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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

New York spot gold climbed $44.30 to $1,212.80 Monday, its biggest one-day rise in a year, as the U.S. dollar fell. This weekend Swiss voters rejected a proposal that would have forced the country's central bank to hold 20 per cent of its assets in gold. Analysts had predicted the "no" vote. Here in Canada, the TSX Venture Exchange dropped 16.85 points to 725.02, while the TSX Gold Index rose 10.27 points to 153.63.

Canada's bigger gold miners had an up day. Goldcorp Inc. (G) gained $1.66 to $24.06, Alamos Gold Inc. (AGI) gained 60 cents to $8.34, Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) rose 53 cents to $14.07 and Iamgold Corp. (IMG) climbed 40 cents to $2.64.

Kevin McArthur's Guatemalan miner, Tahoe Resources Inc. (THO), dropped $1.34 to $16.43 on 2.69 million shares after learning that the government of Guatemala has proposed a mining royalty increase. It currently receives a 5-per-cent royalty on production from Tahoe's Escobal silver-gold mine, but it hopes to boost that to 9 per cent. It would also like miners to pay a mandatory 1-per-cent royalty to local communities, but Tahoe already has this covered. Last fall, it gave the community closest to Escobal a 5-per-cent royalty on production, as well as $12-million for a community fund. These were peace offerings, in hopes the locals would stop their almost-daily protests. For the previous five months, Tahoe had faced nothing but opposition from machete-wielding protestors. Some were upset about pollution, others were angry about violence and others yet were angry about rumours that the company had acquired its mining licence illegally. The royalty money, which amounted to $5.7-million in royalites for the first nine months of the year, seems to have calmed the locals for now. Still, the company is not free of opposition. It is using expensive generator power at Escobal because, "organized resistance has impeded the company's attempts," to build a power line, and in Canada, it is facing a lawsuit from seven Guatemalan protestors. They claim company security guards injured them during a protest last year. That lawsuit, as usual, is being financed by MiningWatch Canada.

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