An Eritrean government delegation headed by the Minister of Energy and Mines, Mr. Ahmed Haj Ali, participated in the 11th China Mining Conference that was held from October 21 to 22.

Mr. Ahmed Haj Ali presented paper at the conference highlighting the available mineral resources in Eritrea and investment prospects in the sector.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Energy and Minies and the Chinese Minister of Land and Natural Resources, Mr. Shu Shiwoshi, concluded agreement on fostering cooperation between the two ministries.

The Chinese Minister asserted that cooperation with the Eritrean Ministry of Mines and Energy would be enhanced in accordance with the agreement.

Moreover, the Eritrean delegation conducted extensive discussion with the Chinese Geological Survey (CGS) and the Northern Chinese Geological Survey (NCGEB) on ways of working jointly.

Over 3,500 persons, including ministers and Ambassadors from African, Asian and Latin American countries took part in the conference . Source: (Shabait)

South Boulder Eritrea

South Boulder’s sixth year as a publicly listed company has been one of consolidation and acquisition in exploration projects. During the year the company acquired a new, potentially world class potash project at Colluli in Eritrea.

The target is an evaporite hosted potash deposit. There was production from the region by Italian colonialists in early part of last century and extensive drilling was conducted from 1958 – 1968. Since 1968 there has been no work completed on the prospect.

The tenement was awarded to South Boulder in July. With several competing claims this was a testament to the good work that both Lorry and Liam have done establishing South Boulders credentials with the Eritrean Government.

I with Lorry made our first planning visit to the project in September. It was my first visit to Eritrea and I left with the feeling that it was a country that one can do business in. The other fertilizer projects located in Western Australia and the Northern Territory have, either been put on the back burner or traded.

The Duketon Project has not been neglected during the year. Independence have continued exploring the Bulge region with the discovery of definite nickel sulphide in some drill intersections at the Rosie and Bulge C2 Prospects.

Using Independence’s nickel drilling in the Bulge area and assaying the samples for gold, STB has made a new gold discovery, the Terminator Prospect. We are currently undertaking follow up drilling on this project. The coming year promises to be a very active one for the company and I thank my fellow directors and all our staff for their hard work and effort over the past year.

TERRY GRAMMER

Chairman

PDF: South Boulder Annual Report 2009

African oil production accounts for 13% of total oil production worldwide. Experts believe that Africa is going to contribute 33% of total expected oil production growth in the coming years. The growth projection creates amongst investors as well as exploration companies an atmosphere comparable to the mining rush experienced by North America in the mid-1840s. The search for oil and gas has begun all over the African continent.

Dubai based company Black Marlin Energy is an oil and gas exploration company focusing on identifying overlooked or misinterpreted ground floor opportunities around the globe. The company emphasizes that it has long ago recognized the oil and gas potential of the East African Margin, which has been underestimated in the past. According to Black Marlin Energy, $ 500 million us dollars has been spent on research in East Africa and approximately 600 wells have been drilled from Eritrea to Mozambique with a high success rate.

Range Resources Ltd., another company engaged in oil and gas exploration from Australia, has directed its principle activity towards searching oil, gas and mineral resources in Puntland, Somalia. Range Resource could be described as a high risk taker considering the current situation in Somalia. However, some investors believe that there are large undiscovered oil fields off the coast of Somalia, which could provide a huge return in capital employed in the near future.

Interestingly, exploration of natural resources appears to be conflict resistant and bullet proof even in the most violent corners of this planet.

Coastal countries especially in the Horn of Africa are predestined for offshore oil exploration as they share the same geographical region as the Arabian Peninsula.

Eritrea has proven that mining could become one of the important pillars of its economy. In a recently published statement the Government of Eritrea has announced that the country will export gold and copper starting from autumn 2010.

This is a major step forward for the country because the export of gold and other metallic ores will significantly contribute to the earnings of much needed foreign exchange.

In 2008 the Government of Eritrea signed two agreements with Defba Oil Share Company on oil exploration and development. The company is supposed to undertake oil exploration activities in two blocks of the Eritrean northern territorial waters.  The Defba Oil Share Company has been set up through the partnership of the Eritrean government and Energy Alliance Company W.L.L. Thus, time will tell if oil and gas exploration could become another pillar, which will play an important role in the development of the country’s economy.

In financial investment overestimated risk can turn into huge profits, if detailed analysis has been conducted in understanding the facts on the ground when assessing a business, company or country.

Gold mining companies targeting Africa have been busy with mergers, strategic partnerships and takeovers in the current year. The industry has witnessed 14 mergers, in the run up to secure a foothold in the African mining sector, alone from July to October 2009.

This development has not gone unnoticed by investors and other stakeholders in times of recession and a weak dollar, which is at a historic low compared to other currencies.

The world is looking for an alternative store of value and this is why investors increasingly invest in gold  stocks. Proactive Iinvestors has recently reported that merger activities have further intensified investor interests in at least 80 listed gold stocks active on the continent.

One example of increasing interest is the share of Nevsun Resources (AMEX: NSU) with its Bisha project in Eritrea . At the beginning of this week Nevsun Resources  was comfortably the strongest gold stock on the American Stock Exchange, rising over 8%.

Many analysts and traders put Nevsun as a stock to watch out for, due to several facts; the share price is continuously on a rise, gold exports from the Bisha mine in Eritrea will start in 2010 and Nevsun Resources is considered to be a takeover candidate in the near future.

Nevsun Resources Presentation October 2009

Moto Goldmines disappeared from stock market listings this week, following its friendly takeover by a joint venture involving AngloGold Ashanti and Randgold Resources, the target being more than 20m ounces of gold that have been outlined at the Moto project in the far north east Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The transaction has further intensified investor interest in listed gold stocks active on the continent as a whole; at least 80 names can be identified.

A good number of these stocks currently rank as the world’s most in-demand gold stocks, as indicated by the table that follows this article.

While gold mining in South Africa has been very much a formal activity for well over a century, various kinds of gold mining activity have for many centuries characterised gold belts located in parts of Africa. New “discoveries” are indeed rediscoveries; relative to the gold belts available, very little modern exploration has taken place. In the DRC, as an instance, the semi-continuous Kilo Moto greenstone belt is currently under exploration by Moto Goldmines, AngloGold Ashanti (separately, to the south) and Mwana Africa.

London-listed Mwana recently announced an initial resource of 452,000 ounces of gold outlined on the Zani-Kodo trend within the Kilo Moto gold district. The general Kilo Moto location is remote, and the new Moto JV partners will be budgeting good amounts of money for basic infrastructure, and rehabilitation of one or more of a number of run-down hydropower facilities.

History shows, however, that these are old hats, albeit good ones.

The semi-continuous Kilo Moto greenstone belt was exploited primarily in the 1950s and 1960s by Belgian charter companies, producing more than 3m ounces of a total recorded 11m ounces of gold production from hard-rock mines in the Kilo Moto belt.

The mining was mainly focused on surface operations, a mixture of alluvials and shallow oxide pits.

The concessions are like small countries. To the south of Zani-Kodo lies what’s currently known as Mongbwalu, where the 10,000 km2 kilometer concession 40 (AngloGold Ashanti, 86.22% and OKIMO (a DRC parastatal), 13.78%) is being extensively explored by AngloGold Ashanti. Mwana Africa, in a 80:20 JV formed with OKIMO, holds gold mining rights over 1,610 km2 in Orientale Province.

The Moto Goldmines project, 570km north east of the city of Kisangani and 150km west of the Ugandan border town of Arua, covers an aggregate lease area of some 1,841 km2. Activities to date have primarily focused on just 35 km2 surrounding the old Durba gold mine, where a monumental resource of 25.7m ounces of gold has been outlined.

Some considerable distance to the south, Banro holds gold concessions in the Kivu provinces, stretching west of Lake Kivu. Mine build at Twangiza, nearest deposit to Bukavu, is underway. Annual production from the first phase plant is anticipated at between 80,000 and 110,000 ounces of gold a year. London-based Mark Smith of GMP Securities Europe fancies the Banro story: “We have tracked the evolution of Banro in terms of the development of the gold projects and the share price performance.

“The share price chart appears to have mirrored the classic ‘resource value curve’, from exploration discovery through to resource expansion and project development. We believe Banro is entering the fourth phase in the mining project life cycle, given recent development land marks.

“First, in June 2009 Banro raised C$100m to commence the development of the Twangiza oxide gold project. Second, in August 2009 Banro purchased a refurbished 1.0m tons a year CIP plant from Australia and plans to expand the plant to 1.3Mtpa.Third, in August 2009 the DRC government ratified Banro’s four mining licences and agreed on the fiscal terms for the 25 year exploitation permits. Four, in September 2009 Banro appointed Standard Chartered as the debt advisor to raise the project debt for Twangiza”.

In its initial phase, Banro is to opt for diesel rather than hydroelectric power; capital expenditure is anticipated at around US$145m. Further phases, and capital outlays, could see output at the multi million ounce Twangiza property increase to 300,000 ounces a year. There is gold all over the place: there is evidence of considerable artisanal activity on parts of Banro’s considerable concessions.

With at least 80 listed gold stocks active in African gold, there is lots of competition to attract investor interest. Some of these stocks are out of the top draw, such as Barrick, the world’s biggest gold miner by output and market value. There are other Tier I global gold miners with operations on the continent, in the form of AngloGold Ashanti, as mentioned, Gold Fields, Harmony, and Newmont, which has concentrated on West Africa, just as Barrick has on East Africa.

Further down the pecking order, there are a dozen or so African gold stocks that attract what may loosely be described as interest from professional investment analysts. For more detailed information on this article please visit Proactiveinvestors

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Volcanic field

The satellite pictures shows  the massive chain of lava flows extending East to West across this Landsat image is the Assab volcanic field near the Red Sea coast in southern Eritrea. This spectacular range of basaltic cinder cones and associated lava flows covers a 55 x 90 km area, and flows reached the Red Sea along a broad front.

The vents of the Assab volcanic field were constructed along a broad east – west trending line that extends to the coastal city of Assab, out of view to right.

The volcanic area is produced fissure eruptions, which produced basaltic lavas flowing to the north and southeast. The most recent activity is represented by several kilometer long flows, associated with spatter cones.

The direction of most of the lava flows, the distribution of the spatter cones and some morphological lineaments are suggestive of east- west and northeast-southwest tectonic trends. These tectonic trends are quite different from those characterizing the Danakil Depression, and seem to occur only near Assab.

The following rock types are present in the Assab Range: picritic basalts tending to ankaramites; alkali olivine basalts; hmvaiites; mugearites; trachytic mugearites; mugearitic trachytes and trachytes.

The alkaline character of the recent volcanism of the Assab region contrasts with the transitional character of the recent volcanism of the northern part of the Danakil Depression.

Recent volcanism at Assab occurred on the coast side of the Danakil Rift and is related to eastwest and northeast – southwest tectonic trends, which are quite different from the north- northeast and south south -east tectonics characterizing the Depression. (Volcanolive)

Asmara, In continuation of the existing cooperation of partnership between the governments of Eritrea and the PRC in various spheres for mutual benefit, the ministries of agriculture of the two countries today concluded an agreement on fostering cooperation in the domain of agriculture.

The agreement focusing on fostering cooperation in research and extension activities involves the introduction of select seeds, development of cotton, maize, fruits and vegetables production, in addition to boosting agricultural output and their processing, improvement of seeds, introduction of modern irrigation farming, repair of heavy agricultural machineries, human resource development, among others.

The agreement is also aimed at creating conducive ground for Chinese investors to invest in the agriculture sector in accordance with the Eritrean law, besides incorporating other major development programs.

The agreement was signed by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Arefaine Berhe, on the Eritrean side, and the Chinese Ambassador to Eritrea, Mr. Li Liansheng, on the side of the PRC.

Speaking at the signing ceremony at the Agriculture Ministry’s Hall here in Asmara, Mr. Arefaine lauded the PRC for enhancing cooperation with the Eritrean Agriculture Ministry in various fields. He further explained that a number of Chinese agricultural experts are already visiting Eritrea to make due contribution for the realization of the envisaged development programs.

Ambassador Li Liansheng on his part cited that the agriculture sector is one of the priorities of the Eritrean government and expressed conviction that the cooperation of partnership would continue. Source: (Shabait)

As countries across East Africa and the Horn of Africa begin to receive El Niño-related enhanced rainfall, disaster risk reduction experts from 10 countries in the region are meeting in Nairobi to develop strategies for reducing the negative impact of the evolving El Niño phenomenon.

“Africa, and in particular the Horn of Africa, suffers more and more the impact of climate-induced hazards,” Pedro Basabe, the Africa programme representative of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), said on 19 October at the beginning of the three-day conference, organized by the InterGovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and World Bank.

“Drought and floods affect directly or indirectly millions of people each year, in particular the poor who are the most vulnerable.”

According to the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), which produces monthly and seasonal climate outlooks, the Greater Horn of Africa is prone to extreme climate events such as drought and floods, which often have severe negative effects on the region’s key socio-economic sectors.

Experts from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan and Somalia are attending the conference, of which the second and third day will be held in the western town of Kisumu, with participants making field trips to nearby flood-prone areas.

In a keynote speech, Moses Gitari, a senior deputy secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of State for Special Programmes, said memories of the negative impacts of the 1997-1998 El Niño and awareness efforts by climate experts had helped the country develop several disaster preparedness strategies.

“These include education, awareness and information sharing, risks and vulnerability analysis, people-centred early warning, adaptation to climate change, environmental protection, vulnerability reduction through development and social programmes and community coping mechanisms,” Gitari said.

He added that community level intervention was pivotal to any disaster risk reduction strategy.

Gitari said the meeting was timely since some of the intervention efforts could require support beyond individual countries’ borders.

Abbas Gullet, secretary-general of the Kenya Red Cross Society, said the government, UN agencies and NGOs had, in September, developed a National Contingency Plan for El Niño, “which is being [put into operation] currently”.

“We have pre-positioned relief items, human and material resources countrywide in all the eight regions we work in and have conducted drills in some of the regions with a view to putting preparedness capacity on alert status,” Gullet said. “It is our hope that this workshop will provide opportunities to explore the various ways and means of entrenching disaster risk reduction in communities we work with and provide a way forward for building safer and resilient communities countrywide. Source: (IRIN)

The Los Angeles Lakers have waived guard Thomas Kelati, it was announced on Wednesday. Kelati, who signed with the Lakers as a free agent on September 30, played in five preseason games where he averaged 1.6 points and 1.2 rebounds in 6.2 minutes.

Kelati, a 6-5 guard out of Washington State, spent last season playing for Unicaja in Spain where he averaged 11.8 points and 1.9 rebounds in 22.5 minutes.

Prior to his stint in Spain, Kelati played for BOT Turow Zgorzelec (Poland-DBL) for two seasons (2006-08) where he helped lead the team to consecutive Polish league finals appearances.

As a member of Zorzelec, Kelati appeared in 77 games, averaging 15.4 points and 3.0 rebounds. Kelati started his professional career in Belgium in 2005, playing for Dexia Mons-Hainaut.

Kelati, who played all four years at Washington State, finished his collegiate career ranked among all-time school leaders in 3-point field goal percentage (third-.427), 3-point field goals (second-232), assists (eighth-274), and steals (seventh-133). Source: (NBA)

Tadese

The Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, which hosts the final race of the Formula One season in two weeks’ time will be put to further sporting effort on 7 January 2010, as Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru, and recently crowned four-time World Half Marathon champion Zersenay Tadese have been signed-up for the Zayed International Half Marathon, a race which was last held in 2008.

With $300,000 first prize on offer, a successful run in Abu Dhabi for the 22-year-old Wanjiru will mean winnings of close to one million dollars in a little over two months.

His victory in Chicago last weekend not only won him $175,000, but it also wrapped up the World Marathon Majors’ Jackpot of $500,000, which he will formally pick up in New York in two weeks’ time.

The young Kenyan won the inaugural Zayed International Half Marathon in January 2008, but the race was cancelled in early 2009, while waiting for finalisation of the Yas Marina circuit.

Wanjiru is World record holder for the half marathon, with his 58:33 in The Hague in 2007, and his translation to the marathon has been the most successful in history, with victory in his last four races, including the Olympic Games, in superfast times, between 2:05:10 and 2:06:39.

As his elder statesman colleague, former world marathon record holder, Paul Tergat said last week, “It’s only a matter of time before Wanjiru breaks the marathon world record.”

It won’t be an easy $300,000 in Abu Dhabi however as reigning four-time World Half Marathon champion Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea will also be on the start line, having just blitzed the hopes of many of the world’s best half marathoners on the streets of Birmingham on 11 October.

Also in the field will be this year’s fastest, Kenyan Patrick Makau (58:52) who has twice been World Half Marathon silver medallist on the heels of the Eritrean’s victories in 2007 and 2008.

The women’s race will also feature a stellar line-up.

The world record holder for the Half Marathon Kenyan born Kiplagat, now running for of the Netherlands, who won the last edition of the Zayed International Half Marathon in 2008 is also signed up.

However, there must be serious question marks surrounding Kiplagat’s participation given that she has been sidelined with a knee injury for most of 2009 and recently had to withdraw from the defence of her World Half Marathon title in Birmingham.

But, 27-year-old Mary Keitany of Kenya, who has the top two times in the world this year, including the second best ever, 66:36, and won the World title in Birmingham in the absence of reigning three-time champion Kiplagat has also been secured for the race on 7 January. Source: (IAAF)

Michaele Ashko Shimayil

A North African man accused of beating his girlfriend to death with a PVC pipe did not waive his Miranda rights, Judge Larry Long was told during a suppression hearing Tuesday.

Michaele Ashko Shimayil is originally from Eritrea, a small country between Ethiopia and Sudan that borders the Red Sea, and speaks an obscure dialect called Kunama.

Officers say he confessed to beating 24-year-old Bakita Mohammed through his interpreter the night of the incident, but that interpreter testified Tuesday that he speaks Tigrinya, the country’s most widely-spoken language, and only a little Kunama.

Both prosecution and defense lawyers acknowledge that Shimayil did not understand the rights as interpreted after his arrest for the April 20 incident.

Shimayil’s confession ought to be admissible on “good faith,” Deputy State’s Attorney Randy Sample said, because the interrogating officers thought at the time that the defendant had voluntarily waived his right to self-incrimination.

“This is a situation where police believed the defendant was read his Miranda and understood it,” Sample said. “It’s our position that law enforcement did everything it could to apply Miranda.”

Ghevere Tsegoy, who was the interpreter for Shimayil the night of the incident, told Long that he got a call asking him to translate for an interrogation but was not aware of the severity of the crime.

“I expected a car accident, drunk driver,” Tsegoy said.

Despite never having taken part in such an intense interrogation, Tsegoy said Shimayil appeared to understand as he translated the six Miranda warnings and asked if Shimayil would like to waive his rights and speak to detectives.

“I asked if he understood, and he said ‘yes,’ ” he said.

Public Defender Jeff Larson asked Tsegoy if he’d been required to take an English proficiency test to get his job at A To Z Language Interpreters or if he’d had any training for law enforcement interpretation.

He had not.

Officer Patrick Marino arrested Shimayil for driving under the influence on the night of the attack. During his testimony Tuesday, Larson played back audio of that interaction, during which Shimayil said “no English – Kunama” on four occasions.

Once the suspect made it to the Law Enforcement Center, Marino learned more about the suspect’s ethnic origin and called for an interpreter who could speak either Tigrinya or Kunama. “With my limited knowledge on where he was from, I thought they were related languages,” he said.

The police report said the interview was conducted in “Tigrinya, the language of Kenya.” Detective Keith Gries interrogated Shimayil with Tsegoy’s help and said he thought the suspect understood the nature of the conversation and the severity of the crime.

“It was apparent to me that he knew why he was there,” he said.

Shimayil, testifying through a Kunama interpreter, said he can only communicate with basic words and phrases in Tigrinya. Long will need to rule on the defense’s motion to suppress evidence from the interrogation.

Shimayil’s jury trial is tentatively scheduled to begin Dec. 7. Source; (Argusleader)

There’s been plenty of activity on and around Chalice Gold’s Zara property in Eritrea recently, as Chalice chief Doug Jones explained when Minesite rang him up in his office in Perth for a chat the other day. Around a month ago the company sent some satellite imagery on Zara and the surrounding ground over to Peter Wilson, a well-known consultant in Perth, for analysis. That analysis duly showed up around 60 anomalies that are, according to the Chalice press release, “indicative of gold or base metal targets”.

That certainly makes for decent enough looking pipeline of work to run behind, or even in parallel with, Chalice’s flagship Koka deposit, which currently boasts an indicated and inferred resource of 944,000 ounces, most of which is in the indicated category. Upgrade work on Koka has been held up slightly by the non-arrival of the drill rigs the company was hoping to source from Pakistan. But new rigs coming down from Serbia are due on site within the next month or so, at which point work on moving the resource up to measured and indicated status will commence.

Despite that slight delay, the ongoing scoping study on Koka is continuing unabated. “The scoping study has been coming along”, says Doug. One of the early issues facing potential development at Koka will face will be access to water, but Chalice already has that well in hand. “The water drilling has been very successful”, says Doug. “Three bores have hit water and have sufficient water flows”. So that ticks that box, at least for now. In terms of metallurgy, progress has been good too. “We conducted some testwork in terms of hardness and grindability”, continues Doug, “and were pleasantly surprised by the results. It’s not going to be a tough rock to grind down”.

It’s a fairly coarse grind, too, so the current thinking is that a simple crushing and grinding operation with a ball mill will suffice for the front end of the plant, with around 60 per cent of the contained gold likely to be recovered via a gravity circuit. Overall, says Doug, with gravity and cyanide, recoveries ought to come in at around 95 per cent or better. It’s easy to see why Doug calls Koka “robust”. Those numbers are enough to tempt anyone in for a closer look.

It’s not all been happy news, though. A company surveyor and a government hydrologist on Chalice business were recently murdered when their car was ambushed by bandits while they were driving towards Keren, Eritrea’s second city. This tragic development has caused a major security rethink on Chalice’s part, and on the Eritrean government’s part too. That the murders didn’t actually occur on Chalice’s ground is no real consolation, and that such deaths are relatively rare in Eritrea isn’t either. As yet the precise motive isn’t clear, as nothing was stolen, although it’s thought that the killers may have been disturbed by the approach of another vehicle. A police investigation is ongoing.

Still, on a more prosaic level, investors in Chalice haven’t been overly spooked by the killings. That’s perhaps because the political risk discount for a place like Eritrea doesn’t necessarily get any greater just because events show that investors were right to apply a discount. More significantly from the perspective of the share price has been Chalice’s progress in consolidating the Zara ground such that it now holds 80 per cent of the title, with partner Dragon holding the rest. As that consolidation process, involving the absorption of previous title-holder Sub Sahara, continued, Chalice’s shares have risen fourfold.

Chalice has made no secret of its desire to go up to 100 per cent on Zara, but Dragon, it seems, is quite happy to sit on its 20 per cent and watch the value grow. A strengthening gold price has also been helpful, as perhaps, has Chalice’s immunity from the Aussie dollar costs that most of its peers on the ASX are either currently facing or looking to face in the future. It’ll be interesting to watch what happens next. Source: (Minesite.com)