A Toxic Pit Could Be a Gold Mine for Rare-Earth Elements

A Toxic Pit Could Be a Gold Mine for Rare-Earth Elements

There’s a tale told about a miner who found copper cans in his garbage dump in the early days of mining. Wastewater from copper mining had flowed through his land, he said, and turned steel cans into copper. The story might be apocryphal, but the process is real, and it’s …

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China Halts Critical Rare Earth Exports as Trade War Intensifies

China Halts Critical Rare Earth Exports as Trade War Intensifies

China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have …

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Wealth and Warfare Empower a Rwanda-Backed Militant Group in Congo

Wealth and Warfare Empower a Rwanda-Backed Militant Group in Congo

Rare-earth minerals critical for smartphone manufacturing. Lucrative trafficking routes and dizzying stockpiles of weapons. The lives of millions of people. All are now under the control of the M23 militia and its powerful backer, Rwanda. M23 reigns over a vast territory in eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, …

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What the U.S. and Ukraine May Gain From Trump’s Rare Earth Diplomacy

What the U.S. and Ukraine May Gain From Trump’s Rare Earth Diplomacy

“They have very good rare earth” Ukraine has finally struck a deal to share revenue from mineral sources with the United States, following weeks of sometimes tense negotiations punctuated by insults and threats by President Trump. What Trump proclaimed as a “very big deal” is indeed noteworthy — both in …

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Trump’s Whirlwind Now Blows Through Europe

Trump’s Whirlwind Now Blows Through Europe

The great collision has begun. As President Trump’s national security team arrived in Europe this week, very little about their hard-line message came as a surprise. But to the political and diplomatic leaders arriving in Munich on Friday for an annual security conference where fault lines in the Western alliance …

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