Current Events week 5 South Africa

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Miner-trapped-in-shaft-20120921

Miner Trapped in shaft
In an old Durban Deep mine located in Dobsonville, Soweto an illegal miner was trapped this past Friday. The miner was trapped in an extended shaft that was blocked off and was beyond the mine rescue team's area of operation. Emergency services required permission from the dept. of mineral and energy affairs to give the rescuers the go ahead. The miner was one of five, but the other four had returned to the surface earlier that day. They are still waiting on an update on this issue....

I have learned that it is very stupid to go down a mine shaft that is blocked off because you could get trapped obviously. It was obviously blocked off for a reason. As for the mining business, it will cost them some production time from the mine being shut down for rescue purposes.

Current events week 4

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19626608

Several strikes have been taking place outside of gold and platinum mines for the past couple of weeks in South Africa. Some 2,000 miners gathered outside the mine near Johannesburg. Protests broke out after 44 people died at the Lonmin- owned platinum mine in mid- August. These protests are causing some mines to stop production of their gold and platinum which is having a huge impact on the country's business. The gold and platinum industry has already lost $548 million in output. These strikes have also taken $388 million from the national treasury.

I have learned much about how South Africa is a huge exporter and producer of gold and platinum. These mining industries account for most of South Africa's international trade business, so the protests have a major impact on their economy.

South Africa current event week 3

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2012/3030/

The USGS has recently assessed the coastal province of South Africa for undiscovered world oil and gas. USGS was able to project some predictions on the amounts of natural gas, oil, and natural gas liquids by using geology-based methodology. The estimations of the volume of oil is 2.13 billion barrels! Other projections include 35.96 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1,115 million barrels of natural gas liquids! These estimations are huge and can play an important role in South Africa's future economy.

 I have learned that South Africa has huge amounts of natural resources such as oil and natural gas. This was have a huge impact on the economy and international business relations of South Africa with other countries because of trade and exporting these resources.

Current Event Week 2 Europe in Debt crisis

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/03/news/economy/moodys-european-union/index.html?iid=HP_LN&hpt=hp_t3&hpt=wo_bn6

The European Union was put on notice recently for being at risk of a downgrade of their top Aaa rating. This is happening because of the continent's ongoing debt crisis. The EU's creditworthiness has gone from being "stable" to "negative." The European Central Bank is trying to help this issue by creating a new bond-buying program to reserve the Euro currency.

European Union Headquarters

The bond-buying program is a great idea to help out the continent's debt crisis because it will increase the borrowing revenue's of many countries within Europe. Some of these countries would include Spain and Italy. When multiple countries are doing business with each other it helps stimulate the Euro currency.