POLITICS & POLICY

Ironic that for its name, Iron Ore Holdings seem to be more interested acquiring coking coal related assets than those in the iron ore business.

A Chinese firm has signed into a cooperation deal to jointly develop a gold mine and two iron ore mines in North Korea.

Gindalbie Metals, the company that discovered the Lodestone iron ore deposit, has put up for sale the 1.5 billion tonne magnetite resource, a report by Deal Journal Australia said.

Stocks closed little changed, with the S&P 500 ending slightly higher in mixed trading for its fifth straight gain, the longest streak since March. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index added 0.58 point, or less than 0.1%, to 1402.80. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 10.45 points, or 0.1%, to 13165.19, and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 7.39 points, or 0.25%, to 3018.64.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: A quiet night of trade and subdued risk appetite capped gains for the Australian Dollar overnight.

The Australian Navy rescued on Thursday 211 asylum seekers on Christmas Island. The vessel crew initially contacted the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on late Wednesday night due to engine problem.

In a script deal worth $150 million, Regis Resources has acquired one of the largest gold discoveries in New South Wales over the past decade, the McPhillamys gold project.

Japan, with only two working nuclear power plants, has discharged a record high amount of carbon dioxide in the year ended March 31 as it relied on crude and fuel oil to support its energy requirements.

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has reaffirmed commitment by the government of slicing the country’s corporate tax to further encourage investment inflows, promote higher production and prompt wage growth.

The Coalition can continue blaming the carbon tax for the spiralling cost of electricity in Australia but Prime Minister Julia Gillard is bent on employing federal weight to prod state authorities into definite actions that would bring down households’ energy burden.

Australia's job unemployment rate has improved in July, inching up to 5.2 per cent from 5.3 per cent in June, defying analysts' projections of 5.4 per cent. The improvement corresponded to a total of 14,000 new jobs in July, versus projections of 10,000.

An estimated sixty percent of the Philippine capital is still submerged in floodwaters as a result of incessant monsoon downpour lasting over a week. The government and several aid agencies are rushing to help those badly affected by the unstoppable Habagat (wet season monsoon).

Hacking activist group Anonymous vowed to exact revenge on the Ukrainian government for its ongoing efforts to crackdown on the global operation of popular torrent file sharing site Demonoid.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is in the headlines again, this time for its Wednesday announcement of a $1.6 billion quarterly loss in its fiscal fourth quarter following the writedown of its global publishing empire.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The AUD had a relatively quiet offshore session last night and remains relatively range bound this morning.

China has formally unveiled on Wednesday a physical trading platform for rare earth metals.

The shortage of skilled manpower in Australia's iron ore sector has been seen to improve.

India's largest power producer, NTPC Ltd., (NTPC), will be carrying this month an international $1 billion bond sale to help support the company's capacity expansion plans in light of the electricity crisis that hit country last week.

Global output of diamonds declined in 2011 on aging mines and struggling demand brought by the continuing debilitating fiscal crisis in the eurozone.

The Australian Treasury painted on Wednesday a robust local banking industry that has spawned profitable settings more players and therefore further inflow of investments.

In order to effectively cutback on their power generation outlays, state governments would do well to subscribe to the federal energy retail law, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Wednesday.

Prices of coal used for making steel has been forecast to further slide and could hit rock bottom to its lowest price in two years, as global steel output slows down spurred by the deepening debt crisis in the Eurozone.

China, in a bid to regulate its disorderly rare earths industry, has issued a production limit guideline for its producers.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index topped 1400 for the first time in three months after a Federal Reserve official called for additional central bank stimulus. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 51.09 points, or 0.4%, to 13168.60, rising for a third consecutive session.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar is lower this morning, currently trading around USD1.0550, after mixed data from both sides of the Atlantic failed to provide any real direction during the offshore trading session.

Besides the carbon tax and Australian states, another scapegoat - or scapedog - was blamed for the rise in electricity bills of some homeowners. Ergon Energy is blaming pet dogs for failure of the utility firm's employees to read some electric meters.

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan may have spooked the uranium mining sector, forcing even some nations to forego nuclear programs in light of its effectiveness, safety and efficiency, but these factors will not permanently kill nuclear power.

The high cost of electricity in Australia was mainly due to state governments’ move of generating revenues from power generators, which according to Prime Minister Julia Gillard were operating burdens eventually shouldered by consumers.

Chinese employees working for publicly-traded companies may now have the option to receive their take home pay in the form of stock options from the shares of their companies as the federal government mulls to reinvent the country's overall wage structure to help lift investor confidence in the local stock market.