LifeGem - Michael Jackson's Diamond Hair

LifeGem, a company that creates high-quality diamonds from carbon extracts, will convert Michael Jackson's hair into diamonds. The strands of hair, obtained during the shooting of Jackson's 1984 Pepsi commercial, were purchased by jewelry collector John Reznikoff from Ralph Cohen, executive producer of the Pepsi commercial.

 

Reznikoff contacted the Chicago-based diamond company and requested that it turn Jackson's hair into diamonds. "The provenance and authenticity of this lock of hair is impeccable, including the highly publicized video showing the original owner of the hair using his Armani jacket to extinguish Jackson's hair when it caught fire," Reznikoff stated.

 

Reznikoff has worked with LifeGem in the past to create diamonds from strands of hair from Beethoven, which were sold at about $240,000 per diamond. The company expects to produce approximately 10 diamonds from Jackson's hair.

Sarin Ships Diamond-Measuring System to Botswana

Sarin Technologies, a Singapore-listed company that specializes in the evaluation and measurement of diamonds, announced that it has shipped its Galaxy 1000, a system designed to scan and map internal inclusion in rough diamonds, to a new service center in Botswana.

 

The center, which is located in the rough diamond trading hub of Gaborone, is the eighth such facility that Sarin has opened. It operates service center in India, Belgium, Russia, South Africa, and Namibia.

 

Gaborone is gaining a reputation as a growing destination for rough diamond traders, particularly after De Beers announced that it would relocate there from London.

 

“With this new service being offered in Botswana, our customers there too will gain an unprecedented view into the internal features of the diamond, thus truly optimizing the value realized by the stone’s owner,” Sarin CEO Uzi Levami said.

Botswana Diamonds Stock Offering to Boost Africa Explorations

Botswana Diamonds announced that it has conditionally raised £1.51 million British through the selling of its shares to the public.

The company announced that it had issued an aggregate of 37.75 million new shares at a price of £0.04 per share.

The infusion of cash will enable the diamond company to pour more investment into its diamonds exploration projects in Botswana, Cameroon, and Zimbabwe. Botswana Diamonds has zeroed in on a remote region in northeastern Botswana and it is about to launch the second stage of its exploration program in Cameroon, where a bulk sampling on previously identified palaeoplacer conglomerates will determine whether there is a presence of diamonds.

The firm is also awaiting the go-ahead to begin mining for diamonds in Chimanimani and Marange in Zimbabwe.

"The strong support we have received for the placing is a further vote of confidence in Botswana Diamonds' strategy,” said John Teeling, the chairman of Botswana Diamonds.

Indian company to invest in coal mine in Botswana

"In Botswana, Jindal Steel aims to produce about 2.5 million metric tons of coal from the mines to run the proposed 300 megawatt power plant. The company also plans to look at exporting coal from Botswana and work on 'evacuation' facilities in the next five years," said Maroo.

Zizabona can turn around SADC power trade decline

The African Development Bank, the Development Bank of South Africa, the French Development Agency and Stanbic Bank of Botswana have reportedly pledged to fund the Zizabona interconnector. The agreement, signed and ratified by the four countries in 2008 is worth US$224 million. About US$67 million of equity finance is needed, with US$157 million required for debt financing.

 The French Development Agency will provide about US$40million, the Development Bankof South Africa will provide US$50 million and the African Development Bank will meet about 40% of the debt financing.

Consultations with financiers are expected to be conducted in October or December 2012, with intended financial proposals due by March 2013.

When fully operational, the Zizabona will, among other things, make it possible for Namibia to import power directly from Zimbabwe. Currently electricity from the Hwange power station is being routed to Namibia through South Africa.

The project is also expected to help decongest the existing transmission corridor that passes through Zimbabwe.

Letshego bullish on H1 results

“This led to the use of accumulated tax reserves that were approved by shareholders in the prior interim financial period, and resulted in a higher profit after tax base in that period”, a cautionary statement from the company reads.

The company says that the interim results will incorporate the results of Micro Africa Limited (MAL) from 1 June 2012 being the date of the finalisation of this transaction but will not have any significant impact on the profit before or after tax results for the interim period.

MAL is an established company that has been operating in Kenya since 2000 with subsidiaries in Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda and an associated company in Tanzania. Its operations entail the provision of secured and unsecured personal, SMME and Group loans.

Last year the company introduced products involving the perfecting of security, over the counter cash handling for loan transactions and mobile banking technology. The company has a current loan book in excess of P52.1 million, 21 branches and a customer base of over 17,000.

At the same time Letshego’s loan book shot past the P3 billion mark earlier this year following its increase in its African footprint. The company has also diversified its revenue streams away from its traditional cash cow market in Botswana.

Meanwhile BusinessPost understands that the operations of the Central Registries continue as normal and collections remain at historical levels through the deduction at source basis.

The Government’s central registry announced in September last year that it will no longer be the intermediary for collection and payment of credit between civil servants and corporates such as micro financers, which included among them, Letshego. However, the government was later to suspend the move citing reasons of ‘consultation’.

Industry sources say the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) listed entity’s which now offers macro loans of up to P200,000 over a five-year period collects at least P66 million per month in loan repayments from government employees who constitute 95 percent of its customers.

Letshego has operations in 11 African countries in Southern and Eastern Africa including in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia and has indicated plans to expand into other regions.

Lucara Reports Excellent Karowe Sales Results

Mr. William Lamb, CEO of Lucara, noted, "We are pleased with the results of the third sale of Karowe diamonds. The excellent value obtained confirms the high quality of the Karowe production. This is especially significant in the current depressed state of the rough diamond market. The success of the sale complements the ongoing successes at Karowe. For the month of August, design capacity through the process plant was achieved, exceeding our forecast. Infrastructure projects previously reported remain on track and are also contributing to the advances being made on the mine."

The Company expects carat production at Karowe to meet or exceed the previously published forecast for 2012. To ensure consistency of sale parcels, the Company has decided to hold fewer sales of larger sales volumes over the remainder of the year. It is anticipated that two more sales of Karowe diamonds will take place in 2012 with the next sale being held in November.

About Lucara

Lucara is a well positioned emerging new diamond producer. The Company has an experienced board and management team with extensive diamond development and operations expertise. The Company's two key assets are the Karowe Mine in Botswana and the Mothae Project in Lesotho. The 100% owned Karowe Mine is in the production. The 75% owned Mothae Project is currently in the trial mining stage.

Qualified Person

Mr. Anthony George, P.Eng., a mining engineer and Lucara's V.P. Development, is the Company's Qualified Person pursuant to NI 43-101 and has reviewed the technical contents of this news release.

Mount Burgess Mining pinpoints strong zinc lead anomaly in Botswana

The north-east trending geochemical soil anomaly has returned values of up to 236 parts per million zinc and 117 parts per million lead.

The anomaly may represent a parallel repeat of the Kihabe synclinal fold structure in this SEDEX style mineralised area.

Mount Burgess Mining is planning further geochemical soil sampling in the area, south of the Kihabe Resource, once current bush-fires have burned-out.

Soil sampling will be extended northeast to join up with a previously sampled area which resulted in delineation of the geochemical anomaly over what has now been drilled to produce the Nxuu Resource, 7 kilometres to the east of the Kihabe Resource.

Kalahari Copperbelt yields first mine

The new mine targets production of 36,000 tonnes of the base metal per year over a projected 15-year lifespan. It will also pump out 1.1 million ounces of silver per year, being the first large-scale extraction of the precious metal in Botswana's history. Speaking at the launch near Toteng, Khama noted that while the area's copper and silver mineralisation had been known since the 1970s, it was with Discovery Metal's arrival in 2005 that exploration moved to production.

"I ardently hope that the continuing exploration activities will yield positive results (and) I am excited by such prospects because if results are positive and economic to justify development, it means greater benefits for the nation," the President said.

"The development of the Boseto Copper Project brings opportunities for residents of Ngamiland to shift focus to trading in some sectors that the mine in their area would support."

Khama said while the Australian junior miner had become the first to tap into the Kalahari Copperbelt's potential, there were other potential mining projects "not far from this area."

One such project is being developed by New Hana Mining which holds prospecting licences for copper and silver covering 10,653 square kilometres, including the flagship Banana Zone. The Canadian firm recently completed a preliminary economic assessment on the Banana Zone.

Another explorer, Australian firm, MOD Resources, holds licences covering about 10,000 square kilometres of the copperbelt and recently identified 100 kilometres of priority areas for its exploration programme. At Friday's launch, a beaming Discovery Metals' chairman, Gordon Galt said commissioning and ramp up activities were progressing well with a view to strong and sustainable cash flows into the future.

"I'm delighted that the Boseto Copper Project has been officially opened and to be able to report to our shareholders that we have kept our promise and brought this fantastic asset on stream, on time and within budget," he said.

"This will allow us to fully develop the potential value in the new copper frontier that is the Kalahari Copperbelt."

Aviva Corporation chairman describes sales of Kenyan assets as a good outcome - Proactiveinvestors (NA)

He added that in Botswana, consultant Earthtec’s Environmental and Archaeological Impact Assessment for the Mmamantswe Coal Project had not identified any major impediments to the project’s development.

Aviva’s exploration licences for its coal project were also renewed for a further two years and it will continue to consider adding to its coal portfolio in Botswana.

Botswana’s Government had also presented in January 2012 the outcome of the Coal Road Map Review that the company believes provides many positives for the development of Mmamantswe.

Additional Diamonds Discovered in Cameroon | 4-Traders

The directors of Botswana Diamonds are pleased to report that two additional diamonds have been recovered from the on-going sampling programme on the Libongo palaeoplacer project in Cameroon.
 
The current exploration programme involves collecting a 100 tonne sample from each of three areas previously found to have palaeoplacer rock, in order to ascertain if the rock is diamondiferous.  The ultimate objective is to assess whether a deposit similar to the adjacent Mobilong deposit being mined by CNK of Korea exists.
One of the diamonds, a 0.25 carat near gem quality stone, was recovered from a stream flowing through the sample area.  The second, a 1.3 carat industrial quality diamond, was recovered from the crushed sample. The programme is expected to be completed within weeks.
 
John Teeling, Chairman, commented: "This is further evidence that our Libongo licence ground contains diamond bearing rock similar to that being mined close by, and that this project has the potential to deliver value to our shareholders. "The next steps are to undertake a bulk sample to identify grade per tonne and value per carat and to run a scoping study on the feasibility of the project."