PRECIOUS METAL

You're interested in buying gold. How could you not be? Every other day or so it notches a new record high. So what do you do, especially with all the choices?

A Colorado-based gold mining company has started minting its own gold coins with a view to paying shareholders their dividends in the precious metal.

More than 200,000 South African municipal workers walked off the job on Monday, a trade union said, in a strike which intensifies labour strife that has rocked Africa's biggest economy.

San Gold Corp's quarterly loss nearly halved helped by higher production and soaring bullion prices.

South Africa's rand steadied against the dollar on Friday but faced further losses after a turbulent week in which it hit its weakest levels in more than a year as investors spooked by debt woes in the U.S. and Europe fled to safer havens like the yen.

With the wild ride on the world's markets enough to give even the most seasoned investors the jitters, everyone is talking about gold.

A surge in prices to all-time highs has galvanized the French retail gold market, for long a dusty corner beloved of coin investors, drawing in ordinary punters but also the unwelcome attention of armed robbers.

Spot gold reversed early losses, putting it back on track for its best week since January 2009 as worries about the euro zone debt crisis and global growth drive investors to safe havens.

Which is a better way to battle the capital market blues: the Swiss franc or Frank Sinatra?

Gold and silver prices rose Wednesday, but a falling stock market pulled down shares of silver mining companies and left gold mining company stocks mixed in midday trading.

Gold Resource Corp., which produces gold in southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, said Wednesday it swung to a profit in the second quarter on record output.

Ukraine, whose government estimates it has 2,500 to 3,00 tons of gold, will start large-scale mining for the precious metal to cash in on "the radical growth of the world price of gold," the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources of Ukraine said Wednesday.

Now that Uncle Sam has dug itself into a $14 trillion hole, it?s the American taxpayer who should be warning Ben Bernanke and his government cronies about the irrationalities of their exuberant paper printing.

Gold continues its climb to new heights even as U.S. stocks stage a rebound.

Gold held firm after upbeat U.S. labor market data soothed immediate fears of a recession, but longer-term uncertainty about economic growth and concerns about the euro zone debt crisis supported demand for the precious metal.

Gold edged up more than half a percent on Friday as investors used bullion to shelter from the storm engulfing financial markets on concerns that the United States may be facing another recession and Europe's debt crisis is spreading to some of its largest economies.

South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers said on Thursday Impala Platinum had improved its wage offer in a bid to avert a strike which could impact production at the world's second-largest producer of the precious metal.

Gold firmed a touch on Thursday, lifted by concerns over a potential U.S. debt default as lawmakers in Washington argued over deficit-cutting measures, and lingering fears that the euro zone debt crisis could spread.

South African gold miners will this week join thousands of workers seeking pay rises in widening nationwide strikes, threatening to hurt exports from Africa's largest economy at a time when bullion is at record highs.

Wall Street futures fell, the dollar dropped and gold rallied as Washington appeared no closer on Sunday to raising the debt ceiling to avert a devastating default.

Longtime Federal Reserve antagonist U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, was at it again on Wednesday, criticizing Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the head of world's most powerful central bank, for a faltering economic recovery and suggested the country would be better off investing in gold.