Gold and silver fell on Thursday, as weak U.S. housing and manufacturing data and uncertainty about the end of the Federal Reserve's bond-buying program dragged down commodities across the board. Gold, which has fallen three out of the last four

Wayne Swan has threatened to blow a $2 billion hole in the Barnett Government's plan to lift royalty rates on iron ore miners, with every cent raised by the move likely to end up with other States and Territories.The Commonwealth Grants Commission has

Vulcan Minerals Inc. ("the Company")(TSX VENTURE:VUL) is pleased to announce its intention to undertake a corporate re-organization whereby the Company will spin-out certain of its mineral exploration assets into a separate publicly traded subsidiary company (NewCo). These assets consist of the mineral rights in the Bay St. George basin of western Newfoundland where the Company has discovered the Captain Cook potash deposit. The Captain Cook potash discovery was made with a core hole in 2002 and consists of a 5 meter gross interval grading up to 20.40% potassium oxide (K20) at a depth of 287 meters. It occurs in rocks which are geologically similar to those containing the Sussex potash mine in New Brunswick operated by the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. (Visit www.vulcanminerals.ca for further information.)

Allana Potash Corp. (TSX VENTURE:AAA) ("Allana" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has further extended the potential of its Dallol deposit with the completion of additional drilling and assay activity in areas beyond those included in the original resource estimate completed in 2008. This work is part of the upcoming update to Allana's National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") technical report. Drill hole DK-11-15 ("Hole 15") has intersected significant potash mineralization up to 52.40% KCl over 0.80 metres. Hole 15 intersected two strong zones of potash mineralization which appear to correlate with the Sylvinite Zone and Kainitite Zone.

Xstrata Mount Isa Mines has announced plans to sustain the future of its Mount Isa operations through expanded mining and concentrate production, while phasing out copper smelting at Mount Isa and refining operations in Townsville by the end of 2016. 

United Pipeline Systems, a division of Insituform Technologies, has been awarded an additional $10.5 million for the supply and installation of its Tite Liner® HDPE solution in pipelines at the Sino Iron Ore project in Western Australia. This contract expands the $10.9 millionproject for themine previously announced in January 2010.

Northland Resources (TSX: NAU) sees about twice as much cash flowing into its coffers once Kaunisvaara, its flagship iron-ore project in Sweden, reaches production in 2013. The projected boost in part stems from reconsideration of the price Northland's iron-ore pellets might command. "Northland has long been convinced that the market will highly value the high Fe-content (69%) and low levels of impurities (e.g. 1.1% SiO2 and 0.2% Al2O3) in its concentrate," the iron-ore junior noted in a press release.

On record cash flow La Mancha (TSX: LMA) doubled net earnings in its first quarter to C$7.5 million. La Mancha credited strong gold prices and production for the performance. In the first quarter last year La Mancha produced 21,654 ounces gold, but increased production at La Mancha's Hassai mine in Sudan and Frog's Leg mine in Australia pushed that number up by 50 percent to 32,426 ounces gold.

Hathor Exploration has released a new resource estimate that effectively doubles its uranium deposit in Saskatchewan's Athabasca Basin. The company said Tuesday it has identified over 30 million pounds of uranium oxide (inferred) at the East Zone of the property. That works out to 118,000 tonnes of U308 graded at 11.58%. According to the technical report, exploration consisted of a 21-hole drilling program, with about 368 sample intervals assayed for U308 and other metals, including arsenic, cobalt, copper, molybdenum, nickel and selenium. Image of mineralization in drill core, Far East Zone, by Hathor Exploration Limited