Klar sind die Suedafrikaner die ersten die an den Kuchen rankommen wenn es um neue Projekte geht. Die haben Erfahrung gesammelt mit den Bimbos und diversifizieren in ganz Afrika da man allein in RSA nicht weit kommt wenn man schon auf 3000 m ist wie Western Areas und DRD z.B.
Da geht man das Risiko ein und versucht in zertruemmerten Laender wie auch Angola und Mocambique in den Jahre lang Buergerkrieg herrschte in der Hoffnung die Neger haben es endlich kapiert. Ja, so ist es auch hier gehts weiter mit der Hoffnung auf bessere Zeiten. Das Problem was ich sehe die werden wieder Rueckfaellig,es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit.
Und so ueberlasse ich es jeden sein Geld in das Fass zu werfen in der Hoffnung es hat einen Boden.

Mfg

XAX

ANC MPs' houses looted


22 September 2005 08:04

Just hours after Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula told the nation that burglaries at commercial and residential properties were down, :D.. his own party's caucus was bemoaning the fact that there had been "a spate of burglaries at parliamentary residential villages" in Cape Town.

African National Congress caucus spokesperson Mpho Lekgoro said in a statement on Wednesday that "the ANC parliamentary caucus regrets the spate of burglaries at parliamentary residential villages, occurring mostly during the period when members are on constituency work".

MPs started their constituency and leave period last Friday for three weeks and left the parliamentary villages where they are housed during the parliamentary session.

Lekgoro said: "We are dismayed at the sorry state of safety and security at residences of public representatives.

"The burglaries at residences of the three ANC MPs, in Acasia Park over the weekend, are extremely regrettable. Items stolen include entertainment and office equipment."

Lekgoro said one of the three victims was the recently appointed National Assembly House chairperson Obed Bapela, who was in Zambia on official duty when an "unfortunate incident" happened.

"His house was ransacked, and a fax machine and entertainment systems were stolen.

"We condemn the sluggish response by the Goodwood police to these incidents. It took more than 24 hours before the officers could arrive at Bapela's house. :DThis is unacceptable, as it undermines the good reputation being built tirelessly by thousands of dedicated police officers across the country.

"The caucus will be monitoring the situation closely, to ensure that the culprits are taken to book."

At the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Wednesday, Nqakula said that burglaries at residential premises dropped by 8,1% between 2003/04 and 2004/05, from 645,2 incidents per 100 000 members of the population to 592,8 respectively in these years.

He said changes in the policing environment -- including better training, better conditions and better interaction with communities -- looked to a bright future for the service and the fight against crime.

"The future ... looks very rosy," he said.

-- I-Net Bridge

@ Aladin,

Anfang des Jahres waren viel überzeugt der Rand wird schwächer, ja und was ist gelaufen ? wir haben eine weitere Randstärke erlben müssen.Da zeigt es sich eben doch das der Rand eine Rohstoffwährung ist.

gruss hpoth

Der Rand steigt mit der Kriminalitaet wie du siehts Hpopth.
Gutes Marketing bei Euch,ein wahres Paradies !

Wo der Rand mal 13 R/USD war hatten wir auch noch mehr Rohstoffe.

Aber da war das Marketing schlecht in den letzten Jahren.

Gruss vom bedeckten Kapstadt.

XAX

Hatte gerade einen Anruf von einem Freund :

Den haben sie bei seiner kurzen Abwesenheit das Haus auch ausgeraeumt, Safe von der Wand gerissen, alle wichtigen Papiere weg wie Pass etc..

Er nahm seinen Hund mit, sonst waere der aus dem Weg geraeumt worden, da kennen die nichts.

Insider Job, die wussten bescheid, die Maid kam auch nicht mehr.

Bis auf schweres Zeug alles weg, die Polizei kam nach 5 Stunden und entschuldigte sich weil sie kein Auto zur Verfuegung hatten.

Er hat sie gleich rausgeschmissen und drehte fast durch.

Ich glaube der hat die Schnauze nun voll und geht wieder nach D, da kommt zumindest die Polizei frueher daher.

That's life in RSA

XAX

Hallo Ulfur, mal was positives, Camps Bay heute....mit Lion's Head (630m) im Hintergrund, das ist die andere Seite der Muenze.

Ich mochte ihn nicht aber das vergoennt man keinen:

Le Metropole Members,

10:55p ET Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

South African gold mining executive Brett Kebble
was murdered last night while driving near his
home in Johannesburg. Without his help the Gold
Anti-Trust Action Committee might never have
gotten started, and so we are horrified and
want to send our condolences to his family and
friends.

The Bloomberg News Service story about Kebble's
murder is appended, along with a link to
MoneyWeb's story by Alec Hogg, which reports
that the murder seems to have been something
more than random violence.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

South African Gold Magnate
Brett Kebble is Shot Dead

By Stewart Bailey and Antony Sguazzin
Bloomberg News Service
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

http://quote.bloomberg.com/app…d=akeAYZghlCqA&refer=home

South African millionaire Brett Kebble, who helped create
two of the country's four largest gold producers, was shot
dead last night near his home in Johannesburg, police and a family spokesman said.

Kebble, 41, was shot while driving on Johannesburg's
Atholl-Oaklands road, Chris Wilken, a spokesman for the
South African police, said in an interview today.

"He was shot between 9 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.," Wilken said.
"He may have been followed. He was shot while he was
driving. More than one shot was fired." Nothing was
taken from the car.

Kebble quit on Aug. 30 as head of Western Areas Ltd.,
joint owner of a $24 billion gold deposit near Johannesburg,
and two other gold-investment companies after Western Areas
ran out of money and he faced questions from investors
in Randgold & Exploration Ltd., one of the companies,
over the whereabouts of shares worth $268 million.

Wilken said the police were unaware of the motive for
the shooting. As of 1 a.m. local time his body was still
in his silver S-Class Mercedes car, parked on Atholl-Oaklands
on a bridge above Johannesburg's M1 highway. He lived
in the nearby Inanda suburb.

David Barritt, a spokesman for the family, confirmed the death in an e-mailed statement.

Kebble's 11-year career in South Africa's $5.5 billion-
a-year gold industry spawned Harmony Gold Mining Co.,
South Africa's No. 3 gold miner, DRDGold Ltd., the fourth-largest, and the development of South Deep, the world's
largest gold deposit, with Canadian partner Placer Dome
Inc.

Kebble quit his jobs at Western Areas, Randgold and JCI
Ltd. after Johannesburg-based Investec Ltd., South
Africa's No. 5 bank, told investors it wouldn't free up
a 460 million-rand ($71 million) loan to keep the companies afloat unless he left.

Western Areas and JCI said on Aug. 30 in statements to
the stock exchange in Johannesburg that Investec insisted
that their boards be changed before they made the loan.
The companies announced the resignations that day of
Kebble and non-executive director Sello Rasethaba.

Kebble's partnership with Placer began in 1999, when
Kebble helped secure a $235 million investment from the Vancouver-based miner, ensuring South Deep's development.
The project to dig the 3.3 kilometer (2.1 mile) mine
went awry as it ran up costs of more than $1 billion.
South Deep is 2 1/2 years behind schedule.

The delays at South Deep were compounded by Kebble's bet
in June 2002, through futures contracts, that the gold
price would fall. The price of bullion has since surged 40 percent.

As a result of derivative contracts Western Areas holds,
the company sold its gold at $308 an ounce in the quarter
ended June 30, compared with a an average market price of $427.88. Production costs were $426 an ounce.

Kebble was born in the gold mining town of Springs, east
of Johannesburg, and schooled in the Free State province
before graduating in law from the University of Cape Town
in 1988. He entered business after his mining engineer
father, who once worked for Anglo American Plc, sold his
Cape wine farm and came out of retirement in 1991.

Teaming up with Adam Fleming, a relative of the James
Bond spy-novel author Ian Fleming, Kebble joined Randgold, working initially under Executive Chairman Peter Flack.
After accumulating a majority stake in the company, he
fired Flack and installed himself as chief executive. He
was 32 at the time.

"He was one of the brightest corporate financiers I
ever met, and I've met some clever ones in my time,"
Flack said in an Aug. 17 interview from Johannesburg.

Harmony, DRDGold and Randgold Resources Ltd., all of
which were spun out of Randgold during Kebble's period a
s a director, have a combined market value of 34 billion
rand.

The family's possessions include multimillion-rand
properties ranging from a three-storey house overlooking
Cape Town's Atlantic coast to Melrose Place, a national
monument in northern Johannesburg once owned by Gavin Relly,
a former chairman of London-based Anglo American.

Kebble's plan to weld together seven companies in which
his family held stakes and trade the company's shares
in Toronto was scuppered five years ago by Harmony's
Chief Executive Bernard Swanepoel, a former mine manager
under Kebble who started and won a hostile takeover for
the biggest of the companies, Randfontein Estates Ltd.

The legacy of that contest is that Kebble faced charges
of fraud, conspiracy and contravention of South Africa's Companies Act, Lucinda Moonieya, a spokeswoman for South Africa's Public Prosecutor's Office said in an e-mail on Aug. 31. The case was due to be heard in October next year.

On Nov. 3, 2003, Kebble said he would contest charges
announced by Johannesburg High Court Judge Joop Labuschagne.

Shareholders including Aflease Gold & Uranium Ltd., which
owns 12 percent of Randgold & Exploration, had asked
Kebble to account for stock the company owned in Randgold Resources.

Randgold & Exploration's shares were suspended from trading
on Johannesburg's stock exchange on Aug. 1 after the
company missed a deadline to submit annual financial
statements.

Kebble is survived by his wife and four children.

Kebble: It looks like a hit

28/09/2005 07:34

Johannesburg - Mining magnate Brett Kebble appears to have been deliberately murdered, says his advocate, Willem Heath.
"It appears that it was probably a malicious attempt to kill him and he was in fact killed," Heath told SAFM on Wednesday morning.

Kebble was shot dead in Melrose, Johannesburg, around 21:00 on Tuesday on his way to a dinner engagement.

Heath said indications were that the first shot aimed at Kebble came from behind and that there had been no attempt to get his vehicle.

Police said Kebble's vehicle and body was found on a bridge crossing the M1 to Pretoria.

"We don't know if he was led into an ambush or if he was followed," said police spokesperson Superintendent Chris Wilken.

Heath said Kebble's father and business partner, Roger Kebble, had been informed of his son's death around 22:00 on Tuesday and was "extremely shocked".

Kebble, 41, was recently forced to resign from the boards of JCI, Western Areas and Randgold and Exploration amid mounting controversy, pressure and alleged financial irregularities.

It was the second time Kebble had been forced to step down from the position of chief executive in the last five years.

He had resigned in 2000 shortly after revelations that he may have manipulated shares in order to repel the hostile takeover of Randfontein Estates Mining Company by Harmony Gold.

Kebble's father, Roger, was contacted and told Sapa: "I am in Paris. I don't know what happened. I am getting phone calls from everyone. You can find out from other people. Leave me alone now for a while, please."

Kebble joined his mining engineer father in the mining industry after a career in law in Cape Town.

He teamed up with his father in 1991 to purchase a controlling stake in Rand Leases Gold Mining Co. Ltd. From this base, in 1994 he helped engineer the successful takeover of Randgold and Exploration Company Limited.

As an executive director of Randgold he oversaw the reorganisation of the group including several mergers and acquisitions and the listing of Randgold Resources on the London Stock Exchange.

Controlling stake in JCI

In 1996 he injected his family's 33% stake in Randgold into Consolidated Mining Corporation thereby creating a base to help fund the purchase of a controlling stake in JCI in November 1996.

During 1998 he accomplished the largest investment

Ich habe erst gestern gelesen das eine 20 jaehrige Frau ebenso erschossen wurde und dann das Fahrzeug gestohlen wurde als sie eingestiegen ist. Ich wollte es aber diese Nachricht nicht reinlegen sonst glaubt ihr ich rede nur schlecht, leider ist es aber so in diesen schoenen aber auch gefaehrlichen Land wo Gesetz und Ordnung fast zusammen gebrochen ist.

Und bei Euch zeigen sie das Paradies, fuer die meisten wird es zur Hoelle.

Mfg

XAX

Danke Edel Man, hier kommt ein Moerder fuer R 500 auf Kaution raus und kann heim gehen. (65 Euro)
Die meisten erscheinen nicht zum Prozess.
Die Gefaengnisse sind zu voll und 25% ueberbelegt, verstehst !
15 km/h schneller fahren kostet mehr.
Man sieht eine Menge Traffic Cops und Radarfallen aber keine normale Polizei, und wenn sind es wieder Schwarze die sich eins lachen. So wird man langsam rausgeekelt aus dem Land, einige Farmer wurden bereits vom Staat enteignet aber das wird alles nicht bei Euch berichtet.

Fussball Weltmeisterschaft 2010.....
Bei einem Spiel in Soweto wurde am Platz der Schiedrichter erschossen weil er angeblich falsch gepfiffen hat, so siehts aus im Township.

Was solls, das Leben muss weiter gehen, trotz der Statistic

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_fir&int=-1

The leader of the newly established National Democratic Convention Ziba Jiyane said that it is a sign of the times.

"No one is safe from the rampant criminality gripping our country," he said.

Gruss

XAX

Mittwoch, 28. September 2005

Treibstoff-Knappheit

Dampfloks für Simbabwe

Der krisengeschüttelte afrikanische Staat Simbabwe kehrt angesichts akuter Treibstoff-Knappheit ins Zeitalter der Dampflokomotiven zurück.

"Wir wollen sie nutzen, um unsere eigenen Aktivitäten voranzubringen sowie auch als Attraktion für Touristen", erklärte der Sprecher der nationalen Bahngesellschaft NRZ, Fanuel Masikati, der Zeitung "The Herald". Für zwei Milliarden Simbabwe-Dollar (60.000 Euro) sollen die ersten fünf Loks bis Jahresende und fünf weitere bis Ende 2006 wieder in Dienst gestellt werden. Einige der Lokomotiven stammen aus dem Jahr 1950.

Das Land, das seit den chaotischen Farmbesetzungen kaum noch ausländische Touristen anlockt, leidet zurzeit unter einer der schlimmsten Krisen seiner Geschichte. Devisen sind so knapp, dass sie nicht einmal zum Kauf von genügend Treibstoff oder Ersatzteilen für die Diesellokomotiven reichen. Simbabwe hatte vor einigen Monaten international Schlagzeilen gemacht, als es von Ochsen und Eseln gezogene Krankenwagen als Alternative für Benzin getriebene Fahrzeuge präsentierte.
http://www.n-tv.de/584969.html

Genau Ulfur, in diese Laender sollte man investieren !

Dampflok fahren macht bestimmt Spass wenn auf der Strecke die Schwellen fehlen oder die Schienen rausgerissen sind.

Danach kommt der Esel in drei Tagen, wenn man Glueck hat mit Blaulicht.

Schoene Aussichten....

Specials bietet bald Neckermann Reisen an, ist jemand interessiert ?

Gruss vom Kap der Hoffnungen.

XAX

Black execs worth 40% more

29/09/2005 14:54

Cape Town - The skills shortage in South Africa is well documented, with most of the attention falling on the number of qualified workers who have left the country.
However, the shortage of qualified black staff is even more severe, with companies having to resort to desperate measures in order to comply with SA's tough employment equity legislation.

Finweek has learnt that companies in SA are paying a salary premium of up to 40% to qualified black staff in order to attract and retain their services.

Rob Smith, of executive search firm SpencerStuart, confirms the existence of this practice. "There's definitely a premium without a doubt. It's a question of supply and demand. The black pool of qualified staff is substantially smaller and therefore they command a higher price."

Johann Redelinghuis, of executive headhunters Heidrick & Struggles, is another who admits that premiums are being paid. "That's certainly our experience. I'd estimate that it's informally between 20% and 30% for the equivalent white qualification."

Finweek persuaded remunerations consultancy LMO Executive Services to provide us with specific figures from its database. LMO director Olaf van Schalkwyk says that the figures stem from various salary surveys conducted by LMO that included 100 companies across various industries.

Paying a premium

"At the executive level, the basic salary premium averages 19.6%," Van Schalkwyk says. "That would typically include CEOs, country managers, managing directors and general managers. For senior managers the average premium is 16.4%.

That includes functional heads, such as the head of finance or marketing. At middle management level, the premium average is 16% and for professional staff, those with basic degrees, the figure is 13.1%."

Peter MacIldowie, of Woodburn Mann, also confirms that "there's evidence that a premium is being paid". However, he stresses that it's simply a matter of complying with legislation and trying to find a solution to the dire shortage of qualified black staff. "It's a supply and demand issue. When a company has to hire someone, they'll be prepared to pay a premium."

MacIldowie says that the highest premiums are being paid to black chartered accountants (CAs). "It can be as high as 30% or 40% for a black CA because there's such a critical shortage of such candidates."

Most remuneration experts who Finweek spoke to said that an average CA with two years' experience would earn between R400 000 and R450 000/year. The equivalent figure for a black CA would therefore work out to more than R600 000/year.

Figures from a survey conducted by the SA Institute of Race Relations (Sairr) on income trends according to race appear to confirm that a greater number of black South Africans can now be classified as high-income earners.

Building a career

Last year, Sairr estimated that 35.7% of SA's black population had migrated to the high-income bracket (those earning more than R153 601/year). That compared to only 13% of the black population in 1998.

By contrast, the proportion of the black population that fell into the middle-income bracket (R38 401 to R153 600/year) increased modestly, from 43.1% in 1998 to 58.8% in 2004. The proportion that moved into the low mid-income bracket (R9 601 to R38 400/year) increased from 77.1% in 1998 to 83.2% in 2004.

In other words, the migration of black workers into the high-income bracket was faster than their migration to any other income group since 1998.

Interestingly, MacIldowie says that paying a salary premium may not be the best way to deal with the shortage of qualified black job candidates. "It's the silly ones that are paying the premium while the good ones are saying: 'Come and build a career with us.'"

Leads to job-hopping

MacIldowie says that many companies are now finding that the extra money they're willing to pay black candidates doesn't always have the intended results. One of the effects of the salary premium is that it creates an incentive for young black professionals to "job-hop" in an attempt to secure a higher salary with each move.

"A lot of companies are not getting delivery on the premium," MacIldowie says. "Some candidates are changing jobs purely for money and are leveraging themselves out of the market. I know of one case where a CE was being offered R1.2m a year but he was demanding R1.8m."

Debbie Goodman, of Jackhammer Executive Headhunters, says that people are overestimating the size and extent of the premiums. "There's a lot of hype regarding the premiums being paid to black candidates. There is a premium but it's not that big and it's not a general rule."

However, Goodman agrees with MacIldowie that it depends on the size of the organisation as well as the industry that it operates in.

"Salaries can vary enormously across industries," she says. She also stresses that salaries depend a lot on a candidate's personality, his/her experience as well as the size of his/her previous salary. However, though she admits that a premium is being paid to black candidates, she says it's not easy to quantify the amount.

SA to give food to neighbours

30/09/2005 18:43

Johannesburg - South Africa said on Friday it will give food assistance to seven drought-ridden countries including Zimbabwe after aid agencies warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in southern Africa. "The government has given favourable consideration to a recent request by the WFP (World Food Programme) for assistance in the light of the current food vulnerability in the region," the agriculture ministry said.

Some R140m ($22m, €18m) will be allocated to provide food directly and help households produce their own sustenance, the ministry said.

South Africa will help Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe

More than 10 million people are in need of food aid in southern Africa, according to UN food agencies, which have warned that the situation could become as critical as in Niger, where 2.5 million of the country's 12 million people are facing food shortages.

The two worst-hit countries in the region are Malawi and Zimbabwe, both with around four million people in need of food aid, although Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe maintains that only 2.4 million in the 13 million population need help.

Food shortages is only one item on a long list of problems in Zimbabwe including sky-high inflation and unemployment, all on the backdrop of serious political tensions.

The WFP warned in July that food shortages in southern Africa were expected to persist until the next harvest in May 2006.

It urged donors to come up with $266m - or 477 000 tonnes of food - immediately for the southern African countries "to avoid widespread hunger from developing into a humanitarian disaster".

News24/AFP

Ihr muesst ja glauben ich bin nur ein pessimist und meckere immer ueber RSA.

Heute habe ich rein zufaellig ins woechentliche Ortsblatt reingeschaut.

15 Einbrueche einige Verletzte war die Bilanz der Woche in unseren kleinen Ort. Jugendliche banden ueberfallen die Bewohner mit Messer etc. und eine Frau lasste man liegen zum Ausbluten. Einer hat nun ein Glasauge anstatt als er kaempfte.

Man moechte Demonstrieren und die Arme soll der Polizei aushelfen.

Passieren wird da nichts schaetze ich, weil sich die Schwarzen einen Dreck kuemmern.

Wenn das so weiter geht dann muss ich wieder mit der Knarre rumlaufen was mir keinen Spass macht.

Falls man schiesst kriegt man die meiste Schuld nach neuen Regeln und geht ins Gefaengniss.

Der Taeter koennte sich ja geirrt haben oder ?

Naja, ansonsten ist es kalt bei 16 grad und leichter Regen als Segen.

Ciao

XAX

Unser President hat zusaetzlich nur weisses Personal, Bodyguards, Koch, Fahrer etc. nebenbei bemerkt, er traut seinen schwarzen Brueder und Schwestern ueberhaupt nicht wenn es um seine Sicherhait und Wohlbefinden geht.
Er predigt aber das Gegenteil jedoch sauft selber Wein, dieses S..........!

Ein zweiter Mugabe wird das noch.

Boom gates for Mbeki's home

02/10/2005 16:13

Johannesburg - The most important politicians in the country, including the president, will soon be living behind booms in gated communities as a deterrent against crime.

The Tshwane metro council has approved an application for the closure of all streets in Bryntirion, the governmental suburb which has been home to the president, members of the cabinet and other important officials since the early 1900s.

Nassau Street, George Washington Boulevard, the Rotunda, Wenlock Road, Colroyn Road and Rothsay Road will all be permanently closed, according to a mayoral committee report dealing with the application.

Perimeter fencing will surround the suburb and access will be controlled at a limited number of points.

The streets will furthermore be rezoned and transferred to the department of public works' jurisdiction.

The Tshwane metro council has been sharply divided on the subject of gated villages since a wave of applications for street closures in the city's then white suburbs started piling up in metro council offices a few years ago.

The ANC-controlled metro council, sensitive to criticism that booms entrench white privilege, has handled them with caution.

According to the mayoral report, the public works department was in the process of composing a master plan for the whole Bryntirion area, which consists of residential properties, farms, offices, a police station and a golf course.

This master plan "serves to guide and facilitate future development on the estate and primarily focuses on security, accommodation needs and the upgrading of existing facilities".

President Thabo Mbeki earlier criticised the proliferation of boomed suburbs and golf estates for perpetuating residential apartheid.

Mbeki's pronouncements on this matter included a statement which said: "We have . . . an urgent challenge of bringing to a stop the pro-rich housing development strategies that ensure that the best-located land, close to all the best facilities, is always available to the rich."

He asserted that the best land is reserved for the creation of gated communities and golf estates.

The president said the poor were stuck on dusty, semi-developed land, which is far from modern infrastructure.

News24/City Press

Portfolio Progress in South Africans

In the 13th June 2005 Issue we recommended you buy four South African Gold Mines and hold them for a year.

You may well ask why we recommended South African gold shares at all in view of the predatory attitude towards South African mining on the part of the South African government and its taxation policies. Primarily it is because South African miners are amongst the best in the world and they on a broad front are moving out of South Africa slowly but surely and diversifying into more lucrative and more mining friendly parts of the world. Already the cash flow from offshore is substantial. Already it is clear they will be successful outside the country and already they have made it clear they are taking the companies offshore with them. Here are the comments of the main-man-what-counts at Goldfields, Chris Thompson.

He said South African gold mining companies would have to continue their move offshore if their companies were to survive. “Unfortunately, the move to offshore business has become politicised in South Africa, even though geology has no politics,” he said. “A company with its foundations in South Africa is ending. The base is gone and there’s nowhere to go.” South African gold mines were getting deeper and the distance between the shafts and the mining activities was also increasing. The inevitable outcome was an increase in costs, Thompson said. “The industry is dying and dropping fast.”

In 1998 the South African gold mining industry produced about 450 tonnes per year. It is looking as though it will struggle to produce even 300 tonnes this year. Gold Fields would continue to expand its offshore portfolio, but as yet, there is no further clarity on whether corporate activity with Polyus, the gold unit of Norilsk Nickel, which owns about 20% of Gold Fields, would resume, but clearly there is a synergy between the two with similar objectives.

· Harmony Gold has more than 90% of its output coming from South Africa.

· DRD GOLD has less than 40% of its production in South Africa.

· AngloGold Ashanti produced 40-45% of its production in South Africa.

http://news.goldseek.com/AuthenticMoney/1128348000.php

Poaching threatens Zimbabwe wildlife

Barnaby Phillips

BBC Southern Africa correspondent

There is a war raging in the Zimbabwean bush and the wildlife is losing.
Eighty per cent of the animals have been killed

Poaching of wild animals on the formerly white-owned ranches is out of control.

"We estimate that 80% of the animals that lived on commercial game farms have been killed in the past three years," says one expert.

Hundreds of ranches have been taken over by settlers and so-called war veterans.

In the dry bush country of the Gwayi Valley, anti-poaching patrols are overwhelmed.

Every day they find animals that have stumbled into wire snares and are suffocating to death.

Endangered species

Much of the poaching is at a subsistence level; desperate people looking for something to eat in a country that is running out of food.

But the poachers' snares kill indiscriminately; trapping valuable animals like the sable antelope, which if hunted legally, would earn Zimbabwe many thousands of dollars.
Zimbabwe war veterans have taken over hundreds of ranches

In the Gwayi Valley endangered species like the African wild dog have also been killed.

"The animals have no chance now - there are snares everywhere, and the poachers are killing much more than they can possibly eat," one wildlife rancher told me.

He said that his anti-poaching patrols often come across large animals like buffaloes that have simply been left to rot in a snare.

"It is a terrible waste of a precious resource," he said.

Safari camps

I was driven on to what was, until recently, one of Zimbabwe's most successful wildlife ranches - the former owner was forced off the land in July.

"This has been our home for 44 years," he told me, "but if the war vets see me here now they might try and shoot me."

The network of safari camps on the huge estate have been taken over by settlers and war vets; we did not feel it was safe to approach them.

There is a lot more at stake here than animal welfare, or the conservation of endangered species.

The safari and wildlife industry was one of the most successful sectors of the Zimbabwean economy, employing tens of thousands of people.

Over the past two decades ranchers in southern Zimbabwe restocked vast areas of bush with wildlife.

"This is the most profitable way to use this land - you cannot grow crops on this soil," one game farmer told me.

Collapse

But as Zimbabwe's political and economic problems have worsened, tourism has collapsed and thousands of jobs have been lost.

Buffaloes have not been spared by the poachers
I stayed in one of Zimbabwe's best game lodges, close to its most famous national park - it was a sad, strange experience.

The lodge was almost completely deserted.

The staff put on a brave face; dutifully polishing the windows, tending the garden and cleaning the swimming pool.

But there was no mistaking their sense of despair.

In Zimbabwe's climate of fear, few people want to give their names to foreign journalists but I did meet one man who used to work in the safari industry as a tracker and driver.

"I am very worried about my future, because without a job how can I keep my children at school?" he said, in a low depressed voice.

"Maybe I will try and go to South Africa, it cannot be worse than here".