International Report:

Tito Gourgel Attaché of the Press This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Fone: 0041-793673223/0041-786537216 Fax: 0041-227323703

Johannesburg
S.Africa official calls for mining diversification

Johannesburg, 10/9 - A senior South African mining official said on Thursday that mining companies should intensify diversification beyond their traditional trade to help grow the economy.

Paul Mwape, a deputy director at the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), said production of metals other than gold has been rising since 2001, countering assertions that the country's mining industry was on a decline.

Mwape said total primary mineral sales had risen to $28.61 billion in 2009 from $14.3 billion in 1994.

South Africa supplies close to two-thirds of the world's platinum and is the world's fourth-largest gold producer, after China, Australia and the United States. It is also a major global ferrochrome supplier.

Mwape said that with the exception of gold, almost all the country's major minerals have experienced long-term growth and large scale investment projects, currently at varying stages of development across all commodities, would further raise production of metals.

Some of the major mining companies with operations in South Africa are Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Impala Platinum.

Source: Angop

Harare
Mugabe says wants closer ties with West

Harare, 10/9 - Zimbabwe wants normal ties with Western powers critical of its policies but will press ahead with a plan to hand control of foreign companies to local blacks, President Robert Mugabe said.

Talks to improve ties with the EU have stalled over slow political reforms in Harare while U.S. President Barack Obama said last month he was "heartbroken" by Zimbabwe's decline.

Mugabe -- who last month told Western powers to go "to hell" over sanctions imposed on his ZANU-PF party -- said on Thursday: "They have imposed unjustified and illegal sanctions on us. The sanctions are comparable to the military aggression in Iraq".

Mugabe said some Western countries had hoped that sanctions on Zimbabwe would help push him out of power.

Source: Angop

Kigali, 10/9 - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday he had agreed with Rwanda's president, who threatened to pull troops out of Sudan, on the importance of Rwanda continuing in peacekeeping operations.

But Ban stopped short of saying that President Paul Kagame had withdrawn a threat to pull Rwandan troops out of a joint U.N./African Union peace force in Sudan's Darfur region because of a controversy over alleged atrocities in neighboring Congo.

A draft U.N. report, leaked last month, said Rwandan soldiers may have committed genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1990s. Rwanda called the allegations "malicious" and "ridiculous" and threatened to withdraw its 3,500 troops from the 20,000-strong UNAMID force in Darfur.

Ban took the threat so seriously that he flew to the Rwandan capital Kigali earlier this week to talk to Kagame.

In a further hint that the matter was not yet resolved, Ban said he would hold further talks with Kagame when the Rwandan president visits New York later this month for the annual General Assembly gathering of world leaders.

Source: Angop

Conakry, 10/9 - Two senior Guinean election officials were sentenced to a year's imprisonment each on Thursday over irregularities in the first round of the presidential election in June, two political parties said.

The sentences imposed on Ben Sekou Sylla, president of the CENI election commission, and his head of planning El Hadj Boubacar Diallo, raised tension before the September 19 vote run-off.

Court officials were not available to provide details of the charges of which they were convicted.

Conde was runner-up in that round with 18.25 percent of the vote. His opponent in the run-off is former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, who received 43.69 percent in the June ballot.

A Guinea Supreme Court ruling last month invalidated votes cast in five constituencies where irregularities and accusations of fraud had surfaced.

Guinea, the world's largest exporter of the aluminium ore bauxite, is seeking to return to civilian rule after a coup ushered in a military government following the December 2008 death of longtime leader Lansana Conte.

Last week the two signed a declaration promising that any challenges to the result would be conducted through legal channels.

Source: Angop