Diamond Fields International (DFI) stopped its offshore diamond mining operation near Lüderitzbucht. The Toronto-listed diamond exploration and mining company said in a statement the temporary suspension was caused by increased operating costs due the strong RSA rand against the US dollar.

Operating cost temporarily impaired the profitability of the marine diamond contractors resulting in a suspension of marine operations DFI said.
New production options, additional exploration and samplings to be conducted to add resources and value to the one million carat Namibian marine diamond project.
Suspension of operations was jointly decided with Lazig (Pty) Ltd and Gemfarm (Pty) Ltd, owners and operators of the mining vessel My Anya.

Diamonds sales during December 2003 and January 2004 by DFI’s marketing partner Diamond Tenders Belgium totalled 6 292 carats at an average price of US $145.82 per carat. DFI holds the offshore diamond licence since February 2001 for 15 years. It covers 310 sq kms. Other prospecting licenses for diamonds held by DFI are in Sierra Leone and Madagascar. Namibian diamond exporters lost millions last year, resulting from the weak US dollar. Both De Beers in South Africa and Namdeb had to retrench workers, some 400 employees opted for voluntary retrenchments at De Beers in December 2003, while Namdeb did not reveal any figures.

The defiant chief executive officer of AgriBank was finally removed from office last Friday. Mr Tjeripo Hijarunguru, whose term ended on 31 December 2003 after six years in office, came to work every day this month, until the board of directors, finally ordered him to clear the office on 23 January. The deputy permanent secretary in the ministry of finance, Mr Shihaleni Ndjaba, was appointed as "temporary caretaker" for three months with immediate effect, Dr Fritz Stellmacher, the board chairman announced. Stellmacher said the ministers of agriculture and finance as well as the board members of AgriBank apologized to the public for "any inconvenience caused by the unfortunate events at AgriBank" in the past two weeks. Allegedly Mr Hijarunguru saw himself still employed by the bank, as in his view, the board had no quorum when it decided not to renew his contract.

Meanwhile agriculture minister Helmut Angula this week declared a moratorium on affirmative action farm loans. According to him, his ministry owned AgriBank N$ 50 million, which serve as guarantee for the loans. The debt occurred due to an "administrative mistake" in the ministry, which will be rectified accordingly.

While media in Germany commented that Africa does not feature high on the agenda of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s government, his visit last week was at least in the spotlight. According to statistics, sub-Saharan Africa receives only 0,69 percent of direct investment from German businesses. However, South Africa receives 80% of that, being 2,6 billion Euro. German foreign trade with southern Africa is only 2 %, but the region gets about 20 % of the total bilateral development aid from Berlin. Over 450 German companies exist in neighbouring South Africa, with a trade volume of approximately 7,6 billion Euros in 2002. These companies provide jobs to about 80 000 people. Major companies are BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler-Chrysler, Lufthansa and Siemens. Over 100 000 Germans and their descendents live in South Africa.

The US National Institute of Health will donate 35 million US dollars to the South Africa’s defence force over the next five years in an attempt to fight Aids. The Aids programme of the SANDF is part of that country’s government roll out plan against Aids. According to the daily This Day, most of the funds will be used to purchase anti-retroviral medicines. Recent tests conducted among the soldiers revealed that about 12 000 of the 70 000 SANDF members are HIV-positive, a staggering 17 percent. South Africa has one of the highest Aids rates with 5.3 million infected with HIV. South Africa has a population of 45 million people.