Undersea mining’s bizarre origins – a CIA cold war plot

As attractive deposits become harder and harder to find in traditional markets miners are pushing the limits of the political risk they are willing to take on. But things can go spectacularly wrong.

Quadra FNX Mining (TSX:QUX) has updated the resource at its Victoria Mine in Ontario, Canada.

The Summit mine in southwest New Mexico is ramping up to commercial production this month.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX), which operates the world's largest gold and copper mine in Papua, Indonesia, said that its 4Q net income tumbled to $640 million or 67 cents per share compared with net income of $1.5 billion or $1.63 per share a year ago.

GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has called for the creation of a Gold Commission "to look at the concept of how we get back to hard money."

The Globe & Mail reports Ivanhoe Mines, building Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi, will scrap a controversial “poison pill” that clears the way for Rio Tinto, which already owns 49% of the Vancouver-based company, to do a complete takeover. The shareholder provision would have triggered an automatic rights offer estimated at $73 billion.

CB Gold was up 4.24% to $1.23 a share on Wednesday after announcing drilling results at its Vetas Gold project in Colombia.

Gold Reach Resources (CVE:GRV) enjoyed a 15% lift in its stock price today on news that it has quadrupled its resource estimate at the company's Ootsa Lake property in British Columbia, about 120 kilometres south of Smithers.

Kinross Gold (K.TO) erased 19.46% of its value, with shares dropping to $10.65 a share on Tuesday, after it disclosed that it will take ". . . a material non-cash accounting charge, primarily relating to the goodwill recorded for the Tasiast mine in connection with the 2010 Red Back acquisition."