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SYDNEY, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Australian shares fell 0.7 percent on Friday, with big banks and miners weighing as investors took profits at the index's 6-week highs after seeing signs weakness in Chinese manufacturing data. China's factory activity slowed in December, official and private manufacturing surveys showed, reinforcing views that growth in the world's second-largest economy moderated in the final quarter of 2013. "We saw that Chinese PMI number yesterday was a little bit lower than expected, so expect the material base to trade a bit weaker today," said Simon Twiss, a dealer at Arnhem Investment Management. Top miners BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Ltd fell 1.2 percent and 0.6 percent respectively. Fortescue Metals Group Ltd lost 1.8 percent. The S&P/ASX 200 index lost 34.9 points to 5,333.0 by 0020 GMT. The benchmark rose 0.3 percent on Thursday, touching a six-week high. Related Sites: http://promotion.blackhawk-mining.com/ https://www.facebook.com/BlackHawkMinesBulletin http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Blackhawk-Mines-Corp-wakkyped-4584760

The epic proportions of the illegal mining scam that was uncovered by the Karnataka Lokayukta in its 2011 report may actually have been just one act of a much larger, more complex and multi-layered drama. There is now new evidence to suggest that the Lokayukta's final report on illegal mining - a political game-changer that sent the powerful to jail and catalysed a regime change in the state - is just one part of the mining story. A six-month-long investigation by The Hindu, with help from whistleblowers in the Railways, the Karnataka Commercial Taxes Department and the CBI, points to losses to the State exchequer between January 2006 and December 2010 that are, at the very least, Rs. 1 lakh crore or eight times the estimated figure given in the Lokayukta report. The investigation also shows that the State lost Rs. 2,000 crore in commercial taxes. The new information suggests that the dominant narrative on illegal mining, namely, that illegal ore was mainly exported to China to feed an infrastructure boom triggered by the Beijing Olympics, is actually a very partial telling of the mining scam story. The new data with The Hindu furthers the depth and reach of the mining scam, a part of which was so exhaustively covered in the Lokayukta report. http://blackhawk-mining.com/