things are looking up, page-2

Can only hope. This from the Oz yesterday arvo. 6th par gives a ray of hope.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/africa-predictable-one-day/story-e6frg9ex-1226046991675

IF there was going to be an upset in Africa, you would - until this week - have ranked Namibia well down the list of probables/possibles.
Congo (either one), yes. Chad, near the top of the list. Ditto Central African Republic or Sudan.

A few weeks ago Pure Speculation reported on an email received from Burkina Faso from a senior executive with a global mining house: ?I?m currently in Ouagadougou, which is under curfew from 9pm to 6am due to the military unrest earlier this week (shooting up the mayor?s house the other night, grenades into one of the court houses, soldiers driving around firing into the air at night, etc, etc). It is relatively minor, but a good example of how fast things can change?.

We added ? rather mildly, as a matter of fact ? that this was all a bit of a worry regarding Africa coming as it did after the troubles in Ivory Coast.

That brought some abuse from cyber space about the irresponsibility of even questioning the political risk issue with regard to African states. Burkina Faso and other states were, it was added, great places to invest.

So this week we have a report from Namibia ? regarded as having one of the most friendly governments when it came to attracting foreign mining companies ? saying that the government in Windhoek was about to declare uranium, copper, gold, zinc and coal as strategic minerals with the state having exclusive exploration and mining rights.

Reports focused on two stocks in particular ? Paladin Energy and Extract Resources. They took big hits. Yet they have mining licences ? and the new rules apply only to companies that do not have such licences.

Among the Namibian explorers, however, there was a much more mixed story. Deep Yellow) took a big hit, but not another uranium explorer, Bannerman Resources (BMN), rose the news comparatively well.

Cullen Resources with its coal aspirations in Namibia lost about 9 per cent, but Mt Burgess Mining ? base metals and rare earths ? was largely unaffected in terms of investor system.

The same applies to Shaw River Resources which has just raised money to advance its manganese plans in Namibia. But iron ore hopeful Avonlea Minerals actually went up 9 per cent on Thursday ? it has ground in northern Namibia ? but fell more than 8 per cent on Friday, but that may reflect more on today?s market rout than the Namibian situation.

A mixed picture indeed ? but so is Africa. And the Namibian development underlines that investors have always to keep that in mind.