A report handed to Australian Education and Training Minister Chris Evans warns that Australia will fail to capitalise on the mining boom unless it overhauls the national training system and improves workforce skill levels.

Under current arrangements, completion rates are appalling, training often poorly targeted, graduate skills under-used and skill shortages growing, the report says. Meanwhile, at least 1.5 million people are unemployed or under-employed and nearly half the population has poor language, literacy and numeracy skills.

South Africa's Harmony Gold (HARJ.J),the world's fifth-largest gold miner, sees the price of gold rising to $1,800 an ounce in 2012, its chief executive said on Thursday. The spot price of gold has been at record peaks, surpassing the $1,500 an ounce mark, and Chief Executive Graham Briggs said it could even go higher.

India-focused miner Vedanta Resources (VED.L) posted a 29 percent jump in full-year earnings per share, on the back of strong metal prices and a background of robust demand for commodities. Vedanta, with operations in India, Australia and Zambia, said on Thursday basic EPS came in at 283 cents.

Rio Tinto , the world's third-largest miner, expects global markets to remain fragile in the near term and sees itself in a strong position to weather any turbulence, its chairman said on Thursday. The company said that it expected little impact on demand for commodities following the earthquake and tsunami disasters in Japan, and said in the long run demand may increase as Japan moved to rebuild.

Minefinders Corporation Ltd. (TSX:MFL)(NYSE Amex:MFN) today announced updated gold and silver mineral reserves and resources for the Dolores Mine. Fiscal 2010 marked the first meaningful exploration drilling program at Dolores since the commencement of the development of the mine in 2006 and this is the first update of reserves and resources for Dolores since 2008.

Though the hurdles of government approval and project financing remain, Orocobre (ASX: ORE; TSX: ORL) released a strongly positive feasibility study of […]

Mexico massively ramped up its gold reserves in the first quarter of this year, buying over $4 billion of bullion as emerging economies move away from the ailing U.S. dollar, which has dipped to 2-1/2-year lows. The third biggest one-off purchase of gold by any country over the past decade took Mexico's reserves to 100.15 tonnes -- or 3.22 million ounces -- by the end of March from just 6.84 tonnes at the end of January, according to the International Monetary Fund and Mexico's central bank.

NioGold Mining Corporation (TSX-V: NOX) is pleased to report on the on-going exploration drilling program within the southern portion of company's wholly-owned Malartic Block property, located in the Malartic gold camp, Abitibi region of Quebec. The first three holes of the program intersected two important altered, veined and sulphide mineralised shear zones cutting sedimentary rocks.

IAMGOLD Corporation (TSX:IMG)(NYSE:IAG) today announced the results of an independently prepared NI 43-101 compliant preliminary economic assessment ("PEA") on the company's wholly-owned Niobec niobium mine in the province of Quebec, Canada. The PEA shows a significant increase in the measured, indicated and inferred mineral resource estimates at Niobec with the potential for a significant production expansion. The PEA examined the impact of changing the existing underground mine to an alternative bulk mining method. IAMGOLD technical personnel then compared the economics of the open pit scenario and a block caving scenario. The work done on the PEA and the study will be advanced in a 2011 pre-feasibility study to confirm the potential upside of Niobec.