Daily podcast - April 11, 2008

Friday, April eleven, 2008

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Hilary Klopper.

Making headlines today:

South Africa's delegation to the World Trade Organisation, or WTO, needed to be "resilient and dogged" in the face of attempts from first world powers to discredit it, as the Doha Round of trade talks entered a "window of necessity", a top official said on Thursday.

"Other players" in the negotiations were trying to wear out the negotiating capacity of the poor and the developing world, head of South Africa delegation to WTO Faizel Ismail warned.

The Doha round of trade talks was in its seventh year, and there was a new sense of urgency for the round to succeed this year, before the US gets a new president, which created uncertainty, he said.

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South Africa's total mining output fell by seven comma three percent year-on-year in February, led by a twenty eight comma two percent decline in local gold production, official data showed on Thursday.

In its monthly mining production and sales publication, Statistics South Africa said that nongold production had declined by three comma two percent.

Between January and February, the two months in which South Africa's mining industry was hardest hit by a national electricity crisis, total mining production declined by five comma two percent.

Tight South African mineral codes, which protect the investor community from inaccurate mining claims, were released in Johannesburg on Thursday, for "imminent" JSE implementation.

Possible penalties ranged from warnings to statutory fines and even jail, South African Mineral Code committee chairperson Roger Dixon warned.

The ethics committee, which had been established to receive complaints, would be required to communicate its decisions in 30 days, he said.

Also making headlines:

New ArcelorMittal chief plans to re-engage with the State to end pricing impasse
Vehicle sales to plunge in 2008 but production eyes new record
Tyre manufacturers face price-fixing probe
Trans Hex 'actively' considers options to exit Namibia operations
Wescoal pays up to thirty nine million rand for new prospecting rights
And, a Chinese gold-miner swoops on Canada's Jinshan

In political news:

Zuma urges respect for Zimbabwe election results
Bush to halt Iraq troop cuts
A study shows that costly food causes poverty across poor nations
And, Sudan's Bashir declines a Security Council invite

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories, visit engineeringnews.co.za, miningweekly.com and polity.org.za