[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

DAM-L Orange River Dispute/LS (fwd)

----- Forwarded message from Ryan Hoover -----

Return-path: <owner-irn-safrica@netvista.net>
Received: from DaVinci.NetVista.net (mjdomo@mail.netvista.net [206.170.46.10])
	by lox.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA17783
	for <dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>; Tue, 10 Jul 2001 12:12:01 -0400 (EDT)
Received: [by DaVinci.NetVista.net (8.10.0/8.8.8) id f6AG3pU13898
	for irn-safrica-list; Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:03:51 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from owner-irn-safrica@netvista.net)]
Received: [from Okavango.irn.org ([205.178.127.217])
	by DaVinci.NetVista.net (8.10.0/8.8.8) with ESMTP id f6AG3lJ13892
	for <irn-safrica@netvista.net>; Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:03:47 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from ryan@irn.org)]
Message-ID: <4.3.1.20010710091515.00aad600@pop3.netvista.net>
X-Sender: ryan@pop3.netvista.net
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:17:15 -0700
To: irn-safrica@netvista.net
From: Ryan Hoover <ryan@irn.org>
Subject: Orange River Dispute/LS
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by DaVinci.NetVista.net id f6AG3mJ13895
Sender: owner-irn-safrica@netvista.net
Precedence: bulk

[ Charset ISO-8859-1 unsupported, converting... ]
Note Namibia's plans for a water supply dam along the Orange.

11/07/01 NAMIBIA
Mineral Dispute Over Orange River

South African president Thabo Mbeki met with his Namibian counterpart, Sam 
Nujoma, at a secluded spot on July 5 to discuss a dispute over the 
mineral-rich Orange River border between the two countries. When Namibia 
won its independence from South Africa in 1990 it expected that Pretoria 
would hand it sovereignty over the entire Orange River. But in 1994 
president Nelson Mandela decided to move the border to the middle of the 
river. Since then it has refused to budge on that decision. Indeed it 
appears Windhoek wasn?t even informed of the move at the time, and last 
month Namibia?s surveyor general, Rudolf Isaks, said "we don?t exactly know 
where the border lies." Namibia and South Africa have each undertaken a lot 
of projects on the 600 km of common border in the area rich in diamonds 
and, more recently, zinc. On the South Africa side, the Trans Hex Group and 
Alexkor have been extensively involved in diamond mining. Trans Hex says it 
has proven reserves of over 500,000 carats on the eight mining projects its 
operates.
The only company mining diamonds along the Namibian side of the Orange 
River is Namibia?s joint venture with De Beers, Namdeb, but the country?s 
mines and energy minister, Jesaya Nyamu, has already granted 18 prospecting 
licenses for the area.
The mining potential of the area is such that an official close to Mbeki 
said South Africa would remind Namibia that it must respect the 
Organization of African Unity?s policy of maintaining former colonial 
borders. That won?t make the Namibians happy as they have big plans for new 
developments. In addition to mining projects they want to build a dam on 
the river to secure a reliable and permanent water supply to the country. 
The Orange River is shared between four basin countries ?Namibia, South 
Africa, Botswana and Lesotho. The meeting between Mbeki and Nujoma took 
place near South Africa?s northwestern border with Botswana.
AFRICA MINING INTELLIGENCE N? 18



Ryan Hoover
Africa Campaigns
1847 Berkeley Way
Berkeley, CA 94703
USA
Phone: (510) 848-1155  Fax: (510) 848-1008
www.irn.org


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to majordomo@netvista.net
with no subject and the following text in the body of the message
"unsubscribe irn-safrica".

----- End of forwarded message from Ryan Hoover -----