Should 11.4 million EUR of Dutch Aid be Redirected as the Current Project contributes to Poverty and Environmental Degradation in the Bay of Jakarta?
By the end of this year, the Dutch government will have spent 11.4 million EUR in aid on a project that does not adhere to the Dutch standard of Official Development Aid (ODA) and violates the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by destroying the livelihoods of local fisher communities as well as the environment. … Read More
Post-Auction Impressions of Hierarchies and Secrecy
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 Extraction: Issues in Conflict, Sustainability, & Resource Sovereignty
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
Will We Witness a Global Fight for Sand?
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
Mining Contracts and Contract Transparency: An Overview
- 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
Impressions and feelings of Christie’s Auction -Are they Magnificent Jewels?
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 Monopoly
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
Negotiating Soft Power, Human Rights, and Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case Study of Chinese Investment in the Letpadaung Copper Mine of Myanmar
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
The use of thorium for nuclear energy production
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