The event, which falls several weeks ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster than resulted in the death of 167 men, is designed to further encourage people working offshore to think about the lessons that have been learnt since the tragedy.

The keynote speaker is Lord Cullen, whose report into the tragedy led to major safety changes.

This past Friday 14 June, Mr Motlanthe presided over a special mining task team consisting of labour, government and mining company representatives. Together the team have put together a ten page draft agreement to reposition South Africa’s mining industry in order to make it more attractive to investors and enable the sector to contribute further to social and economic development.

Having received route approvals from the relevant governments under Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASAs), the company, backed by Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, will soon fly to South Africa, Zambia and Rwanda.

Unveiled this week at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, the BRCK device is the brainchild of the Kenyan tech firm Ushahidi. Combining a rugged design with a range of connectivity options, switching between wi-fi, 3G and fixed broadband, BRCK came about as a result of a strong desire to move away from hardware that was never designed to cope with the specific issues faced in Africa.

Ever since it was first established in March of 1971 by Frank Pyott and Roger Boone, PBE’s (Pyott-Boone Electronics as it was previously known) mission has been to design and build reliable, high tech equipment to improve mine safety and productivity.

It is not hard to see why Resource Generation, a company listed on both the Australian and Johannesburg stock exchanges, was attracted to the Waterberg region of South Africa and in particular to the Boikarabelo coal mine which it has been developing since 2008. The area, in the north-east of South Africa close to the border with Botswana, is very accessible, and the quality of coal in the resource unrivalled.

Jamaica is not lacking in natural resources – for example it is a major exporter of bauxite, the raw material for aluminium – but it is not currently known as an oil producer. In fact it has to import its oil at a rate estimated at 80,000 barrels a day if oil based products like asphalt, are included. Oil to fuel cars boats and aircraft is imported from Mexico, Venezuela and other neighbouring Caribbean countries.

A quick glance over Chile’s basic health indicators makes one thing clear. With infant and maternal mortality levels amongst the lowest in Latin America, and the average life expecting coming in at close to 76 years, a figure that is up from just over 60 years in the early 1970s, it is plain to see that much of the country’s population is benefiting from what is an advanced health care system.