Lithium is needed for rechargeable batteries, and is crucial in the construction of electric vehicles. It is needed in increasing quantities as Western economies continue to force the green agenda on their citizens. Will these arrests sour the economic relationship China is building with the Taliban?
“Taliban Arrest Chinese Nationals for Allegedly Smuggling Afghan Lithium,” by Ayaz Gul, VOA, January 22, 2023:
Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have arrested five men, including two Chinese nationals, for allegedly trying to smuggle an estimated 1,000 metric tons of lithium-bearing rocks out of the country.
The arrests and the seizure of the rocks were made in the eastern Afghan border city of Jalalabad.
The Chinese nationals and their Afghan collaborators were planning to illegally transport the “precious stones” to China via Pakistan, said Taliban intelligence officials in comments aired Sunday by Afghan television channels.
Mohammad Rasool Aqab, a senior official at the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, estimated the rocks “contained up to 30% of lithium.” They were “secretly” extracted from Nuristan and Kunar, two of the several Afghan provinces along the border with Pakistan, he added.
The Islamist rulers have banned extraction and sale of lithium since reclaiming power in Afghanistan in August 2021 after all U.S. and NATO troops withdrew from the country.
Afghanistan reportedly sits on an estimated $1 trillion worth of rare earth minerals, including huge deposits of lithium, but decades of war have prevented the development of Afghan mining.
Lithium is a key component in rechargeable batteries and it is used in clean technologies to tackle climate change, pushing global demand for the metal to soaring levels….
somehistory says
Will they stone them? Will they hang the thieves from a crane by their scrawny necks until deceased? Will they chop off some hands?
Back in the old days, russia wanted the country to mine…fought bin laden and his crew and lost. And now here china is, wanting the same thing, but using a different tactic to get it.
How will the chinese tyrants deal with the mozlums in this case?
And the big questions: What will biden and his handlers say and do and claim?
Keith O says
The CCP versus the Taliban, I keep saying “this is gunna be interesting” and now we have the first falling out.
Grab the beers, snacks and a comfy chair, this may take awhile.
GreekEmpress says
Yep. Got my popcorn ready.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah, one of those very interesting ‘Alien vs Predator’ scenarios (I finally got to watch both movies last week to see what it was about)
It would be funny if the Chicoms got sucked into Afghanistan, and ended up just like the Soviet Union did in 1991 – losing Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Manchuria
࿗Infidel࿘ says
There ain’t enough rare earth minerals in the world to build all the batteries that would be needed to go ‘clean’. Then there is the cost of these batteries – ~$2000, which is what one might pay for a very used car, as well as their weight!
Not to mention all the places in the world that have to be exploited to get all this. I watched a Newsmax clip some days ago that showed in Congo how some of the mining companies torture miners to make them extract as much cobalt as possible. These rare earth minerals are called ‘conflict materials’ and a new vehicle for Third World despots to become rich on the backs of their hapless population. In fact, a list of those beneficiaries are a who’s-who of African despots – Ramaposa, Nujoma, and so on. Essentially, all our woke environmentalist overlords are bringing back the persecution of Third World people by this new artificial demand for batteries
There is also the physics of the whole thing: batteries just cannot provide endless ‘static’ power, given that there are only limited chemicals reacting in them. Very unlike the internal combustion engine, which is powered by burning fuel that keeps getting refilled and burned. The very premise of greenhouse gases needs to be questioned, as the world’s climate has always changed and will always change. It’s ridiculous to think that if we eliminated 90% of the world’s CO2 emissions, we’ll get a constant climate from pole to pole
James Lincoln says
Infidel,
Do you have any idea what the “cradle-to-grave” environmental impact is for electric cars versus internal combustion engine cars?
tgusa says
The Taliban may find out that the CCP are not as nice as the USA when they mess with their people. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of monsters.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Precisely! I can’t wait for the Chicoms to do to the Taliban, and for that matter, the Pakis what they’ve done to Uyghurs