Gold Fields workers to strike over planned 1,100 job cuts at South Deep

Beaten up gold investor, John Paulson, is a significant Randgold investor who is getting pulled down by trouble in Mali.

London-listed diamond junior Botswana Diamonds (LON:BOD) forecasts a cheerful future for the diamond market, despite it sliding into the red in the six months to the end of December with a pre-tax loss of over US$327,000.

Chinese investors are turning their focus to emerging economies as they look to expand their demand for commodities and switching away from Australia and Canada, which are getting too expensive.

EU regulators are stepping up scrutiny of the mooted $90 billion merger of the commodities trader and coal giant and the whole vetting process could take until early 2013. That is if the deal goes ahead at all.

The Tata Group, India's largest conglomerate, is said to be investigating a joint venture with South African coal producer Increase Coal.

Randgold Resources (LON:RRS, NASDAQ:GOLD) shares fell close to 13% this morning after a military coup in Mali, where the company has three gold mines that account for most of its bullion production.

Mining company boss Steve Letwin was ecstatic when he struck a precedent-setting deal with the Canadian government to work together on a training project for African youth. “I think it’s the model of the future,” says the president of IAMGOLD Corp., the Toronto gold miner that operates the biggest mine in the West African country of Burkina Faso.

The drive by major ferro-chrome producers to get the South African government to impose a $100-per-tonne export tax on chrome ore is meeting resistance.

Recently, I read an article about how Congo born, Dikembe Mutombo, an all-star NBA defender, was nicely scammed in a fake gold deal.