Aug 12 (Reuters) – The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions against an armed group aligned with Congo’s military as well as a Congolese mining company and two Hong Kong-based exporters over armed violence and the sale of critical minerals. The measures are the latest taken by the administration of President Donald Trump to try to bring peace to eastern Congo, where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels staged a lightning advance earlier this year, spurring violence that has killed thousands of people. The Treasury Department said it was putting sanctions on the Coalition des Patriotes Resistants Congolais-Forces de Frappe (PARECO-FF), a militia…
Author: TJ Markle
China’s Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd sees unprecedented global uncertainties on the critical and precious metals markets amid rising protectionism and trade barriers, the biggest Chinese and the world’s largest metals miner in terms of market value said on Wednesday. Zijin Mining, which is now the third top valued metals miner behind Rio Tinto and BHP, flagged in its half-year earnings report that “Geopolitical risks are increasingly severe, and regional conflicts are spreading globally. Global uncertainties have become unprecedented.” Following the tariff and trade war initiated by the United States, “The global political and economic orders established since World War…
How it started This is not how I thought things would go down when I started covering deep-sea mining. I knew that impatience and greed could have unforeseen consequences for life that depends on healthy oceans, including humans. I just didn’t foresee Donald Trump coming back to blow up international negotiations meant to make sure no single government screws up a resource so vital to humanity that it’s been deemed a “common heritage of humankind.” What might happen if the US rushes to open up the deep sea to mining for the first time? It’s never been done at a…
KoBold Metals, the mineral explorer backed by US billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, has secured seven new permits to search for lithium and other critical minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The licences were granted just weeks after the Berkeley, California-based company signed an exploration pact with the Congolese government, part of a broader push to attract American investment into the country’s mining sector. Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, the second-largest source of copper, and hosts vast reserves of lithium and tantalum. Focus on Manono The newly awarded permits are located in southeastern Congo…
As the U.N. body faces an American threat to its jurisdiction over deep-sea mining, diplomats have more or less left all the important questions unanswered For the last three decades, the United Nations-affiliated body called the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, has been working in relative obscurity on negotiating the regulations that will govern a field of enterprise that remains purely speculative: deep-sea mining, or the harvesting of metal rocks known as polymetallic nodules off the ocean floor. The beginning of commercial-scale seabed mining has, as the Australian international law scholar Douglas Guilfoyle put it, “been 10 years away for…
Roughly two years ago, Teck Washington, the local arm of the Canadian-based mining company, reached out to the Kalispel Tribe for a meeting. The tribe wasn’t told exactly why, but staff members knew it likely had something to do with the closure of the Pend Oreille Mine, a lead and zinc operation idled for decades by a previous owner until Teck reopened it in 2004 and ran it until 2019. Teck announced it was starting the mine’s closure in 2021, under a process regulated by the state Department of Ecology. “We knew they probably wanted to talk about the environmental…
Sweden’s government has proposed a landmark policy shift to remove its uranium mining ban, effective January 1, 2026. This reversal represents a dramatic change in the country’s energy strategy as it faces growing electricity demands and seeks to reduce dependence on imported nuclear fuel. Climate and Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari announced the proposal on August 28, 2025, positioning it as a crucial step toward strengthening Sweden’s energy independence and security. The decision comes at a pivotal moment as Sweden embarks on its most ambitious nuclear power expansion in decades, with plans to construct new reactors to meet projected electricity consumption…
Ten members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources are making an unusual visit to Alaska this week during a break from business on Capitol Hill. The 45-person committee deals with a variety of issues pertaining to public lands in the United States, and the visit is giving eight Republicans and two Democrats a chance to put their literal hands on the topics they cover. On Monday, the lawmakers visited Hecla Greens Creek Mine, which produces silver, gold, zinc and lead from a site west of Juneau. They overflew parts of the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s…
Mining, Belt and Road participation feature in trilateral meetings between China, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Kabul. China wants to explore mining in Afghanistan and have Kabul formally join its Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure plan, which is a central pillar of President Xi Jinping’s bid to expand his country’s global influence, the Afghan Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting Kabul and held talks with Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that both countries wanted to deepen ties in a number…
MANILA, Philippines — Joseph Sy, a mining executive arrested over fraudulent Philippine citizenship, was born and raised in China, a Senate panel found yesterday. Sy’s alleged links with the Communist Party of China were also flagged by Sen. Risa Hontiveros. Authorities arrested the chairman of Global Ferronickel Holdings Inc. on Aug. 21 for allegedly using fake documents to secure Philippine citizenship and a post in the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary (PCGA). In a privilege speech, Hontiveros said Sy, whose hinese name is Chen Zhong Zhen, is the honorary chair of the Philippine Silk Road Chamber of International Commerce (PSRCIC). Photos…