Asia Gold-Higher prices keep buyers at bay; India discounts at 6-1/2-month high

Gold dropped more than $57 or 3.4% an ounce in early afternoon trade while ever volatile silver tanked more than 6%. Platinum crashed through the $1,600 an ounce level and palladium fell almost 4%.

Indonesia's proposed tax on mining exports is having a ripple effect on Indian power companies that buy fuel for coal-fired power plants.

Over $3 billion and near 15,000 job positions. That is the cost to Honduras, the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, as a result of a lack of rules for mining companies operating or wishing to explore in the country.

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - April 3, 2012) - Lake Shore Gold Corp. (TSX:LSG)(NYSE Amex:LSG) Lake Shore Gold Corp. ("Lake Shore Gold" or the "Company") today held a brief press conference to respond to enquiries from the media, and Dan Gagnon, Senior Vice-President of Operations, issued the following statement:

Ecometals Limited (the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:EC)(BERLIN:GDQ)(FRANKFURT:GDQ) - The Company is pleased to announce that it has received the Environmental License from the Ministry of the Environment for advanced exploration for its Rio Zarza project in Zamora, Ecuador. The Environmental License encompasses the Rio Zarza and Valle del Inca I licenses and authorizes advanced exploration activities as per the Company's Environmental Impact Study which includes, but is not limited to, diamond drilling.

President Ollanta Humala’s administration wants the the South American nation's highest court to throw out an ordinance by the region of Cajamarca banning work on the $4.8 billion copper-gold project.

Contract gold dropped almost $40 an ounce in a matter of minutes in lunchtime trade after comments from the US Federal Reserve that seemed to preclude any chance of another round of monetary easing.

Operations at Barrick's Porgera open pit gold mine, in Papua New Guinea, resumed this morning after the government decided to send troops to the site last week, under a troop call-out order from 2009 still in effect.

London-listed African Barrick Gold (LON:ABG) reported increasing confidence in its Nyanzaga project, in Tanzania and said that the project has the potential to become its next mine in the country.