Isolated North Korea is desperate to earn some hard currency and look for rare earths in its borders with China.

Medusa Mining Ltd advised the annual update of the JORC compliant ore reserve estimate for the Co-O Mine in the Philippines now stands at a probable reserve of 502,000 ozs contained in 1.5 million tonnes at 10.1 gpt Au.

Robert L. Card, President of Gulfside Minerals Ltd. ("Gulfside" or the "Company"), is pleased to report that the Company has acquired, subject to TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") approval, an option to acquire three iron ore projects. The first project is comprised of 49 mineral claims located near Port Snettisham about 30 miles southeast of Juneau, Alaska. This project is a titaniferous magnetite deposit on the Snettisham Peninsula which has been intermittently explored since 1969.

Mining giant BHP Billiton has defended as "effective" its strict office etiquette policy, which bans workers from eating pungent food, throwing jackets on their chairs or leaving Post-it notes on their monitors or keyboards after hours. The company outlined its "Office Environment Standard" in a memo emailed to employees in Brisbane this month.

US coal exports increased 35% to 53.6 million short tons through June 2011, according to a recent edition of NMA’s (National Mining Association) International Coal Review. Strong demand from Asia and Europe for steam and metallurgical coal is expected to push coal exports above 100 million tons by the year’s end, the highest level in nearly 20 years. NMA’s economic forecast prepared in May predicted 2011 coal exports would reach 101.5 million tons (up 24%).

Sensidyne, LP, a leading manufacturer and supplier of industrial health and safety equipment, releases the CDEM-1000 for sale. The Sensidyne CDEM-1000 Coal Dust Explosibility Meter is a portable, handheld, easy-to-use instrument, designed to provide a direct indication of the potential explosibility of a coal and rock dust mixture in accordance with Title 30, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 75.403.

Following extensive research, Cordner Aviation Group (CAG) has announced it will enter the growing worldwide mining, exploration and energy market sectors, offering aircraft with conversions based on proven Bae 146 and Avro RJ platforms. These are purpose-outfitted for the mining industry’s unique requirements. According to Stewart Cordner, the company’s president, “You might say we found a golden opportunity in this often overlooked market and the initial reactions to the Surveyor and our range of design concepts–resulting from many candid conversations with prospects in the mining industry–have been totally positive.”

WA's resources sector has been issued an SOS from the nation's steel and manufacturing industries to ramp up investment in Australian products to prevent thousands of more jobs going offshore.

Ivanhoe Mines (TSE:IVN,NYSE:IVN,NASDAW:IVN) announced an update to the production potential of its Oyu Tolgoi project.