Xstrata Coal confirmed Monday it has cut a number of jobs from its coal mining operations in Australia, due to sinking prices for both coking and certain kinds of thermal coal.

Okavango Diamond Company (ODC), the new diamond trading enterprise owned by the Botswana government, today (Monday) announced its interim board with Toby Frears as its first managing director.

Coal India board is likely to approve on Monday the model fuel supply agreement (FSA) to be signed with power firms, with significant changes in the penalty clause for failing to supply to them a minimum 80 per cent quantity of the total fuel contract.

Coal chief executive Peter Freyberg has called the bottom of the thermal coal market, telling investors last week ''we are seeing recovery in the markets''.

Zijin Mining Group Co, China's largest gold producer by output, said Saturday that its net profits slumped 19.95 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2012 as the world's economic weakness and shrinking demand weighed on global gold prices.

South Africa’s third wealthiest man and mining entrepreneur, billionaire Christoffel Wiese, it is said to owe the country’s revenue agency (Sars) an estimated $250 million (R$2 billion) in unpaid taxes.

Weeks after Quebec’s ruling Liberal party re-launched the province's asbestos industry with a $58-million loan to the Jeffrey mine, opposition leaders are calling the federal government to end what they call a "morally and scientifically indefensible" product.

Environmentalists and the local community of central Victoria, Australia, are angry at the Department of Primary Industries for allowing Queensland-based company Fortitude Mining to go ahead with its gold exploration plans in the Wombat State Forest.

One of the most fascinating aspects when watching a sporting event like the Olympics is the historical statistics highlighting the tremendous advances in athleticism over the years. In the spirit of the events this summer, BTN Research compared gold’s advancement from the beginning of the games in Beijing to the London Olympics.