CC: Standard Bank (Joint CEO): MR BEN KRUGER

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Standard Bank Complaints Resolution Centre, [email protected]; Fax: 011 636 8860 / 011 636 4207

You could be forgiven for thinking you were attending a side-event at Cape Town’s glitzy annual Mining Indaba in early February, when the opening panel of a civil society meeting repeatedly stressed how crucial mining is for Africa’s ‘development.’

TENT NUMBER SIX

The cold numbers are arresting: in the decade leading up to 2014, 387 people died in mines across Africa owned by Australian-listed giants, including Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and AngloGold Ashanti. The vast majority of these deaths, 244, were in SA.

Last December 4-5, Chinese leaders visited Johannesburg’s central business district to pledge $60 billion to help industrialise the African continent. More than 40 African heads of state were in attendance for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac).

These crimes were part of the beleaguered Saudi royal family's efforts to defend its rule by wielding state violence and religious authority, both represented by the executioner's sword.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram are now officially the deadliest terror group in the world. That they have reached this position is a direct consequence of British Prime Minister David Cameron and co’s war on Libya – and one that was perhaps not entirely unintended.

INTRODUCTION

The competition is based on the premise that a shortage of funding for critical research is one of the problems faced by Africa-based scholars/activists wishing to carry forward a political economy agenda.