The price of gold jumped to a record high in Monday morning trading in Hong Kong, the precious metal reaching $1,164.85 an ounce due to the weak dollar.
The price of gold hit a fresh record at 1,048.43 dollars an ounce, the highest level in history. Traders said gold's rise was a result of the struggling dollar.
The price of gold hit an all-time high of close to 1,040 dollars an ounce on Tuesday as the dollar fell on rumours that Gulf states were considering ditching the greenback in favour of a basket of other currencies for oil trading.
Commodities trader Trafigura has agreed on a 33-million-euro settlement with lawyers representing 31,000 people in the Ivory Coast who claim to have fallen ill due to a 2006 toxic waste dump. But the figure falls well short of victims' expectations.
Commodities trader Trafigura is set to offer compensation to 31,000 people in a case of toxic waste dumping in the Ivory Coast. According to a UN report, waste dumped around the city of Abidjan in 2006 has led to death of at least 15 people.
British-South African mining giant Anglo American announced on Monday that it has rejected a merger bid from its Swiss rival Xstrata, saying that the terms were "totally unacceptable". The merger would have created the world's biggest mining company.
As part of a cost-cutting drive, British mining group Anglo American has announced that it will cut 19,000 jobs in 2009 - around 10 percent of its global workforce - after its net earnings fell 29 percent last year.
In China's largest ever investment in a foreign company, the Chinese aluminium group firm is to invest 19.5 billion dollars in Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto, the latter announced. Rio Tinto also posted a 50% fall in annual net earnings.
The Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto has called on the new military leadership of Guinea to honour an existing $6 billion iron ore deal. The junta has vowed to freeze the mining sector and renegotiate contracts after it seized power last week.
Mining group Rio Tinto has announced that it will cut 14,000 jobs in the face of falling mineral prices and a slowdown in world demand. Last month, competitor BHP Billiton decided not to buy the group due to worsening economic conditions.
