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Thursday, May 14, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

On Wednesday, four thousand two hundred Pamodzi Gold East Rand workers went on strike. Management, meanwhile, was holding thumbs for the arrival of 40-million-rand from a German bank.

National Union of Mineworkers branch chairperson Frasy Namanyana said that the NUM workers had downed tools over the non-payment of April's wages.

Joint provisional liquidator Enver Motala said that the 40-million-rand from HypoVereinsbank would be used to stagger production on the East Rand, where proceeds of scaled-down gold sales were going towards salaries and environmental liabilities right up to the decision of workers to go on strike.

Global mining giant BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers said that the overall world economic recovery would be slow and protracted and a sharp rebound wasn't anticipated.

He said that BHP Billiton wasn't planning on commodity prices being above marginal costs for any extended period.

He said that the current growth of the gross domestic products of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries was lower than in 2002, with OECD retail trade levels shrinking to 2004/05 levels in absolute terms.

For global commodity markets to perform well, there needed to be an improvement in demand from both China and the OECD.

Also making headlines:

Eastern Platinum's CEO says the miner will generate positive cash flows by mid-year.
Aim-listed Petra Diamonds sells a stunning blue diamond from the Cullinan mine for a record 9,4-million-dollars.
US coal miner Peabody Energy teams up with Australia's White Energy on a US coal upgrading plant.
And, protesters in Peru block the road to one of Latin America's largest gold mines.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit miningweekly.com.