CAPETOWN (Reuters) – A pair of African penguins glide over the water while a pod of dolphins approach in the background.

Such an encounter might make the bucket list of many a wildlife enthusiast, but the experience takes on a whole new dimension from the vantage point of a sea kayak bobbing in the swells off Cape Town.

“It’s the best way to see marine wildlife. A lot of wildlife is scared of motors but not of kayaks,” says Marc de Vos, 21, a kayak and diving guide.

At other times of the year, kayakers can get up close to migrating right or humpback whales on these waters and Cape fur seals are a frequent sight.

Ocean sun fish, curious creatures which resemble a gigantic fish head, can also often be seen, though sadly not on this particular day.

Incentives abound to keep your kayak upright. Even under a blazing summer sun, the water temperature on a recent outing was 14 degrees Celsius, chilled by the icy Benguela current.

Great white sharks are another reason to stay dry. The waters around here literally teem with predators and while they are more concentrated to the east of here in False Bay and other inlets, you might not fancy your chances.

CAPE TOWN, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Labour demands in the south, power problems in the east and new tax burdens in the west: wherever you look in Africa, miners face a perfect storm of soaring costs.

“There is no question that there are considerable cost pressures on all of us in the industry, whether it is electricity, labour, whether it is inflation, overall in every single country where we operate,” said Cynthia Carroll, chief executive of Anglo American.

In southern Africa, the pressures are literally springing from the soil as rising food prices hit working class budgets, fuelling union demands for double-digit wage hikes.

In South Africa, inflation was 6.1 percent in December but food inflation was 11.1 percent, straining the household budgets of lower-income workers and fuelling high wage demands by unions in the mining sector.

Analysts have said above-inflation wage hikes in South Africa’s mining sector have not been matched by productivity gains from its uneducated and low-skilled labour force.

Wage pressures are also ratcheting up in other parts of the continent with heavily unionised work forces that face food price concerns.

Glencore’s Mopani Copper Mines in Zambia agreed a 17 percent raise with unions last week, almost triple the inflation rate. Konkola Copper Mines, part of London-listed Vedanta Resources, awarded a similar pay increase last month.

CAPE TOWN, Feb 9 (Reuters) – The industry executives who pile into Cape Town every year for the annual African mining conference love the sun, wine and stunning mountain backdrop the venue provides.

But South Africa’s once towering mining industry is no draw and investors flocking to the “Indaba”, as it is called, have their sights set on alluring prizes elsewhere on the continent.

Gold and diamonds built Africa’s largest economy, which also boasts 80 percent of the world’s platinum reserves, but outside investors remain wary of sinking money into an industry that appears in a state of terminal decline.

Soaring labour and power costs which are not matched by productivity gains, not to mention the world’s deepest shafts for those mining gold, are all making South Africa a treacherous place for miners who are finding less headaches elsewhere.

Political risk and policy uncertainty have also dampened the enthusiasm of an industry that must invest millions and even billions to build mines before it can recoup any profit.

“You look at any of the major mining companies and they are very happy to spend billions of dollars to develop mines and related infrastructure in countries like Mongolia, Indonesia and Guinea, and are willing to spend billions of dollars on acquisitions, and a multi-year investment programme in Mozambique,” said Adam Brett, a London-based investment banker with JPMorgan who focuses on mining.

“And just next door is South Africa. There are resources in South Africa, there are opportunities but frankly it is perceived to be easier to go to Asia, South America or indeed other parts of Africa,” he said.

JOHANNESBURG/CAPE TOWN, Feb 8 (Reuters) – A study submitted to South Africa’s ruling ANC to reform its vital mining sector proposes a 50 percent tax on profits and rejects nationalisation as an “unmitigated disaster” for Africa’s largest economy.

Although it delivers a hammer blow to calls for nationalisation by radical elements in the African National Congress (ANC), mining houses will be wary of the tax proposals as they grapple with steeply rising labour, power and safety costs in the world’s largest platinum producer.

South Africa has a poor track record of translating its vast mineral wealth into broader prosperity and the government is under pressure to create badly-needed jobs in the industry without scaring off the investment it needs.

“Under the current fiscal regime our nation is clearly not getting a fair share of the resource rents generated from its mineral assets,” an official summary of the 600-page study obtained by Reuters said.

“A Resource Rent Tax (RRT) of 50 percent must be imposed on all mining. It will trigger after a normal return on investments has been achieved, thus not impacting on marginal or low grade deposits.”

The study defines a resource rent as “the difference between the price at which a resource can be sold and its extraction costs” – in other words, profit.

As expected, the study, which was compiled after research trips to 13 countries ranging from Chile to Australia to Venezuela, flatly rejects nationalisation, mainly on cost grounds.

CAPE TOWN, Feb 7 (Reuters) – South Africa’s mines minister said on Tuesday that industry chief executives should be held liable for avoidable fatalities, also raising the possibility of court action.

Targeting chief executives would take her safety drive to new levels as the government tries to stem the death toll in the country’s mines, the world’s deepest and among the most dangerous.

“Fatalities which could have been avoided, we feel that CEOs must be held liable for those accidents, because they are responsible for the operations. As they show interest in how they grow the profits they must also show interest in safety,” Susan Shabangu told Reuters in an interview.

Asked if this meant possible court action, she said: “These are some of the issues that we must look at. For me the courts are the last option. But legislation provides for us to go to courts.”

Earlier she told the annual African mining conference in Cape Town that the platinum industry’s contribution to fatalities in the mining sector remained a “serious concern” and defended safety stoppages which she said had contributed to a drop in accident rates.

South Africa’s platinum sector has been battered by oversupply, squeezed margins and an uncertain economic outlook, making producers increasingly vocal about regulatory pressures, particularly the impact of inspections and stoppages as part of the government’s zero-harm target.

“The department has been greatly concerned about lack of improvement in compliance and fatalities in the major platinum mines,” Shabangu said.

JOHANNESBURG/CAPE TOWN, Feb 6 (Reuters) – Harmony Gold , South Africa’s third-largest bullion miner, cut its full-year production target by 13 percent on Monday, as safety stoppages threatened to crimp a surge in profit from record gold prices.

Harmony’s chief executive warned the frequency of government-mandated safety stoppages was creating tension between South Africa’s mining industry and government.

Pretoria has been clamping down on miners to cut their accident rates, leading to lower output. Mines are usually shut down for several days at a time for an investigation after a fatality.

While Harmony more than doubled its second-quarter profits on Monday as it reaped the benefit of a weak rand and a sky-high gold price, CEO Graham Briggs voiced concern over the government’s rules on stoppages.

“It’s a difficult issue because obviously there are justifications, but the way they are using them is punitive. The stoppages are not always related to fatalities,” he told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an industry conference.

“It’s a big problem because it’s becoming a situation where we don’t trust each other. It becomes a potential area of conflict instead of working together to solve problems. It becomes a very difficult and suspicious arrangement,” Briggs said.

After seven fatalities at its operations during the October-December quarter, Harmony has cut its production target to 1.35 million ounces, from the previous target of 1.55 million ounces.

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Armed police guards are protecting a South African treasury team sent to fix the finances of a bankrupt province that is a base for firebrand ANC youth leader Julius Malema, a sign of political tensions ahead of an appeal that will decide his fate.

Malema, the leader of the ruling African National Congress’ Youth League, is fighting for his political life with an appeal that starts on Monday against his 5-year suspension handed down in November by the party for bringing it into disrepute.

If the 30-year-old party rebel succeeds in his appeal and remains in the movement, he could be an obstacle to the re-election of President Jacob Zuma as ANC leader at the end of this year. Malema has been a fierce, uninhibited critic of Zuma.

The northern province of Limpopo which is Malema’s powerbase is undergoing a national treasury intervention to clean up its dire financial state, an action which has increased resentment among Malema allies already angry over his suspension.

National police spokesman Lindela Mashigo confirmed a report in the Sunday Times newspaper that the 30-strong Treasury crisis team was being escorted by armed police as the federal government took control of the finances of Limpopo.

“I can confirm that it is true,” he told Reuters, but offered no further details.

The Sunday Times quoted Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan as saying the guards were a “precautionary measure”.

JOHANNESBURG/ANTANANARIVO, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Madagascar’s exiled former leader Marc Ravalomanana was back where he started on Saturday after a plane flying him home was ordered to turn around mid-flight and returned to Johannesburg’s main international airport.

Ravalomanana’s second failed bid in less than a year to return could have ended in his arrest and would have stoked political tensions on the impoverished Indian Ocean island. He has been in self-imposed exile for almost 3 years since his toppling in a military coup

Madagascar’s government rejected accusations it had denied the plane permission to land.

However, instructions from the government for a number of the island’s airports to be shut down, including Antananrivo, during the afternoon are detailed on the website of the Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar, an African traffic control agency.

The former leader’s political allies said they were pulling out of the country’s consensus government in protest.

“In light of this act of provocation, we have decided to suspend our involvement in the government. We will not take part in cabinet meetings,” said Mamy Rakotoarivelo, head of Ravalomanana’s movement and president of the national parliament.

In Johannesburg, a spokesman travelling with Ravalomanana said the ousted leader still hoped to return.

JOHANNESBURG/LUSAKA (Reuters) – A tight grain supply outlook after several bumper harvests is set to fan food price pressures in southern Africa, fuelling salary demands and threatening to knock the region’s fragile economies out of kilter.

Erratic rains have delayed the planting of the crucial maize crop in Zambia, pushing inflation towards double digits, while bread basket South Africa is importing the staple despite abundant harvests because of worries it has exported too much.

With a high proportion of households in the region spending much of their limited income feeding themselves, rising food inflation is likely to further stoke union demands in wage negotiations.

It will also make it tougher for South Africa’s central bank to refrain from hiking interest rates as it grapples with sluggishness in the region’s dominant economy.

Bumper crops in recent years, including in Zambia and Malawi, have helped contain food inflation.

“In the case of southern Africa, it would appear that the success story of recent years is increasingly becoming more of a threat to the inflation picture,” said Razia Khan, head of Africa research at Standard Chartered.

“Zambia …had seen record grain harvests. While the new government will devote even more attention to boosting agriculture, it may not be sufficient to hold food prices – and inflation – down, if the rains are less favorable.”

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A record number of large scale ivory seizures will be recorded globally in 2011, pointing to a surge in elephant poaching in Africa to meet Asian demand for tusks for use in jewelry and ornaments, a monitoring group said Thursday.

TRAFFIC, a conservation group which tracks trends in wildlife trading, said there have been at least 13 large-scale seizures of over 800 kg (2,000 pounds) of ivory in 2011, more than double the 6 recorded in 2010.

“A conservative estimate of the weight of ivory seized in the 13 largest seizures in 2011 puts the figure at more than 23 totonesnnes, a figure that probably represents some 2,500 elephants, possibly more,” it said in a statement.

Zimbabwe-based Tom Milliken, who manages TRAFFIC’s Elephant Trade Information System, said it was the worst year for large seizures he had seen in the over two decades he has been running the database.

He said the poaching and illegal trade were consequences of China’s investment drive into Africa to secure the mineral and energy resources it needs to fuel its economic growth.

“We’ve reached a point in Africa’s history where there are more Asian nationals on the continent than ever before. They have contacts with the end use market and now they are at the source in Africa,” he told Reuters.

“This is all adding up to an unprecedented assault on elephants and other wildlife,” he said.