South Africa is a resource-rich country and exports a lot of products to other countries in the world. Natural resources are abundant and these are the main mineral mining in South Africa:
Gold-----diamonds-----platinum-----chromium-----vanadium-----manganium-----uranium and last but not least iron ore and coal.
South Africa is export world champion for some of these minerals!
Gold:
40% of the gold reserves in the world are in South Africa and the gold-bearing rock stratum has to be found in a deepness of 4 kilometeres.
In the year 1990 the price of gold fell because there was a low demand in the world-markets.
Australia and Russia exported the gold easier and safer than South Africa and in the year 1995 more than 100000 workers had to be dismissed.
1999 the gold-market in South Africa was worse than bad and the price of one ounce conducted 250 dollar but in year 2009 the price climbed up to a never expected level.
Diamonds:
In the year 1867 the first diamond was founded in Kimberly, a city in South Africa. The city was going to be popular and many people came and wanted to find diamonds in the "City of Diamonds". Today a small number of diamonds is used as jewelery, the most are used in industy because diamonds are very firm.
Today I see that South Africa is rich of mineral mining but it doesn´t matter because the most of the people there live in poverty and only the rich mine chefs can have a good life there. The miners work hardly and they have to breathe the dust and get a small wage. I also think the colonizers fourced South Africa in a economic way in ruin. This poor country was robbed by the biggest, richest murderer of the world ...THE GREED FOR MONEY.
Pictures: A copper mine in Phalaborwa.
The Cullinan ( it was the biggest rough diamond in the world)
Very nice entry, Romina.
ReplyDeleteI like your kind to write texts understandably.
Your post is very informative. For example, I did not know that Africa owns really so many very expensive raw materials because it is, nevertheless, a very poor country. (:
Yeah of course, I agree with Elena. You have chosen a great topic. At first, I was a little bit sceptical if this subject would be a little bit too theoretical and with too much statistics, but your wirting-style and how you explain the history of the diamonds impressed me and catched my interest. Well, there is a movie, calls "Blood Diamond", have you ever seen it? It's also about the diamond trade in South Africa. Great film about the problems of the workers, who search for the diamonds. But your text has a great structure ;)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Elena and Lea, you've posted a very nice text, thank you, Romina! :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's a big advantage to be able to structure texts and you are able to do this...
Nevertheless check your text before you post it, for example the first sentence of the paragraph "gold": 40% of the gold reserves ARE (PLURAL!)... these are mistakes you can easily avoid :-)
I am going to check it out;)
ReplyDeleteInteresting text, but unfortunately you didn't write a lot about the shit which happens in the mines...
ReplyDeleteYou all should see BLOOD DIAMOND, it shows the life of miners!
Nice text. I really like this topic. Clara wtf do you mean with "the shit which happens in the mines"? Do you mean the desasters?
ReplyDeletePascal