Gold Fever Kills Villagers in Nigeria (GLD, GOLD)

With the price of gold on the rise, one Nigerian village faces tragedy as lead dust is discovered by the gold miners in the village. As villagers raced to grind gold-bearing rocks with grain grinders, they unknowingly spread lead dust across the ground and washed the dust in public wells sparking one of the world's worst lead poising crises. A minimum of 284 children under the age of five have perished from the lead poisoning in eight villages in Nigeria and an additional 742 are being treated for high levels of lead in their blood. Today the current price of gold is $1,385.50 per ounce. Investors can easily buy and sell short gold through the SPDR Gold ETF GLD. Since the price of gold has recently seen a significant rally, parts of Africa tend to succumb to gold fever during times like these, such as the Sunke village in Nigeria. Considering there is no large scale gold mining operation in Nigeria today, many “mom and pop” operations have emerged, sometimes (and unfortunately) triggering large scale tragedies such as this one. Randgold Resources Ltd. GOLD is one of the publically traded companies whose activities are focused on West and Central Africa. Randgold Resources seems to be affected by this tragedy. As of today, Randgold Resources is trading down from yesterday's close of 87.17, and now at 84.69 which is 2.62% lower than yesterday's close.