Fantanstic new: New discovery mines and minrals in Afghanistan!

[AnGaaR]

LOL
i know where will this go

who said the world is in afghanistan for peace? they r there for resources..

[Zakiah]

guys check this out..

Rethink Afghanistan: "Look! Shiny!" -- The Pentagon's "discovery" of Afghan mineral wealth isn't news. It's a distraction.

Despite the cooperation (again) of The New York Times, the Pentagon fell flat on its face with its announcement of the "discovery" of $1 trillion in mineral deposits in Afghanistan. The reason: it wasn't news. See below for a map created in 2007 by the U.S. Geological Survey. The U.S. government has been publishing reports about these resources for years.

As Steve Hynd of Newshoggers puts it, "this is a zombie story, resurrected yet again for political purposes."

After a terrible series of milestones (the thousandth U.S. death of the war, the trillionth dollar spent on Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and Afghanistan becoming the longest war in U.S. history), the Pentagon apparently wanted to start this week off with a totally awesome story about Afghanistan.

Talk about a failure.

The administration's counterinsurgency strategy is failing miserably in Afghanistan, and shouting, "Look! Shiny!" doesn't change a thing.

Below are excerpts of two excellent posts exposing this latest P.R. attempt to salvage failing public support for the Afghanistan war.

--DC

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Afghanistan's Mineral Riches: A Conveniently Timed Zombie Story


...[T]his is a zombie story, resurrected yet again for political purposes.

Afghanistan's mineral riches were well known to the Soviets in 1985 and a US government Country Study in 2002 went into detail about their knowledge. By 2005 the US Geological Service was being publicly exuberant in its assessment of Afghanistan's mineral resources (PDF). It published other public reports about the "Significant Potential for Undiscovered Resources in Afghanistan" in 2007, one of which focussed on non-fuel minerals. In 2008, it was Afghan reserves of oil and gas that was making the news and in 2009, as Reuters was reporting on Afghanistan's vast mineral wealth and McLatchy was noting China's interest, rights to the vast iron deposits were already up for tender.

From Wired's Danger Room blog:

No, The U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1T Afghan Motherlode


Despite what you may read this morning, the U.S. military did not just “discover” a trillion dollars’ worth of precious minerals in Afghanistan.

...And the timing of the “discovery” seems just a little too convenient. As Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy notes, the Obama administration is struggling to combat the perception that the Afghan campaign has “made little discernible progress,” despite thousands of additional troops and billions of extra dollars.

...It’ll take years, and a ton of capital investment, before Afghanistan’s deposits can even be mined. And when they can, it’s anybody’s guess who’ll actually be profiting. Hounshell sums up the mess nicely:

Meanwhile, the drive for Kandahar looks to be stalled in the face of questionable local support for Karzai’s government, the Taliban is killing local authorities left and right, and the corruption situation has apparently gotten so bad that the U.S. intelligence community is now keeping tabs on which Afghan officials are stealing what.

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[AnGaaR]

Its sad. If we were stable, and we would have made this discovery. We could have been the next Korea.

only in wealth not in noses

[Jana]

From The Times

June 15, 2010
Taleban zone's mineral riches may rival Saudi Arabia, says Pentagon


Afghanistan is sitting on mineral resources worth $1 trillion and could become one of the world’s most important mining centres, the Pentagon announced yesterday, as it tried to drum up foreign investment and wean the country off the opium trade.
A Pentagon memo predicted that the country could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” — a metal that is a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and mobile phones.
The largest deposits have been uncovered in salt lakes in Ghazni province, eastern Afghanistan, where the Taleban retain a dominant presence. Many of the other mineral deposits are also in Taleban strongholds, presenting the coalition forces and any incoming global mining companies with security headaches.
US and Afghan officials acknowledge that it will take many years to develop a mining industry and in the present security climate international companies are likely to weigh up the risks before launching into an investment programme in a country still politically unstable and suffering from insurgency and corruption.
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The Pentagon estimate was questioned by geologists and mining experts, who said that it was based on old and incomplete data and did not take into account security and infrastructure problems.
Two senior geologists working in Afghanistan also said that they were unaware of any proven deposits of lithium.
The announcement nonetheless throws a spotlight on probably the only legal industry with the potential to prop up the Afghan economy — worth only $12 billion last year — after Western troops and subsidies are withdrawn. The narcotics export trade in the country is estimated to be worth an annual $4 billion.
“I think it’s very, very big news for the people of Afghanistan,” Waheed Omar, a spokesman for President Karzai, told a news conference. “This is an economic interest that will benefit all Afghans and will benefit Afghanistan in the long run.”
The Pentagon memo appeared to be an effort to attract international interest in the mining sector before the auction of the Hajigak iron deposit, which could be worth $5 billion to $6 billion (£3.4 billion-£4 billion) in the next few weeks.
It coincided with a visit to India by Wahidullah Shahrani, the new Afghan Minister of Mines, to solicit bids for Hajigak after the cancellation of a planned tender last year because of a lack of international interest. Mr Shahrani was appointed with US backing in January after his predecessor was sacked for allegedly taking bribes from a Chinese mining company — a charge he denies. Mr Shahrani is due to visit Britain next week.
Afghan and Western officials are anxious for more companies to bid for Hajigak and other deposits to prevent China from gaining control over Afghanistan’s natural resources through bids subsidised heavily by Beijing.
A Pentagon spokesman admitted that the estimate was based principally on old data, which was gathered mainly by the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan from 1979-1989.
The British Geological Survey collated that data between 2003 and 2008, and the US Geological Survey carried out an aerial survey of Afghanistan in 2006 before publishing a report on its mineral resources in 2008.
“All the public information has been in the public domain for several years now,” the Pentagon spokesman told The Times. “We took a look at what we knew to be there, and asked what would it be worth now in terms of today’s dollars. The trillion dollar figure seemed to be newsworthy.” He said that the estimate was arrived at by a team of US officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and USAID working with experts from the US Geological Survey (USGS) over the past two to three years.
The team was overseen by Paul Brinkley, Deputy Under-Secretary of Defence for Business, who worked previously in Iraq trying to promote local business and attract foreign investment.
The Pentagon spokesman said he was certain that the estimate was based on proven reserves of minerals including gold, copper, iron, cobalt and lithium.
However, he could not confirm a report that the team had discovered lithium deposits in the province of Ghazni that could be as large as Bolivia’s.
Stephen Peters, the head of the USGS’s Afghanistan Minerals Project, said that he was unaware of USGS involvement in any new surveying for minerals in Afghanistan in the past two years. “We are not aware of any discoveries of lithium,” he said.
Another experienced geologist working in Afghanistan said that it would take at least three to five years to establish a proven deposit of lithium.
“They couldn’t have done a proper assessment. They might have taken a few samples and found some lithium, but that doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
He also dismissed a report that the US team had found proven deposits of niobium — another rare metal that is used in wind turbines.
“If these were proven reserves then all the big mining companies would be rushing in, which they are not,” he said.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7149696.ece

[Mayana]

only in wealth not in noses

[Jana]

5 Indian firms to bid for Afghan mines

TNN, Jun 15, 2010, 02.08am IST


NEW DELHI: China has first-mover advantage but India stands to gain hugely in Afghanistan if its apparently huge mineral deposits are ready to be tapped. As reports spread about Afghanistan’s untold mineral wealth, five Indian companies are among seven that have been shortlisted by Kabul to bid for huge iron ore mines there.

Afghanistan’s mineral riches are nothing new — despite US media reports highlighting a $1 trillion mineral and rare metals finds in Afghanistan as “unknown”. These reports come at a time when Afghan war officially surpassed Vietnam as America’s longest war.

China won the Aynak copper mines in an international bid in Afghanistan in 2008 for a whopping $4 billion. In 2009, the US Geological Survey told the Hamid Karzai government that Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world fighting one of the deadliest wars, was sitting on huge deposits that could transform the country in a way currently unimaginable.

In 2009, Karzai sent out senior cabinet ministers across countries to scout for investment. His then minister for mines Mohammed Ibrahim Adel told foreign investors that according to the USGS, Afghanistan’s north is estimated to hold between 600 to 700 billion cubic metres of natural gas and the country has some 25 million tonnes of oil in four basins. Adel was later removed by Karzai on account of rumours that he had made $20 million from the Chinese Metallurgical Corporation for the Aynak deal.

Afghanistan’s iron ore deposits are estimated at between five to six billion tonnes. In 2009, five Indian companies, Vedanta group’s Sesa Goa, Essar Minerals, Ispat Industries, JSW Steel and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam joined Chinese companies for a bid on the 1.8 billion tonne Hajigak iron ore mines in the Hindu Kush mountains.

In January 2010, the Karzai government put the bids on hold as corruption concerns took over. In fact, the iron projects will have to be bid for again for the same reason. But the promise of Afghanistan’s wealth may make the war a bit more palatable to western governments which are chafing at the bit in their desire to pull out troops from what seems like an unwinnable war.

[Jana]

Afghan Officials Elated by Minerals Report

By ALISSA J. RUBIN

Published: June 14, 2010


KABUL, Afghanistan — Government officials sounded headily optimistic Monday as they fielded questions from local and international reporters about a new report on the extent of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth that suggests considerable potential for products other than opium, which until now has been the country’s most lucrative export.
Enlarge This Image

Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Flowers and a brick-drying furnace by a road in a rural district south of Kandahar, Afghanistan.



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Related

• U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan (June 14, 2010)
• Setbacks Cloud U.S. Plans to Get Out of Afghanistan (June 15, 2010)

The report, produced by the American military and the United States Geological Survey, found that Afghanistan had at least $1 trillion in mineral wealth.
In a news conference primarily with Afghan reporters, President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omar, called the report “the best news we have had over many years in Afghanistan.”
“The Afghan government is actively looking to its Ministry of Mines, to its Ministry of Commerce and to other entities in the Afghan government to start to bring these to the benefit of the Afghan people,” he said.
As they waited to hear Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, some Afghan reporters excitedly calculated among themselves how much each Afghan would theoretically get if the mineral treasure trove were divided equally. Assuming the $1 trillion valuation and Afghanistan’s population of 29 million, that would give each Afghan man, woman and child $34,482.76.
Bidding for rights to explore the reserves could begin in as little as six months, said Jawad Omar, spokesman for the Mines Ministry. The minister is expected to give a detailed news conference on the report this week.
According to the report, which was described Monday in The New York Times, Afghanistan has at least $1 trillion in mineral deposits that have yet to be unearthed. It is a potential income source so vast that if it were tapped and the wealth handled in a way to benefit the whole population, the country could be transformed. It would also turn Afghanistan into a mining center.
That would, however, require a substantial change in the country’s circumstances, since many of the reserves were found in politically unstable areas, said Mr. Omar, the Mines Ministry spokesman.
“Mining is not like a shop that you can open and immediately take advantage of,” he said, adding that it would most likely take 5 to 10 years before the country could begin to use those reserves.
“Mining needs studies, infrastructure and security in order to attract the investments,” he said.
American geological experts have said it could take far longer, perhaps decades, given the lack of mining infrastructure.
Afghan officials said the government believed that there was even more wealth than was reflected in the minerals survey, in part because the surveyors did not examine closely the entire country and at least 30 percent of it has yet to be fully investigated.
One worry, raised by reporters at the presidential spokesman’s weekly news conference on Monday, is that neighboring countries as well as the Taliban would see the wealth as a further incentive to wrest power from the current government. Or perhaps in some areas, insurgents or warlords would try to ensure that a measure of the wealth came to them.
Waheed Omar, the president’s spokesman, avoided addressing the worrisome possibilities and focused on the potential benefits.
“This will improve drastically the lives of the Afghan people,





the economic status of the Afghan people and to see that positively, that will unite the Afghan people,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/world/asia/15afghan.html?hpw

[Master Khan]

I hope the Afghan goverment will benefit from this and not US.

[Pukhtoon007]

i hope the pukhtuns will benefit from this n not the pakis or the us....but then again will have better chances hoping for the afghan soccor team making it to the world cup n winning it.

[Shayesta]

It will make you happy hearing your country is rich of certain type of things, but on other hand it breaks your heart thinking you can't have your own property anyway. So what's the use of it being discovered?

[Pukhtoon007]

its a distraction the taliban are doing great the afghan war is not the longest war in americian history which i still dnt believe but the invasion is in a tough spot right n they need all the good news they can get

[Jana]

I hope the Afghan goverment will benefit from this and not US.

It is a fact that each ton of sea water contains one milligram of GOLD,
BUT the catch-22 is the cost,which outweighs the return,according to the calculations of Joseph Stiglitz ,an economist and noble prize winner,as well as that of Linda Bilmesa Harvard professor,it has cost the Americans a cool $ 10 Trillion for the Afghan-iraq venture,to extract hypothetically these $1 trillion,underground minerals, spread over years and years,the cost like the sea water gold extraction, will,outweigh the return.

[Pukhtoon007]

its a distraction for the Americans in America...............
its good for public relations

[Nadir Shah]

The whole of Afghanistan and occupied Pakhtunkhwa are full of natural resources which are under the control of the Punjabi establishment of Pakistan. Resources, if managed by the state through state-owned enterprises and worker's unions, can bring a change into the lifes of the Pashtun/Afghan masses and if shared through a Central Asian workers economic union, make CA one of the most prosperous regions in the world.

[Nadir Shah]

Nadir Shah, since when was Afghanistan controlled by Punjabi?

This is terrific news for Afghans. I am proud of my brothers across the order.

as an Afghan from Pekhawar I take pride in this.

Pakistan has occupied Afghan lands since 14th August, 1947.

1947-1973 : Malicious propaganda and malafide Afghan policy.
1973-1977: Indirect interference by supporting insurgents.
1977-1989: Playing the usual role of client state of the imperialists and destryong the Afghan Republic.
1989-1996: The Necrophilic **** state destryed any chances of reconciliation and institution-building in Afghanistan.
1996-2001: Almost direct control.