MINING.COM Staff Writer

BIV reports: Vancouver’s Goldsource Mines (TSX-V:GXS) has proposed a merger with a coal gasification company to kick-start shareholder value in its Border Coal project.

The Hindustan Times reports India's new mining bill will empower state governments to hand out leases, take up prospecting and exploration activities before mines and call for bids for commercial utilisation of mineral deposits such as coal and iron ore. The Group of Ministers, which vetted the draft Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill 2011 a fortnight ago, has given its nod for authorising and incentivising state governments take up "prospecting and exploration, so that adequately prospected ore bodies can be put on bid."

Russia will seek to secure a priority right for the explored ocean minefields in the Atlantic says Polar Marine Geological Prospecting Expedition Vladimir Kryukov following the first stage of ore deposit exploration on the Atlantic Ocean floor. The Russian research vessel The Professor Logachev is engaged in exploring copper, zinc, gold and silver deposits in the area of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at about 13 degrees north latitude. Over the last seven years, Russian marine geologists have made a number of discoveries and is now seeking to legally execute its right of exploring them through the United Nations.

The Australian reports China-backed Citic Pacific's $US5.2 billion West Australian iron ore project has been hit with a $US900 million budget blowout in another sign of growing costs in the booming resource state. The cost increase is the second for Sino Iron – the largest magnetite iron ore project under development globally – whose first production target has been pushed back again.