The rising cost of socially responsible investing: Mark Gilbert

"Resources groups and the bankers who promote them merit close scrutiny since minerals have been linked in the past with financial scandals and market manipulation, from the nickel bubble that captivated the City in the 1960s and ended in the Poseidon crash, to the Hunt brothers’ cornering of the silver market in 1980."

Zimbabwe's Black Empowerment Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, announced today it has taken majority ownership of foreign-owned mining firms, which had not already given a controlling stake to black Zimbabweans.

The South African government has ok'd a $443-million platinum mine located north of Rustenburg.

Could Sierra Leone, the African nation whose decade-long civil war funded by booty from diamond mines bore the term "blood diamonds," be going legit. when it comes to the mining of diamonds?

Tanzania-focused Shanta Gold is planning to raise $35 million to be put towards its New Luika Gold Mine.

The relocation of the mining giant's sales and marketing arm's headquarters to the Botswana capital could lead to around $6 billion flowing though the country’s banking system, compared to the $2 billion or so the country earns from rough sales at the moment.

London-listed African Barrick Gold (LON:ABG) reported increasing confidence in its Nyanzaga project, in Tanzania and said that the project has the potential to become its next mine in the country.

With experts saying zinc could be in deficit by 2017 if not earlier, miners from Australia to Africa to the European Union are racing against time to attract investment in new projects.

Tuareg rebels aided by Islamists ransacked bars, banned Western-style dress and music and called for the imposition of Sharia law.