The security guys can get a job in Iraq – but most of them don’t have qualifications for the UK. Even for the 2 year visa you had to be under 30!

The same article, A ravenous dragon, states that “African and Latin American economies are growing at their fastest pace in decades, thanks in large part to heavy Chinese demand for their resources.”
Needless to say, Chinese demand (and to a lesser extent, India’s demand) for resources has increased prices to the benefit of all (non oil) mineral exporting countries. (Its unclear though what factors contributed to the rapid oil price increase, but this can’t be blamed largely on China or India which have had steady, if not predictable growth for well over a decade).

In conclusion, Africa benefits from exporting minerals to China, as well as other countries. African countries would be worse off if they insisted that the minerals not be mined at all.

It is not only China and the USA that are interested in minerals in Africa. South African countries are mining in other African countries. As are Australian and Canadian companies too, for example. Likewise, China is sourcing minerals from around the world, and not just Africa.

“From Canada to Indonesia to Kazakhstan, Chinese firms are gobbling up oil, gas, coal and metals, or paying for the right to explore for them, or buying up firms that produce them. Ships are queuing off Australia’s biggest coal port, Newcastle, to load cargoes destined for China ; at one point last June the line was 79 ships long.”
CfF: A ravenous dragon, Mar 13th 2008
From The Economist print edition

I am really impressed by the body of free speach, and yet I feel that something more needs to be said, even though I am interupting.

I have witnessed people protesting free houses because they didn’t get one, saying NGO’s out.

Big problem, this free speach place may be shut down.

Guess you can tell where I am from.

Two things. Ignorance, and blame the west.
Something is not going to add up here. By speaking up are we going to prevent Rwanda 2 or three.

I don’t think there is any guilt in the west. Slaves, whatever, that ain’t here and now. As Blacks in the US are empowered, and flexing their muscle, Africa needs to be more worried about black americans colonizing than Chinese.

Interesting discussion, sorry to bring up military dictatorship and other uncomfortable ideas.. South Africa has some problems, and it may well be that choices are going to be made soon. Seeya free speach would be a bad one, but may be coming.

The China model.

Saying that the ‘security’ guys go to Iraq because they can’t find a job here (nor anywhere else in the world clearly) just isn’t the obvious answer.

A lot of the security personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are white ex-police pushed out of our sevice by racism. They do have families to support you know.

As for Anglo – it is a London stock exchange listed company as well now and its head office is in Canada, not South Africa – it divested after Mbeki had that spat with Anglo. If the G8 go for sanctions, so will they.

The awful truth is that there is a core of people STILL walking to work for hours each morning and back each day and the money they make doesn’t even buy chewing gum. Why? Because work is important, they live in hope that if they keep that scarce job, when it comes good they have something. And also because what else is there to do? And some of them have decent bosses who make sure that they’ve got a bit of something for lunch and something small to take home for the kids.

That’s what I mean about Anglo being able to do it cheap. People are not actually dead. They’re still people and what makes them do what they do is a mystery to all of us. Some people are even afraid to come to SA after hearing tales of violence, some can’t afford to get out, some are afraid to leave their families behind. A reasonably square meal at lunchtime and some semblance of a salary (and square meals are provided in Australian mining for sure) and there will be people willing to provide the labour.

As for higher level labour…people work in some right crap places for the right price. I have never wondered what it is that makes so-called ‘security personnel’ go to Iraq and Afghanistan. The answer is pretty obvious.

But local Zimbabweans’ resourcefulness won’t be with us much longer I fear, and this works not if Anglo can’t get the stuff out. Depends also on whether they’re seen as Bob’s mines or Anglo’s and who has the final say in management I’d guess.

They might as well be dead. How motivated do you think those downtrodden people are right now? I imagine it would be far less trouble to simply pack up and flee across the border to whatever country than to work in Bob’s mines – reitterated on 702 this morning. Funny that…

Sanctions will kill the markets for any minerals from Zim. I repeat: the country has buggerall left to offer the world or its citizens.

He has already apparently on-sold the mineral rights to China for weapons he has already received. Every-one now realises Mugabe tries to sell everything twice – including the land! And all businesses must be 51% owned by Mugabe’s pals (just like BEE) – so why invest 100% infrastucture for 49% profit – when you can invest ANYWHERE else?

Not that a nutcase like Gadaffi might not gatecrash – he has the ego and the money and the boredom! Plus he dislikes Mbeki (not that he is alone there!).

The biggest threat to Anglo’s investment is international sanctions. Implying that there’s no one to do the work is a bit tunnel-visioned. If Bob really is holding on wrongfully, the vast majority of Zimbabweans aren’t Zanu PF supporters; and if you’ve ever visited a mine somewhere like Australia you’ll understand just how expensive it is to get minerals out of the ground in that kind of economy. Far better to do it for the cost of cheap housing and a square meal a day.

I just don’t share the view that there is nothing left worth exploiting just because there is no oil. Look at Chinese investment in copper mining, multinationals investing in platinum mining…most of these investments are in uncomfortable places. So what?

There will still be drones who are willing to work for you – scarcity of decent employment and food means that there is unlikely to be any shortage of skilled and semi-skilled people willing to do it in Zim. They’re not all dead yet, although you seem to think they are.