This is no surprise to anyone… Not even the other parties who were really fighting for second place.

Jacob Zuma, the scandalized president of the African National Congress, will be the next president of South Africa. The ANC itself has won its two-thirds majority, and the count keeps rising. Zuma predicts the party will win 70% of the seats in Parliament.

That’s more than enough to be able to change the constitution.

The ANC is ahead in eight of the nine provinces. It might lose the Western Cape, were Cape Town is located, and is the stronghold of the Democratic Alliance party that won about 16% of the vote.

COPE, the ANC branch-off party that split over the treatment of Thabo Mbeki, won just under 8% of the vote.

Now the ANC is celebrating, dancing on stages and waiting for May when the new Parliament and president take power.

Then it’ll be on to the real task of governing and fulfilling of campaign promises. There’s a lot of work to do… The country’s still staring at soaring poverty and unemployment levels, and the poor are counting on Zuma to make good on his promises.

About a month ago, I told you all here that Rio Tinto (RTP:NYSE) was in dire straits… But that was only half the story. The rest I told to the exclusive membership of Taipan Insider. Now, as the mining industry continues to make the news, particularly with China Investment Corp,’s (CIC) announcement that it will focus on natural resource investments - rather than make more investments in the failing sectors of finance and real estate - I want to share the rest with you, because it will lead us up to the current situation.

So here’s your exclusive peek at Taipan Insider…

BHP Billiton (BHP:NYSE) is a leading miner in nearly every metal and mineral in the world, with global operations stretching from Mozambique to Peru… Just look at these statistics:

• 3rd largest copper producer
• 6th largest aluminum producer
• 3rd largest nickel producer
• 4th largest gold producer
• 2nd largest uranium producer
• 2nd largest zinc producer
• 4th largest coal producer

That’s a pretty stacked resume…

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It’s been announced that Israel is in the process of accepting terms for a truce, and has called a halt to its Gaza operations.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the Tel Aviv stock exchange has had its first down day in seven days. Does this mean that the TASE likes war? Come on! Look at what’s going on in the rest of the world:

Germany: down 1.77%
France: down 1.48%
London: down 2.83%
DJIA: down 2.75% (as I write)

And other markets in Latin America are really slumping today.

What does this mean? It means that war, or lack thereof, is not affecting Israel’s stock market. In other words, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Big job losses here in the States sent markets spinning today, and not just here in the U.S. This news sent oil dropping, which affected a number of exporting markets, like Norway and Nigeria. It sent metals, both base and precious dropping, too (the exception being platinium), which is a bit unusual. That affects producing countries like Chile and Peru.

It means that investors are going to have to look long and hard at the countries and companies they want to invest in, not just play the news and major events.