With an increase in its stake in Australia's Riversdale Mining, Tata Steel is made it tougher for the miner Rio Tinto to close its $3.9 billion bid for this company. Riversdale Mining's main focus is coal mining in Mozambique in its Benga and Zambeze projects there.

Tata Steel raised its stake in Riversdale from 24.2% to 27.1% spending $101 million. Tata Steel is already biggest stake holder in the company. Riversdale has Brazil based CSN as its second largest stakeholder with 19.9%.

Mining giant, Rio Tinto and China's Chinalco are in talks to form various joint ventures in Mongolia and Guinea. This news was published by a Chinese newspaper, Oriental Morning Post.

Both the companies are into the business of minerals and also deal with mining.

The newspaper further said that the Vice President of Chinalco, Lu Youging has said that the company is planning to invest heavily in the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia. They would also be developing the region.

The investment is to be done by Ivanhoe Mines, which is Rio Tinto's partner.

Rio Tinto Ltd., a global mining firm, forecasted that the commodity demand from China will increase more than expected during the next 15 years. The company made these comments in its annual report. Rio Tinto also said it its annual report that after the dominance of China for 15 years India would be the biggest consumer of commodity resources.

The Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto released its annual report today. The company expects that the demand for iron ore, copper, coal and aluminum from China will grow dramatically during the next 15 years.

Rio Tinto Group, the World’s third- largest mining company, favors strong trade ties with China, one of the top emerging economies in the developing World. The company considers China as a good source of its revenue and growth, apparently due to of rising commodity demand in the country due to expansion of economy.

Speaking to media, Rio Tinto Chief Financial Officer Guy Elliott, added, “We would like to build relationships with China and I think that can take place over a number of different areas.”

Mining giant Rio Tinto has posted a decline of 23% in the second half of the year primarily due to fall in the prices of iron ore but on the year-on-year basis it reported an increase of 33% to $5.57 billion.

Company reported an increase in the revenue during the year despite the drastic decline in the commodity prices particularly in the aluminum division. The company underwent massive cost control measures to offset the decline in commodity prices, high energy cost and unfavorable currency fluctuation.

On Monday, Australian officers confirmed that a bribery case which had managed to raise many concerns among international investors in China, has now been turned over to prosecutors, and they will now decide whether or not it should be taken to trial.

The case of bribery involves 4 employees of Rio Tinto, which is the one of the largest top ranked mining firms in the world, and one of them, Stern Hu, is a citizen of Australia.

Sydney - Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto Ltd posted a first-half net profit of 2.9 billion Australian dollars Thursday.

The figure was 65 per cent down on the equivalent period last year, reflecting the cost of servicing its massive debts and the collapse in commodity prices.

Chief executive Tom Albanese said 16,000 jobs had been cut in the first half of 2009.

The Australian Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, who has flown to Thailand on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio before leaving that if the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi is also present at the meeting, he would "speak to him about Stern Hu."

Stern Hu, who is an Australian mining executive of the Shanghai-based Rio Tinto Ltd., has been accused by China of stealing state secrets, and has been detained. However, he has not been charged thus far.

Rio Tinto Group, a world leader in finding, mining and processing the earth's mineral resources, has entered into a legal services outsourcing agreement with CPA Global, the $1 billion provider of intellectual property (IP) management services and outsourced legal support services.