SOUTH AFRICA

The value of palladium, the least known of the world's four major precious metals, is set to rise this year, perhaps more sharply than its more popular cousins.

A government crackdown on anti-Museveni protesters in April led to the deaths of at least nine people.

South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Thursday it had reached a two-year wage deal with ALS, a contractor working at Harmony Gold's Kalgold mine.

The NTC received a large boost on Thursday when Russia finally granted its recognition.

Australia's Adamus Resources said on Thursday it expects a friendly takeover by Canada's Endeavour Mining Corp to be completed in early November, creating a West Africa-focused company producing a quarter million ounces of gold annually by 2013.

Australia-based gold mining company Gold One International Ltd., which operates in South Africa, said Wednesday it expects to meet its goal of doubling its gold production this fiscal year.

South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers said Wednesday it overwhelmingly accepted a wage offer from Anglo Platinum that boosts pay rates by as much as 10 percent.

Before the revolt started, there were an estimated 2.5-million migrant workers in Libya, perhaps the majority from black Africa. Many remain trapped in the country with no way to get home.

Global Trust of Nigeria could be using Uganda as a testing ground for its Shariah Law-compliant products and services.

Zimbabwe's foreign minister said his country will not recognize the Libyan group’s rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) as the legitimate ruling entity.

Here's a bold prediction to feed Western worries that power is shifting inexorably to the East: China's yuan could overtake the U.S. dollar as the world's principal reserve currency as soon as next decade.

South Africa's economy grew at its slowest pace in almost two years in the second quarter as the manufacturing and mining sectors slumped after strikes, boosting the case for interest rate cuts while denting the government's job-creation hopes.

Here's a bold prediction to feed Western worries that power is shifting inexorably to the East: China's yuan could overtake the U.S. dollar as the world's principal reserve currency as soon as next decade.

Gold prices dropped sharply in holiday-thinned trade on Monday, falling as much as 2.7 percent after Wall Street stocks opened higher, deflecting interest from the safe-haven metal.

DRDGold , South Africa's fourth largest gold producer, said on Monday its headline earnings more than doubled as it lifted output during a period when the gold price steadily advanced.

Gold prices eased a touch in holiday-thinned trade on Monday as investors took bets on higher prices off the table, disappointed by a lack of clear guidance from the Federal Reserve on Friday on the options for U.S. economic stimulus.

China's fast-growing consumerism and lax policing of ivory laws are the latest threats to wild elephant populations, said an author of a recent report on endangered species.

A U.S. and European push to impose U.N. Security Council sanctions on Syria for its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators is meeting fierce resistance from Russia and China, U.N. diplomats said.

A photograph uploaded on Facebook of a white South African man posing like a hunter near an apparently lifeless body of a black child has created a furore as South African police try track him down.

A drive to benefit from record bullion prices lifted Australian gold production by 10 percent, or 24 metric tons, to 270 metric tons in the 2010/11 financial year, maintaining Australia's No. 2 ranking behind China, a sector survey released on Sunday showed.

South Africa's mines minister Susan Shabangu will in a few weeks time give her assessment of how much progress the industry has made in reaching the targets of a charter aimed at giving previously excluded blacks a higher share of ownership, her spokesperson said on Friday.