Australia's northern Queensland state plans to challenge the federal government's mining tax in the High Court, saying the tax unfairly discriminates against the resource-rich state, The Australian newspaper reported on Monday.

The Australian Financial Review reports instructions for "nibble food" consumption and the display of work-related awards feature among "a bewildering array of dos and don'ts" for 3,000 BHP Billiton office workers who are moving into the miner's new Perth headquarters.

Peru's President Ollanta Humala declared a state of emergency and has now enlisted the help of the clergy after deadly clashes but the violence shows no signs of letting up.

Sunday's Financial Times asks the question: Has the age of “peak steel” – in which world steel annual output and demand reaches a plateau at about its current level of 1.5bn-1.6bn tonnes – finally arrived?

As Papua New Guinea's sometimes shambolic elections drag on into a third week, already nervous miners with projects in the country would not have been encouraged by news of another miner falling foul of the country's authorities.

Hong Kong's Honbridge Holdings plans to build a 420 kilometre pipeline to move iron-ore from Brazil's Minas Gerais state to the coast in stead of building a railway line for its new $3.6 billion – $4.2 billion mine.

Oxford University researchers looking for more efficient and cheaper ways to manufacture solar panels have found a possible solution in lowly base metal zinc.

Colombian coal workers voted on Saturday to strike over pay and working conditions at the 3-million-tonne-per-year La Jagua mine of Glencore's Prodeco unit, a union said. Colombia is the world's fourth-largest coal exporter and Glencore's La Jagua - one of the mining concessions it owns in the nation - has some of the country's highest quality coal.

The BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance, or BMA, and coal worker unions agreed to framework July 6 that would end an 18-month dispute and potentially keep fourth-quarter benchmark metallurgical coal prices from soaring.