He has also vowed to enforce environmental protection rules and secure Indigenous communities' participation in deciding the future of projects.

These bacteria, which spread out and form biofilms, are being tested at a former gold mine in South Dakota.

Leftist Andrés Arauz and right-wing Guillermo Lasso have both vowed to continue promoting the oil and mining sectors, but their approach would be quite different.

The binding agreement ends a standoff between the companies over the copper-gold mine expansion.

Despite gold's price slump, strong copper and iron ore prices lifted MINING.COM's ranking of the world's 50 most valuable miners to a new record high of $1.35 trillion.