SILVER

Jamaican Usain Bolt blazed to the 200 metres title at the world championships on Saturday in 19.40 seconds to confirm his reputation as the king of sprinters.

Usain Bolt raced to redemption in 19.40 golden seconds on Saturday to retain his world 200 metres title while Anna Chicherova ended Blanka Vlasic's four-year run as high jump world champion.

The largest silver producer in China says it is being accused of accounting fraud by an anonymous party who admits to placing financial bets that the Vancouver-based company's shares will fall.

LaShawn Merritt performed the Virginia Shuffle before storming down the final 100 meters to overhaul his Jamaican and South African rivals and win the world 4x400 meters relay title for the United States on Friday.

Veronica Campbell-Brown ripped Allyson Felix's 200 meters crown from her grip on Friday while another Jamaican scorched up the road to redemption and into the hearts of the Daegu crowd at the world athletics championships.

As strongly as gold bullion prices have risen lately, the are greater for an even more robust surge among gold mining company stocks, a CIBC analyst said.

Silver mining company stocks posted big gains Friday on the back of a hefty surge in silver's price and renewed fears that the U.S. may be headed for a double-dip recession.

Gold prices vaulted higher Friday, as did silver prices, after the U.S. government revealed that no new jobs were created last month, a body blow to stocks but a gift to investors who bought Treasuries or precious metals.

Gold rose to a 1-1/2 week high on Friday as investors sought refuge in safe haven assets after a disappointing labour market report from the United States added to mounting fears about the pace of recovery in the world's largest economy

American Dwight Phillips reclaimed the world long jump title on Friday, leaping 8.45 meters on his second and final valid attempt to see off the challenge of Australian Mitch Watt.

Obama administration lawyers asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to vacate a judgment declaring Don't Ask, Don't Tell unconstitutional now that the ban on openly gay men and women in the military is about to be repealed.

Gold rose to a 1-1/2 week high on Friday, benefiting from caution about the euro zone debt crisis and ahead of the key U.S. non-farm payrolls data which is likely to underscore the frail state of the world's largest economy.

Europe's most indebted nations are under heavy pressure from their richer neighbors to sort out their finances, but they are unlikely to mimic the impoverished gentlefolk of old by selling off the family silver -- or in their case, gold -- to do so.

Laser-assisted technique to reduce rains and flooding during the monsoon, discovered by scientists at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Authorities are searching for Jacob Rigby, who went missing on Sunday.

The value of palladium, the least known of the world's four major precious metals, is set to rise this year, perhaps more sharply than its more popular cousins.

Gold prices slipped a bit Thursday as a stronger dollar and signs that the U.S. economy is growing and avoiding a double-dip recession.

Gold fell Thursday on indications from both sides of the Atlantic that economic activity was picking up, a development that encouraged investors to leave various so-called safe-having investments like gold and Treasuries for the promise of equities.

Swiss researchers were able to create micron-sized water droplets by shooting laser beams into the sky, a process that may be a precursor to actually stimulating rainfall.

The Shanghai branch of British bank Barclays has won approval to become a trading member of the Shanghai Gold Exchange, the seventh foreign financial institute to obtain such membership, said the exchange on its Web site.

Gold and silver prices closed modestly higher on the futures markets Wednesday as strong demand from foreign buyers offset expectations that the Federal Reserve will signal fresh, potentially inflationary, intervention in the market next month.