The Human Rights Day celebration on 21 March 2017, at Xolobeni on the Wild Coast, was supported by a crowd of 1100 people from all over South Africa, who gathered in solidarity with the amaPondo people. The event was to commemorate the ruthless assassination of community leader, Sikhosiphi Bazooka Radebe, a year ago, on 22 March 2016, outside his home, when two men, posing as policemen, shot him seven times in the head. The police have yet to find his murderers. Radebe, a well-known soccer player, was Chairman of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) and an outspoken anti-mining activist.
The South African government is currently embarking on streamlining decision-making processes in mining. To many this sounds like more top-down decision-making at the expense of those communities that will have to host mines and paves the way for more violent conflict.
Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani and his management team have a huge task ahead of them in persuading shareholders to stick with their strategy of focusing on three core commodities of copper, diamonds and platinum after last week’s surprise announcement that Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal had acquired the second-biggest stake in the group.
Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani and his management team have a huge task ahead of them in persuading shareholders to stick with their strategy of focusing on three core commodities of copper, diamonds and platinum after last week’s surprise announcement that Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal had acquired the second-biggest stake in the group.
In its latest report, released on 9th March 2017, the Norwegian Council of Ethics has again excluded Vedanta from the Government Pension Fund’s investment universe. The report is an indictment of Vedanta’s pattern of operation at four subsidiaries in Odisha, Chhatisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Zambia, finding “numerous reports of Vedanta’s failure to comply with government requirements” and concluding that “there continues to be an unacceptable risk that your company will cause or contribute to severe environmental damage and serious or systematic human rights violations.”
