Nickel

A new survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit finds when institutional investors interested in frontier markets were asked to choose two regions out of five, two-thirds see Africa – projected to be the fastest growing region on the planet this year – as holding the greatest opportunity.

A United Steelworkers investigation says Vale's Stobie nickel mine fatalities could have been avoided and has called on the Ontario Government to bring criminal charges against the company.

As Canadian exports of iron ore and uranium to China continue to increase dramatically, Beijing will benefit from higher-quality ore and diversification of supply sources, predicts economist Patricia Mohr in the latest Scotiabank’s Commodity Price Index.

Thousands of protesters have been converging on Lynas Corporation's new rare earths processing facility in Malaysia according to reports. The Australian producer's website was also hacked over the weekend.

Molycorp, the company in the process of expanding and modernizing a mine and processing plant closed down in 2002, this week announced the sequential start-up of its Project Phoenix rare earth manufacturing facility.

Baja Mining is fighting attempts by Mount Kellett, a $6 billion asset manager, to stack the miner's board with its own nominees. Baja is accusing Mount Kellett of a takeover by stealth while MK says Baja is a web of conflicts.

Mining and processing rare earths is a tricky business. Processing the materials is costly, and the supply of the 17 elements used in manufacturing everything from smart phones to electric cars and missile guidance systems is pretty much sewn up by China, which has 95% of the production.

Malaysian residents opposed to a rare earths processing facility have launched a legal challenged that threatens to delay the project put forward by Australia's Lynas Corp.

Nearly 13.7 billion years ago, the universe was made of only hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium — byproducts of the Big Bang. Some 300 million years later, the very first stars emerged, creating additional chemical elements throughout the universe. Since then, giant stellar explosions, or supernovas, have given rise to carbon, oxygen, iron and the rest of the 94 naturally occurring elements of the periodic table.