Frik Els , Editor

“Chinese companies that are looking to invest in Canada do not want to become a Potash-like story themselves. Face and company reputation are important,” Peter Harder, president of the Canada-China Business Council told The Globe & Mail in an interview in Beijing this week as executives gathered for the council’s annual general meeting.

BusinessLive reports that while acid mine drainage from disused gold mines in the Johannesburg area of South Africa is well documented, according to a new study AMD from nearly 6,000 abandoned mines is acidifying rivers and streams, raising metals levels and killing fish. The study by World Wide Fund for Nature SA and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research showed that South Africa’s heavy dependence on coal for electricity had a “devastating” effect on the country’s water resources, particularly in light of the fact that only 12% of the country’s land area generated 50% of the country’s river flow. The most affected river was the Olifants which flows through the Kruger National Park in a region of the country where coal mining dates back to the 1890s.

Reuters reports schools and businesses were closed and Peruvian police fired tear gas on Friday to break up a protest at Newmont Mining and Buenaventura's proposed $4.8 billion Conga gold mine as the government tried to mediate a bitter environmental dispute over the project. Residents in the northern city of Cajamarca which has more than 200,000 residents (pictured), led by the president of the region,  say a new mine – adjacent to South America’s largest gold mine Yanacocha – will harm agriculture and livestock by relocating water supplies.  Conga would be the biggest investment ever in Peru mining.

Nautilus, the first company to explore the ocean floor for polymetallic seafloor massive sulphide deposits, announced on Friday a drilling campaign conducted at its tenements in the Bismarck Sea of Papua New Guinea has enabled the company to increase the resource estimate at its Solwara 1 project, and to declare a maiden Inferred Resource at the nearby Solwara 12 deposit. Earlier this month Toronto-listed company completed the quarter with a cash balance of $155.1 million, after successfully raising $70.5 million in the first tranche of a $98.1 million capital raising. The final tranche of C$27.6 million was received in October. The capital raising involved the issue of approximately 39 million shares at C$2.52 per share. The counter was trading down 2.9% on Friday at $2.29 giving it market worth of $448 million.

Energy Efficiency News reports internet giant Google has quietly announced that it is to retire its ‘Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal’ or RE<C initiative, which it launched in 2007 saying "other institutions seem better positioned than Google to take this work to the next level." Google spearheaded various projects and made investments in companies working on potentially ‘breakthrough’ technologies, including $168 million for a solar tower project in California and geothermal mapping. As part of its broader renewable energy programme Google has made several investments totaling more than $850 million in the US and Germany.

London-listed Coal of Africa and various environmental groups buried the hatchet on Thursday to work together to preserve Mapungubwe in northern South Africa near the company's controversial Vele opencast project. Construction of the coking coal mine was halted and the Australian company fined $1.3 million because it did not comply with aspects of environmental laws, but the green coalition has now agreed to drop all legal action. Coal of Africa Limited closed at 49.52 pence in London on Thursday up 8.2% on the previous day.

One of the more unique lots at Christie's Magnificent Jewels auction on November 29 in Hong Kong is likely to be a set of poker chips made by the Swedish artist and jeweller Kristian Ståhl. The 120 chips are made of 18K white gold and are set with a total of 5,160 calibrated top-quality diamonds, rubies and sapphires. But what makes the set truly unique is that each chip was sliced from the 1 million year old Muonionalusta meteorite that contains iron, nickel and rare earths. The set is estimated at $100,000 – $150,000 and Stahl said he was inspired to create it after his Siberian mammoth ivory dice sold well at auction last year.

By buying the stake held by defunct broker MF Global, JP Morgan has dramatically boosted its influence in the battle to acquire the London Metal Exchange. As the biggest shareholder JP Morgan now has stronger input into any changes proposed by suitors while making a tidy profit from any sale, but retains the option to team up with others to block a takeover, analysts and industry sources told Reuters. JP Morgan now has a stake of 1.4 million shares or 10.9%, jumping ahead of the former dominant shareholder, Goldman Sachs, but the banks have also come under scrutiny over possible conflicts of interest as it also owns metal warehouses and proved brokerage services. One of the last bastions of open outcry trading, the 134-year old exchange handles some 80% of global trade in metals futures.

Mining Review reports the government of Tanzania has allayed fears over likely land disputes between uranium investors and local residents in the Ruvuma region of southern Tanzania, and is confident that the envisaged uranium project in the area will be operational late next year. The controversial uranium mine is located inside the Selous Game Reserve, Africa’s second-largest wildlife sanctuary and a Unesco heritage site. Australia’s Mantra Resources project in the southern part of the 54,600-square kilometre park is estimated to have 53.9 million pounds of uranium oxide deposits which is worth some $2.7bn at current market prices. Officials claim that mining would only involve about 1% of the park’s overall area and that income accrued from mining would help fund upkeep of the park, but environmentalists have slammed the plan.

Bloomberg reports AngloGold Ashanti, the third- largest producer of the metal, is scaling back a $3 billion, 10-year programme to extend is Mponeng mine outside Johannesburg, South Africa. Mponeng is the world's deepest mine and extends about 4 km (2.5 miles) underground. To meet an output target of 5.5 million ounces of gold by 2015, AngloGold will speed up expansion outside its South African base where barring technological breakthroughs, gold reserves are too deep to be mined profitably and safely. South African gold miners have to contend with some of the highest cash costs in the industry which at some properties are almost double the global average of $620 per ounce. AngloGold's most recent quarterlies showed production at Mponeng declined 8% to 117,000 ounces at $587/ounce.