You are currently browsing the daily archive for February 13th, 2007.
Piqued by this news report:
President Olusegun Obasanjo has signed the Mining Bill into law, predicting a new dawn for the country’s mining industry. He said the new law was bound to accelerate foreign direct investment in the sector.
I sought more information. Only to read this news report:
The Senate, yesterday, repudiated the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Bill signed into law by President Olusegun Obasanjo last Thursday and immediately set up an ad-hoc committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the signing into law of the bill. Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani, who announced this at the end of a closed door session of the Senate declared the bill signed into law by the President as illegal as it stood. The Senate action came on a day it resolved not to single out the demolition of the Abuja mansion of its Deputy Majority Leader, Senator Jonathan Zwingina, for discussion.
Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Do you know more?
The recently resigned British Columbia Minister of Mines is quoted as saying: “The Bible makes it plain that we are the stewards of the Earth, and as such, our obligation is not negotiable. However, we are not obliged to preserve the natural world in some kind of frozen inertia at arm’s length from human activity.” I asked a good friend who religious credentials I trust and who works in the mining industry just what the bible says about mining. Here are his reply and what I found in e-bibles.
Seems we cannot get enough of China and mining these days. Tibet is not the only place that feels as if the Chinese are pushing it aside. Zambians too are getting restive. The Guardian reports on the Chinese in Zambia—colonial history repeats itself. I heard many statements about mines and miners in Zambia when as a kid I went with my parents to Northern Rhodesia. The names and races have changed, but the ugliness and politics have not.
