Frik Els , Editor

The Calgary Herald reports the debate over a controversial BC pipeline and port project to ship Alberta crude oil to Asian markets escalated recently with Canada's politicians and business leaders advancing new support for the initiative. Both federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives gave strong backing to the Northern Gateway Project with Oliver calling the pipeline in the national interest. Slowing demand in the US is also adding to pressure for a go-ahead on the pipeline that will stretch for more than 1,100km to a new port facility at Kitimat, northern BC and will cost $5.5 billion.

A new attention-grabbing website that attempts to draw a distinction between Alberta's oil sands and what it calls "conflict oil" extracted by undemocratic regimes may become a victim of its own success.

Gold futures surged as much as $45 in Tokyo trade on Monday to a record $1,697.70 an ounce on demand for an investment haven. The dollar slumped following Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the US long-term credit rating from AAA. Gold futures for December delivery was trading at $1,687, up $36 or 2,17% at 8:30 am Tokyo local time in electronic trading after reaching the all time high.

Dow Jones reports resource nationalism is the top business risk for the top 30 global miners, while supply capacity constraints ranging from skills shortage to infrastructure bottlenecks continue to dominate the top ten list, according to an annual survey by consultants Ernst & Young. Resource nationalism jumped to the top of the list this year from fourth in 2010 after 25 countries announced their intentions to increase their take of the mining industry's profits and others contemplate outright nationalization. Fraud, bribery and corruption sneaked onto the list of top concerns for the first time as a number of countries introduce or tighten rules for executives operating in countries that rank high on corruption indices.

TimesLive reports diamond giant De Beers plans to put hazardous waste - and up to 1,000 prisoners - into its disused property and diamond mines in the picturesque Namaqualand region (depicted), in the northwest of South Africa. The company, which also had to settle a two-week strike over wages on Thursday, said the projects were just two of several potential business ideas for the disused old mine areas and that the Department of Minerals have asked for further public consultation and an impact study. Last month De Beers concluded a deal with the state power utility Eskom to build a 150MW wind farm on a large stretch of coast north of Kleinzee, one of two towns that form part of the De Beers properties.

A small Quebec company says it has uncovered one of the world's most significant deposits of neodymium reports the Montreal Gazette. GeoMegA Resources believes its Montviel property about 500 kilometres northwest of Quebec City, has a huge potential for quick development thanks to the size of the deposit and closeness to infrastructure. Two other companies are active in the region with Commerce Resources announcing significant discoveries on Thursday following its winter drill program at its Eldor rare earth project (pictured) at what it says is ranked as one of the largest REE deposits outside of China. On Friday Vancouver-based Canada Rare Earths announced it acquired a 69.55 km2 rare earth property 350 kilometers south of Montviel adding to its assets adjacent to that of GeoMegA.

The price of gold zoomed to an all-time high of Rs24,770 per 10 grams by adding Rs420 in New Delhi, India on Saturday on frantic buying by stockists and investors. India is the world's number one consumer of gold and official figures released on Friday show the country's revenue from the importation of gold almost doubled in 2010-11 compared to the previous year. The news follows the announcement by the World Gold Council that it is teaming up with jewellers to sell discounted gold to price-conscious Indians during the all-important Shraavan Aavani month that culminates in a festival next Friday.

Sesa Goa, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, on Saturday said it will buy 51% stake in an iron ore making firm in Liberia for $90 million in an all-cash deal. Located in Western part of Liberia and spread over 270 sq km area, the company has an estimated reserve of over 1.05 billion tonnes iron ore. Vedanta's investment follows iron ore giant ArcelorMittal which after five years of ground work started operations at the country's Tokadeh mine earlier this year and is spending $800 million in the first phase of the project to rehabilitate the rail link and port. ArcelorMittal exported the first iron ore from Liberia after a 20 year hiatus on June 11 from the port of Buchanan.

Canadian Natural Resources announced this week it is poised to restart its Horizon plant seven months after it went up in flames and aims to spend over $2 billion to more than double its capacity. The Horizon outage led to a shortage of syncrude – a light oil manufactured from bitumen – which helped Alberta's producers attract a premium of $18 above benchmark US oil prices. That nice little earner will now likely melt away and follows a Reuters poll that showed a majority of analysts and oil traders expect the spread between US and international crude prices to surpass $30 in the next year.

The Navajo Nation's allegations that a coal mining company conspired with others to cheat the tribe out of as much as $600 million in royalties was settled in federal court on Thursday. The tribe sued what is now Peabody Energy in 1999. The terms of the agreement are confidential. The US Supreme Court ruled against the Navajo in a similar lawsuit filed against the federal government. Peabody has operated through a business partnership with the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe for more than 40 years in Northeastern Arizona.