Rio had dropped a hint about the breakup on Tuesday by saying it had discontinued exploration work in China, India and Mexico, with no further details.
A Chinalco spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that the partnership, named Chinalco Rio Tinto Exploration Co, was being disbanded, but did not provide further details.

Rio had dropped a hint about the breakup on Tuesday by saying it had discontinued exploration work in China, India and Mexico, as part of a quarterly update on its operations. The miner, however, did not give any further information on such decisions at the time.

Chinalco Rio Tinto Exploration Co., majority owned by the Chinese miner (with a 51% stake), had plans to expand the scope of its exploration targets to coal and potash. Since launched in 2011, it had mostly focused on the northern Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang provinces.

In October, Rio Tinto decided to sell its stake in the giant Simandou iron ore project in Guinea to Chinalco. The deal gave the Chinese group access to the world’s largest untapped resource of the steelmaking ingredient.

A special prosecutor's team looking into a political scandal involving President Park Geun-hye requested the arrest warrant on Monday for Samsung Electronics' vice chairman Lee Jae-yong. It is accusing Lee of bribery, embezzlement, and other charges.

The Seoul Central District Court summoned Lee for questioning on Wednesday, which lasted 4 hours.

South Korean media report that the court denied the request early Thursday.

The court reportedly judged there was not enough reason to issue the arrest warrant for Lee at this point.

Lee returned home from a detention house where he was awaiting the court decision.

The prosecutors say Lee paid about 36 million dollars to 2 foundations closely linked to the president's confidante Choi Soon-sil, in return for favors from the presidential office involving the merger of 2 Samsung affiliates.

The merger is believed to have been necessary for Lee to become head of the group's management.

Local media report that denial of the arrest warrant could deal a heavy blow to the prosecutors, who had planned to arrest Lee, while overriding concern about the negative impact on the country's economy.

Cho is alleged to have helped create a blacklist of over 9,400 cultural figures considered critical of the administration of the country's disgraced president. Park Geun-hye is embroiled in an influence-peddling scandal.

The special prosecutor's team suspects the figures on the list were denied government support.

They asked a court in Seoul on Wednesday to issue arrest warrants for Cho and a former presidential chief of staff.

The court is to consider whether to approve the warrants, which include the first request to arrest a current minister in connection with Park's scandal.

Cho's predecessor, former culture minister Kim Jong-deok, was arrested last week on suspicion of abuse of power as part of the creation of the list.

Observers say attention is increasingly shifting to whether Park herself was involved in making the list.

The company said it “apologized unreservedly for the conduct which has been uncovered.”

The three countries launched the investigation five years ago, as they suspected Rolls-Royce of hiring intermediaries to pay bribes to win better contracts internationally.

According to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), this is the “largest individual investigation conducted by the SFO to date.”

The SFO concluded that in Indonesia, senior Rolls-Royce employees agreed to pay $2.25 million and give a Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit car to an intermediary in exchange for a “favor to Rolls-Royce on a contract” for Trent aero engines. Separately, the British firm bribed a rival bidder to submit an uncompetitive bid to keep the contract.

In China, Rolls-Royce paid $5 million to CES, a state-owned Chinese airline, while negotiating the sale of T700 engines. The company agreed to provide the Chinese with a two-week MBA course at Columbia University, and "four-star accommodation and lavish extracurricular activities."

In Russia, Rolls-Royce won a contract to supply equipment to the state-owned gas company Gazprom by paying a senior Gazprom official, the SFO concluded.

Brian Leveson, the president of the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court, said if Rolls-Royce had not been prosecuted, it would be hard to pursue any other company in the future.

“My reaction when first considering these papers was that if Rolls-Royce were not to be prosecuted in the context of such egregious criminality over decades, involving countries around the world, making truly vast corrupt payments and, consequentially, even greater profits, then it was difficult to see when any company would be prosecuted,” he said in his judgment.