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.

The Inuit Ataqatigiit party pledged its opposition to a large rare earth mining project, sending strong signals to international miners.

Critical metals and minerals are a tiny sliver of a sliver of global mining production.

Results could help decide the fate of vast deposits of rare earth metals which international companies want to exploit.