>> A spider-like animal, the troglobite, has stopped a multi-billion-dollar iron ore mine in Australia. An environmental group has opposed the mine near Pannawonica in the Pilbara region saying that mining in the area will destroy the only-known home of the rare troglobites, which live in dark parts of caves and will go blind when exposed to sun.

More than 2,000 members of a religious sect recently marched up to the district of San Jeronimo, near the city of Cuzco in the southeastern Peru, to protest an official mining exploration request,

Snail's habitat A court battle over an endangered West Coast snail is being heard by the Christchurch High Court, New Zealand. The lawsuit filed by anti-mining group Powelliphanta Augustus

Moving towards privatisation of mining in India, the Union government granted Essar Steel Limited a prospecting licence in February 2007 to mine iron ore reserves in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada

mines found in tibet: Chinese geologists have found 600 possible mining sites on the Tibetan plateau for mining iron, copper, lead, zinc and other metal ores. "Once the mines are developed they will greatly relieve the strain on China's existing resources,' said Zhuang Yuxun, lead geologist. One of the biggest potential reserves is an estimated 500 million tonnes of rich iron ore in the Nixiong area, close to the centre of the plateau that covers a vast area inhabited mostly by Tibetans.

an explosion in an abandoned underground coalmine tore through several homes in West Bengal's Burdwan district on January 16, 2007. It also caused cracks along a stretch of the National Highway 2

Film>> Blood Diamond