Real estate magnate Lev Leviev has sold his 18% stake in Angola's Catoca diamond mine to China's Sonangol International for $400 million, Russia's "Kommersant" newspaper reports. Leviev acquired the stake in the Angola mine in the 1990s for $20m. Russia's state owned diamond producer Alrosa holds 32.8% of Catoca. Last week Alrosa provided a rare glimpse into its finances and operations ahead of a possible public offering. The state-owned company supplies about a quarter of the world’s diamonds and in 2010 produced more of the precious stones than De Beers, historically the dominant miner and marketer of the gems.

Dr. Blade Nzimande, South African Minister of Higher Education and Training gave a budget speech on May 26th outlining changes to higher education, specifically in mining.

The over-arching vision we are developing is that of an expanded, effective, coherent, integrated, differentiated, but highly articulated post-school system and responsive, comprising all the institutional types falling under our department: universities, colleges, adult education centres and the levy-grant institutions (the SETAs and the NSF) as well as the various regulatory and advisory institutions.

The Underground Miner Training program, provided under the Matachewan Aboriginal Access to Mine Jobs Training Strategy (MAATS), has produced its second group of graduates, ready to start work in the mining sector.

The six new graduates will now move on to employment positions under Northgate Minerals Corp. and Dumas Contracting at the Young Davidson mine site in Matachewan. "On behalf of myself and my fellow graduates I would like to thank Matachewan First Nation, Northgate and Dumas for the valuable training and employment opportunities we have received," said graduate David Batisse.

Top coal consumer China should see import demand more than double in the next four years and India will be close behind as both hoover up supplies on international markets to feed rapidly growing power industries, industry executives said on Monday. China's thermal coal imports could rise to 200 million tonnes in 2015 from around 90 million tonnes in 2011, Neil Dhar, executive vice president of trading house Noble Group, told the Coaltrans Asia conference.

Engineering work has begun at a coal-fired power station on the banks of the Thames in England, UK that could turn it into the world's largest biomass plant with almost no carbon emissions. The owner of the Tilbury power station, previously scheduled for shut down in 2015 under new EU environmental regulations, says it hopes to produce up to 750 megawatts of green power by winter. Last week it was reported that the approval of new rules for air pollution, water pollution, and waste disposal in the US could result in the retirement of between 35 and 70 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power generation throughout that country.

Capstone Mining announced the result of a National Instrument 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate for the Wildfire/Copper Keel area at the Minto Mine in Yukon, Canada. Wildfire/Copper Keel is now recognized as a southeastwardly extension of the Area 2/118 deposit which is currently being pre-stripped in preparation for mining. The combined Area 2/118/Copper Keel/Wildfire mineral resources are now recognized as a single mineral deposit and will be referred to as the Minto South Deposit ("MSD"). The Copper Keel region of this larger deposit model is still open and exploration drilling is currently in progress with two drills. Image of Minto mine from Capstone Mining.

Japan dispelled fears among many diamond traders that after the earthquake and following tsunami that hit the country on March 11, it will lose its taste for diamonds. In April, Japan imported $95.7 million worth of polished diamonds, increasing by 80.1% year over year, and by 56.8% from March. The increase in imports proved once again, as predicted, that when a country is hard hit, it express its feelings more openly, often with diamonds. This was the case in after the September 11 terrorist attacks, and again in the recent sub-prime economic crisis.

Arjav Diamonds, part of the DTC Sightholding group Blue Star Diamonds, has launched an online auction for rough diamonds, out of the Indian diamond-processing city of Surat. Blue Star chairman Ashit Mehta told IDEX Online that the auction consisted of 60 lots of large stones. "All the goods on auction are above 4.80 carats," Mehta said, adding, "Prices range from $1,500 p/c all the way up to $25,000 p/c, with an average price for the entire auction of $3,000 p/c."

Botswana exported $462.5 million worth of polished diamonds in March, a 50.7% year-over-year increase in exports, based on figures released by the Bank of Botswana. This brings the country’s first quarter diamond exports to $1.019 billion, the highest value ever in the first quarter. The exceptional level of exports, which include rough and polished diamonds, gained 34% over the first quarter of 2010 and is 0.2% above exports in the first quarter of 2008.