A Canadian company operating a silver mine in Mexico says it is not in any way linked to the recent murder of an anti-mining activist as alleged by human rights activists.

The closures and the dearth of new builds are as much a function of new environmental impact laws as it is of the US gas boom, which has sent natural gas prices to decade lows.

An expedition to uncover £500 million of missing artwork looted by the Nazis during the Second World War has been launched in Germany.

Why? For mining the stuff for making China.

Tailings are materials produced from mining such as milled rock and effluents. In many cases, massive quantities of these materials, regarded as waste, are left from previous operations. Given the potential health and environmental risks associated with tailings, they could be viewed as problems or project deterrents, but then again, they could be viewed as a source of cash.

Infographics design firm Visual Capitalist has constructed a very interesting infographic on the Canadian oil boom. Thanks mostly to the northern Alberta oilsands, the amount of crude oil underneath Canadian soil or waters has gushed from a mere 7 billion barrels a decade ago to an astonishing 175 billion barrels. The only countries with more crude oil than Canada are Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

Canada's government will disclose new guidelines this week to reduce the time it takes for environmental reviews of major energy and industrial projects, in a move that Reuters qualifies as an attempt set to help the oil industry.

Centerra Gold said labour strikes last month worsened the extent of the ice and waste flows and that it now can't access the high grade zone at its massive mine in Kyrgyzstan.

"With over 5 billion pounds of copper estimated at the indicated level and another 3.5 billion pounds estimated at the inferred level, Ann Mason should now be recognized as a significant deposit in one of the best mining jurisdictions in the world."