Kabul dangles ‘lithium’
Bid to win Trump support
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 6, (Agencies): The Afghan government is trying to grab the attention of President Donald Trump and gain greater US support by dangling its massive and untouched wealth of minerals, including lithium, the silvery metal used in mobile phone and computer batteries that is considered essential to modern life.
But tapping into that wealth, which also includes coal, copper, rare earths and far more that estimates say could be worth from $1 trillion to $3 trillion, is likely a long way off.
Security has worsened in Afghanistan the past year, with Taleban insurgents seizing territory and inflicting increasing casualties on Afghan forces. The regions with the greatest lithium deposits, for example, are currently too dangerous to enter.
So far, Trump’s policy on Afghanistan remains unknown.
He has said little about America’s longest-running war, beyond saying on the campaign trail that he wishes the United States were not involved in Afghanistan. Last month, the top US military commander called for an increase in American forces to help bring security, a call Kabul enthusiastically backed. But the White House has not said which direction it will go — toward beefing up the American role, drawing it down further or something else entirely. There are currently around 8,400 US troops in the country, involved in training Afghan forces and in counter-terrorism operations.
Kabul clearly hopes the promise of mineral wealth will entice Trump into making a greater commitment.
“Afghanistan can be an appropriate place for US industry, and specifically the mining sector, to look at opportunities for investment” because so few potential deposits have been mined, said Mohammad Humayon Qayoumi, chief adviser to Afghan president on infrastructure, human capital and technology.
President Ashraf Ghani spoke with Trump in December, and they discussed the mineral wealth. “There was a quite good matter of interest from President Trump’s administration,” Qayoumi said. The two leaders spoke again in February for the first time since the inauguration in talks that focused on the security situation.
The Dalai Lama consecrated a Buddhist monastery on Thursday in India’s remote northeast, amid Chinese warnings that the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader’s visit to a disputed border region would damage bilateral relations with India.
Nearly 10,000 people, some of them from neighboring Bhutan, greeted the Dalai Lama at the Thubchok Gatsel Ling Monastery in Tawang district in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, Indian official Jemba Tshering said.
The visit to Arunachal Pradesh, which China also claims as its territory, has raised tensions between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors. China’s Foreign Ministry has said the visit “severely harms China’s interests and the China-India relationship,” while India has cautioned Beijing to stay out of its internal affairs.
A Muslim man beaten by a mob that accused him of transporting cows for slaughter has died in western India, police said Wednesday, in the latest violence by Hindu vigilante groups enraged over treatment of the animal they consider sacred.
Pehlu Khan died late Tuesday of injuries sustained when he and 14 other men were brutally beaten three days earlier in Rajasthan state, police said.
Hindus, who form 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion population, consider cows to be sacred and for many eating beef is taboo. In many Indian states, the slaughtering of cows and selling of beef is either restricted or banned.