Stocks of Allana Potash Corp was trading slightly up at midday on Thursday after the company announced it had intersected strong potash mineralization in an area not previously drilled at its 160 square km Dallol project in Ethopia. Listed on the TSX-Venture exchange Allana's East Africa project has the backing of the World Bank and most of the assets there are still being quantified. The value of the company has doubled in 2011 and investors who bought the stock in July last year would have enjoyed a four-fold return.

Stocks in Labrador Iron Mines Holdings ended up 5% in Toronto on Thursday after reporting that on June 29, 2011 the first loaded iron ore train departed Silver Yards for the Port of Sept-Iles travelling over the TSH and QNS&L railways. This historic event is the first commercial iron ore train from the Schefferville area in almost 30 years. Labrador is developing twenty direct shipping iron ore deposits in western Labrador and north-eastern Quebec. LIM’s properties are part of the historic Schefferville area iron ore district where mining of adjacent deposits was previously carried out by the Iron Ore Company of Canada from 1954 to 1982.

Goliath Gold, a thinly traded African exploration company this week reported a deepening loss for the year to end-March as it pushes ahead with drilling programmes at its Johannesburg East Rand assets. Gold One spun out its deeper assets into Goliath, which was formerly White Water Resources, in a R262m ($35m) deal that will give Gold One 71% of the new company.

The New York Times reported on the statue in August 2009: Jesus Christ looms over Rio de Janeiro, a quartet of American […]

The Brazilian mining company Vale is to enter into a partnership with the Portuguese company SGC Energia to build an industrial unit to convert coal into liquid fuel in Moatize district, in the central Mozambican province of Tete. Vale estimates a liquefied fuel processing plant could produce 300 million litres of fuel a year, of which about half would be used by Vale in Mozambique. The rest would be sold on the domestic fuel market.

Western Potash Corp. announced on Tuesday that it has completed the purchase of a large parcel of surface lands,  advancing the development of the plant site facility for its Milestone potash solution mining project in southern Saskatchewan. The land acquisition program has now successfully secured over 2,550 acres at the Company’s preferred plant site location.  Securing the plant site location is an important aspect of the Milestone feasibility process as the environmental and regulatory approval processes and project schedules are dependent on it.

Dow Jones reports a Khazakhstan mining and metals group says it's forging ahead with plans to build a $2 billion iron ore mine in northeast Brazil despite major logistical and environmental obstacles, while speculation about a takeover-bid swirls. The Pedra de Ferro iron ore project is already four years behind schedule, and the company may miss the 2014 start-up date as it is still waiting for environmental licenses to build a port from which to ship the iron ore, and for Brazil's federal government to build a railroad.

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has promised to sell diamonds from his country's controversial Marange mine ''sanctions or no sanctions'', and the country that would be his biggest customer, India, is being urged by the industry there to buy Zimbabwe stones outside the international framework. The issue of Zimbabwe selling stones will dominate the agenda at a Kimberley Process - the international protocol designed to stem trade of conflict diamonds – meeting that begins Monday in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Australia's local governments have been warned the current mining boom is not big enough to carry the national economy. The Australian Local Government Association says its latest State of the Regions report indicates there is a risk that business confidence might evaporate in regions that depend on non-mining industries. The report, launched at the association's general assembly in Canberra on Sunday, acknowledges that mining makes up only about 20 per cent of the economy.

The Australian reports a mining safety specialist who quit New Zealand's fatal Pike River coal mine over concerns it was too dangerous will present crucial expert testimony to the royal commission into the disaster, which killed 29 men. Peter Sattler went public last week for the first time to claim Pike River lacked critical equipment required in Australian mines, which could have avoided the enormous methane explosion that ripped through the mine near Greymouth on November 19. The move comes as, for the first time since the blast, rescue experts prepare to enter the mine, in a step towards recovering bodies and recommissioning the operation.