AFGHAN MINERAL WEALTH

June 2010
U.S. DISCOVERS MINERALS IN AFGHANISTAN

"The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan... including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium... Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world... The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?hp

December 2009
U.S. FIGHTS IN AFGHANISTAN WHILE CHINA INVESTS IN MINES

"... the China Metallurgical Group Corporation, a Chinese state-owned conglomerate, bid $3.4 billion... for the rights to mine deposits near the village of Aynak. Over the next 25 years, it plans to extract about 11 million tons of copper — an amount equal to one-third of all the known copper reserves in China... In a single move, Beijing strengthened its hold on a vital resource, engineered the single largest investment in Afghan history, promised to create thousands of new Afghan jobs and established itself as the Afghan government’s pre-eminent business partner and single largest source of tax payments... While the United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda here, China is securing raw material for its voracious economy. The world’s superpower is focused on security. Its fastest rising competitor concentrates on commerce..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/world/asia/30mine.html?_r=2&sudsredirect=true