CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Swiss court upholds corruption ruling against mining magnate Steinmetz

Reuters | April 4, 2023 | 

Beny Steinmetz was sentenced two years ago in one of the mining industry’s most high-profile legal disputes. (Image taken from Beny Steinmetz’s website)

A Swiss appeals court said on Tuesday it had upheld a guilty verdict for corruption against mining magnate Beny Steinmetz, who was sentenced in Geneva two years ago in one of the mining industry’s most high-profile legal disputes.


However, the court acquitted him of an earlier charge of forgery. Steinmetz, who is currently in Israel, said he will appeal the verdict to Switzerland’s highest federal court, calling the decision “unfair and politically motivated”.

The March 28 ruling, made public on Tuesday, followed seven days of hearings in August-September 2022 in which Steinmetz and two other defendants challenged an earlier verdict which found they had paid, or arranged payment, of bribes to obtain exploration permits for the world’s richest untapped deposits of iron ore in Guinea, and of forging documents to cover it up.

The higher court’s three judges reduced Steinmetz’s five-year prison sentence to three years of which 18 months must be served, citing the amount of time elapsed. The earlier 50 million Swiss francs ($55 million) fine was upheld.

During the appeal, lawyers for Steinmetz called for his full acquittal or, failing that, for the case’s closure on the grounds that Switzerland was not the appropriate venue to rule on the case since the alleged crimes were not committed there.

In its ruling in January 2021, a lower court in Geneva found Steinmetz and two others paid, or arranged payment, of $8.5 million in bribes between 2006 and 2012 to one of the wives of former Guinea president Lansana Conte, Mamadie Toure, to obtain exploration permits for iron ore buried beneath the Simandou mountains in Guinea.

Conte died in 2008. The Guinean government, which was by then a different administration, made no comment at the time of the ruling. Guinean authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling on Tuesday.

The whereabouts of Toure are unknown and Reuters could not reach her for comment.
Untapped resources

In closing arguments, Steinmetz’s lawyer Daniel Kinzer told last year’s appeal hearing that Toure had merely “lobbied” her husband to give Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) the mining permits. He said that meant the worst his client could be accused of was “influence-peddling”, which is not a crime under Swiss law.

Geneva’s chief prosecutor Yves Bertossa called these arguments “not serious” and repeated his call for the initial sentence to be upheld.

Steinmetz, 67, is a former Geneva resident who moved back to Israel in 2016 and has in the past been ranked as a billionaire. He attended the original trial and the appeal in person and told the court that he had never corrupted anyone.

He has not served any jail time, under Swiss rules which allow for the safe passage of non-resident defendants who attend their trials.

A spokesperson for Steinmetz said he was not required to serve the sentence pending the decision of the federal court.

The two other defendants found guilty alongside Steinmetz also saw their corruption verdicts upheld although their jail sentences were fully suspended. They were acquitted of forgery.

Simandou, in Guinea’s southeastern corner, is the largest known iron ore deposit of its kind, which analysts estimate holds more than 2 billion tonnes of high-grade ore, but legal disputes and the cost of building infrastructure mean it is untapped nearly three decades after its discovery.

($1 = 0.9118 Swiss francs)

(By Emma Farge, Clara Denina and Saliou Samb; Editing by Friederike Heine, Rachel More and Catherine Evans)

Anglo American, Sweden’s H2 Green Steel to work on low-carbon steelmaking processes

Reuters | April 4, 2023 | 

Credit: H2 Green Steel

Anglo American said on Tuesday it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Swedish hydrogen and steel producer H2 Green Steel to work on advancing low-carbon steelmaking processes.


The miner said the agreement includes studying and trialling the use of iron ore products from its Kumba mines in South Africa and Minas-Rio mine in Brazil as feedstock for H2’s direct reduced iron (DRI) production process at its Boden plant in Sweden.

DRI steel production is estimated to be significantly less carbon intensive than traditional blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace integrated processes.

Anglo American has agreements with a number of steelmakers in Europe and Asia to research efficient feed materials suited to use in DRI steelmaking, including iron ore pellets and lump iron ore.

H2 Green Steel, which was launched in 2021, is currently developing its DRI plant in Boden, which the company said would be powered by hydrogen plants running on renewable electricity.

Anglo American’s shares were up 0.4% by 0715 GMT.

(By Muhammed Husain; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Kirsten Donovan)

Rio Tinto to spend $216.5m to fund Ranger uranium mine rehab costs

Reuters | April 3, 2023 |

Era has operated the Ranger mine since 1980, producing about 132,000 tonnes of uranium oxide. (Image courtesy of Energy Resources of Australia.)

Rio Tinto said on Tuesday it would buy A$319 million ($216.54 million) worth of shares in Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) to help fund rehabilitation costs related to a former uranium mine in the Northern Territory.


The world’s biggest iron ore miner has been under pressure to fund the cleanup costs of ERA’s Ranger mine site, which it operated for more than 30 years and is surrounded by the Kakadu national park rainforest.

Rehabilitation costs are estimated at A$1.6 billion to A$2.2 billion, ERA said in a statement.

ERA is hoping to raise up to A$369 million via an entitlement offer, with Packer & Co and Zentree Investments Ltd also expected to contribute to the capital raising.

Even if the offer is fully subscribed, ERA will need another A$210 million to A$756 million to fund the remaining rehabilitation cost, the company said, adding that it was likely to miss its January 2026 rehabilitation deadline.

“We are committed to ensuring the critical rehabilitation of Ranger is completed to a standard that will establish an environment similar to the adjacent Kakadu National Park,” said Rio Tinto’s chief executive for Australia, Kellie Parker.

Rio was the target of some of the biggest environmental protests across Australia in 1998, including an eight-month blockade and 500 arrests, after the local Indigenous Mirarr people opposed its planned development of the nearby Jabiluka concession.

The Australian government documented more than 200 environmental incidents at the mine between 1979 and 2003.

ERA will issue shares at a price of A$0.02 apiece under the entitlement offer, representing a 90.2% discount to the stock’s last close of A$0.205.

ERA shares declined 9.8% to A$0.185, their lowest since June 2022, while the benchmark index was marginally higher.

Rio Tinto’s voting power in ERA could increase to up to 89.1% from 86.3% now following the completion of the capital raising.

ERA will also use the proceeds to partly repay a A$100 million loan from Rio Tinto.

($1 = 1.4732 Australian dollars)

(By Harish Sridharan; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

Biden’s landmark climate bill lures China’s clean energy giants

Bloomberg News | April 1, 2023 | 

JA Solar’s power plant in Utah. (Image by A Solar Technology).

China’s leading renewables firms are joining the rush to open factories in the US after Washington passed a landmark climate bill that supports local clean energy manufacturing.


Some of the nation’s top solar panel makers are involved in setting up American plants, while the Chinese company that makes the world’s largest wind turbine, Ming Yang Smart Energy Group Ltd., is exploring whether to establish production and research facilities there.

The building boom underscores how the US has rebuilt its credentials as a cleantech manufacturing hub after last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. The bill, a signature achievement for the Biden administration, includes $374 billion in new climate-related spending. That’s drawn the attention of China’s world-leading renewables industry despite deepening tensions between the two governments.

“The US is working on low-carbon, green development, has plans, and has introduced many good policies and mechanisms — it is very attractive,” Ming Yang Chairman Zhang Chuanwei said in an interview last week at the Boao Forum for Asia on the island of Hainan, an event dubbed as China’s version of Davos.


The company hasn’t announced any US plans yet, but three of its clean energy peers are in the process of building their presence there: JA Solar Technology Co. in Arizona, Longi Green Energy Technology Co. in Ohio, and Jinko Solar Co. in Florida.

Chinese solar firms dominate global panel production, but have been stymied from shipping to the US because of a series of trade disputes and allegations of human rights abuses, which China has denied. Some of the firms have moved to expand exports from plants in southeast Asia to navigate curbs on US trade.

Biden’s climate policy is designed to boost domestic cleantech industries and reduce America’s reliance on imports. The bill extends to encouraging foreign firms to set up shop in the US, sparking a wave of new factory announcements since it was passed in August. But Chinese companies have been reticent about publicizing their investments.

That’s due to Washington’s increasingly adversarial approach to Chinese firms, according to Li Junfeng, managing director of the China Energy Research Society, a government-affiliated think tank. He cited the scrutiny faced by battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. over its recent tie-up with Ford Motor Co., as well as the furor linked to national security concerns that has erupted over social-media platform TikTok.

That’s left Chinese companies fearing they won’t get the same treatment as their South Korean or European counterparts, Li said.

“It isn’t enough for the US to just introduce the IRA bill. It needs to give a clear expectation that companies will be treated equally,” he said. “If one day it says that solar panels are also national security issues, we won’t be able to talk reasonably anymore.”

Cleantech is assuming a strategic importance as it becomes the world’s biggest source of new energy. China’s advantage means that governments elsewhere are trying to chip away at its dominance by carving out their own supply chains. But Beijing is fighting its corner, albeit in ways that could undercut the industry’s pleas for fair treatment from US authorities.

The Chinese government has launched its own probe of the CATL-Ford deal, to ensure the battery giant’s core technology isn’t handed over to the US carmaker. It’s also considering an export ban that would help maintain its substantial lead in solar manufacturing.

Li said the proposed solar ban is only a draft, and has met objections from some companies. China has spent over 20 years building the world’s best solar industry, but it needs to balance local manufacturing capabilities with maintaining a robust global supply chain, he said.

China is scared of being cut off from key technologies, but other countries have the same fear, Li said. One answer is to “encourage Chinese companies to build factories abroad.”
Trade barriers

Trade barriers in countries such as the US and India are raising the cost of clean energy, Gao Jifan, chairman of another Chinese firm, Trina Solar Co., told a panel at the Boao Forum. “We should build a mechanism that makes everybody feel safe, instead of building barriers,” he said.

Clean energy equipment should be manufactured where the cost is lowest, and it should be traded around the globe without any obstacles, Gao said. Trina is also willing to build manufacturing capacity in the US, as well as Europe given the supportive policies there, he said.

Ming Yang’s Zhang said the company could buy parts and equipment from local firms if it does decide to set up in America. And the nation’s infamously hurricane-prone coastal areas will also benefit from deploying its turbines because they’re designed to resist extreme winds.

“The US, like China, is a massive renewable energy market,” he said. “We are willing to enter the US, and we hope that the US will create a fair, inclusive, and predictable environment.”

Copper ore analyses reveal deep connections between ancient African civilizations

Staff Writer | April 2, 2023 | 

Jay Stephens (right) collects samples of copper ore. (Image by Jay Stephens, courtesy of the University of Missouri).

An international team of researchers ran chemical and isotopic analyses of copper artifacts from southern Africa and discovered new cultural connections among people living in the region between the 5th and 20th centuries.


In a paper published in the journal Plos One, the researchers explain that people in the area between northern South Africa and the Copperbelt region in central Africa were more connected to one another than scholars previously thought.

“Over the past 20 to 30 years, most archaeologists have framed the archaeological record of southern Africa in a global way with a major focus on its connection to imports coming from the Indian Ocean,” said Jay Stephens, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Missouri.

“But it’s also important to recognize the interconnected relationships that existed among the many groups of people living in southern Africa. The data show the interaction between these groups not only involved the movement of goods but also flows of information and the sharing of technological practices that come with that exchange.”

Mining copper ore

For years, scholars debated whether the artifacts analyzed, called rectangular, fishtail and Croisette copper ingots, were made exclusively from copper ore mined in the Copperbelt region or from Zimbabwe’s Magondi Belt. As it turns out, both theories are correct.

“We now have tangible linkages to reconstruct connectivity at various points in time in the archeological record,” Stephens said. “There is a massive history of interconnectivity found throughout the region in areas now known as the countries of Zambia, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This also includes people from the contemporary Ingombe Ilede, Harare, and Musengezi traditions of northern Zimbabwe between at least the 14th and 18th centuries A.D.”

To arrive at these conclusions, Stephens and his colleagues took small samples from 33 copper ingots and analyzed them at the University of Arizona. All samples were carefully selected from archeological samples found in the collections of the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the Livingstone Museum in Livingstone, Zambia.

“We didn’t want to impact the display of an object, so we tried to be aware of how museums and institutions would want to interact with the data we collected and share it with the general public,” Stephens said. “We also want our knowledge to be accessible for the individuals in these communities who continue to interact with these objects. Hopefully, some of the skills linked with these analyses can be used by whoever wants to ask similar questions in the future.”

One of the croisette copper ingots analyzed in the study. (Image by Jay Stephens).

In the researcher’s view, copper ingots are excellent objects for these types of analyses because they often have emblematic shapes that allow archaeologists to identify specific markings and follow changes over different time periods.

“By looking at their changes in shape and morphology over time, we can pair those changes with how technology changed over time,” he said. “This often comes from observing the decorative features produced from the cast object or mould, or other surface attributes found on these objects.”

No previous data

Once the pieces arrived at the University of Arizona lab, the researchers took a small amount of each sample—less than one gram—and dissolved it with specific acids to leave behind a liquid mixture of chemical ions. Then the samples were analyzed for lead isotopes and other chemical elements. One challenge the team encountered was a lack of existing data to match their samples with.

“One part of the project included analyzing hundreds of ore samples from different geological deposits in southern Africa—especially ones mined before the arrival of European colonial forces—to create a robust data set,” Stephens said. “The data can provide a scientific foundation to help back up the inferences and conclusions we make in the study.”

Stephens noted that the data he and his team collected are one of the only remaining tangible links that exist today to those precolonial mines in Africa.

“Unfortunately, large open-pit mines have destroyed a lot of the archaeological sites and broader cultural landscapes around these geological deposits,” he said. “This makes it a challenge to reconstruct the history related to these mines. It’s a concerning development, especially with the global push toward more electric vehicles which use minerals like copper and cobalt found in the Copperbelt.”

New tool could help Brazil’s crack down on illegal gold mining

Cecilia Jamasmie | March 31, 2023 | 

Aerial view of deforested area of the Amazon rainforest caused by illegal mining activities in Brazil. (Image: Imago Photo | Adobe Stock.)

Brazilian gold aggregator Fênix DTVM and Minespider, which runs a traceability platform for tracking down the precious metal through the supply chain, completed this week the first stage of a project that aims to make Brazil’s gold sector transparent.


The two companies have integrated traceability in gold sourcing and processing activities, delivering the first fully traced gold bar to one of Fênix’s clients.

By the end of 2023, Fênix DTVM plans to aggregate 100% traceable gold with the Minespider traceability platform, based on blockchain technology.

The milestone comes as Brazil’s government is increasing efforts to crack down on illegal gold mining in the Amazon, through legislation that would require electronic tax receipts for the buying and selling of the precious metal.

Electronic tax receipts can be an important tool for eradicating illegal mining,” Christian Ecker, Client Partner at Minespider, told MINING.COM.

Currently, gold is sold with paper receipts based on the “good faith” of the seller, making it impossible to trace its origin.

“Paper documents can be more easily faked or edited (…) If done right, electronic receipts can make this harder and thereby reduce gold laundering and smuggling,” Ecker said. “It might also make tax collection more efficient.”

The electronic receipt, or “nota fiscal” in Portuguese, would identify the name and tax number of the seller, the operation where the gold was extracted, as well as the authorization number of the mining license.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is preparing legislation to add transparency to the sector and end deforestation, which surged to a 15-year-high under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula has also pledged to take better care of indigenous populations in the Amazon who are threatened by armed wildcat miners.

In 2015, an indigenous alliance demanded that Brazil halt Amazon dam construction. (Image courtesy of Amazon Watch.)

According to Instituto Escolha, Brazil exported 229 tonnes of gold with “serious evidence of illegality”, between 2019 and 2022. The figure, the report says, accounts for almost half of all local production.

Mining industry lobby group Ibram’s figures are equally alarming. It claims that close to half of the 100 tonnes of gold Brazil produces each year is thought to be illegally mined and laundered by financial brokerages that are regulated by the central bank.

Fênix DTVM and Minespider Fênix DTVM and Minespider’s solution can be integrated with legacy systems and could, potentially, help the government achieve its objectives.

“This tool enables transparency about gold’s provenance as buyers know where it’s coming from,” Ecker said. “We want to get to a point where this traceability is considered ‘normal’ and buyers expect transparency and are skeptical about non-transparent gold.”

Fênix DTVM and Minespider will expand the use of their platform to all supply chains with the overall goal of having 100% traceability across all suppliers and operations by the end of 2023.

Illegal Amazon miners are expanding into copper as prices surge

Bloomberg News | March 31, 2023 \

Specialized Inspection Group (GEF) carries out an operation to combat illegal gold mining on the Jamanxim River, in the state of Pará. (Photo Felipe Werneck/Ibama.)

Authorities in Brazil are cracking down on illegal copper mining in the Amazon as high prices of the wiring metal attract black-market operators who normally focus on gold.


Earlier this month, 50 agents dismantled illicit mines in Canaa dos Carajas — near Vale SA’s biggest copper mine, Sossego — after two similar actions last year. There are signs the metal has been shipped to China, task-force leader Ezequias Martins said via his press office. The case may lead to convictions for environmental crimes and criminal association, he said

Unlicensed miners, known in Brazil as garimpeiros, have diversified into copper in recent years as techniques improve and prices surge on growing battery-metal demand in the shift away from fossil fuels. At the same time, major mining companies are looking to add copper assets. Vale wants to raise money to grow its base metals business.

While illegal production accounts for a tiny portion of total copper supply, it can have an outsized impact on the environment and indigenous communities. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government has vowed to crack down on Brazil’s illegal gold rush, with non-government organization MapBiomas estimating that irregular operations now occupy a larger area than industrial mines in the country.

The clandestine copper mines demobilized this month are the so-called gallery type, in which explosives are used to blast out ore containing copper and gold. Some galleries can extract 30 tons a day. Copper trades at about $9,000 a ton in London versus less than $5,000 three years ago.

The environmental and community damage caused by such practices are a threat to the formal industry by tarnishing the reputation of mining in general.

Read More: New tool could help Brazil’s crack down on illegal gold mining

The illegal mining push has started to encroach into land held by Vale, the world’s No. 2 iron ore producer and a major supplier of nickel and copper. With illicit miners now hunting for copper, Vale has reinforced monitoring and provides intelligence to regulator ANM on clandestine operations on its land, the company said in response to Bloomberg questions.

“In addition to constituting a crime, the practice imposes drastic impacts on the environment, public coffers, security and the attraction of investments and the implementation of new enterprises,” Vale said.

(By Mariana Durao and James Attwood, with assistance from Joe Deaux)

Researchers find new way to shape tiny gold pieces for electronics

Staff Writer | April 3, 2023 | 

Gold nugget. (Reference image by Hans, Pixabay.)

Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have found a way to melt nano gold nuggets using highly charged ions.


In detail, the scientists bombarded extremely small pieces of gold, consisting of a few thousand atoms and with a diameter in the order of ten nanometers, with multiply-ionized xenon atoms. This made it possible to change the shape and size of these gold pieces in a targeted manner.

In a paper published in the journal Small, the scientists explain that up to 40 electrons were removed from the atoms, so they are highly electrically charged.

The highly charged ions then hit small gold islands placed on an insulating substrate—and then different things happened: The gold islands became flatter, they melted, or they evaporated.

“Depending on how highly our ions are electrically charged, we can trigger different effects,” Gabriel Szabo, first author of the paper, said in a media statement.

The highly charged ions hit the tiny gold nuggets at elevated speed—at around 500 kilometres per second. Nevertheless, it was not the force of the impact that changed the gold islands.

“If you shoot uncharged xenon atoms at the gold islands with the same kinetic energy, the gold islands remain practically unchanged,” Szabo said. “So the decisive factor was not the kinetic energy, but the electrical charge of the ions. This charge also carries energy, and it is deposited exactly at the point of impact.”

Throwing gold out of balance

As soon as the positively charged ions hit the nano gold pieces, they snatched electrons away from the gold. In a large piece of gold, this would have no significant effect: Gold is an excellent conductor, the electrons can move freely, and more electrons would be supplied from other areas of the gold nugget.

But the nano-gold structures are so small that they can no longer be regarded as an inexhaustible reservoir of electrons.

“The charged energy of the impacting ion is transferred to the gold, thus the electronic structure of the entire nano-gold object is thrown completely out of balance, the atoms start to move and the crystal structure of the gold is destroyed,” head researcher Richard Wilhelm explained. “Depending on how much energy you deposit, it may even happen that the entire nano-gold piece melts or is vaporized.”

The effects of the ion bombardment can then be studied in an atomic force microscope. Depending on the charge of the ions, the height of the gold pieces is reduced to a lesser or greater extent.

“Just as our models had also predicted, we can control the impact of the ions on the gold—and not by the speed we give our projectiles, but rather by their charge,” Szabo reported.

According to the team, improved control and a deeper understanding of such processes are important for making a wide variety of nanostructures.

“It’s a technique that allows you to selectively edit the geometry of particularly small structures. That’s just as interesting for the creation of microelectronic components as it is for so-called quantum dots—tiny structures that allow very specific tailor-made electronic or optical effects due to their quantum physical properties,” Wilhelm said.

Barrick Gold, PNG ink new deal to restart Porgera mine

Cecilia Jamasmie | March 31, 2023 |

The Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea. (Image courtesy of Barrick Gold.)

The Porgera gold mine in Papa New Guinea (PNG), halted since 2020, is closer to resuming operations as the country’s government, Barrick Gold’s local subsidiary and New Porgera have inked a new deal to speed up the mine restart.


Through the New Porgera Progress Agreement (NPPA), inked late Thursday, all parties have committed to push Porgera’s reopening forward, starting by filing for a special mining lease.

“It’s been a long journey but in the process we have secured the buy-in of all the stakeholders,” Barrick’s chief executive Mark Bristow said. “The reopening of the mine would represent another victory for our host-country partnership model which has been so successful in Tanzania and has now also been adopted for the new Reko Diq copper-gold project in Pakistan,” Bristow said.

Barrick and its partner China’s Zijin Mining became embroiled in a dispute with the government and locals in 2020 over benefits sharing while attempting to renew the mine’s license.

The standoff was resolved in April 2021 through two deals, which gave the PNG government a majority stake in Porgera. Barrick and Zijin agreed to halve their stakes.

New Porgera, as the mine is called now, is 51% owned by PNG stakeholders, including local landowners and the Enga provincial government.

Economic benefits will be shared 53% by the PNG stakeholders and 47% by Barrick Niugini Limited, the mine operator.

The vast gold mine is an open pit and underground operation in the Enga province of PNG, about 600 km (370 miles) northwest of Port Moresby.

It hosts an orebody with measured and indicated resources of 10 million ounces and inferred resources of 3.4 million ounces of gold.

It produced about 600,000 ounces of gold in 2019, before being put on care and maintenance.

After initial ramp up and optimisation of the Wangima pit, Porgera is forecast to produce an average of 700,000 ounces per year.

GOLD MAFIA

Zimbabwe to investigate gold-smuggling allegations

Cecilia Jamasmie | April 4, 2023 | 

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2018. (Image courtesy of The World Economic Forum.)

The government of Zimbabwe has broken the silence around allegations of gold smuggling and money laundering exposed in an Al-Jazeera documentary last month, saying on Tuesday that it will launch an inquiry into the claims.


In a four-part documentary released on March 23rd, the news network shows individuals allegedly affiliated with Zimbabwean government smuggling gold to evade western sanctions.

According to Al-Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit), the gold mafia is licensed to buy the precious metal from small producers that would otherwise have been smuggled out of the country. The group then exports the gold to Dubai, where the proceeds of the metal sales is transferred into bank accounts to make the transactions look legitimate.

“Government takes the allegations raised in the documentary seriously, and has directed relevant organs to institute investigations into the issues raised,” Information Minister and Publicity Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said in the statement. “Any person found to have engaged in acts of corruption, fraud or any form of crime will face the full wrath of the law.”

The broadcaster has also alleged the money laundering and gold-smuggling rings involve millionaires, one of whom was accused of almost bankrupting Kenya through a similar, corrupt scheme also involving gold.

“It is concerning that the documentary suggests that authorities do not complete sufficient due diligence into potential investors – including official gold traders,” Transparency International says.

“The revelations are a possible source of information to bust criminal networks that are actively engaging in gold smuggling and laundering money from Zimbabwe and other selected African countries,” the organization adds.

Uebert Angel, presidential envoy and ambassador-at-large to Europe and the Americas since March 2021, was secretly filmed saying how easy it was for him to move $1.2 billion, given his diplomatic immunity.

Other individuals filmed or named in the documentary as being part of smuggling rings include Zimbabwe Miners Federation President Henrietta Rushwaya – believed to be the niece of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Gold accounts for almost half — over $2 billion — of the Zimbabwe’s exports. But the nation faces strict international sanctions that makes it harder for locals to export the precious metal through official channels, according to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre.

Figures from the World Bank show that half of the country’s estimated 16 million people live in extreme poverty – on $30 or less monthly.

The first two episodes of “Gold Mafia” have triggered outrage in the landlocked country and generated quite the buzz on social media.

The last two episodes are expected to air this month.

Watch episode one of the documentary here:

 

High-quality concrete produced with coal fly ash

Staff Writer | March 31, 2023 | 

Heavy-metal-free coal fly ash improves cement strength and flexibility. (Image courtesy of the Tour lab/Rice University).

Researchers at Rice University are employing flash Joule heating to remove toxic heavy metals from fly ash, a powdery byproduct of coal-based electric power plants that is used frequently in concrete mixtures.


In a paper published in the journal Communications Engineering, the scientists explain that using purified coal fly ash reduces the amount of cement needed to produce concrete and improves the quality of the latter.

According to the experts, the production of cement accounts for roughly 8% of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions. To address this issue, chemist James Tour experimented with replacing 30% of the cement used to make a batch of concrete with purified coal fly ash. The process improved the concrete’s strength and elasticity by 51% and 28%, respectively, while reducing greenhouse gas and heavy metal emissions by 30% and 41%, respectively.

“You can use less concrete if you use coal fly ash. However, fly ash contains heavy metals,” Tour said. “Often, we try to fix one thing and we mess something else up. In our effort to do something with this waste, namely coal fly ash, we were polluting our environment because the heavy metals were leaching out. Water carried it into our environment and contaminated our soil along roadways, etc.”

The researcher pointed out that roughly 750 million tons of coal fly ash are produced worldwide each year. The new flash Joule heating-based process, however, can remove up to 90% of the heavy metals in it using zero water and making it fitter for infrastructure use.

“Basically, we mix the fly ash with carbon black, because fly ash does not conduct electricity, and the carbon black makes the mixture conductive,” Bing Deng, lead author of the study, said. “Next, we place the mixture between two graphite or copper electrodes and use a capacitor to supply a short current pulse to the sample. This current input brings the sample temperature up to about 3,000 degrees Celsius. The high temperature makes the heavy metals evaporate into a volatile stream which is then captured.”

Deng noted that by using this method, it is possible to eliminate the heavy metals from coal fly ash with high efficiency. For different heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, nickel and lead, the removal efficiency registered was up to 70% to 90% in just one second.

Flash Joule heating was also shown to work on different coal fly ash compositions resulting from the combustion of coal extracted from various geographical locations.

“There are two main classes of fly ash with different inorganic compositions, Class C and Class F,” Deng said. “We found that our method works for both kinds of coal fly ash. It also works for other hazardous wastes like red mud or bauxite residue. This shows that the process can become a generalized approach for large-scale industrial solid waste decontamination.”
Civil engineers happy

Following the positive results in the chemistry lab, the new concrete was tested by civil engineers. They found that by replacing 30% of the cement in a concrete mixture with the purified coal fly ash, the compressive strength and the elastic modulus of the composite increased significantly.

“This is very meaningful for structural engineering and the construction industry because stronger structures can be built with less cement,” Wei Meng, co-lead author of the study, said “That is why this research is valuable to civil engineers.”

The Tour lab’s process also allows for the evaporated heavy metals to be collected in a vacuum chamber rather than released into the environment. Moreover, the energy consumed during the process is relatively low.

“We calculated that energy consumption is about 532 kilowatts per ton,” Meng said. “If we convert this to Texas electricity prices it comes out at about $21 per ton. The life cycle analysis shows we can actually extract value from these waste materials.”