Private capital rotating into mining and metals

The very survival of Britain?s coal mining industry depends on the success of a massive restructuring of UK Coal, which is to be announced in the next fortnight.

China, the world's biggest consumer of coal, said that the gross domestic product came in at 8.1% in the first quarter, the lowest figure in three years.

The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) resumed today an ad campaign initially launched in July last year, attacking alleged hikes on the federal government's mining and carbon taxes.

The Chinese economy is likely to land softly, rather than with a jolt, with growth forecast at 8.2% this year and 8.6% in 2013, according to The World Bank.

David Suzuki Foundation says Quebec, Ontario and B.C are "Very Good" regarding climate initiatives while Alberta and Saskatchewan rank as "Worst".

Indonesia wants to have its mining cake and eat it too, as the country, one of the world's largest exporters of copper and coal, will speed up a tax on mining exports, the industry minister Mohamad S. Hidayat told Reuters today.

While gold's primary use these days is a hedge against Europe going belly up or paper currency becoming debased, researchers at MIT found that a little gold added to copper can also act as a strong catalyst and convert carbon dioxide into methane or methanol.

Overall, only the stock indices of Spain and Portugal's top companies fared worse than Toronto's S&P/TSX-60. But in the group of resource-heavy exporting countries Canada's stock market came in stone last.

March 2012 broke all the hot weather records in the USA. It was the warmest month in the eastern two-thirds of the USA since records, going back to 1895, were kept.