Gold

A meeting of top South African mining stakeholders is to take place in Midrand involving mining companies, trade unions and government with the intention of finding a consensual way forward for the country's key mining industry.

"Space is big. Really Big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely, mind-bogglingly big," as the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy once noted. About the only thing nearly as big, it seems safe to say, are today's hopes of making money exploring space.

Australia’s decision to grant first ever right to hire foreign workers at the Roy Hill project in the Pilbara on Friday has sparked heated critics by local unions and the mining community.

Lake Shore Gold Corp.(TSX:LSG)(NYSE MKT:LSG) ("Lake Shore Gold" or the "Company") today announced that the Company has commenced safety, ventilation and maintenance checks at its Timmins West Mineas of 7:00 pm on Sunday, May 27, 2012, with full production at the mine to resume tomorrow morning (Monday, May 28, 2012) at 7:00 am.

Smaller miners are waiting for production cutbacks by the market leaders to prop up prices the way Saudi-Arabia comes to the rescue of oil producing nations whenever the crude price begins to flag.

Gold faces a crucial test in the coming holiday-shortened week with crucial US jobs numbers out on Friday and the ongoing Eurozone crisis making or breaking the yellow metal's assault on $1,600 and higher.

Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting which is hiring 1,700 foreign workers for the Roy Hill iron mine were absent from the Australian mining association job fair in Perth and so were the $9.8 billion project's main contractors.

Bloomberg has a devastating in-depth report on the impact of gold mining in a small town in Colombia called Segovia where "almost 100 shops refine the gold that prospectors bring down from the foothills of the Andes Mountains"

Gold traders did some value hunting ahead of the long weekend, sending the yellow metal to a two-day winning streak ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.