Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa resigned after investigators searched his official residence in an inquiry into alleged corruption. He said he had not been named as a suspect but believed the inquiry was incompatible with staying in office.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday they were investigating concessions awarded for lithium mines and hydrogen production. They said detention warrants were issued for five people including Mr Costa’s chief of staff, Vítor Escária.
Foreign policy chief says agreement at G7 level cleared hurdles set by Belgium and other countries
The EU is set to move ahead with a long-stalled ban on Russian diamonds next week after securing sufficient backing from the G7 group of developed nations, according to the bloc’s foreign policy chief.
Diamonds are one of the few major Russian exports still untouched by EU sanctions imposed in response to President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, due to extensive wrangling over how any embargo would work effectively.
(Bloomberg) — The UK government targeted Russian gold miners, the largest refiner and a Dubai-based trader involved in routing funds to Moscow as part of a package of fresh sanctions tied to the country’s gold and oil sectors.
The UK on Wednesday sanctioned Nord Gold Plc and Highland Gold Mining Ltd. alongside Krastsvetmet JSC, the biggest precious metals refinery in Russia.
(Bloomberg) — Portugal’s Antonio Costa unexpectedly ended his eight years as prime minister after revelations about an investigation into possible government corruption involving lithium and hydrogen projects.
The resignation on Tuesday came as police raided locations including offices used by the premier’s chief of staff as well as the environment ministry and the infrastructure ministry.
ANTWERP, Belgium, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Only a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Antwerp-based diamond dealer Thierry Tugendhaft started receiving calls from big jewellers in Paris asking him to stop supplying them with Russian stones.
He was not the only one. Other diamond firms in Antwerp, the world’s biggest centre of trade in rough diamonds and cutting of the biggest gems, were asked to avoid Russian stones. No easy task when Russia supplies about one third of global demand.
https://www.investigate-europe.eu/
The EU is brokering deals with Africa and Latin America for critical raw materials. But it finds itself squeezed between China, Russia and the US for the minerals essential to the green transition.
“It is very important that Africa is not seen as a reservoir of raw materials that continues to be exploited by Westerners to create added value elsewhere.” The warning comes from Celine Tshizena Pegasus, a Congolese lawyer and advocacy director at Afrewatch, a natural resources watchdog.
In July, Afrewatch and dozens of international NGOs sent an open letter to the European Commission, slamming its strategy to source critical raw materials from the Global South. Deposits of minerals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel and rare earths are barely explored in Europe, let alone mined in the quantities required for the green transition.
The Russian government has accused Western nations of trying to undermine the Kimberley Process (KP). Group of Seven (G7) countries and the European Union have attempted to politicize the global diamond watchdog and introduce their own “biased” parallel regulatory program, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev wrote Sunday in an open letter to the KP chairman.
The claims come ahead of next week’s KP plenary meeting in Zimbabwe and reflect controversy over the attempts by the G7 — which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US and the EU — to impose a bloc-wide ban on Russian diamonds.
Oil-rich Kazakhstan has already emerged as a replacement supplier of crude to European nations turning off Russian supply and an important link in the new China-Europe trade route bypassing Russia. At a meeting with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Macron complimented Astana for refusing to side with Moscow on Ukraine and said the two countries planned to sign significant business deals.
“We will be able to make progress on important international matters, underscore our commitment to the United Nations charter and principles such as territorial integrity and national sovereignty,” he said through an interpreter. But Kazakhstan mainly attracted Macron’s attention because of its vast uranium resources.
World traders have turned away from the Moscow-based economy in favor of trade with other suppliers of metals and mines as experts expect permanent changes to how the world thinks about its supply chains.
One year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, metals and mining trade flows have shifted as countries look to regionalize supply chains for crucial raw materials due to aversions to purchases that could support the Kremlin.
The start of the war in late February 2022 sent the price of many commodities skyrocketing, but buyers have adjusted after much of the world opted to bench Russian metal suppliers. However, Russian commodities are moving despite countries looking elsewhere for supplies, including by increasing domestic sourcing of crucial materials.
The EU has confirmed it’s going to strike Russia’s diamond industry in upcoming sanctions, spelling trouble for mining giant Alrosa and dozens of other companies.
“We are in the process of preparing the 12th round [of sanctions] … in particular how to cut the revenues Russia draws from exports of diamonds to Europe and its partners,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Friday (29 October).
Cornish Metals (LON, TSX-V: CUSN) has kicked off work to dewater a past-producing tin mine at its South Crofty project in southwest England.
The Canadian miner said that water pumped from the old mine will be treated at its newly-built $8.5 million plant, at a rate of up to 25,000 cubic metres per day. It will then be released into the Red River, which meets the sea at Godrevy in St Ives Bay.
https://www.investigate-europe.eu/
A global rush for minerals is underway. Europe wants to revive its mining industry to secure the lithium, nickel, copper and rare earth elements needed for a green future. Investigate Europe sieves fact from fiction in the hunt for critical raw materials.
“This has been 130 years of encroachment on our nature and abuse of us Sámi in this area,” says Karin Kvarfordt Niia. The ground is slowly caving in around Kiruna in northern Sweden, where Europe’s largest iron ore mine has operated since the late 19th century.
Excessive excavation has left Kiruna buckling under the strain of its mineral riches. There are fears that part of the town, with around 20,000 people, will literally sink into the ground. To avoid this, authorities are moving the whole city centre to new land, a mega operation paid for by the state-owned mining company LKAB.
https://www.miningreview.com/
For over a century, starting with colonial domination, and persisting via its political and economic network, France viewed most of Africa as its geopolitical sphere of influence.
African governments were installed and deposed upon instruction from Paris, whether by the actions of the intelligence services or military intervention. Meanwhile, French companies controlled extensive domains in African economies, often dedicated to the extraction and transport of natural resources for Western industries.
On Thursday, Orano’s board approved a 30% production capacity increase for its Tricastin factory, in Southern France – Europe’s largest nuclear technology site. The project and its consequent financing will allow France to move away from its reliance on Russia.
“In the current geopolitical context, the purpose of this increase in enrichment capacities is to strengthen Western energy sovereignty in France,” said Claude Imauven, Orano’s board of directors chairman, in a statement.
Russia is often sidelined in discussions of colonialism in the Arctic, most often due to a lack of linguistic and/or physical access. However, Russia also has a colonial legacy, with many parallels to colonialism in other Arctic contexts, for which it deserves to be included in the conversation. Since the sixteenth century, the Russian state has been trying to secure a(n ethnically) Russian presence across the Eurasian landmass.
The first period of expansion occurred during the Russian Empire1) as an imperialist colonialist endeavor.2) The second period occurred during the Soviet era. The central leadership began a new wave of colonialism within the borders of the USSR, in the form of internal colonization.
