Status of tailings dumps : let D5s go working in the past?

It was decided in the De Beers v Ataqua Mining (Pty) Ltd that ''tailings dumps'' created by mining companies before the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 28 of 2002 ("the MPRDA") came into operation are not governed by its provisions because such dumps are not "residue stockpiles" or "residue deposits" for purposes of the MPRDA. Ownership of tailings dumps is determined by the common law principles of accession. Ownership of a movable dump has to be transferred by one of the recognised forms of delivery of movables. Processing of these dumps will, however, still be subject to compliance with South African environmental, health and safety laws in general. It is submitted that mine dumps or tailings dumps created upon the exercise of "old order mining rights" before the commencement of the MPRDA and even after commencement of the MPRDA until eventual termination of the "old order mining rights" are not subject to the extensive, mining, environmental, empowerment provisions of the MPRDA. Termination of "old order mining rights" takes place upon: (i) refusal of an application for conversion of a mining right during (or even after) the period of transition, (ii) conversion into and registration of new order mining rights during (or even after) the period of transition or (iii) termination of unconverted "old order mining rights" on 30 April 2009. To the extent that this decision has made it possible to embark on a shorter and less cumbersome route in the reprocessing and eventual disappearance of most tailings dumps, it is to be welcomed from an economical, environmental, job creation and aesthetic perspective. Proposed amendments to the MPRDA to undo the impact of the De Beers decision should be carefully considered against these mentioned benefits and a possible finding that it may amount to an expropriation without compensation.

The right to convert exploration licences to mining leases in Australia: a proposed national uniform model

In this article, the authors raise an important proposal for reform to Australia's mining legislation: a nationally-consistent model providing exploration licence holders with a legislative right to be granted a mining lease. This proposed national model will be designed to reflect the present Western Australian system - Western Australia being the only jurisdiction to provide exploration licence holders with the express right to be granted a mining lease on application. The authors believe that the Western Australian system should provide the basis for a national legislative model, given that it is designed to balance appropriately the interests of companies wanting a right to mine to recoup the costs involved in exploring for minerals, and the interests of the public in ensuring that exploration and mining is conducted
reasonably.

"I will start treatment when I think the time is right":HIV-positive gay men talk about their decision not to access antiretroviral therapy.

In a qualitative study, 20 HIV-infected Australian gay men were interviewed about their decision not to access antiretroviral drug therapy. The main reasons given for the decision were fear of side effects; fear of long-term damage to body organs; the inconvenience of the treatment regimens; belief that the regimen's demands would be a threat to morale; and belief that there was no reason to start therapy in the absence of AIDS-related symptoms. Actions taken by the men to monitor and maintain their health included seeing a doctor regularly; having regular T-cell and viral load tests; and trying to maintain a positive outlook by not letting HIV/AIDS 'take over' their lives. Almost half the men considered they had been subjected to unreasonable pressure to access therapy and there was considerable pride at having resisted this pressure. The findings suggest that the men disagreed with the biomedical model for managing HIV/AIDS only on the question of if and when to access therapy. They also suggest that underlying the men's dissent from the biomedical model was a different mode of thinking than is required by the model: while the model demands thinking that is abstract, the men focused strongly on factors close to the 'here and now' of immediate experience. The practical implications of the findings are explored.

An agent-based hybrid framework for database mining

While knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) is defined as an iterative sequence of the following steps: data pre-processing, data mining, and post data mining, a significant amount of research in data mining has been done, resulting in a variety of algorithms and techniques for each step. However, a single data-mining technique has not been proven appropriate for every domain and data set. Instead, several techniques may need to be integrated into hybrid systems and used cooperatively during a particular data-mining operation. That is, hybrid solutions are crucial for the success of data mining. This paper presents a hybrid framework for identifying patterns from databases or multi-databases. The framework integrates these techniques for mining tasks from an agent point of view. Based on the experiments conducted, putting different KDD techniques together into the agent-based architecture enables them to be used cooperatively when needed. The proposed framework provides a highly flexible and robust data-mining platform and the resulting systems demonstrate emergent behaviors although it does not improve the performance of individual KDD techniques.

Expanding criminal sanctions for corporate crimes-deprivation of right to work and cancellation of education qualifications

Fines are the standard sanctions employed by most Western countries when a corporation has been convicted of a crime. However, some offences committed by corporations are too serious to be dealt with by way of a fine. There is a need to consider other sanctions that can be invoked in order to deter corporate crime. In this article, it is suggested that the focus should be on criminal sanctions against the natural persons who can potentially commit crimes on behalf of a corporation. New sentencing options against those who can potentially commit crimes on behalf of a corporation should include the annulment or suspension of an offender's academic  qualifications and the making of orders preventing an offender from working or being enrolled in an educational or vocational pursuit.

The right to privacy and corporations

Traditionally the right of privacy has not been recognised at common law. However, recently the High Court has indicated that it may be willing to develop a new tort of invasion of privacy. Several of the justices have stated that the new action would only relate to natural persons, not corporations. This is because the principles said to underpin the right to privacy, autonomy and dignity, are supposedly inapposite to corporations. This article argues that this reasoning is flawed. Neither the right to autonomy nor dignity is capable of underpinning the right to privacy. Hence, no sustainable basis has so far been advanced for restricting the availability of any future tort of invasion of privacy to individuals. This article also questions whether a separate tort is needed in view of the protection already provided to the privacy interests of individuals and corporations under the equitable doctrine of confidence.

RE Kevin and the right of transsexual persons to marry in Australia

This article considers the decision of the Family Court of Australia in Re Kevin (Validity of Marriage of a Transsexual) [2001] FamCA 1074, which was upheld by the Full Court of the Family Court of Australia in February 2003. Re Kevin was the first case in Australia to deal directly with the question of whether a transsexual person could marry under Australian law. In the past, Australia had adhered to the judgement of Ormrod J in Corbett v Corbett [1971] P. 83, which set the benchmark for what is ‘male’ and what is ‘female’ under the common law. Prior to Re Kevin the question of what is a man and what is a woman for the purposes of marriage in Australia mirrored the strict biological test established in Corbett. In other words, the Australian courts relied upon biological factors, as espoused by Ormrod J, when determining a person's true sex. In Re Kevin, Chisholm J examined in detail what it is to be a man or woman, but unlike Ormrod J considered ‘brain sex’ to have a significant impact on a person's view of their own innate sexual identity. The Full Court of the Family Court agreed with the powerful and well-reasoned judgement of Chisholm J at first instance.

Analyzing security protocols using association rule mining

Current studies to analyzing security protocols using formal methods require users to predefine authentication goals. Besides, they are unable to discover potential correlations between secure messages. This research attempts to analyze security protocols using data mining. This is done by extending the idea of association rule mining and converting the verification of protocols into computing the frequency and confidence of inconsistent secure messages. It provides a novel and efficient way to analyze security protocols and find out potential correlations between secure messages. The conducted experiments demonstrate our approaches.