/qresearch/ -  Q Research

>>20847925

“Dirk Hartford: Reviewing Johnny Copelyn’s autobiography – Maverick Insider” – Part 2

https://www.biznews.com/undictated/2016/05/13/dirk-hartford-reviewing-jonny-cpelyns-autobiography

13th May 2016

In 1994 he was also among the 20 Cosatu leaders who went into our first democratic parliament under Mandela as part of the ANC slate. It was during this time that Copelyn, ever the pragmatist and knowing full well that there was no intention on the part of the ANC to challenge the capitalist system, birthed the trade union investment vehicle idea with R2 million loaned by the union. Today HCI alone is worth R12.5 billion and the empire he created spans sectors cross the board including gambling, hotels, media, mining, gaming, property and wine, as well as several other listed vehicles.

Many of his former union comrades, like Yunus Shaik, the late Virginia Engel, Jabu Ngcobo, Freddie Magugu, Rachel Watson, Elias Mphande and Les Maasdorp, are still actively involved with him in HCI. Others, like Ebrahim Patel and Lionel October, are leaders in government. Others, like Andre Kriel and Ronald Bernikow, are still in the union or the CCMA. All can be relied on to have his back, as he has watched out for theirs over the years. And that is why he alone of all the comrades turned capitalists can still confidently go back to his old stomping ground at Sactwu to launch his memoir.

It is a pity that Copelyn’s memoir stops at the point where his business dealings took off twenty years ago for it is in the business sphere that his formidable strategic and negotiating skills really took off enabling him to make not only himself and his close comrades unbelievably rich, but also his old union. But that story, with all its intrigues, lessons and controversies, will have to await his sequel.

>>20833468

>Marcel Golding

>>20847902

>In 1997, Copelyn and Marcel Golding, who headed the National Union of Mineworkers’ investment arm, took up executive roles in HCI.

>>20847925

>Johnny Copelyn, the billionaire boss of HCI, could launch his memoir in front of several hundred trade unionists at the head-office of Cosatu’s key industrial affiliate SACTWU with the Minister of Economic Development Ebrahim Patel introducing him.

“Boardroom emotions run high as Golding resigns as HCI chair”

https://youtu.be/Jq2A-GQNVj4

Oct 31, 2014

“'Greed, power and ignorance - why Copelyn tried to nail me': Golding” – Part 1

https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/business/2014-11-02-greed-power-and-ignorance-why-copelyn-tried-to-nail-me-golding/

02 November 2014 - 02:08

Marcel Golding, who resigned as chairman of e.tv parent company Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) this week rather than face a disciplinary hearing, says he has been "the bulwark" against attempts by the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union (Sactwu) to interfere in the editorial direction of the "no fear, no favour" broadcaster.

Sactwu is a 30% shareholder of HCI, which Golding launched in 1997 alongside his great friend Johnny Copelyn - a relationship that has gone spectacularly sour in recent weeks.

On Thursday, a fragile truce between Copelyn and Golding appeared to have been struck as both appeared at HCI's AGM, and jointly pledged that neither would "make further statements about the sad decline in our partnership". Copelyn, often depicted as stone-hearted, broke down at the AGM, resting his head on his hands, overcome by emotion.

But the damage, it seems, had already been done, with perhaps the most devastating claim being that Sactwu tried to secretly direct coverage on e.tv to please politicians rather than provide "independent" news.

Asked why Copelyn was apparently so keen to trash him, Golding cited a "whole range of reasons". "People want control, they want power. It's a lethal cocktail. Greed, power and ignorance."

Golding, who as deputy to National Union of Mineworkers boss Cyril Ramaphosa in the 1980s was a stalwart of the trade union movement, responded that there was "no need" to raise his concerns with Sactwu because he'd been highlighting these concerns for months. Sactwu, he said, knew all about them.

"I'd been dealing with them all the time on this, telling them, 'I'm not prepared to do this, I'm not prepared to do that'".

One of the things he was not prepared to do was obey an "instruction" by Kriel that e.tv cover a speech by Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel. Kriel sent him an SMS saying, "We require e.tv to cover it live."

>>20847952

“'Greed, power and ignorance - why Copelyn tried to nail me': Golding” – Part 2

https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/business/2014-11-02-greed-power-and-ignorance-why-copelyn-tried-to-nail-me-golding/

02 November 2014 - 02:08

Golding said the fact that he still wanted to offer this alleged "enemy of media freedom" a juicy commercial proposition did not mean he was ignoring its attempts to dictate e.tv's coverage .

"Kriel's text telling us to cover Patel's lecture - did we do it? No," said Golding.

But why would he want people who do not understand media freedom as partners in a media venture?

"There are two issues here. One is a commercial issue. The other is the actual day-to-day operation where I've been the bulwark against their attempts to interfere," he said.

The point of his meeting with Sactwu was "to look at a commercial transaction that made sense to everyone" - namely, the purchase of HCI's media business. Given that Sactwu owns 30% of HCI and 30% of the underlying media business, this could not have been done without them, said Golding.

This week, in a letter to e.tv and eNCA staff, Copelyn said the union would have agreed to Golding's partnership proposal if it had not been for its "disillusionment" when it became aware of his "secret" purchase of R24-million worth of shares in the TV set-top box maker Ellies.

What makes this drama so alarming is that for many, Copelyn and Golding were an indestructible partnership.

Copelyn's view was that Golding was suspended from HCI because he "concealed" the Ellies share transaction from the company and its board.

Golding said this was just an excuse to get rid of him because he would not allow e.tv to be used for government propaganda. Copelyn was afraid that his obdurate stance on this issue would endanger HCI's relations with the government and affect its business interests.

"I was open and honest and disclosed everything," said Golding. And, importantly, two months later, Copelyn and HCI had not done anything about it.

"If they thought it was so serious, why didn't they act immediately? Instead they first tried to get me to leave, to do this, to do that. When I didn't, only then did they say, 'OK, listen, now we're going to bring the Ellies charge against you.'"

But surely the bottom line is that he committed a breach of governance by not getting board approval?

No, he said. This was the way entrepreneurs did things. If he and Copelyn had stuck religiously to the rule book on corporate governance and submitted every intended share transaction for board approval before doing anything, they would have lost opportunities and never have been able to build HCI into an R18-billion company.

Golding disclosed his share buying only when it reached a threshold that compelled him to do so, because he did not want to alert the market to the fact that Sabido (which owns e.tv) was interested in Ellies.

>>20847905

>One of his critics, political economy professor Patrick Bond, has described him as “another white man nicely empowered by BEE”. In the past Bond has said that Golding and Copelyn, as the heads of HCI, were getting involved in “easy-money casinos, cellphone and television deals”.

“etv: emails show who really runs the show” – Part 1

https://groundup.org.za/article/media-meltdown-emails-disclose-who-really-runs-south-african-show_2394/

28 October 2014 | Patrick Bond

A credibility crisis in South Africa’s independent media is unfolding this week, writes Patrick Bond.

There is a risk that fewer than a half-dozen managers will destroy the waning integrity – and at minimum, the ownership structure – of the country’s most popular tv news station, eNews, which had aspired to become Africa’s answer to Al-Jazeera.

Seven months ago, Marcel Golding, a former National Union of Mineworkers deputy general secretary who served under Cyril Ramaphosa 25 years ago, and until Monday ran eNews, received a string of emails from a behind-the-scenes fixer, Yunis Shaik. These astonishing emails were lodged in papers at the Cape Town Labour Court last Friday by Golding, in his failed last-gasp bid to save his eNews leadership.

The documents prove that six weeks before this year’s national election, Shaik told Golding and his wife, eNews executive Bronwyn Keene-Young, that their nightly national broadcast should give “lead story” coverage to President Jacob Zuma for the opening of the R3 billion De Hoop Dam in the country’s northeast, most minerals-rich region.

The intermediary between Zuma and Shaik was Minister of Economic Development Ebrahim Patel, former general secretary of the SA Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu). Within the eNews holding company, Shaik’s main protectors were the founding and current Sactwu general secretaries, Johnny Copelyn and Andre Kriel – all close pals of Golding until recently. Not anymore.

March 24 was a flashpoint moment, as Shaik wrote, “I got a call from Minister Patel today. He says President Zuma this day opened a new dam. The building of dams is a big issue and has big impact on our country for supply of water etc. He wants for us to cover it tonight.”

When after two days eNews had only mentioned the De Hoop Dam fleetingly on the morning show, Shaik emailed Keene-Young again, frustrated: “I received three sms[es] from Ebrahim and a phone call which gave rise to me sending an email to Marcel and yourself… after receiving another phone call from Ebrahim, and you and Marcel [are] still not available.”

This deal was not trivial, for eNews’s 2.5 million nightly viewers are an audience 2.5 times greater than the SA Broadcasting Corporation’s English-language news show.

During eNews’s 2012 London launch, Conroy reportedly said it would “become the Al Jazeera of Africa.” But now, Patel’s “ham-fisted attempt at Stasi-style propaganda” – as the Sunday Business Times described the abuse of power at eNews – makes transparent “just how wafer-thin the line really is between powerful people seeking propaganda and the information dished out to the public.”

Golding’s main ally on the board of directors of eNews’ holding company was former Minister of State Enterprises Barbara Hogan. When she resigned on Sunday, she confirmed the interference: “I am mindful of the briefing that Yunis Shaik gave me when he claimed that Sactwu … had lost patience with the editorial practices of eTV, citing the failure to give prominent coverage to Minister Ebrahim Patel’s economic pronouncements, as an instance of such dissatisfaction.”

As South Africa prepares for digital tv migration, the Set-Top Box ‘STB programme’ was Golding’s attempt to garner state support for a combined, fee-based cable news and internet access system in which he was simultaneously investing just over R24 million, in order to ensure eNews had control over rapid STB retail installation. However the share price of the local electronics firm he favoured, Ellies, soon tanked, resulting in sufficiently large losses that Copelyn and Shaik allegedly had a pretense for dismissing Golding this month, for dereliction of duty, gross negligence, dishonesty, and breaches of fiduciary duties and ethics policy.

(Whether true or not, media activists insist the STBs – costing around R1000 – be provided by the state as a free universal lifeline service so as to enhance information access.)

>>20847964

“etv: emails show who really runs the show” – Part 2

https://groundup.org.za/article/media-meltdown-emails-disclose-who-really-runs-south-african-show_2394/

28 October 2014 | Patrick Bond

Golding rebutted that in reality, the STB programme was trivial and the fall-out with other eNews owners occurred because of the Sactwu/Patel attempt to force the broadcaster to adopt a pro-ANC political agenda.

What kind of propaganda would Patel want dished out on national television? He certainly would not want eNews to mention the De Hoop Dam’s cost overruns (130 percent) or controversies surrounding its main beneficiaries, platinum mines, which get 60 percent of the new water supply. A year ago, such information catalyzed sell-out accusations against Zuma by the United Democratic Movement.

Other De Hoop Dam victims are downstream, in water-starved Mozambican communities and in the Kruger National Park. There, park officials joined by progressive environmentalists and water-sector NGOs firmly opposing De Hoop’s diversion of water to the mines.

Worst of all, though, would be a national news show providing rudimentary class analysis of infrastructure’s costs to ordinary people, judging from Patel’s diversionary arguments on SABC during the controversial passage of his fast-track infrastructure legislation earlier this year.

Early on, it was obvious that foreign mining houses will be the winners of Patel’s high-carbon, export-oriented Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission, and that poor people would lose through much higher electricity, water and transport prices.

In Parliament, no one I encountered in a hearing could rebut concerns about Patel’s excessive haste, especially after a recent round of infrastructure white-elephant breeding that included World Cup soccer stadiums, Johannesburg e-toll system, luxury airport spending, the Gautrain, and many others.

The eNews team does have talented journalists, without question, and e.tv shows are often critical of government. But this particular series was sufficiently happy-faced that the broadcasts now feature prominently on Patel’s government website. The eNews overview report on infrastructure is one of the worst cases, celebrating two parastatal corporations’ most destructive mega-projects: Eskom’s two R120 billion coal-fired power plants and Transnet’s R350 billion rail, oil pipeline and shipping expansion.

Like Cyril Ramaphosa’s incriminating emails to Lonmin on 15 August 2012, Golding’s revelations and resignation force us into an awareness of just how closely the current ruling crew’s deracialised configuration of power across economy, politics and journalism resembles the elite’s pre-1994 structure.

And if so, then this media meltdown can only add fire to your belly, as you demand that the full crony-capitalist implications of the scandal be considered.

>>20847964

>their nightly national broadcast should give “lead story” coverage to President Jacob Zuma for the opening of the R3 billion De Hoop Dam in the country’s northeast, most minerals-rich region.

>>20847902

>Third was the company’s participation in broad-based black-owned companies (the idea of now-billionaire mining magnate Patrice Motsepe)

“De Hoop Dam; STEELPOORT, MPUMULANGA, SOUTH AFRICA”

https://arq.co.za/?p=2248

At 85 m in height and comprising approximately 1 million m3 of concrete, De Hoop Dam is the largest RCC dam in South Africa.

De Hoop Dam provides the bulk storage for Phase 2A of the Olifants River Water Resources Development Project (ORWRDP), which augments water supply in Limpopo Province. Water is to be supplied primarily to the mining industry in the Steelpoort area.

De Hoop Dam was constructed in high workability RCC and saw the first full implementation of IVRCC; RCC that can be compacted directly against the formwork using poker vibrators, without additional grout.

http://thenewage.co.za/22319-1024-53-Steelpoort_at_war_with_miners

https://web.archive.org/web/20110721034457/http://thenewage.co.za/22319-1024-53-Steelpoort_at_war_with_miners

Jul 6 2011 8:32AM

There are more than 100 mines operating from Lydenburg, Steelpoort, and Burgersfort up to Lebowakgomo. Steelpoort is home to Dwarsrivier chrome mine owned by Assmang, Tweefontein chrome mine owned by Samancor, Two Rivers and Modikwe platinum mines managed by Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals , as well as Mototolo platinum mine and the Lion Ferrochrome smelter, both owned by Xstrata.

>>20847996

>http://thenewage.co.za/22319-1024-53-Steelpoort_at_war_with_miners

>https://web.archive.org/web/20110721034457/http://thenewage.co.za/22319-1024-53-Steelpoort_at_war_with_miners

>Jul 6 2011 8:32AM

More info in the article

“Steelpoort at war with miners”

Steelpoort, a mining town on the borders of Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, is supposed to be a melodious story of development but it seem to be tense.

The tension – between mining houses and local communities over employment and business opportunities – has got to a point where mining managers are even scared to drive into the nearby villages, particularly at night.

When visiting the town last weekend, The New Age tried to arrange evening meetings with the managers but was told it would be impossible and extremely risky.

“I don’t think it will be advisable to do that because of the tension in the area. It will be hard for our employees to drive around,” warned Songezo Zibi, spokesperson of Xstrata Alloys, a day before the visit.

Xstrata is one of the big companies operating in the area. Some community representatives alleged that they felt the negative impact of the mining activities with no economic benefit.

Two months ago, more than 2000 community members from the surrounding villages of Ga-Malekane, Ga-Mampuru, Tukakgomo and Maandagshoek organised a march and barricaded roads outside the Two Rivers Mine at Maroke in the Sekhukhune area. They burnt cars and stoned several passing vehicles.

Another episode of violence erupted at Platinum Australia’s Smokey Hills near Maandagshoek. Kobus Jansen van Rensburg, who was employed by JIC Mining Services, was killed when the minibus he was travelling in on his way home was attacked by an angry mob.

There are more than 100 mines operating from Lydenburg, Steelpoort, and Burgersfort up to Lebowakgomo. Steelpoort is home to Dwarsrivier chrome mine owned by Assmang, Tweefontein chrome mine owned by Samancor, Two Rivers and Modikwe platinum mines managed by Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals , as well as Mototolo platinum mine and the Lion Ferrochrome smelter, both owned by Xstrata.

Mining activities around the area have been centred on chrome and platinum for a long time. Collections of mining dumps on nearby mountains bear testimony.

About 2 million people are said to be living in the villages that have no electricity, clean water or proper roads. About 90% of young people in the Steelpoort areas are said to be unemployed.

Most communities rely on the heavily polluted Tubatse River that cuts through villages, for water. The river runs up to the Lepelle River.

Explaining why it is important to meet them during daylight, Moffet Mabelane, a corporate social responsibility manager at Xstrata Alloys, said managers were being targeted by angry community leaders.

“They want to influence the recruitment process. They demand that all available posts should be allocated to the locals. They say we should make broad-based black economic empowerment a reality and also demand that magoshi (local chiefs) refrain from employment and tendering processes,” said Mabelane.

A senior mine manager who refused to be identified said he was attacked at some point only to be rescued by ex-employees who happened to know him.

Mabelane said Xstrata had adopted 18 communities and about 38 schools . He said the company was addressing most of the concerns through a tripartite forum, consisting of representatives from the company, communities and trade unions.

He said the total commitment from Xstrata for community projects in the Lydenburg, Burgersfort and Steelpoort areas stood at R35m over the next few years. This includes projects in progress and those that will soon start.

But for Jerry Tshehlakgolo, chairperson of the Sekhukhune Land and Mining Community Based Forum, the mines were reneging on their promises.

“They are so reluctant. They undermine black communities. They keep on promising us this and that. They are not delivering.

“And because of that, those killings won’t stop, we will fight them,” he said.

Another community leader, Teddy Thobakgale, said the same pressure was applied to local municipalities.

“There is a divide and rule kind of attitude from local government officials. “They are treating us like rebels and we are prepared to do anything to vent our frustrations,” he said.

>>20848003

And it continues…

“Tension brewing between mine company and local residents in North West”

https://youtu.be/a8zRajoEd_k

May 4, 2024

Non-governmental organization Mining Affected Communities United in Action - MACUA - says the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy is to be blamed for the tensions brewing in Mononono Village near Moruleng in North West. This follows Ikwezi Vanadium's alleged continued presence in the area. Ikwezi has refuted allegations of mining exploration activities in the community's grazing land. The community is demanding that the mining company rehabilitate all their grazing land that was excavated during the collection of samples and also remove all its equipment and security from the area. Tensions between the community and Ikwezi Vanadium have led violent clashes.

>>20848011

More…

“Glencore says Rhovan vanadium operations near Brits disrupted by community protests since 29 April”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-05-06-glencore-says-rhovan-mine-near-brits-hit-by-protests-since-29-april/

06 May 2024

Glencore has confirmed that its Rhovan vanadium mining and processing operations near Brits in North West have been disrupted by ‘community protesters’ since 29 April. It is the latest example of such unrest affecting the operations of a major global mining company in South Africa.

Glencore Ferroalloys confirms that without any prior notice, and without permission in terms of the Gatherings Act, No. 205 of 1993 (Gatherings Act), community members of the Bakwena Ba Mogopa community in Bethanie unlawfully blocked the R556 road leading to its Rhovan Operations,” the global mining and trading giant said in response to Daily Maverick’s queries.

“The roads leading to the Rhovan operations have been blocked by the group of protesters since Monday, 29 April 2024. This blockade has had the effect of preventing both access to and exit out of the Rhovan Operations by staff and contractors. This unlawful restriction has had a negative effect on the ability of the Rhovan Operations to continue with its normal operations.”

Glencore said no grievances or demands have been formally made and it was not clear who was speaking for the “community”.

This fits a pattern of such outbreaks of social unrest in mining communities which periodically disrupt the industry. Often shadowy elements and “procurement mafias” gin up “community protests” in a bid to shake down mining companies. It is also the case that communities have legitimate grievances which are exploited for such purposes.

But this incident seems to stand out for its duration – it has been rumbling on for more than a week – and the apparent lack of clarity around the demands.

Daily Maverick was alerted to the saga by an email sent by a source.

“Tensions are running high. No talks are happening. Police presence is worrying. We don’t want another Marikana,” the source said.

Attempts to follow up with the source have been unsuccessful.

“Despite this unlawful conduct, Rhovan management has reasonably indicated to the leaders of the protest, as with any stakeholders, that they are prepared to engage with all aggrieved parties through existing and recognised structures,” Glencore said.

“However, no such engagements can take place in the face of hostile and unlawful behaviour. To date, Glencore has not received any formal correspondence tabling the grievances or demands of the protesters or explaining exactly who are the bodies (if any) they represent.”

The SABC has reported that the protesters want mine management to prioritise local jobs.

It is also the latest such incident to rock a major global mining company in South Africa, raising the “investment risk” profile of the country in unflattering ways.

Richards Bay Minerals, a unit of global mining group Rio Tinto, has faced such unrest in the past – unrest that put a $463-million expansion project on hold.

Such protests seem to have ebbed over the past year in flashpoint regions in North West and Limpopo, but industry executives have warned that they expect them to possibly flare up in the run-up to the 29 May elections.

Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman said last month that “community members” were even extorting the industry to sponsor golf days.

The incident unfolding at Glencore may be a one-off, or it could be a sign that things are heating up.

“Glencore Ferroalloys will continue to work with all affected stakeholders and authorities to come to a peaceful solution, and affirms its commitment to uphold human rights, by dealing with the community safely and transparently,” Glencore said. DM

>>20847902

>>20847905

>>20847925

>>20847931

>>20847952

>>20847954

>>20847912

>After the transition to democracy, unions’ political influence expanded

“Johnny Copelyn: After “disastrous Zuma years” HCI intends playing role in SA’s resurrection”

https://www.biznews.com/leadership/2019/08/12/johnny-copelyn-zuma-years-hci

12th August 2019

Excerpts

Annual reports tell us everything about a company. They are the single document where boards of directors report to the owners of the company. Given its relevance, it still amazes me how some company leaders outsource the writing of their letters to shareholders, the most important part of any annual report. Because investing in the shares of a company is entrusting savings to those leading the business. And to trust someone, we need to understand what makes them tick. One of the better examples of authenticity you’ll find is the latest shareholder letter by HCI’s chief executive Johnny Copelyn, the key portion of which is republished below. Copelyn was named among those business leaders who donated money, in a personal capacity, to Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC presidential campaign. After reading what he shared with his shareholders, the HCI faithful may well be asking him at the forthcoming AGM why the company, too, did not make a donation. – Alec Hogg

By John Copelyn

Efforts by factions of the ruling party to undermine their own president, and suggest he is failing to uphold the party line on such policies, will force us all to be more assertive to avoid the retreat of government from doing what has to be done.

Lawlessness across our businesses has meant endless disruptions of our coal business by various community-based groups seeking to force us to employ people chosen by such protesters (even though there are no vacancies to fill); and demands by traditional authorities to pay tributes and benefits on the basis that we are exploiting their “traditional domain”.

The lawlessness has resulted in an endless stream of armed robberies on our buses where passengers are relieved of their possessions at gun point; strikes demanding double digit increases which turn violent; burning of buses and the like.

This is definitely not a place for sissies.

Nevertheless, we absolutely must prevail against these forces. This is a moment where good people need to heed the call to action. We can rebuild what has been destroyed by opportunists and the scars on our backs can make us more determined, rather than naively trusting, as we may once have been.

HCI fully intends to play a role in this resurrection. We are a product of the post-apartheid dispensation in our country. We do not want to pretend otherwise.

It is our special responsibility to demonstrate ourselves as an exemplary BEE entity. And we are that. We have built new businesses rather than just being carried along in other people’s enterprise; we create new jobs, build new hotels, office blocks, shopping centres, warehousing, studios, and convert dilapidated and often vandalised buildings into refurbished inner-city residences.

“HCI’s Johnny Copelyn and Impact strike ‘smart oil deal’” in Namibia

https://www.hci.co.za/2024/01/14/hcis-johnny-copelyn-and-impact-strike-smart-oil-deal/

January 14, 2024

The transaction with TotalEnergies allows exploration company to keep half its stake in two Namibian fields.

Exploration company Impact Oil and Gas, half-owned by JSE-listed Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI), has struck a deal with giant TotalEnergies, allowing it to keep half its stake in two Namibian deep-sea fields and benefit from oil flow in a number of years’ time.

The deal, probably struck partly by SA’s Johnny Copelyn, CEO of HCI, was “very smart”, said Piet Viljoen, executive director of Merchant West Investments.

It allows HCI to own about 4% in the oilfields and one day make money when the oil is pumped.

Copelyn, who declined to speak to the media as Impact is doing so, is known as a world-class negotiator.

HCI, a BEE investment holding company, owns a 49.2% stake in Impact, which until last week held a 20% stake in the oilfield off the coast of Namibia, Venus, or Block 2193B, and an almost 19% stake in a nearby field, Block 2192. Both are about 8,000km².

Due to its shareholding in Impact, HCI had about a 10% stake in the two offshore fields in a country far more committed to developing the fossil fuels than SA is.

In 2022, oil publication Upstream reported that Venus was very oil rich, and cited a confidential report by consultancy Wood Mackenzie that it could have more than 3-billion barrels of recoverable oil.

HCI’s share price rose to more than R240 in the past year on speculation the Venus field held enormous amounts of oil, with some reports reading the field was one of the biggest finds of its kind.

Impact, a London-based firm committed to exploring the coasts of Africa for oil and gas, lacked the hundreds of billions of dollars to invest in developing Venus and the neighbouring oil block.

TotalEnergies holds the highest stake in the fields, followed by QatarEnergy, leaving Namibian state-owned oil company Namcor holding minority stakes of 10% and 15% respectively.

But Copelyn and Impact managed to sell half of their stakes in the two blocks in a deal that will allow them to now own 9.5% per field, without putting up upfront cash in to develop them.

In terms of the deal, TotalEnergies, which bought half the Impact stake, will provide Impact with a loan for all the costs of exploring and developing their stakes until oil is pumped. Impact will then repay the French company an interest-free loan from proceeds of the oil.

Impact will also be reimbursed for its share of the past costs incurred in appraising the blocks, which is estimated to be about $99m (R1.8bn).

The share price of the other major shareholder of Impact, Canadian listed Africa Oil Corp, rose on the deal.

Venus is expected to only start pumping oil by 2028, according to Upstream.

>>20848003

>>20847996

>Samancor

Ehlobo Resources/Samancor Chrome: “BEE partner 'just a front' for UK firm”

https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2009-09-01-bee-partner-just-a-front-for-uk-firm/

01 September 2009 - 20:28

INVESTMENT holding company Ehlobo Resources is again embroiled in controversy around the equity ownership of mining giant Samancor Chrome.

The department of minerals and energy has confirmed that it is probing allegations of fronting in the empowerment component of Samancor - one of the world's largest ferrochrome producers.

Ehlobo Resources, which holds half the shares in empowerment consortium Batho Barena, was a key player in securing the consortium a 28percent stake in Samancor.

Questions have been raised as details of the government's investigation into Samancor's shareholding were revealed in court papers filed at the Johannesburg High Court.

The deal between Samancor's holding company, Kermas SA, and Batho Barena, which was one of the country's biggest empowerment deals when it was concluded in 2006, has been fraught with difficulties for several months. The latest wrangle involves a court bid by Ehlobo Resources to get rid of its shares in Batho Barena.

The court papers include a notice from the department to cancel Samancor's mining rights after it received information that the company "misrepresented" its BEE shareholding in its application to convert old-order mining rights to new ones.

"The basis for this notice is that Samancor Mining Company has knowingly and intentionally furnished false, misleading and unlawful information regarding its equity ownership," the notice, dated September 12, reads.

On Friday, two of the department's officials confirmed that an investigation into Samancor's shareholding was ongoing, but that its mining rights had not yet been cancelled.

In earlier correspondence from the department, director-general Advocate Sandile Nogxina claims to have information indicating that Ehlobo Resources has been fronting five percent of its stake - indirectly held through Batho Barena - in Samancor for British Virgin Islands company Kermas BVI and not BEE shareholders, which was required to get new mining rights and to convert old rights.

Samancor is owned by Kermas SA, which has three major shareholders, the empowerment consortium which holds 28percent, as well as foreign companies Kermas BVI and International Minerals Resources (IMR), which each hold 32.5percent.

But Samancor chief executive Jürgen Schalamon denied that the company was involved in any fronting.

"We, as Samancor Chrome, definitely didn't do any fronting or fraud," he said.

He said Samancor is merely the daughter company of Kermas SA, and did not have "anything to do with the location of the shares in Batho Barena or in Kermas SA".

One of Ehlobo Resources's founders, Alistair Ruiters, also denied the allegations.

"There's never been any fronting. We've held five percent of the shares for allocation to other BEE groups and for the last 12 months we've been in discussions with the unions to increase the workers's share," he said.

Ruiters, who said he was unaware of the department's investigation, confirmed that the shares were held on behalf of Kermis BVI.

But Rafique Bagus, a co-founder of Ehlobo Resources, who is spearheading the current court action, said all of the relevant board members were aware of the investigation by the department.

"We've all been asked to make representations to the department of minerals and energy in respect of the allegations and have done so."

"In respect of any misconduct with respect to BEE, where I became aware of any arrangements that were contrary to what the intent of the [Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development] Act was, I acted immediately," Bagus said.

Earlier this year, Business Times reported on another scandal in the deal when Ruiters was accused by smaller stakeholders in the empowerment consortium of trying to short-change impoverished communities of their fair share in the BEE deal after he offered them reduced prices for their shares.

>>20848053

>>20848003

>>20847996

“The great Samancor ‘heist’” – Part 1

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-02-the-great-samancor-heist/

02 Oct 2019

A profit-shifting scheme and other dodgy deals orchestrated by the ‘world’s richest Croatian’ have allegedly been used to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars offshore out of Samancor Chrome. Now the Johannesburg High Court is being asked to pry open the privately-owned mining company’s books as a first step towards a massive damages claim from its workers.

Theft and corruption totalling over $500-million (about R7.5-billion now) is being alleged in court proceedings pitting workers against Samancor Chrome, one of South Africa’s major privately-owned mining and minerals processing companies, and its previous owner and chair, Croatian billionaire Danko Končar.

It is alleged that Končar and his associates spirited billions of rand abroad in a transfer pricing scheme, sold assets while secretly pocketing most of the proceeds, got paid secret management fees, and anonymously earned facilitation fees as ostensibly independent middlemen between Samancor and an Australian mining company.

Končar, Samancor executives and a number of alleged co-conspirators are yet to respond to allegations in court – and may throw a different light on the evidence presented so far.

The case is being brought by the Association of Mining and Construction Union (Amcu) and rests on testimony from a whistle-blower, former Samancor director Miodrag Kon, who is supporting the court challenge with a treasure trove of internal documents and emails.

Kon has asked the court to keep his whereabouts secret “due to concerns regarding my personal safety”.

He alleges in a court affidavit that Končar, through his company Kermas, extracted as much as $500-million in only five years between 2005 and 2010.

Amcu general secretary Jeff Mphahlele claims in a separate affidavit that the damage may ultimately have been as much as $1.9-billion. He does not state the basis for the estimate, but it appears he also took into account what happened after 2010.

Mphahlele charges that had the money been paid out as dividends instead, a Samacor employee share ownership scheme would have received $100-million.

Končar bought Samancor with the assistance of International Mineral Resources (IMR), a company owned by three controversial Kazakh oligarchs, Alexander Machkevitch, Patokh Chodiev and Alijan Ibragimov. IMR partially paid for Končar’s acquisition of Samancor in 2005 and subsequently bought out his entire interest to own 77% by 2010.

Despite their support for him in 2005, evidence before the court shows that Končar allegedly even ripped off the Kazakhs before getting bought out.

He went on to secretly control a Finnish multinational partially built on Samancor-related assets and run by ex-Samancor executives. Shenanigans there recently saw Finnish authorities slam Končar with a mind-boggling fine of €110-million (about R1.8-billion).

>>20848060

“The great Samancor ‘heist’” – Part 2

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-02-the-great-samancor-heist/

02 Oct 2019

Selling assets on the cheap

The crudest and most brazen alleged scheme to extract money from Samancor was the sale of 50% of a subsidiary, Tubatse Chrome, to Chinese state-owned conglomerate Sinosteel in 2007.

Sinosteel paid $225-million, but a staggering $125-million (R1.9-billion now) of that did not go to Samancor at all. Instead it ended up in the London bank account of Kermas, Končar’s company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Kon has provided Samancor’s annual report for the 2008 financial year where the proceeds from the sale are recorded as R683-million. At the most favourable exchange rate recorded in May 2007, the month of the deal, this came to $100-million.

More damning is an email chain confirming receipt of payment which makes it clear that Samancor’s banker, Nedbank, and the company’s management were well aware of the money being diverted.

In the email chain a Nedbank manager alerts Wessel Erasmus, a Samancor veteran who became chief financial officer when Kermas took over, that $100-million has been received in Samancor’s account.

A few minutes later the Nedbank manager sends another email: “I can also confirm that Nedbank London has received USD 125-million on the account for Kermas.”

Samancor’s Erasmus then forwards the good news to Končar.

Jürgen Schalamon, the German Samancor chief executive installed by Kermas in 2005, was also copied into this discussion. He at the time had a 1% interest in Kermas in the British Virgin Islands, according to other documents in the court file.

The Sinosteel deal was accompanied by a confidential distribution agreement whereby Kermas became the sole marketing agent for Tubatse products and was guaranteed a steep 9% commission margin. This right, which got sold to a Sinosteel subsidiary for a 50/50 profit share, was just a smaller version of what was happening at Samancor itself.

>>20848060

>>20848066

“The great Samancor ‘heist’” – Part 3

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-02-the-great-samancor-heist/

02 Oct 2019

The big profit shift

A more complex and audacious transfer pricing scheme accounts for most of the alleged damage at Samancor. It was also allegedly kept in place after Končar sold the company to IMR – and allegedly remains in place to this day.

The scheme is a form of profit shifting where a company pays a related party far too much for services based in another jurisdiction, usually a tax haven.

Sometimes the service is even fictitious.

It is a form of tax evasion, but in the case of Samancor it was also allegedly a way for Končar to steal millions from Samancor and its minority shareholders – with the complicity of at least two directors.

The alleged transfer pricing scheme started after Končar’s Kermas bought Samancor from BHP Billiton and Anglo American for $469-million in 2005.

In the same year, Končar registered a company called Samchrome in Malta and made it the sole international distributor of Samancor products with a huge guaranteed commission of 9%.

The evidence indicates that Samchrome was owned by another Maltese company, Chrome Holdings, which was in turn owned by Kermas. This is according to an email that Končar sent his accountant.

Kermas technically belongs to Danica Zagmester, Končar’s cousin, but it is effectively his investment vehicle for a variety of holdings across the world. When Kermas set up a secret agreement with IMR in 2005 to back the purchase of Samancor, Končar was the sole signatory on behalf of Kermas.

Another director of Samancor, Branislav Lazovic, owned a 5% share in Kermas while Schalamon, the Samancor chief executive installed by Kermas, owned 1%.

Končar’s cousin apparently later bought out Lazovic to own 99% by 2010. Kermas was at this point already a player in the Russian and Turkish chrome mining sectors as well as refining in Germany.

According to Kon’s affidavit in the court application, “Samchrome Malta had no employees. They performed no actual marketing services and gave little if any value. It sold almost all or all material through sub-agents.”

Kon’s claim that Samchrome had no employees is backed up by the complete absence of any employment-related expenses in Samchrome’s accounts. Even telephone costs were zero – strange for a company that is meant to be managing global trade for a major mining group.

Financial statements for Samchrome now contained in the court record show that the Maltese office was nonetheless making a killing.

In the 2006 financial year, its first year of operation, it had profits of $29.9-million and it paid out a dividend – to Končar, Lazovic and Schalamon – of $19.4-million. In the 2007 financial year its profits were $73.2-million.

To understand how effective this profit shifting was, Samchrome profits have to be compared to Samancor in South Africa.

According to Samancor’s annual financial statements from 2008, also in the court file, the company had profit of R1.4-billion in the 18 months ending December 2007. The Samchrome Malta profit for just part of this period (the 12 months up to the end of June 2017) was roughly R500-million.

In other words, the Malta marketing company was sucking up more than a third of Samancor’s profits – allegedly in exchange for nothing.

The outsized nature of the 9% commission being paid to Malta by Samancor is illustrated by the fact that, back in 2005, BHP Billiton initially acted as the marketing agent for a 2.5% commission after selling its share of Samancor to Kermas.

>>20848060

>>20848066

>>20848073

“The great Samancor ‘heist’” – Part 4

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-02-the-great-samancor-heist/

02 Oct 2019

The Samchrome Malta setup would have evaded taxes in South Africa, but also robbed the minority shareholders of Samancor, including an employee share ownership scheme and other BEE partners brought onboard in 2006.

If the allegation holds up, the company in which the workers own shares (Samancor) is effectively ceding profits to another company in Malta they have no stake in, allegedly in exchange for nothing.

This, and other dealings that profited Kermas to the detriment of other shareholders, is the basis for Amcu’s case.

The Johannesburg High Court is now being asked to make a precedent-setting order: for Samancor, a private company, to open its books and prove, if it can, that these allegations against Končar and others are false.

This would be the first step towards a potential damages claim on behalf of workers for the $100-million calculated by economist Dick Forslund, who is working with Amcu, on behalf of the Alternative Information and Development Centre, a Cape Town-based NGO and Richard Spoor attorneys, as the dividends workers were deprived of.

Cut us in

The transfer pricing arrangement would not be unique. The difference with Samacor is that it was not the company itself benefitting from tax evasion, but largely a single individual sucking out millions to the detriment of Samancor itself as well as other shareholders.

The alleged scam dawned on the other shareholders along the way. IMR (the oligarchs) bought 32.5% of Samancor from Kermas in 2017 and were involved in Kermas’ acquisition of Samancor from the beginning. They nonetheless seemed to be in the dark about how 9% of the company’s revenues were being given to their partner Končar.

In February 2009 IMR seemingly realised that they were being fleeced. They directed a letter Samancor asking for a signed copy of the Malta agreement.

“Would you also please let us have copies of all and any of the board resolutions by Samancor in which the marketing agreement was discussed prior to its conclusion as well as the enabling resolution (which we assume exists).”

IMR continued: “Would you also please advise whether any person (and more particularly Dr Danko Konchar) gave notice in terms of Section 234 of the Companies Act No 61 of 1973 (as amended) of his interest in Samchrome Limited, Malta?”

Emails also show how the largest member of Samancor’s BEE consortium was incensed by being constantly cut out of the Malta largesse.

The BEE consortium called Batho Barena was put together in 2006 and the major BEE shareholder was Ehlobo Resources which had a 14% share in Samancor.

–Ehlobo was created by Alistair Ruiters, formerly director general in the department of trade and industry. His partner in Ehlobo was Mohammed Bagus, also a veteran of the department.

In June 2008 Bagus emailed Ruiters to complain.–

“We have been promised some cash from Malta since December 2006,” wrote Bagus.

“We learnt… at the last board meeting that Malta has issued a dividend. You confirmed to me that Danko has taken $70m for himself. I asked the question to our entitlement to 4% of the economic interest in Malta and you indicated that this won’t happen.”

Bagus was at the time parting ways with Ruiters and Ehlobo. Ruiters would, however, stay on as a Samancor director and participate extensively in Končar’s other endeavours, ultimately becoming chief executive of the Finnish company Ruukki (subsequently renamed Afarak), which Končar would build after leaving Samancor.

>>20848060

>>20848066

>>20848073

>>20848080

“The great Samancor ‘heist’” – Part 5

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-02-the-great-samancor-heist/

02 Oct 2019

According to Kon’s affidavit, and supporting documentation, even the 9% being siphoned off by Samchrome in Malta was not enough for Končar and co.

A further email in the court record shows Samancor chief executive Schalamon negotiating a chrome ore sale with Mogale Alloys in 2007 where another Končar marketing company called RCS sells the ore.

He wrote to Kurt Maske, then a BHP Billiton employee working at Mogale: “It is important NOT to mention RCS with anybody in Samancor ‘cause as you know the parent company of Samancor also has other shareholders and in this case we are using not Samchrome as the agent for the [ferrochrome].”

Maske would later join Samancor and from there also join the Finnish Ruukki group alongside Končar and his associates. Both RCS and Mogale were later acquired by Ruukki as well.

Enter the oligarchs

IMR, belonging to the three oligarchs, first bought 32.5% of Samancor from Kermas in 2007 and then bought out Končar’s stake entirely in November 2009 after demanding an explanation for the Maltese arrangement.

Their involvement predates this as they initially gave Končar a loan to help pay for Samancor in 2005.

Their initial loan agreement, however, shows that it was always IMR that would control Samancor in the end.

A memorandum of agreement between Samancor and IMR stated that they would be “equal partners” in Samancor and that IMR would be treated as if it was a 45% shareholder despite not officially owning any shares. The reason for IMR not simply buying Samancor itself is unclear, but a source close to the lawsuit speculates it might have been to ensure Competition Commission approval.

In 2007 IMR not only bought out Kermas, but also Ehlobo’s 14%.

It sold half of the 14% to Holgoun, a local BEE outfit belonging to husband-and-wife team Sivi and Vanessa Gounden. The other half was “warehoused”, but it is unclear for whose benefit.

What followed IMR’s buyout of Končar and Ehlobo was not the end of the transfer pricing scheme, but a reconstitution of it to cut IMR into the action.

A new Samchrome was created in Dubai and took over the 9% commission.

A letter from Končar to both Samchromes states: “To the extent necessary, SamChrome Dubai hereby agrees to abide by the existing transfer pricing rulings relating to the Distribution Agreement.”

IMR, via Dubai, ultimately took over Kermas’ role as the exclusive marketer of Samancor products. Malta has a 4% corporate tax rate while Dubai’s rate is 0%.

>>20848060

>>20848066

>>20848073

>>20848080

>>20848091

“The great Samancor ‘heist’” – Part 6

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-02-the-great-samancor-heist/

02 Oct 2019

The ‘king of chrome’

Končar has had a storied career, owning and managing major mining and metals companies from Russia to Germany, South Africa and, most recently, Finland. He has been dubbed the “king of chrome” in his native Croatia and is reportedly the richest Croatian in the world.

He has evidently taken the kind of corporate manoeuvring he carried out in South Africa to a whole new level.

In 2019 he was slapped with the €110-million fine by Finnish authorities for secretly taking control of Afarak, a listed Finnish mining and alloys group previously known as Ruukki.

This audacious scheme was first unveiled by the Panama Papers and involved Končar exercising 70% of Afarak’s voting rights through a network of ostensibly unrelated shareholders despite directly owning only 28% of the company.

Maintaining his known ownership below 30% was crucial since stock exchange rules force a shareholder to make a mandatory offer to buy out all other shareholders if they cross the 30% shareholding threshold. His fine stems from evading this requirement.

Končar’s time in South Africa is inextricably linked to Ruukki/Afarak. The Finnish company’s major assets come from South Africa, mostly relate to Samancor and were brought to the table by Končar immediately after he left Samancor behind.

Some of his colleagues in South Africa also joined him in packing their bags for Finland.

Back at Samancor there is also a slew of other serious allegations against Končar following the same alleged pattern of self-dealing to the detriment of Samancor and its minority shareholders. At least one ultimately leads back to Finland – via Australia.

>>20848060

>>20848066

>>20848073

>>20848080

>>20848091

>>20848101

“The great Samancor ‘heist’” – Part 7

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-02-the-great-samancor-heist/

02 Oct 2019

Sylvania

One of the suspect deals that allegedly enriched Končar and other Samancor insiders was a series of dump reprocessing agreements with Australian mining company Sylvania.

In 2006 and 2008 Sylvania was awarded the rights to extract residual chrome (which would be sold to Samancor at prearranged prices) as well as platinum from Samancor’s mine tailing dams. These deals were, according to Kon, improper in a way that not only implicates Končar and Lazovic, but also Samancor executives and Ehlobo, the BEE partner.

With each new deal, Sylvania issued shares to a mysterious facilitator called Portpatrick for “securing the rights”. This was openly recorded in its annual reports without any clarification about who Portpatrick is or what it did. According to Kon, Portpatrick is in fact a front for Končar and Lazovic.

He claims they ultimately got 14 million Sylvania shares via companies in Liechtenstein for giving the Australian outfit very generous access to Samancor’s tailings – without telling the other shareholders about it.

The Sylvania deals appear also to have benefitted Ehlobo because the company simultaneously became the 26% BEE shareholder in Sylvania’s South African operations. Its founder, Ruiters, was on the Samancor board as the deals were negotiated and was then a shareholder on the other end of the table.

Ruiters went on to become chief executive of Afarak, Končar’s Finnish company.

The case brought by Amcu for Samancor to open its books is in terms of section 163 of the Companies Act dealing with “relief from oppressive or prejudicial conduct or from abuse of separate juristic personality of company”.

This section permits a shareholder, in this case Ndizani Workers’ Trust, the employee share ownership scheme of Samancor, to take a company to court for a variety of actions against shareholders’ interests.

Amcu specifically wants an accounting for all transactions related to the Malta and Dubai marketing companies as well as Sylvania and Sinosteel.

If the court grants that and the information confirms its suspicions, the union will use it both to sue for damages and seek an order for the replacement of Samancor directors.

However, the court papers were filed only on Wednesday, meaning Samancor, Končar and company have yet to provide their version. Kon’s damaging claims are likely to be fiercely contested. DM

>>20848053

>One of Ehlobo Resources's founders, Alistair Ruiters

>>20848060

>>20848066

>>20848073

>>20848080

> Ruiters would, however, stay on as a Samancor director and participate extensively in Končar’s other endeavours

>>20848091

>>20848101

>>20848109

>>20847912

>After the transition to democracy, unions’ political influence expanded, both through the participation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in the Tripartite Alliance with the governing African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP)

>the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU), opted to stay in COSATU.

Unions = gangs

Alistair Ruiters has ties to South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu)

https://www.iol.co.za/weekend-argus/news/rex-trueform-building-declared-a-provincial-heritage-site-19423759

Published Feb 21, 2019

Now based at the South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) Worker Health Programme, around the corner, [Greg] Hoedemaker cut his teeth in the union movement as a shop steward.

He was born in Grassy Park and finished Standard 5 at EC Primary School. His life nearly took a wrong turn as he fell in with a gang. It’s when he became friends with the Ruiters brothers that his life changed and his political activism grew.

Dr Alistair Ruiters later became director general of the Department of Trade and Industry.

https://za.linkedin.com/in/gregory-hoedemaker-a4702ab9

[Gregory Hoedemaker] I work as the training manager at the SACTWU Worker Health Program. This is an NGO that is trade union based and serves members of the trade union Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union.

https://www.marketscreener.com/insider/ALISTAIR-PAUL-RUITERS-A0GOBX/

Alistair Paul Ruiters is currently the Chief Executive Officer at Ruukki South Africa Pty Ltd., Chairman at Mogale Alloys Pty Ltd., Chairman at Ehlobo Holdings Pty Ltd., Director at Ehlobo Capital Pty Ltd., Director at Accor Services South Africa, and Director at Karibo Coal Pty Ltd.

He was previously the Chief Executive Officer & Director at Afarak Group SE, Chairman at National Empowerment Fund, and Director at Chromex Mining Ltd.

He also held various non-executive director positions at Traxys Africa Holdings Ltd.

and Sylvania Platinum Ltd.

He was the Director General at South Africa Ministry of Trade & Industry from 2000 to 2005.

He holds a doctorate degree from the University of Oxford and an undergraduate degree from the University of Cape Town.

>>20848150 https://www.textchan.com/txt/cp/res/166.php#179

>>20848716

Why does that link have /cp/ in it?

r1

Canada #58 >>20852532

Asia Embraces Coal As The U.S. Rejects It

Authored by Vijay Jayaraj via RealClear Wire Saturday, May 11, 2024

Vietnam and other Asian countries are on a coal spree! Given the dynamics of energy use in the rapidly developing industrial sector there, it is no surprise that these nations have backpedaled on big promises made at international climate conferences to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.

Vietnam's projected 2024 growth rate for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stands at 5.8%, the sixth highest in Asia. Among the biggest contributors to GDP is the industrial sector (38 percent), especially manufacturing. S&P Global has noted a considerable improvement in Vietnam’s manufacturing sector in the fourth quarter of 2023 and is expecting Vietnam to perform well this year.

Electricity is a cornerstone of manufacturing operations in Vietnam. In 2023, coal produced more than 40% of all electricity in the country, while the country’s abundant hydro reserves contributed around 30%. Natural gas accounted for about 10%.

However, 2024 is expected to see a shortfall in hydroelectric generation because of less rainfall. Simultaneously, electricity production with natural gas is being complicated by forecasts of higher gas prices. Bloomberg reports that state-run PetroVietnam Gas “recently decided not to purchase a cargo for June due to high offer prices.”

So, the heavy lifting to meet power demand must now come from coal. The country is urging coal miners to maximize production before demand reaches peak in the summer months. The country’s prime minister has asked for an increase in coal exploration as well, signaling a sustained interest in the medium to long-time reliance on coal.

Vietnam’s move to increase coal use was inevitable. It cannot continually risk a huge demand-supply gap whenever dams go dry or gas prices skyrocket. The growth rate of power demand from expanding industries is increasing at a fair pace, and energy security is critical in ensuring manufacturing’s positive trend.

Similar patterns across Asia

Across Asia, a similar phenomenon is unfolding. The regional coal resurgence can be attributed to the rapid economic growth in these countries. China, the world's largest coal consumer, witnessed a rise in consumption in 2024. Earlier this year, reports showed the construction of dozens of new coal plants in China. In 2023, the country accounted for 95% of the construction of the world's new coal power plants. There are a total of 1,142 operating coal-fired plants in China, which is five times more than in the U.S.

India, another major player in the Asian energy market, also saw an increase in coal imports and production. India has increased its spending on infrastructure, with an expected rebound in demand for coal-based steel and raw material manufacturing. Indonesia has 254 operational coal-fired power plants and 40 new plants under construction. Japan, too, is a big consumer of coal, being the top importer of Australian coal in recent years.

Like Australia, the U.S. has been a top source of coal imports for these Asian countries. S&P Global says, “U.S. metallurgical coal exports have seen growth fueled by Asian demand over the past few years. The potential for seaborne volumes to grow hinge on expansions in blast furnace steelmaking and met coke production in India, China, and Southeast Asia.” New mines such as Arch Resource's Leer South and the AMCI, POSCO, and Itochu-led Allegheny Met's Longview mine will play a role in meeting this demand from Asia.

Ironically, U.S. miners can meet Asian needs while their government rejects them as a fuel source for cheap electricity!

The advancement of recent emission-reduction targets for U.S. industry, as well as restrictions on the export capacity of natural gas by the Biden administration, is quite astonishing in light of the ongoing expansions in fossil fuel capacity by various Asian nations.

The quality of life for millions of Americans could very well decline in return for zero environmental benefits as that of Asians improves.

https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/asia-embraces-coal-us-rejects-it

UK Supreme Court Decides Case Over $43M of Silver from WWII Shipwreck

Published May 10, 2024 5:44 PM by The Maritime Executive

South Africa has won a long-running legal battle against a United Kingdom company over a silver treasure valued at $43 million that was salvaged from the wreck of a commercial ship sunk by the Japanese during World War II. The ss Tilawa is said to be the only cargo-passenger liner attacked in the Indian Ocean during World War II and has become known as the “Indian Titanic” due to the loss of 280 people.

The UK Supreme Court issued the verdict on the case after a British company Argentum Exploration laid claim to the silver that was recovered from the seabed in 2017. The company sought to be recognized as the voluntary salvor meaning that it could seek compensation for the recovery.

The silver bullion was part of the cargo that sank to the bottom of the ocean when the merchant ship Tilawa was hit by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine on November 23, 1942. The silver was sold by the government of India and being transported to the South African mint to be used for coinage.

Built in England in 1924, the 137-meter (450-foot) vessel was owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company. The passenger/cargo liner was sailing from Bombay (Mumbai) India to Durban, South Africa carrying 732 passengers, 222 crew, and 6,472 tons of cargo, including 2,364 bars of silver bullion when it was hit.

A total of 280 passengers and crew died while 687 passengers were rescued by two ships nearby. The incident has been described as one of the deadliest in history, resulting in the ship frequently being called the “Indian Titanic.”

Argentum, a company owned by hedge fund boss Paul Marshall, organized the salvage operation after the wreck was located in 2017. It deployed the salvage vessel the MV Seabed Worker to lift the bullion at a depth of approximately 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the seabed. The silver was transferred onto another vessel, MV Pacific Askari, and transported to the UK, as Argentum believed the silver belonged to the UK government. The company went ahead to declare the find to the Receiver of Wreck as required by the Merchant Shipping Act.

A legal battle ensued after it was determined that the silver was the property of the South African government. Argentum sought compensation for the recovery. Under maritime law, it is possible to make a claim for voluntary salvage, which means a salvor can make a claim regardless of whether the owner of the property requested or consented to the salvage operation.

Initially, the High Court and Court of Appeal in the UK ruled in favor of Argentum, which argued that the silver was “in use or intended for use for commercial purposes” when it was being carried at sea in November 1942. South Africa as a foreign state sought sovereign immunity.

In its ruling, the UK Supreme Court held that the silver was not in use nor intended for use for commercial purposes. “Therefore, South Africa is entitled to immunity from Argentum’s claim against the silver,” said the judges in the 45-page ruling.

The judges held that the silver was procured for the production of coin for both the Union of South Africa and Egypt and that it was likely that the greater part of the consignment on board the vessel would be used for Union coinage. The intended use of the silver was therefore for a predominantly sovereign purpose. Last month, the two sides however reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement.

The case also helped to renew attention on the tragic plight of the Tilawa. Two organizations, the S.S.Tilawa Foundation and Tilawa 1942 seek to preserve and tell the story.

https://maritime-executive.com/article/uk-supreme-court-decides-case-over-43m-silver-from-wwii-shipwreck

The whole problem w sirius was xm sats getting jammed by 2 oersians dabbing in a white car gg

Corporations are the protected ‘citizens’ as it is easily controlled and can be in every country. In the end, corporations benefit from activism… It is not about the people but companies.

“Prof. Mervyn King | Virtual Address | The Conscious Leadership & Ethics Summit 2023”: THE KING REPORTS: KING I, II, II AND IV - “The company… is the most important citizen in every country in the world”

https://youtu.be/WNV_DNM3s9E

Jun 18, 2023

Prof. Mervyn King welcomes delegates of the 2023 Summit. He is the founder and Patron of the Good Governance Academy as we as the former judge of South Africa.

0:39 – “From the middle of the 19th century until today, we followed the dictum of the primacy of the shareholder on the false premise that the shareholders were the owners of the company. It was a myth because you cannot own the assets of the company. It’s the company’s own assets.”

1:36 – “By 1987, we knew that planet earth had become degraded and in fact the profit of majority of companies was being subsidized by society and the environment. That’s the difference between right and wrong.”

2:06 – “The company, the limited liability company, is a person in law but it is incapacitated as a 3 years child… He or she cannot think and the guardian of that child has to think for it.”

7:04 – “The company… is the most important citizen in every country in the world.”

https://caribbeangovernance.org/blog/10680356

21 Jun 2021 2:40 PM

Long before the western world adopted ESG as a buzzword in corporate Governance, Professor Mervyn King and his counterparts in South Africa had embraced and develop principles and frameworks for embracing practices that went beyond the financial bottom line.

The King I report, produced in 1994, a mere two years after the publication of the seminal work by Sir Adrian Cadbury and his team in 1992, highlighted effective and ethical leadership, sustainability in terms of economic, social and environmental performance; and good corporate citizenship as the key elements which should guide directors in fulfilling their oversight role. Like other Codes of Corporate Governance, the King Reports are not mandatory by law, but are principles which are adopted by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for all companies on an ‘apply and explain’ basis.

The first Code was produced for South Africa at a historic point in the country’s development as it was transitioning out of the apartheid system. Prof King, Senior Council and retired Judge of South Africa’s Supreme Court was asked to lead this task, and so his leadership saw his team develop a Code which has since seen three revisions deemed King II, King III and King IV.

The King III report also embraced emerging global governance trends such as: Alternative dispute resolution; Risk-based internal audit; Shareholder approval of non-executive directors’ remuneration; and Evaluation of board and directors’ performance.

Foresight can also be found in the King III report, which long before the pandemic and the focus on business continuity, the King Committee had incorporated a number of new principles relating to: IT governance; Business Rescue; and also, the Fundamental and affected transactions in terms of director’s responsibilities during mergers, acquisitions and amalgamations.

History repeats when no one learns from it… The ANC was regarded as a terrorist organisation but later the narrative changed to ‘freedom fighters’.

Candace Owens: “This Is HUGE. Putin Exposes The CIA.”

https://youtu.be/5BdtMv-vyn0

Premiered Feb 9, 2024 Candace Owens Podcast

In his interview with Tucker Carlon, Vladimir Putin alleges that the CIA controls our Presidents. We already knew that due to the deep state's reaction to Trump, who they didn’t expect. But now, Putin is confirming it. They are dumbing down and drugging Americans en masse while overthrowing governments worldwide. But to what end?

9:59 – “They got behind the Azov battalion. They said we don’t consider them a far right group anymore, people that are wearing Nazi symbols. We don’t consider them a far-right group anymore, we consider them freedom fighters. What does that tell you about the ADL? That they are part of a propagandist arm that they work for the state and at their core they are Marxists… They want to censor speech and control speech. They are all fraudulent groups.”

24:22 – “We are dumb, diluted and drugged. In fact… they’re creating slave colonies all throughout Europe and the United States. We have become slaves to our government because they have pushed through Marxist principle and that’s what Marxism is all about… constantly keep us angry about something; the proletariat, the working class, white vs black, short vs tall, women vs men.”

Canada #58 >>20867403

Trudeau government pledges $1.7 million to target pro-family African nations with LGBT propaganda

Trudeau's Liberals, including MP Anita Vandenbeld, and LGBT activists are increasingly targeting majority-Christian African countries that pass laws protecting their societies from homosexual and gender ideology.

Clare Marie Merkowsky Tue May 14, 2024

OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — The Canadian Liberal government has promised $1.7 million in taxpayer dollars to push the LGBT agenda abroad and to target pro-family laws in Africa.

On May 9, Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld, parliamentary secretary for International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen, pledged $1.7 million to international groups devoted to promoting the LGBT agenda worldwide.

“We know that groups who oppose 2SLGBTQI+ rights [sic] are increasingly well-funded and globally co-ordinated,” Vandenbeld said at the conference hosted by the “Dignity Network,” a coalition of Canadian groups that push LGBT ideology around the world.

At the conference, LGBT activists complained that while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promises funds for the LGBT movement, the funds are slow to arrive.

According to Vandenbeld, $1 million of the funding will be spent on a U.S.-led research project that aims to stop “stigma” and “discrimination” against so-called “2SLGBTQI+ people.”

The remaining $700,000 in taxpayer dollars will be given to the “Rainbow Railroad,” a Toronto-based LGBT group.

The funding is only the Trudeau government’s most recent bid to push homosexual and gender ideology.

Trudeau’s 2024 budget features plans to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to promote LGBT ideology at home and abroad and to expand “equity groups” in the workforce to include people who identify as “2SLGBTQI+.”

The conference attendees also called for more funding and activism against pro-family laws, especially in Uganda and Ghana.

While Western counties have embraced the LGBT ideology, many African countries have passed legislation to prevent the LGBT agenda from infiltrating their countries.

In March 2023, the Christian-majority country of Uganda voted to strengthen its commitment to Biblical marriage and sexuality by passing legislation that further criminalizes sodomy and other depraved behaviors.

This February, Ghana passed a bill outright banning LGBT behavior and activism, as well as homosexual adoption.

Included in Ghana’s bill are proposed criminal penalties for those who engage in homosexual acts or promote such acts. This includes a ban on same-sex “marriage,” same-sex adoption, and other public displays of homosexual or transgender behavior. The bill also seeks to clamp down on transgender ideology by banning mutilating procedures for gender-confused individuals.

The Catholic bishops of Ghana strongly support the law, while the far-left, pro-LGBT United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has attacked it and urged Ghana’s president not to sign it into law.

Africa’s continued resistance to the acceptance of sodomy has led pro-LGBT international bodies and countries including the United States government, the European Union, the United Nations, and the World Bank to attempt to force countries in the region to abandon their principles or face financial or economic consequences.

In October, U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration announced that Uganda would be axed from its “African Growth and Opportunity Act” program after approving its new anti-sodomy law. In August, the World Bank took similar action when it froze loans to Uganda over the latter’s unwillingness to embrace sodomy.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trudeau-government-1-7-million-target-pro-family-african-nations-lgbt/

>>20856427

>“Prof. Mervyn King | Virtual Address | The Conscious Leadership & Ethics Summit 2023”: THE KING REPORTS: KING I, II, II AND IV - “The company… is the most important citizen in every country in the world”

>Long before the western world adopted ESG as a buzzword in corporate Governance, Professor Mervyn King and his counterparts in South Africa had embraced and develop principles and frameworks for embracing practices that went beyond the financial bottom line.

This is brilliant!

“ "Populism Is Democracy!" My Oxford Union Speech vs Nancy Pelosi | The Winston Marshall Show #015”

https://youtu.be/uKGf8VKOrA4

May 13, 2024

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi did not enjoy this speech.

I was invited to debate her at the Oxford Union on Thursday 25th April 2024.

The motion was "Populism Is a Threat To Democracy". She argued in favour of the motion. I took the opposition.

It is not populism that is the threat. The real threat comes from the elites.

7:59 – “The farmer revolts from Netherlands to Germany, France, Greece to Sri Lanka, farmers have taken their tractors to the road to protest ESG policy that’s floated down to us from those all-knowing infallible elites of Davos.”

>>20856427

>>20886888

Mervyn King: “We can be proud of South Africans that the King report is used as a template around the world on governance.”

https://youtu.be/UTRpDNWd_O8

Nov 20, 2018

Join Professor Mervyn King for an eye-opening one-day seminar in which he will unpack everything you need to know to about the concepts of King IV and how to ensure good Corporate Governance in your business Integrated reporting, inclusive and sustainable capitalism are major shifts in the corporate world. Mervyn King will deal with these concepts which will resonate in King IV. He will also deal with the outcomes and “apply and explain” regimes of King IV.

Thanks to the King Code of Good Governance, South Africa leads the world in Corporate Governance and Integrated Reporting legislation. This is due almost solely to the prescience and perseverance of the legendary Professor Mervyn King.

1:01 – “I was a judge as you know and I resigned over matters of conscience and once a judge always a judge but I had a big corporate legal practice. So many of my clients asked me to go on their boards as a non-executive director and from there I became chief executive of companies. I ended up chairing companies listed in London, Europe and South Africa. … I at the moment chair the Internantional integrated Reporting Council which is a body formed at the beginning of 2010 where there was a realisaion by the International Federation of Accountant and the United Nations on Governance and Oversight of which I was a chairman and the Global Reporting Initiative which had standards for reporting on the so-called intangible assets in the company… Sustainability Reporting was born at the end of the 20th century, turning to the 21st century, and I became the chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative. ”

3:17 – “We can be proud of South Africans that the King report is used as a template around the world on governance.”

>>20886893

>I at the moment chair the Internantional integrated Reporting Council which is a body formed at the beginning of 2010 where there was a realisaion by the International Federation of Accountant and the United Nations on Governance and Oversight of which I was a chairman and the Global Reporting Initiative which had standards for reporting on the so-called intangible assets in the company… Sustainability Reporting was born at the end of the 20th century, turning to the 21st century, and I became the chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative.

“IIRC APPOINT MERVYN KING AS CHAIRMAN TO LEAD NEXT STEPS OF INTEGRATED REPORTING FRAMEWORK”

https://integratedreporting.ifrs.org/news/iirc-appoint-mervyn-king-as-chairman-to-lead-next-steps-of-integrated-reporting-framework-2/

11 October, 2011

The International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) announces the appointment of Professor Mervyn King, Chairman of the King Committee on Corporate Governance and formerly IIRC Deputy Chairman, as the new IIRC Chairman to take Integrated Reporting into its next phase of development.

Professor King is a Senior Counsel and former Judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa. He is Professor Extraordinaire at the University of South Africa on Corporate Citizenship; Honorary Professor at the University of Pretoria; Visiting Professor in the Rhodes Investec Business School; and has an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of the Witwatersrand. He chaired the United Nations Committee on Governance and Oversight; has been Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative and is the author of Transient Caretakers (with Teodorina Lessidrenska) and The Corporate Citizen.

Professor King’s appointment follows the announcement that Sir Michael Peat retires as Principal Private Secretary to The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall after 18 years in the Royal Household. While working for The Prince of Wales, Sir Michael has helped to establish The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S) and has been the IIRC Chairman since its inception.

The IIRC brings together world leaders from the corporate, investment, accounting, securities, regulatory, academic and standard-setting sectors as well as civil society. The IIRC aims to forge a global consensus on the direction in which reporting needs to evolve, creating a framework for reporting which brings together material information about an organisation’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects. Integrated Reporting will provide a clear and concise representation of how an organisation demonstrates stewardship and how it creates and sustains value.

https://integratedreporting.ifrs.org/the-iirc-2/

The International Integrated Reporting Framework and Integrated Thinking Principles have been developed and are used around the world, in 75 countries, to advance communication about value creation, preservation and erosion.

>>20886888

>>20886893

>>20886900

“IIRC welcomes World Economic Forum white paper: Seeking Return on ESG - Advancing the Reporting Ecosystem to Unlock Impact for Business and Society”

https://integratedreporting.ifrs.org/news/iirc-welcomes-world-economic-forum-white-paper-seeking-return-on-esg-advancing-the-reporting-ecosystem-to-unlock-impact-for-business-and-society/

24 January, 2019

The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) welcomes the publication of the World Economic Forum (WEF) white paper, ‘Seeking Return on ESG: Advancing the Reporting Ecosystem to Unlock Impact for Business and Society’, today (Thursday 24 January), in which the IIRC has been a partner.

The consensus behind the 80 bodies – including WEF Managing Director Richard Samans – that came together to form the IIRC, was the urgent need to build a holistic ecosystem based on the concept of value creation, truly integrating financial and non-financial information.

The new White Paper highlights the two year-project to align major sustainability frameworks with financial reporting convened by the International Integrated Reporting Council, as a major effort to bring greater clarity, comparability and coherence to the reporting landscape for multi-capital or environmental, social governance (ESG) data.

Commenting from Davos on the release of this white paper, IIRC CEO Richard Howitt said, “What we have witnessed at Davos this year, is a clear indication that investors are increasingly taking multi-capital, ESG information seriously – looking at it integrated with financial information.

“However, as this report indicates, investors and businesses alike continue to find that the reporting landscape is confused – meaning report users are struggling to truly understand the future viability and sustainable development potential of an organisation through the information currently provided.

“We welcome the support this white paper gives to the IIRC-led ‘Better Alignment Project’ launched in late 2018 as a means of building a more aligned reporting landscape and commit to working with partners including the WEF as this project develops.”

In November 2018, participants of the Corporate Reporting Dialogue – which is convened by the IIRC – announced a ground-breaking two-year project, bringing together the major players in the corporate reporting field to drive better coherence and clarity in the reporting landscape – with the ultimate goal of integrating ESG and financial information.

The continued voluntary uptake of integrated reporting in 70 countries around the world indicates that markets now believe that businesses must communicate holistically – across financial, manufactured, social, natural, human and intellectual information.

>>20886905

>‘Seeking Return on ESG: Advancing the Reporting Ecosystem to Unlock Impact for Business and Society’

“Seeking Return on ESG: Advancing the Reporting Ecosystem to Unlock Impact for Business and Society” 1 of 3

https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_ESG_Report_digital_pages.pdf

Because of the inherent value of more useable ESG data and its importance in helping solve pressing societal problems, this topic demands swift attention. However, standards development has not always been a quick process, and the universe of metrics is large—expanded by topics that are material only to specific industries.

Next Steps Taking its cue from these findings, the ‘Building an Effective Ecosystem for ESG’ effort aims to catalyse delivery on the three action areas identified as critical to maximising system-level progress. To achieve this, the effort, in collaboration with the community, will advance on a number of fronts in 2019:

1. Develop and publish an interactive ecosystem map highlighting vital stakeholder groups in the reporting ecosystem and the activities of organizations within those groups. The map should help the community better understand the complex global system of players influencing ESG disclosure—including those from nonOECD countries—and enable players to act in a more coherent, cohesive manner.

2. Draw on the World Economic Forum’s platform to promote effective, active cross-system dialogue between different stakeholder groups within the reporting ecosystem. This endeavour can help inspire action towards shared goals, and better support the community in addressing the fundamental ESG data needs of investors, companies and other data end-users.

3. Support actors and initiatives in the field of ESG reporting that seek to advance the reporting landscape. This will include providing a community perspective on how to better improve comparability of reported data through tightened and aligned methodologies for metric measurement.

Other efforts of the Forum are already looking to support companies in capturing the value of the ‘S’ in ESG. The Forum’s GrowInclusive platformxiv—an initiative launched in 2018 in collaboration with the International Development Research Centre and the World Bank Group—aims to help organizations better understand how to derive business benefits from more socially inclusive business practices.

Additional avenues remain to be explored beyond the issues highlighted in this first paper, to better unlock the impact that an ESG focus enables, building on the burgeoning work at the World Economic Forum on sustainable investment and the new economy.

>>20886908

“Seeking Return on ESG: Advancing the Reporting Ecosystem to Unlock Impact for Business and Society” 2 of 3

https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_ESG_Report_digital_pages.pdf

‘Building an Effective Ecosystem for ESG’ is a collaboration between the Forum and a coalition of its members and partners, guided by a Project Steering Committee and supported by a wider Project Advisory Group, dedicated to capturing leading insights and perspectives from across industries and geographies.

Project Steering Committee

Allianz SE Günther Thallinger Member of the Board of Management, Investment Management, ESG

BASF SE Dirk Voeste Vice President, Sustainability Strategy

BlackRock Tariq Fancy Chief Investment Officer, Sustainable Investing

Boston Consulting Group Wendy Woods Senior Partner and Managing Director, Global Leader—Social Impact Practice

Greentech Capital Advisors Jeff McDermott Managing Partner

International Finance Corporation Ethiopis Tafara Vice President for Legal, Compliance Risk and Sustainability, and General Counsel

Novartis Sonja Haut Manager, FES Impact Valuation, Integrated Reporting

Novo Nordisk A/S Susanne Stormer Vice President, Corporate Sustainability

UBS Switzerland AG Simon Smiles Group Managing Director, Chief Investment Officer—Ultra High Net Worth

>>20886908

>>20886909

>>20848003

>Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals

>>20886893

>I became the chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative.

>>20590424

>>20794470

>>20794479

>Standard Chartered

“Seeking Return on ESG: Advancing the Reporting Ecosystem to Unlock Impact for Business and Society” 3 of 3

https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_ESG_Report_digital_pages.pdf

Project Advisory Group and additional contributors from Project Steering Committee organizations

African Rainbow Minerals Nerine Botes-Schoeman Executive, Sustainable Development

Allianz SE Soňa Stadtelmeyer-Petru Giorgio Ripamonti Alexandra Blickling ESG & Responsible Investing Lead Senior Underwriter, Financial Lines Senior Consultant

Allianz Global Investors Dr. Steffen Hörter Glens Olivers Andersons Eugenia Unanyants-Jackson Global Head of ESG Global ESG Investments Global Head of ESG Research

ArcelorMittal Alan Knight Group Head, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Development

Barclays PLC Vedant Walia Head of ESG Reporting

BASF Christian Heller Tanja Castor Senior Manager, Corporate Sustainability Strategy Senior Expert, Corporate Sustainability Strategy

Bata Lucia Lot Group Director, Corporate Social Responsibility and Communication

Bloomberg LP Curtis Ravenel Global Head, Sustainable Business and Finance Boston Consulting Group Douglas Beal Director, Social Impact

BP Dominic Emery Vice President, Group Strategic Planning

CSRHub Cynthia Figge Chief Executive Officer

EQT AB Therése Lennehag Head of Sustainability

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Tim Mohin Chief Executive Officer

Greentech Capital Advisors Angelica Nikolausson Vice President

Honda Motor Japan Akira Kimura Head of Corporate Planning

HSBC Rebecca Self Chief Financial Officer, Sustainable Finance

IKEA Group Peter Jones Head of Sustainability Analytics and Impact

International Finance Corporation Irina Likhachova Atiyah Curmally Senior Communications Officer, Sustainability Senior Environmental Specialist

International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) Richard Howitt Chief Executive Officer

Lazard Asset Management Rohit Chopra Portfolio Manager, Emerging Markets Equity Fund

LGT Impact En Lee Partner, Head of Asia Pacific

Lloyds Banking Group James Wilde Group Head of Sustainability

Marubeni Corporation Masayuki Hashimoto General Manager, Sustainability Management

Philips International Simon Braaksma Senior Director of Group Sustainability

responsAbility Investments AG Pedro Fernandez Senior Social and Environmental Officer

Siemens AG Markus Strangmüller Vice President, Sustainability Management

Standard Chartered Bank Simon Connell Head,

Sustainability Strategy Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Jeffrey Hales David Post Chair of the SASB Standards Board Director of Research

Target Corporation Kate Mohan Corporate Responsibility Executive

UBS Switzerland AG James Purcell Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing, Global Wealth Management

Volkswagen AG Ralf Pfitzner Global Head of Sustainability

Walmart Katherine Neebe Senior Director, ESG, Trust and Transparency

World Benchmarking Alliance Gerbrand Haverkamp Executive Director World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) Rodney Irwin Managing Director

Zurich Insurance Group Linda Freiner Group Head of Sustainability

>>20886888

>“The farmer revolts from Netherlands to Germany, France, Greece to Sri Lanka, farmers have taken their tractors to the road to protest ESG policy that’s floated down to us from those all-knowing infallible elites of Davos.”

>>20886893

>Mervyn King: “We can be proud of South Africans that the King report is used as a template around the world on governance.”

>>20886905

>“IIRC welcomes World Economic Forum white paper: Seeking Return on ESG - Advancing the Reporting Ecosystem to Unlock Impact for Business and Society”

“Davos 1999 - Nelson Mandela”

https://youtu.be/vN6FBVeSuJA

Dec 9, 2013

3:38 – [Klaus Schwab] “The World Economic Forum takes great pride in having accompanied you and all South African, our friends, over the last decade. In the late 80s and early 90s we were searching for ANC officials living in exile camps and integrated them already at that time into our community.”

>>20886922

>LGT Impact En Lee Partner, Head of Asia Pacific

En Lee, Managing Director, Head of Sustainable & Impact Investments, Asia LGT

https://youtu.be/pLBiLCHd9WE

https://www.ypo.org/profile/en-lee/

En Lee is the Head of Sustainable and Impact Investments in Asia at LGT, the world’s largest family-owned private banking and asset management group with over USD230 billion in assets under management. He leads and manages the regional impact investment portfolio in Southeast Asia and China, serving on the boards of several organizations in Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. He is a Partner of Lightrock, LGT’s global impact investing platform, and a member of LGT’s Global Sustainability Board. Prior to LGT, Lee was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs advising investment funds.

A recognized industry pioneer, Lee serves on the World Economic Forum ESG Advisory Group, Asia Investor Group on Climate Change, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore Sustainable Finance Working Group. He is an Advisory Committee Member of the Triple P Financial Inclusion Fund, a Steering Committee Member of the Harvard Impact Investing Group, and an Entrepreneur In Residence at INSEAD. Lee graduated from the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School and is a CAIA Charterholder. He was selected as an Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellow and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and YPO.

>>20886949

>>20886963

“H.S.H. Prince Max von und zu Liechtenstein, Curriculum Vitae”

https://www.lgt.com/resource/blob/32654/eaca0cd70ee9e3863693a3e001547084/cv-h-s-h-prince-max-von-und-zu-liechtenstein-en-data.pdf

Name H.S.H. Prince Max von und zu Liechtenstein

Year of birth 1969

Nationality Liechtenstein

Education

▪ 1988 Swiss school-leaving diploma from the Liechtensteinisches Gymnasium grammar school

▪ 1989–1993 Studies in Business Economics at the European Business School

▪ 1997–1998 MBA at Harvard Business School

Professional career

Internships during studies with the following:

▪ 1988–1989 LGT ▪ 1990 James D. Wolfensohn

▪ 1991 News Corporation

▪ 1992 Bain & Company

▪ 1993–1996 Investment Analyst and Associate at JPMorgan Partners, New York

▪ 1998–2000 Associate and Associate Director of Industri Kapital in London and Hamburg

▪ 2000–2003 Director of JPMorgan Partners in London and Munich

▪ 2003–2006 Head of JPMorgan Partners’ German office

▪ 2006–2020 CEO LGT ▪ since 2007 Member of the Foundation Board of LGT Venture Philanthropy

▪ 2016–2021 Member of the Board of Directors of LGT Impact, founded for the for-profit investments of LGT Venture Philanthropy (since 2021 Lightrock)

▪ since 2021 Chairman of Lightrock

▪ since 2021 Chairman of LGT Group Foundation

>>20886922

>ArcelorMittal Alan Knight Group Head, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Development

>>20833601

>SABMiller plc

Alan Knight

https://youtu.be/-KbIsXxiVlY

May 19, 2017

Alan Knight, CR GM, talks about steel's contribution to the circular economy and our carbon challenge.

https://carbon-forward.com/speaker/knight-alan/

Alan has over 30 years’ experience of working with global companies and governments on sustainability. In April 2021 he joined Drax as the Group Director of Sustainability. Drax’s ambition is to be the world’s first carbon negative power station and is the largest producer of biomass for energy.

Prior to that, for seven years was in the steel and mining sectors as the Global Head of Sustainable Development for ArcelorMittal. He was Co-chairman of Responsible Steel and served on the steering board of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. Alan created and chaired the Ebola Private Sector Mobilisation Group, which was a collaboration of over 100 companies sharing best practice and coordinating the corporate response to Ebola in West Africa. For this he was made a Clinton Global Citizen honouree in 2015.

Alan has also served as the Sustainability Director for Business and the Community (BITC) where he oversaw all their Corporate Sustainability Programmes. He advised the Virgin Group on sustainable development for seven years. He worked with global companies as diverse as B&Q where he led their entire Sustainability programme for 10 years. He was instrumental in founding and developing the Forest Stewardship Council. He held similar roles in the Parent company Kingfisher and SABMiller, the multibillion brewery company.

For nine years he was a commissioner of the Sustainable Development Commission and introduced the concept of “choice editing” into the product policy debate. He was awarded an OBE in June 1998, in 2005 the US-based Rainforest Alliance presented him with a lifelong award and in 2013 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Society for the Environment.

>>20833601

>1969

>South African Breweries Limited (‘SAB Limited’) and hotelier, Sol Kerzner, partnered to create Southern Sun Hotels (‘Southern Sun’), the largest hotel group in the southern hemisphere at the time.

>2003

>The Tsogo Sun Group entered into a landmark empowerment deal, through which the hotel and casino businesses were housed under one entity owned 51% by an empowerment consortium and 49% by SABMiller plc.

>>20887003

>He held similar roles in the Parent company Kingfisher and SABMiller, the multibillion brewery company.

SABMiller History

https://www.company-histories.com/SABMiller-plc-Company-History.html

SABMiller plc ranks as the world's second largest brewer in terms of volume, trailing only Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. Although now based in London, the company owns no breweries in the United Kingdom. Its true home country is South Africa, where The South African Breweries Limited (SAB) was founded in 1895 and where SABMiller today holds an impressive 98 percent share of the beer market. The firm operates seven breweries in South Africa, where it sells 14 brands of beer, including local lager Castle (the best-selling beer in Africa), SABMiller import brands Pilsner Urquell and Miller Genuine Draft, and one foreign brand brewed under license–Amstel. The company also maintains a major presence in the South African soft drink market through a 74 percent interest in Amalgamated Beverage Industries Ltd., the country's largest bottler and distributor of the Coca-Cola line of products, and full ownership of Appletiser South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., a producer of nonalcoholic sparkling fruit juices. In addition, SABMiller owns a 30 percent stake in Distell Group Ltd., the leading distributor of wines and spirits in South Africa, and 49 percent of Tsogo Sun Holdings (Pty.) Ltd., an operator of hotels and casinos in southern Africa.

SABMiller History

https://www.company-histories.com/SABMiller-plc-Company-History.html

SABMiller plc ranks as the world's second largest brewer in terms of volume, trailing only Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. Although now based in London, the company owns no breweries in the United Kingdom. Its true home country is South Africa, where The South African Breweries Limited (SAB) was founded in 1895 and where SABMiller today holds an impressive 98 percent share of the beer market. The firm operates seven breweries in South Africa, where it sells 14 brands of beer, including local lager Castle (the best-selling beer in Africa), SABMiller import brands Pilsner Urquell and Miller Genuine Draft, and one foreign brand brewed under license–Amstel. The company also maintains a major presence in the South African soft drink market through a 74 percent interest in Amalgamated Beverage Industries Ltd., the country's largest bottler and distributor of the Coca-Cola line of products, and full ownership of Appletiser South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., a producer of nonalcoholic sparkling fruit juices. In addition, SABMiller owns a 30 percent stake in Distell Group Ltd., the leading distributor of wines and spirits in South Africa, and 49 percent of Tsogo Sun Holdings (Pty.) Ltd., an operator of hotels and casinos in southern Africa.

>>20887003

>Alan created and chaired the Ebola Private Sector Mobilisation Group, which was a collaboration of over 100 companies sharing best practice and coordinating the corporate response to Ebola in West Africa. For this he was made a Clinton Global Citizen honouree in 2015.

ArcelorMittal: “Help with a health emergency” – 2014 Ebola outbreak

https://corporate.arcelormittal.com/media/cases-studies/help-with-a-health-emergency

Our operation was commended for its response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa

ArcelorMittal was recognised by the Clinton Global Initiative for our leadership in responding to the 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa, which is now accepted as the most extensive outbreak in the nearly four-decade history of the disease.

With mining operations in Liberia, we were at the heart of one of the areas most severely affected by Ebola, but the company resolved to continue business as usual. Working hard to understand the virus and protect our employees, we hired experts to advise the company, mobilising specialist medical equipment, and putting a management committee, procedures and systems in place.

But we recognised that our response would be more powerful if we were not acting alone, so we founded the Ebola Private Sector Mobilisation Group (EPSMG). This was initially a platform for sharing information between companies to help combat Ebola, which quickly grew to include international advocacy for a global response to the Ebola outbreak, and the mobilisation of in-country resources to support humanitarian and healthcare first responders. At the peak, more than 100 companies, and almost 50 public bodies and NGOs participated in the EPSMG from a wide range of sectors and countries.

>>20887003

>>20887022

“Environment Minister Barbara Creecy faces legal action over yearslong air pollution by ArcelorMittal”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-08-17-environment-minister-barbara-creecy-faces-legal-action-over-yearslong-air-pollution-by-arcelormittal/

17 Aug 2023

Eco-justice groups on Tuesday, 15 August announced they were suing the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, Barbara Creecy, and the National Air Quality Officer (NAQO) for permitting almost two decades of air pollution by the continent’s largest steel supplier, ArcelorMittal South Africa (Amsa).

In an email announcing the legal action, the groups stated that Creecy and the NAQO had permitted Amsa to comply with standards that are three to seven times weaker than the 2015 emission standards, which are health-based standards that protect people living near polluting industries.

>>20887022

>>20887028

“ArcelorMittal SA sounds warning to labour as it mulls closure of steel operations”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-05-02-arcelormittal-sa-sounds-warning-to-labour-as-it-mulls-closure-of-steel-operations/

02 May 2024

The company will make a final decision by August on whether to keep open or shut down its loss-making long-steel operations in Vereeniging and Newcastle. ArcelorMittal has argued that curbing above-inflation pay rises in the steel industry is required to keep operations financially sustainable.

As SA’s struggling steel industry is locked in pay rise negotiations with trade unions and races against time to stabilise labour relations, the country’s largest steel maker has fired a two-fold warning to workers.

ArcelorMittal has urged SA’s nearly 400,000 steel workers to either moderate their pay rise expectations and sympathise with the industry’s difficult financial situation or continue to push for high pay rates and risk job losses.

ArcelorMittal SA CEO Kobus Verster is emphatic that the steel industry’s heydays — when steel companies were profitable and could easily pay above-inflation wages — are long gone.

But workers and their representative trade unions are not adjusting to the new, hard reality, Verster said.

And now, ArcelorMittal, which employs over 9,000 workers and contractors (paying them at least R5-billion annually), is at risk of shutting down its loss-making long-steel operations in Vereeniging (Gauteng) and Newcastle (KwaZulu-Natal).

At a generic level, ArcelorMittal wants to see state-owned transport group Transnet move fast with implementing reforms to its port and rail operations. The dysfunction and unreliability of Transnet’s rail network have meant that ArcelorMittal is transporting raw materials to its factories by road, which is more expensive.

ArcelorMittal relies heavily on Transnet Freight Rail to transport 91% of the iron ore and 100% of the coking coal consumed at its Newcastle and Vanderbijlpark factories to produce steel.

Then there are Eskom’s blackouts, which delay ArcelorMittal’s steel production process. Higher stages of load shedding mean that its factory in Vanderbijlpark is, at times, asked by the power utility to engage in load curtailment for eight hours a day. This effectively reduces its use of electricity.

Fixing Transnet and Eskom, entities that have been dysfunctional for more than a decade, will not happen overnight.

ArcelorMittal has been criticised for being naive in believing that logistic and energy reforms could be delivered by the government within the six months that it has deferred its shutdown decision.

Asked about this, Verster would only say that he remains positive about the ongoing discussions with Transnet, Eskom and government officials, saying that talks are “very proactive and solutions-driven”. He said ArcelorMittal would not keep its long-steel business open “based on promises”.

If ArcelorMittal decides to keep its long-steel operations open, big investment plans are in the offing. These include ArcelorMittal reducing its reliance on Eskom by making investments in renewable energy sources, as part of its 2030 decarbonisation plan. This entails the company building a 200MW renewable energy facility at its Vanderbijlpark plant, making use of the land available.

Werner Venter, the chief technology officer at ArcelorMittal, said the renewable energy facility will power its factories and reduce Eskom-related electricity costs and ArcelorMittal’s emissions.

“We are hoping to break ground on the project in 2024. There are already permit, environmental and local authority approvals. We are just waiting for a grid connection from Eskom,” said Venter.

“Sex abuse scandal [during the Ebola reponse in Congo] rocks World Health Organization, but what now?”

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2021/9/29/WHO-rocked-by-Ebola-sex-abuse-scandal-in-Congo

29 September 2021

A damning report [https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/final-report-of-the-independent-commission-on-the-review-of-sexual-abuse-and-exploitation-ebola-drc] has found that the World Health Organization failed to prevent and tackle widespread sexual abuse during the Ebola reponse in Congo – a probe triggered by an investigation by The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation [https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/2020/09/29/exclusive-more-50-women-accuse-aid-workers-sex-abuse-congo-ebola-crisis].

WHO staff knew of allegations in early May 2019, but it wasn’t until October 2020 that an independent commission was established – a month after our investigation was published. It featured more than 50 women who said they had been lured into sex-for-work schemes. Additional reporting turned up more than 20 other victims.

Six victims reacted to the report on Wednesday, telling The New Humanitarian that investigators – paid for by the WHO (the commission chairs worked pro bono) – had failed to explain what its findings could mean. One woman said multiple investigators hounded her each day, asking her to relive details of the alleged abuse she suffered from a WHO worker.

Although the commission was established in October 2020, it took investigators nearly seven months to start interviews in Congo, where Ebola killed some 2,300 people in Ituri and North Kivu provinces between August 2018 and June 2020 – the second deadliest outbreak ever.

The commission’s investigators confirmed that alleged victims were promised jobs in exchange for “relationships”, or were sexually exploited to keep jobs in the response.

“To get ahead in the job, you had to have sex… Everyone had sex in exchange for something. It was very common,” one woman told investigators, according to the commission’s 35-page report, published on Tuesday.

Combined, reporters with The New Humanitarian and the commission’s investigators interviewed some 150 victims. At least nine said they had been raped, including a 13-year-old girl. The allegations involved both national and international WHO staff.

The widespread sexual abuse allegations against the WHO are the latest in a string of repeated sex scandals that have plagued the UN for decades. Despite pledges of “zero tolerance”, allegations against UN workers and peacekeepers continue to mount. And despite pledges of a “survivor and victim-centered” approach, little is often done for victims.

Some critics questioned the independence of the commission’s investigation and noted that many of the allegations were criminal.

“The process itself is the opposite of justice,” said Paula Donovan, co-director of the AIDS-Free World and its Code Blue Campaign, which seeks to end impunity for sexual offenses by UN personnel. “The UN is the only institution in the world that is allowed to investigate itself. WHO's head handpicked experts to lead a commission to look into criminal allegations against the agency's personnel and senior officials.”

>>20887041

“Internal documents show the World Health Organization paid sexual abuse victims in Congo $250 each”

https://apnews.com/article/congo-who-sexual-abuse-ebola-f0720f9c241102a220a8d5b4a7fe52cf

November 14, 2023

LONDON (AP) — Earlier this year, the doctor who leads the World Health Organization’s efforts to prevent sexual abuse travelled to Congo to address the biggest known sex scandal in the U.N. health agency’s history, the abuse of well over 100 local women by staffers and others during a deadly Ebola outbreak.

According to an internal WHO report from Dr. Gaya Gamhewage’s trip in March, one of the abused women she met gave birth to a baby with “a malformation that required special medical treatment,” meaning even more costs for the young mother in one of the world’s poorest countries.

To help victims like her, the WHO has paid $250 each to at least 104 women in Congo who say they were sexually abused or exploited by officials working to stop Ebola. That amount per victim is less than a single day’s expenses for some U.N. officials working in the Congolese capital — and $19 more than what Gamhewage received per day during her three-day visit — according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The amount covers typical living expenses for less than four months in a country where, the WHO documents noted, many people survive on less than $2.15 a day.

The payments to women didn’t come freely. To receive the cash, they were required to complete training courses intended to help them start “income-generating activities.” The payments appear to try to circumvent the U.N.'s stated policy that it doesn’t pay reparations by including the money in what it calls a “complete package” of support.

Many Congolese women who were sexually abused have still received nothing. WHO said in a confidential document last month that about a third of the known victims were “impossible to locate.” The WHO said nearly a dozen women declined its offer.

The total of $26,000 that WHO has provided to the victims equals about 1% of the $2 million, WHO-created “survivor assistance fund” for victims of sexual misconduct, primarily in Congo.

>>20887041

>>20887045

And the WHO should manage pandemics?

“Don’t ignore the real threat of the WHO pandemic treaty”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/16/dont-ignore-the-real-threat-of-the-who-pandemic-treaty/

16 May 2024 • 6:15pm

The crunch is coming. Later this month, global health ministers will decide in Geneva whether to endorse the proposed new World Health Organisation (WHO) pandemic treaty.

This treaty actually stems from a British initiative by the then-prime minister Boris Johnson in March 2021. In a joint article with other leaders, he argued that the world needed a more coordinated approach to managing pandemics in future.

Sadly, since then the Government has never set out its actual negotiating objectives. This was a mistake.

The failure to do this on the pandemic treaty has unfortunately created suspicion about what the Government is really trying to do and what it is willing to defend – all the more so as the conclusion approaches. That’s why the lead minister, Andrew Stephenson MP, was reluctantly forced to the House of Commons on Tuesday.

It lies in the actual point of the treaty: the creation of a new system of pandemic management under the WHO authority and binding under international law.

The director general of the WHO, Dr Tedros, can declare the existence of a pandemic. Member states take on an obligation to cooperate with the WHO “to the fullest extent possible”, to share information and “pandemic-related health products”, to establish a supply chain network, and much more – and of course to fund it. This is all new.

And that is the problem with this treaty, too. Our sovereignty is not formally affected, but we are taking on an international law obligation to work with the WHO system. When the next pandemic comes, government lawyers, MPs, and commentators will say “you must do what the WHO says, or you are breaking international law”.

This would matter less if we could be confident of the neutrality and competence of the WHO. In fact we can be confident of no such thing: it has a track record of incompetence, poor decision-making, and politicised conduct, not surprising considering the extent of China’s influence. Giving it a blank cheque is highly risky.

>>20848109

OK, now it's five years later. Is the case ongoing or was a verdict reached?