Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Earth Science News .




TRADE WARS
Guinea sparks showdown over mineral riches
by Staff Writers
Conakry, Guinea (UPI) Nov 15, 2012


Chinese envoy to Canada denies company spying
Montreal (AFP) Nov 17, 2012 - Beijing's envoy to Canada on Saturday denied that Chinese companies were involved in industrial espionage, and challenged anyone to prove the contrary.

"I can assure you that our companies working in other countries are strictly doing business according to the local laws," Ambassador Zhang Junsai told CBC radio.

"If you really have the evidence, come (out) with it. If not... shut up," he told CBC.

The diplomat blamed the allegations on "a Cold War mentality."

According to the ambassador, "even the United States could not give out evidence."

The comments come after a US House of Representatives panel in October concluded that Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE pose a security threat and should be barred from US contracts and acquisitions.

The US House Intelligence Committee panel launched its probe over concerns that China could use the fast-growing firms for economic or military espionage, or cyber attacks.

Both Huawei and ZTE have denied any ties with the Chinese government. Top firm executives appeared at a Capitol Hill in September, stressing that they were focused on business, not politics.

The ambassador's statement comes as Canada's Conservative Party government has extended a probe into the proposed $15.1 billion takeover of Calgary-based oil and gas company Nexen by China's state-owned CNOOC.

"We're here not to grab your resources. We're here to participate," the ambassador told CBC.

A mid-October poll showed that nearly 60 percent of all Canadians fear that CNOOC, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, would have a competitive advantage over public companies or believe foreign governments should not be able to control resources on Canadian soil.

The head of the Treasury in the Guinea has been assassinated amid a looming showdown over the West African country's fabled mineral riches involving rival tycoons, including a buccaneering Israeli billionaire who sits on a mountain of iron ore.

The Financial Times observed that the battle for mineral rights "could prove a test case in a continent where natural resources make up two-thirds of exports but have tended to generate strife rather than prosperity."

Treasury Director Aissatou Boiro was killed Nov. 9 in Conakry, Guinea's capital, as she was driving home. Police said she was shot twice in the chest at close range.

The attack appears to be linked to a major anti-corruption drive launched by President Alpha Conde, a Marxist intellectual and veteran opposition leader who spent years in exile before he was elected in December 2010 and started to clean up government after decades of high-level graft.

Boiro was appointed by Conde eight months ago to investigate large-scale corruption under earlier dictatorships, as well as current cases, in the former French colony that sits on an estimated 4 billion metric tons -- 25 percent of world reserves -- of high-grade iron ore.

It also has some 25 billion metric tons of bauxite, the second largest deposits in the world; large deposits of gold and diamonds; and undetermined quantities of uranium.

Colleagues said Boiro was assassinated to silence her after she launched an investigation into the disappearance of millions of dollars in state funds.

Economist Idrissa Camaram, a former treasury official, said: "She was an honest woman who was against all forms of corruption. In Guinea all of the cases of large-scale embezzlement happen at the Treasury Department.

"She became inconvenient for certain economic predators who're in the government."

Boiro's death hasn't been formally linked to any particular case of graft under investigation. But Guinea's Treasury had been systematically looted by senior officials, allegedly including one of Conde's predecessors, Lansana Conte, whose 24-year dictatorship ended with his death in late 2008.

Moussa Camara, an army officer, seized power after Conte's death. The Financial Times described Camara as "so paranoid he would only hold Cabinet meetings in the dead of night at his barracks."

Camara's disastrous rule ended when one of his aides shot him. He was badly wounded and fled the country.

The junta pledged to hand restore civilian rule, which led to Conde's election and a full-scale government probe into official corruption and a review of how mining contracts were awarded by earlier administrations.

The investigation includes allegations that Conte awarded major mining contracts in return for fat commissions to family members, including $2.5 million to his fourth wife, and expensive gifts like a diamond-encrusted, gold miniature Formula One car to a Cabinet minister.

Much is at stake here. "Tens of billions of dollars, as well as the future of a woebegone West African state nation of 10 million people, hang in the balance," the Financial Times reported Nov. 7.

"One prize glitters above the rest: Simandou, the mountain that sits on top of arguably the world best under-developed iron ore deposit.

"Supporters of Alpha Conde, whose high-profile advisers include billionaire George Soros and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, say his public commitment to transparency breaks with a past sullied by alleged corruption."

Soros told the business daily "Conde faces an uphill battle; bribery and corruption are deeply ingrained in Guinea."

An investigation committee has recently focused on a group headed by Israeli tycoon Beny Steinmetz who made his fortune in trading diamonds and making high-risk investments.

Conde's government wants to know how, in 2008, Beny Steinmetz Group Resources secured rights to half of Simandou which six months earlier had been stripped from Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian mining giant.

Simandou ore is said to be of exceptionally high quality. It will take an estimated $10 billion to exploit.

In April 2010, BSGR struck a deal to sell 51 percent of its mining interests in Guinea for $2.5 billion to Vale of Brazil, the world's biggest iron ore miner. That would give BSGR a huge return on a purchase that cost it $160 million, the Financial Times said.

It reported Soros listed "graft allegations relating to BSGR's acquisition of interests in Simandou" that involved "luxury gifts and payments to relatives of Lansana Conte." Both parties deny any wrongdoing.

.


Related Links
Global Trade News






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








TRADE WARS
Japan, China, S. Korea to start FTA talks: reports
Tokyo (AFP) Nov 15, 2012
Japan, China and South Korea will hold ministerial discussions next week and are expected to agree on the launch of three-way free trade talks, media reports said Thursday. The meeting will be held on Tuesday on the sidelines of an East Asia summit in Cambodia, public broadcaster NHK said, despite a spike in tensions between Tokyo and its neighbours over two separate territorial disputes. ... read more


TRADE WARS
New York authorities probe Sandy price gouging

Life's no beach for seaside victims of Sandy

Statement on the handling of risk situations by scientists

Under-fire utility boss resigns after storm Sandy

TRADE WARS
Andrews Space To Manufacture Sinclair Rods

Raytheon submits Space Fence proposal to the USAF

Larger version of Kindle Fire tablet unleashed

Lockheed Martin Submits Space Fence Radar Proposal to USAF to Detect and Track Orbital Objects

TRADE WARS
Date of Polynesia settlement refined

Australia creates world's largest marine reserves

Tropical Indo-Pacific climate shifts to a more El Nino-like state

Super storm tracked by ESA water mission

TRADE WARS
Why Antarctic sea ice cover has increased under the effects of climate change

Summer has arrived at frozen Antarctic runway

Clouds Could Explain How Snowball Earth Thawed Out

U.S., New Zealand in Antarctic proposal

TRADE WARS
Farm injury risks increase with age

Climate change increases stress, need for restoration on grazed public lands

Finally! The pig genome is mapped

Pig gene discovery could help combat animal and human disease

TRADE WARS
New Zealand volcano showing activity

Strong Mexico quake causes panic but no damage reported

2011 Virginia quake triggered landslides at extraordinary distances

Tabletop fault model reveals why some quakes result in faster shaking

TRADE WARS
Nigerian military offensive kills 'murderer of ex-general'

Dialogue 'preferred option' for Mali crisis: UN envoy

Kenya to deploy army after massacre of police

Algeria urges talks on Mali after military accord

TRADE WARS
Photos show Einstein's brain 'different'

Virtual Reality Could Help People Lose Weight and Fight Prejudice

Research suggests that humans are slowly but surely losing intellectual and emotional abilities

A better brain implant: Slim electrode cozies up to single neurons




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement