Author: GEN

Some of my peers from the Global Extraction Network course and I went to the Christie’s Geneva evening auction in November and witnessed a spectacle of hierarchies and secrecy that made the evening truly interesting, despite a lack of purchasing power and a looming fear of lifting a hand or finger at the wrong time. … Read More

Yarsagumba is a caterpillar-fungus fusion. It forms when parasitic mushroom spores infect and mummify moth larvae under the soil. Twig-shaped fungus sprouts from the head of dead caterpillars, emerging just centimeters above the earth for harvesters to find.… Read More

The extractive industries sector – which broadly encompasses enterprises that are involved in the extraction of raw materials from the earth – is an integral part of the global economy given both the amount of revenue it generates and the number of people whose livelihoods are dependent on it.… Read More

1. Mining Contracts

States often enter into investment contracts with individual investors in the extractive sector, aiming to fill in gaps in the regulatory regime and offer special treatment to investors. The scope of issues covered by these investment contracts can be extensive.… Read More

On the way to Christie’s Auction, Magnificent Jewels, at Hotel des Bergues, I was not sure about what I would find there, but I was already constructing an idea of the realities involved.… Read More

Niobium (Nb/41) is a soft, malleable, and highly resistant superconductor metal. It naturally occurs in nature, mingled with other kinds of metallic minerals. Because it is a material that increases the level of efficiency of metallic alloys, Niobium is employed in a plethora of industrial sectors such as construction, naval, space, aeronautical, nuclear, and technological industries.… Read More

As one of China’s three largest investment projects in Myanmar, the Letpadaung copper mine is a joint venture between Myanmar’s military-owned conglomerate, the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL), and Wanbao Mining, a subsidiary of China’s state-owned armed manufacturer China Ordnance Industries Group Corporation Limited (NORINCO).… Read More

Nuclear power is the release of energy from the atomic core of radioactive elements, such as uranium, plutonium and thorium. It has military and civil use, with the latter referring to the generation of electricity for civil consumption.… Read More

China

In 2013 China became the third nation to land on the moon, placing an unmanned rover successfully on the surface of the moon. This was the first landing on the moon since the Russians (formerly the Soviet Union) in the 1970s.… Read More