Wedneesday, November 5, 2008.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

On Tuesday, diamond giant De Beers opened the 1,3-billion rand Voorspoed mine, in South Africa's Free State province.

The 800 000 carat a year mine is the third new diamond operation that De Beers opened this year. It follows the opening of the Snap Lake and Victor mines in Canada in July.

Chairperson Nicky Oppenheimer said the opening of Voorspoed was a historic milestone for De Beers and its empowerment partner.

The empowered De Beers Consolidated Mines owns 74% of Voorspoed. The black economically-empowered Ponaholo Trust owns 26% of the mine.

An investigation by the South African Human Rights Commission into the relocation of communities surrounding Anglo Platinum's Potgietersrust Platinum Limited, found that mining operations had indeed "adversely affected" the communities.

The SAHRC released its research report on Tuesday. It followed an extensive investigation triggered by a report released earlier this year by nongovernmental organisation ActionAid. The NGO accused Angloplat of human rights abuses in its relocation of communities to make way for platinum mining.

Angloplat, which initially dismissed ActionAid's report as "distressing, one-sided and inaccurate", struck a more conciliatory tone, welcoming the SAHRC report.

Angloplat acknowledged that the new study drew attention to some "potential hidden vulnerabilities of communities and residents involved in a complex, multi-year, multi-million rand relocation project".

Also making headlines:

Chamber of Mines president Sipho Nkosi says the Rand's volatility, power supply concerns and legislation are the key issues facing South African mining.
Vancouver-based Gold Wheaton may buy gold from South African First Uranium's tailings recovery operations.
Japan's Sumitomo Mining says it may delay its nickel project.
And, Rio Tinto's Palabora Mining is to sell more magnetite and conclude a BEE deal.

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