minerals

The Taliban on Wednesday celebrated the three-year anniversary of the disastrous Biden-Harris withdrawal that gave them power in Afghanistan, more secure in power than ever despite constant complaints from the international community about their appalling human rights offenses.

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a think tank based in Washington, DC. issued a report on Monday that advised the U.S. to develop stronger trade relationships with African countries in order to become less dependent on Communist China for vital minerals.

One of the world’s more overlooked simmering conflicts came to a boil on Wednesday, as Brazil announced “intensified defensive actions” — in other words, massing troops and armor — along its northern border to repel a possible invasion of Guyana by Venezuela.

Chinese customs data reviewed by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Tuesday showed exports from the Xinjiang region to the United States nearly tripled year-on-year in September 2022, despite tougher scrutiny for forced labor imposed by the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA).

China, the world’s top producer of magnesium, has severely limited production of the metal hardener — used across the aluminum industries — since September, throwing global supply chains into disarray and threatening to further disrupt worldwide trade through 2022.

Two cobalt salt plants in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang halted production on December 10 in response to local Chinese coronavirus “flare-ups,” the Global Times reported Thursday, noting the labor suspensions threaten to cause a spike in the prices of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, which rely on cobalt as a key component.

Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban deputy minister of Information and Culture, boasted in an interview with Voice of America News (VOA) on Thursday that China is ready to pour billions of dollars into Afghanistan, even as the rest of the world attempts to isolate the extremist regime.

In the course of hectoring the United States for its “bungled and embarrassing withdraw from Afghanistan” on Thursday, China’s state-run Global Times admitted Beijing has a rapacious interest in Afghanistan’s vast rare-earths mineral resources, and snarled it was none of America’s business if China makes deals with the Taliban to get what it wants.

China’s state-run Global Times on Tuesday reported Chinese corporations are excited by the business opportunities in Afghanistan, once the Taliban “stabilizes” its conquered land and eliminates the “uncertainty” holding China’s ambitions in check.

On Tuesday’s broadcast of Fox News Radio’s “Brian Kilmeade Show,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) stated that America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan will result in large stores of rare earth minerals and critical minerals “that are going to power the electronics, the

The Maduro regime in Venezuela sent a cargo of minerals to Iran this month after Tehran provided supplies for a new Persian supermarket in the failed South American country, Iranian state media reported Thursday. 

A report published by the Nigerian branch of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) on Monday found that 68 percent of the minerals exported by Nigeria in 2017 were sent to China.

Department of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced this week that William Perry Pendley will be acting director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a move ranchers and others in the west where the majority of federal land exists see as a positive development.