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Tuesday, October 14, 2008.

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

Making headlines today:

Two diamond juniors are about to start diamond mining in South Africa. One is the ASX-listed Bonaparte on a full-scale basis. The other is the JSE-listed Tawana on a trial basis.

Bonaparte MD Mike Woodborne said that full-scale mining would begin at Savanna this month. Tawana MD Wolf Marx said trial mining was about to begin at its flagship Kareevlei Wes kimberlite project.

Both Woodborne and Marx are South African-born miners who now live in Australia.

JSE-listed Sallies CEO Tom Dale said on Monday that the company was on its way to Canada to negotiate higher prices for its quality Witkop fluorspar. This was after closing its Buffalo fluorspar operation where "horrendous" feed material had caused ongoing losses.

Dale said that the Sallies board had informed staff, employees and the National Union of Mineworkers of its intention to mothball the Buffalo plant and to cease operations there. This was owing to Buffalo's inability to secure economical prices for its high-phosphorus fluorspar.

Current global uncertainty had made Buffalo's "very restricted" market "very vulnerable".

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Also making headlines:

Diversified miner Teck is to sell 27,6-million Fording units to a Canadian bank.
Australian miner Indophil Resources is confident its shareholders will approve the sale of its stake in an undeveloped Philippine copper and gold mine.
TSX-listed coal miner Homeland Energy confirms a 114-million ton resource at its US coal operations.
And, Japan's Sumitomo Metal Mining Company eyes a $17-billion nickel plant in the Philippines.

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