The Kentucky Coal Academy and Workforce Solutions of Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College are offering a free eight-week coal mining course in Cumberland, Kentucky, for miners to improve their skills, reports Kentucky.com. "It provides state-of-the-art training at no cost to the participant," [director of the Kentucky Coal Academy Murrel] Dixon said. "It should be of particular interest now because of current mine lay-offs. This is a good time for coal miners to come out, undergo quality technical training that will not only make them efficient in the mining industry, but in other areas."

The Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines (ZCM) President, Winston Chitando, says that Zimbabwe needs more women enrolling in mine training to balance the currently male-dominated industry, reports The Zimbabwean.

The Zimbabwe School of Mines says it is also making efforts to mainstream women in mining through trained-based affirmative action. "In particular, the institute has opened traditionally male-dominated technical careers such as mining engineering, geology and mineral processing to women with the aim to increase their participation in the mining sector," a senior official said.

On Thursday, the vice-chancellor of Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique announced three new courses on mining and oil exploration, and several new Master's programs, reports Club of Mozambique.

Vice-chancellor Orlando Quilambo said that Eduardo Mondlane University would this year teach courses in Cartography and Geological Surveying, Applied Geology, and Oil Engineering. “We signed a deal with an oil exploration company for joint training of around 200 students in this area by 2015,” Quilambo explained.

Mining companies in Peru invested US$7.2 billion in 2011, 77% more than in 2010, Mines and Energy Ministry (MEM) reports.

Canada’s Gabriel Resources Ltd. (TSX:GBU) became the centre of attention this morning as an important figure of Romania's 1989 revolution, MEP Laszlo Tokes, left his party on Monday over Rosia Montana, a debated gold mine project in north-western Romania.

The government of Botswana has established a new diamond trading company that will be responsible for the purchasing, selling and marketing of the state’s portion of Debswana Diamond’s production.

The Nunatsiavut Government of Labrador, a regional Inuit government formed in 2005, has officially lifted a three-year-old moratorium on uranium mining on Inuit lands, by enacting its Environmental Protection Act and an amendment to the Labrador Inuit Lands Act, said the body.

Indonesia surprised the global mining community last week after a new rule – Government Regulation No. 24 of 2012 – was quietly announced on the mining ministry's website. A growing list of nations – and not just radical fringe territories such as Zimbabwe or Venezuela – are pushing for greater control and ownership of the resource sector on top of higher taxes and royalties.

lberta's oilsands producers are used to thinking big, and their plans to clean up the mess their mines leave behind are fully in line with the outsized trucks that prowl their pits and the outsized budgets that keep them growing.