Prime Minister of Mongolia L.Oyun-Erdene took part in a joint public and private sector meeting on ‘Supporting Mongolian-Russian business and attracting investment from Russia’.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Prime Minister said, “This year marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomat relations between Mongolia and the Russian Federation. The two countries should bring the economic and business cooperation to a new level in the next 100 years. The pandemic has slowed the world down. We, therefore, need to be ready for the Post-Pandemic economy. The economy, which was minus 5.3 percent, now stands at 6.3 percent. Let us begin a new chapter in public and private partnership. We have raised many issues including unfavorable environment for investment. We will change the approach and the cabinet will begin to hold a meeting with investors before making a decision. Moreover, we will strive to work to overcome the challenging circumstance posed by the pandemic and double the GDP.”

Mentioning that trade and economic cooperation between Mongolian and Russia is weak, the Prime Minister said that Russia made up 0.9 percent in the Mongolia’s export in 2019, while this performance was 58.5 percent in 1992. Looking back to the relationship between the two countries over the past 10 years, from the establishment of a strategic partnership in 2009 to the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2019, there has been criticism of non-significant results in the bilateral relationship, except for visa-free travel between the two countries. Thus, establishing a Free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union, which includes Russia, is one of the solutions to reduce the tariff and non-tariff barriers facing bilateral trade.

During the meeting, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Mongolia Iskander Kubarovich Azizov said “There is no legal, political dispute between our two countries. 100 years of Mongolian-Russian relations are in the interests of both countries. I agree with what Prime Minister said. The two countries have developed a high level of political, humanitarian, defence as well as security cooperation. But the trade and economic cooperation have fallen behind. Mongolia has favorable environment for legal regulations of trade and economic relations. It is, therefore, important to intensify the activities of the Trade representative offices of the two countries.”

Ambassador I.K.Azizov also highlighted the importance of implementing project for the building of the super grid and further expanding cooperation in science and education.

At the end of the meeting, the Prime Minister said that he would set up a research work group with the Eurasian Economic Union, intensifying the efforts to study the economic feasibility of establishing a free trade agreement.

On August 30, State Honored Athlete E.Sodnompiljee successfully lifted 245 kg in the men’s -107 kg weight class at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, setting a new Paralympic Record.

Having previously won the bronze medal, the two-time world champion has become the first Mongolian powerlifting athlete to become a Paralympic champion.

At the 2019 World Para Powerlifting Championships, he became the world champion by lifting 247 kg, setting a new Guinness World Record.

China’s southern Hainan province issued an updated regulation on cross-border trade in services, effectively becoming the first region to allow foreign firms to carry out commercial activity under the same rules as Chinese firms.

“This is an important step towards enhancing the high-level openness of the Chinese [international trade] system, and is essential for the intensive development of the Hainan Free Trade Port,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce stated with regard to the new regulation.

The region’s authorities on Saturday published a list of restrictions that covers 11 areas of international economic cooperation and includes 70 control measures over foreign companies working in Hainan. In all cases of trade in services not specified in the document, foreign enterprises are to operate under the same conditions as Chinese companies.

The previous mechanism of “exceptions from what is prohibited” was stricter and more complex for foreign firms. The move is aimed at increasing the transparency of the province’s business interactions with other countries and raise the level of investor confidence. It is assumed that the modified system will also boost Hainan’s competitiveness in the international market.

Hainan authorities clarified, however, that the new measures “provide for a fairly effective control over regional and systemic risks.”

On April 13, 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the creation of an experimental free trade zone in Hainan. The goal of the program is to involve Hainan’s port and the entire island in the process of globalization and international distribution of labor.

Hainan’s administration was to create attractive conditions for investors and form a developed research infrastructure. According to the government plan, by 2050, Hainan is to become a unique cluster with an advanced economy, hosting the campuses of leading universities, advanced laboratories, and headquarters of global high-tech corporations.

In a separate move this week, Hainan’s authorities began setting up pilot international offshore innovation and business zones across the island, local information resource Nanhaiwan reported.

This offshore business model allows both Chinese and foreign firms to be registered on the island. The project aims to accelerate Hainan’s development in the field of science and technology. Authorities intend to establish 8 to 10 offshore innovation and business zones in the Hainan Free Trade Port in order to attract high-quality innovation resources from abroad, as well as promoting international high-tech exchange. In the future, this program is to be extended up to 11 industrial parks in the province.

Rashaant, Khuvsgul Province, Mongolia — Perched high on a mountain, Davaasuren Mishigdorj peers through a pair of binoculars. The herder is guarding her animals in the same spot her ancestors have patrolled for generations. But about five months ago, a scattering of rocks joined the sheep under her watch.

The stones in Khuvsgul province, in northern Mongolia, are the unexpected bearers of ancient human history. Etched into their surfaces are faint yet discernible images of deer with branched antlers, herds of elephants and humans — rock carvings, known as petroglyphs, dating back some 3,000 years.

Today, these prehistoric records are in danger of vanishing. The Khuren Tolgoin Khad, which means “brown hill rocks,” are among nearly 90,000 Mongolian relics that have been identified as threatened “immovable historical and cultural memorials.” Decades of neglect have left these memorials — including petroglyphs, graves and statues — open to widespread abuse, misuse, vandalism and looting.

In response, Khuvsgul — home to the country’s biggest concentration of immovable memorials — is turning to its herders for help. Through a new preservation effort launched this year, the local government offers herders incentives to protect the relics that dot some of the country’s most secluded spots.

“When I go herding my sheep and cattle, I always look here and there to protect the rocks now too,” says Davaasuren, who lives in a nearby ger, a circular felt-covered tent traditionally used by herders in Mongolia. “I feel proud to live near these ancient monuments and want to pass them on to the next generation in good condition.”

The Khuren Tolgoin Khad, which means “brown hill rocks,” are among nearly 90,000 Mongolian relics that have been identified as memorials in need of protection.

A rewards-based system could motivate more citizens to take an active role in preserving Mongolian culture, says the 55-year-old, who also chairs her local council.

In April, Davaasuren became one of 46 herders appointed as heritage guardians in Khuvsgul — the first such plan in the culturally rich province. For their work, which includes overseeing sites and reporting suspicious behavior, they will each receive a voucher for firewood worth 53,000 Mongolian togrogs ($18.60) or a 25-kilogram sack of flour.

Herders can monitor monuments tucked in mountains or steppes that are often inaccessible for urban officials, says Baasansuren Khurelchuluun, a heritage specialist with the Khuvsgul provincial government. “By training herders about cultural heritage, we can help reduce crimes.”

Mongolia only adopted a robust law to protect its cultural heritage in 2014, replacing an ineffectual one passed 13 years earlier. Under the legislation, there are new layers of accountability to manage memorials at a local level, as well as new systems to classify and safeguard monuments.

The country’s first nationwide inventory of immovable memorials took place the following year, listing 86,000 relics for state protection in nearly 10,000 different sites.

A study about memorials in Khuvsgul that same year revealed how little citizens understood preservation, Baasansuren recalls.

Ancient rock art had been chiseled afresh and daubed with splashes of paint. Prehistoric statues were being used as hitching posts for horses. Some people were worshipping Kurgan stelae, upright stone carvings some 5,000 years old, as deities. “Many had been smeared with butter” as an offering, eroding their original form, Baasansuren says.

But despite the momentum sparked by the new law, progress on safeguarding memorials has been slow in the 31-year-old democracy wedged between China and Russia.

The worry is there will be little left to protect unless urgent measures are taken throughout the country, says Bayarsaikhan Jamsranjav, an archaeologist and former director at the National Museum of Mongolia, who has witnessed firsthand the damage wrought on precious relics.

Davaasuren Mishigdorj sits near one of the petroglyphs that scatter the area. The rocks, carved with images of deer, elephants and humans, date back around 3,000 years.

In 2018, he led a team to study ancient burial grounds on Khorig mountain, close to the Mongolia-Russia border, also in Khuvsgul province.

Their excavation uncovered more than 70 graves and tombs containing human remains alongside remarkable artifacts, including lanterns holding clotted cream, silk cloths, and sun and moon figures made from gold. They had been preserved for more than 700 years under permafrost.

But the team found they were not the first to make the discovery: Each of the sites had already been looted.

“There were very few undamaged findings,” Bayarsaikhan says. “Metal artifacts hung on trees. There were vases broken all over the place. Human bones had been thrown outside. And the fabrics were all covered in dirt.”

Despite the destruction, the findings were “wonderful expressions of cultural and ritual continuity of nomadic Mongolians,” the archaeologist says.

They also offered an unprecedented insight into the secretive funerary rituals practiced during the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries.

“Researchers used to think that the burials [at this time] were not on the mountains at all,” he says, explaining how excavators focused on the nation’s vast valleys and steppes. On Khorig mountain, the team believes they have unearthed the final resting place of high-ranking officials from that era.

Bayarsaikhan estimates that hundreds of graves are pilfered annually in Mongolia. Thieves are on the hunt for treasures to sell in the lucrative underground antiques trade, run by organized crime syndicates in Mongolia and China.

Herder-based protection efforts are part of the solution, Bayarsaikhan says, but should be expanded. Barely a third of Mongolia’s cultural heritage has been registered, he adds, even after the landmark 2015 survey.

“We fear tremendously that unregistered memorials will be looted before we even find them.”

Dolgormaa Sandagdorj is a Global Press Journal reporter based in Mongolia.

2,414 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in Mongolia as of Aug 29.

618 of the new cases were recorded in Ulaanbaatar city and 1,796 in rural areas.

2,332 people recovered in a day. 13,033 people are currently receiving hospital treatment for COVID-19 and 15,832 people with mild cases of COVID-19 are being isolated at home.

Three people died from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, which brings the COVID-19 death toll to 927.

The working group appointed by the Government has now been working at Zamiin-Uud for over a month.

While 100 transport vehicles used to enter through the border during the time the working group began to be established, the number of vehicles has increased to 170 as of today. As for the vehicles going from Zamiin-Uud to Erlian, around 140 vehicles cross the border checkpoint each day, which is close to the previously measured average of 150 vehicles prior to the pandemic.

Acting Head of Zamiin-Uud Customs said, “Freight is also being imported through the railway. On August 27, for example, 67 train cars were used to import them. Overall, the situation regarding the circulation of freight is improving at Zamiin-Uud. Coal trucks have also begun to transport cargo on their way back.”

As of currently, over 40 thousand tons of the 50 thousand tons of cargo that had been stuck at the Erlian checkpoint has been imported. The working group reports that the rest of the freight will be finished being imported in the near future.

On August 26, a National Committee responsible for increasing housing for citizens, establishing a Unified Accumulation Fund and the National Sovereign Wealth Fund, as well as expanding the middle class held its first meeting.

The committee is chaired by Prime Minister L. Oyun-Erdene. Minister of Finance by B. Javkhlan and Deputy Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry O.Batnairamdal work as deputy chair and secretary of the committee.

During the meeting, the bills on the National Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Social Insurance and the Unified Accumulation Fund were heard. Also, Minister of Construction and Urban Development B. Munkhbaatar introduced the ‘Youth 1’ apartment district.

Minister of Labor and Social Welfare A. Ariunzaya said that the bill on Unified Accumulation Fund was drafted for the purpose of gradual transition to a system of providing all citizens with comprehensive education, healthcare, pensions, housing, and social security through the Fund. It is deemed that the establishment of this fund will increase permanent jobs, ensure equal access to natural resources for all citizens, increase the middle class, and build accumulation fund scheme.

The amendments to the package law on Social Insurance include the introduction of a multi-tier pension system, the placement of fund in the accumulation fund, the increase of the middle class by raising the pensions, the digitalization of all social insurance services as well as others. The bill also includes the improvement of investment management of the social insurance fund.

Thanks to the government's housing policy, as of August 19, 8,289 people have received mortgage loans. The number of borrowers was 5,549 last year, 4,815 in 2019 and 3,909 in 2018.

After hearing the presentations, Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene assigned the Minister of Finance B.Javkhlan to make an integrated presentation next Tuesday on the policy to increase housing, create a Unified Accumulation Fund, a National Sovereign Wealth Fund, and expand the middle class.

The PM also instructed to establish a sub-working group of 12-15 people consisting of the private sector, as part of the policy to increase citizens’ housing.

On August 24, Resident Representative of Mongolia to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) G. Battungalag held a meeting with the IAEA Director General R.M. Grossi and exchanged views on cooperation.

Resident Representative G. Battungalag expressed gratitude to the IAEA for its support to Mongolia by providing EUR 130 thousand-worth medical equipment such as Mobile X-Ray Unit and 10 RT-PCR kits to test 2000 samples, and involving specialists in international training amid the challenging circumstances posed by the pandemic.

The sides also shared their views on the agenda to be discussed during the 65th Session of the IAEA General Conference and the works that are possible to be further implemented within the framework of bilateral cooperation.

Commending Mongolia’s active participation in the IAEA activities and its successful performance as a chair of the Far East Group and a member of the Board of Governors, Director General R.M.Grossi reaffirmed to pay attention on expanding bilateral cooperation.

Two units of Canada’s Centerra Gold (TSX: CG) have filed a motion in a US Bankruptcy Court seeking penalties of $1 million a day against the Kyrgyzstan government, related to the May seizure of the Canadian company’s Kumtor gold mine.

The company’s Kumtor Gold Company (KGC) and Kumtor Operating Company CJSC (KOC) lodged the motion in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

The motion alleges the Kyrgyz government “blatantly and continuously” violates the court’s orders and has “continued and intensified” its efforts to deprive KGC and KOC of the protections afforded to them under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code, much in the same way that it took over the mine.

THE SECURITY SERVICE IS INVESTIGATING POSSIBLE CORRUPTION IN THE DEAL THAT GAVE CENTERRA CONTROL OVER THE COUNTRY’S BIGGEST GOLD MINE

Centerra said in May KGC and KOC commenced bankruptcy proceedings following the nationalization of the miner’s Kumtor gold mine by the former Soviet republic. Also in May, the government seized control of Kyrgyzstan’s most significant foreign investment project in a move challenged by Centerra Gold through international arbitration.

The motion also seeks an order staying the Kyrgyz government’s efforts to dismiss the case.

The motion alleges “continued and willful” violations of the automatic stay afforded by the Bankruptcy Court.

These include continued Kyrgyz court proceedings that seek to change KGC and KOC’s corporate resolutions illegally; the maintenance of the preliminary injunction barring KGC and KOC legal counsel and various individuals from participating in Kyrgyz court proceedings; the extension of the mandate of the so-called temporary manager; the termination of all KGC and KOC contracts with the Kyrgyz government and its related entities; and, laying the groundwork for the conversion of the Kyrgyz government’s environmental and tax claims against the KGC and KOC into equity with the effect of giving the Kyrgyz government complete ownership and control over the KGC and KOC.

Reuters reports the Kyrgyz state security service and prosecutors had said earlier this month they had established enough evidence to press on with removing Centerra from the Kumtor gold mine.

The security service is investigating possible corruption in the deal that gave Centerra control over the country’s biggest gold mine and subsequent amendments to the agreement.

Centerra denies the allegations.

Attorneys for KGC and KOC will present the motion to the Bankruptcy Court hearing to be held on September 15.

Centerra’s CEO, Scott Perry, said earlier this month Centerra remained “financially strong” with solid performance at its other operations three months following the Kyrgyzstan government’s seizure of the Kumtor mine.

At C$9.40 per share, Centerra’s Toronto-quoted shares trading in Toronto are down 43.2% over the past 12 months, capitalizing it at C$2.79 billion ($2.2bn).

After the fall of Kabul, US media regurgitates a 2010 New York Times frontpage story on Afghanistan’s mineral riches based on a secret Pentagon memo and a 1977 Soviet geologic map.

Search for Afghanistan minerals and you get dozens of articles written in the last few days quoting a magical $1 trillion number including gems like The Taliban are sitting on $1 trillion worth of minerals the world desperately needs (CNN), Afghanistan: Taliban to reap $1 trillion mineral wealth (Deutsche Welle), Biden Just Handed Afghanistan’s Mineral Wealth to China (Newsweek), China Eyes Afghanistan’s $1 Trillion of Minerals With Risky Bet on Taliban (Bloomberg) and so on.

All the one trillion dollar articles are derived from a breathless June 2010 New York Times front-page story and interview with General David H Petraeus during which the commander of US forces in Afghanistan referenced a US Dept of Defense “internal memo”.

The story of how “the vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists” by the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist James Risen’s opens with a bang (emphasis added):

“The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.”

“​​The previously unknown deposits including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.”

The tale of the $1 trillion treasure trove – which has more than a whiff of Indiana Jones about it as told by the New York Times – begins three years after the US invaded Afghanistan:

“In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan [sic] Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country.”

“Technoexport”

At first the American geologists only found hints of these huge big veins, but “they soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.”

How soon did the American geologists learn it was a Soviet study? Perhaps when they looked at the author page of the intriguing charts and data and saw this:

Abdullah, Sh., Chmyriov, V.M., Stazhilo-Alekseev, K.F, Dronov, V.I., Gannon, P.J., Lubemov, B.K., Kafarskiy, A.Kh. and Malyarov, E.P., 1977, Mineral resources of Afghanistan (2 ed.) 419 p. and Abdullah, Sh., Chmyriov, V.M. Map of mineral resources of Afghanistan V/O “Technoexport” USSR, scale: 1:500,000.

Contrary to the article, it was two years before the Soviet army invaded (hmm… what did Breshnev know about Afghan minerals and when did he know it?) and it was done under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme (AFG/74/12).

Details. Let’s not get sidetracked.

Risen, also the recipient of the 2015 Ridenhour Courage Prize, continues:

“Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006 using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.”

The legend

If you have such advanced tech (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, SRTM, digital elevation model, DEM) why would you need Mineral resources of Afghanistan 2nd ed., and Technoexport?

The reason is printed on the legend of the map the USGS produced after the SRTM DEM survey:

“The geologic and mineral resource information shown on this map is derived from digitization of the original data from Abdullah and Chmyriov (1977) and Abdullah and others (1977).

“The classification of mineral deposit types is based on the authors’ interpretation of existing descriptive information (Abdullah and others, 1977) […] and on limited field investigations by the authors.”

Promising before, astonishing ASTER

“The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study” the article continues:

“The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.”

This even more sophisticated study used Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data from Nasa’s flagship Terra satellite and the astonishing results are summarized in the USGS-Afghanistan Ministry of Mines Joint Mineral Resource Assessment Team Preliminary Assessment of Non-Fuel Mineral Resources of Afghanistan prepared in cooperation with the Afghanistan Geological Survey under the auspices of the US Agency for International Development, October 2007. (Download here)

One can understand that the New York Times would not want to confuse readers with mining jargon but what the paper calls “untapped mineral deposits far beyond any previously known reserves” the USGS report defines as “mean expected values of quantitative probabilistic estimates of undiscovered deposits”.

Close enough, it’s the New York Times.

Abdullah et al

That said, there were some pretty mean expected values gleaned from the ASTER and SRTM DEM non-discoveries and the report (the full 810 page study – Open-File Report 2007–1214 available on 1 CD-ROM and 1 DVD – appears now to be off limits to the public) outlines 34 orebodies across 27 metals and minerals.

However, of the 34 deposits outlined in the three-page summary, only four were newly identified: mercury, potash, asbestos and rare earth.

A further four were revised (upwards).

That is, revised from Abdullah, Sh., Chmyriov and others. Mineral resources of Afghanistan (2 ed.) 1977.

The 26 deposit estimates from the Soviet scientists were simply copied over and “further study recommended”.

Astonished but ignored

At this point in the article Risen injects some tension into the story:

“The results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments.”

But the story doesn’t end in a dusty library in Kabul or the CD-ROM/DVD storeroom of the USGS:

“In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data.”

“Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.”

“Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams of American mining experts to validate the survey’s findings, and then briefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.”

In these three truly stupefying paragraphs Risen makes it sound that if it was not for the task force coming upon the data after they were transferred (no access to the USGS website from Iraq?) and more importantly, bothered, the world would never have found out about the value of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.

Send in the Excel cavalry

The only reason the geologists – on who The New York Times heaps so much responsibility to give the article a patina of science – did not bother is because that’s not how mining works.

Not that it’s much of a bother to multiply tonnes and ounces of “probabilistic estimates of undiscovered deposits” with prices.

To the Abdullah et al copper deposits, the USGS report added 32 million contained tonnes (nice!) to bring overall Cu resources in the country to 60 million tonnes. That’s $453 billion right there at the average price for copper of $7,562/tonne in 2010.

Some 600,000 tonnes of cobalt ($27 billion at 2010 prices) and 724,000 tonnes of molybdenum ($18 billion) were also put in the copper basket and the 27 million tonnes of potash would’ve fetched just under $10 billion at 2010’s average price.

Rare earth as seen from space

The global trade in rare earths was before the WTO for arbitration in 2010 and not only were prices volatile (dysprosium went up 12-fold between 2008 and 2011), the 17 elements also trade at very different price points – samarium could be had for $3.40/kg in 2009 but europium would set you back $492/kg that year.

That would have made it more difficult to assign a dollar value to the 1.4 million tonnes of rare earths as seen from space. Although the Pentagon task force probably found a way.

The sulfur tonnage was upwardly adjusted to 5.5 million tonnes, but at a ruling price of some $50 a tonne it doesn’t really smell like money. Neither does the newly non-discovered graphite deposit – not too flaky at 1.05 million tonnes but worth only a billion in 2010.

SRTM DEM and ASTER also zoomed in on 13.4 million tonnes of Afghan asbestos. Asbestos fibre remains a thriving global trade and if you need to get to 12 zeros you can’t just leave it in the ground. At ruling prices of around $1,500 a tonne, that’s $20 billion someone other than the Afghans would have to cough up.

The world in a grain of sand

Only 2.7 tonnes or 86,743 troy ounces of gold were identified in 1977. The USGS recommended further study of the primary gold deposits but did associate 682 tonnes gold ($26.8 billion at the average 2010 gold price of $1,226 per troy ounce) and 9,067 tonnes of silver ($5.9 billion) with the igneous copper deposits.

If the gold non-discoveries seem like an underestimation consider that neither SRTM or ASTER added to the 36 million cubic metres of sand in the Soviet data. Sand is the world’s number one mining endeavour as per Yale School of the Environment and prices have long been on an upward trajectory.

Who knows? The task force probably found more sand, but the Pentagon would’ve realized the jokes write themselves if the New York Times article proclaimed that the US military – ten years into the occupation – discovered vast reserves of sand in Afghanistan.

Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got

Afghanistan’s endowment of lead, zinc, tin, tungsten, barite, talc, lazurite, fluorite, halite and celestite et cetera were not estimated by the USGS, and since the task force data is secret, only the Pentagon could put a price on those. Whether the task force incorporated the 32,000 tonnes of hot spring mercury in the $1 trillion would also remain a mystery.

Not that those treasures are needed – with iron ore 12 zeroes is more than doable.

The 2007 study did not add rocks to the 2.438 billion tonnes Abdullah et al found thirty years earlier, it didn’t have to – 62% Fe ore was trading at $120 in 2010 putting a price of $292 billion on Afghan steelmaking stuff.

Lithium nirvana

The task force did find ways to warm up the Soviet studies, which likely ignored lithium because commercialisation of the lithium-ion battery only happened more than a decade later. The 2007 USGS report also glossed over the world’s softest metal.

But the Pentagon and the New York Times saw an opportunity to show Afghanistan’s potential in the age of the smart phone and the laptop computer:

“An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.” (Blackberrys… chuckle – Ed.)

And the work was ongoing, according to the article:

“Just this month [June 2010], American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium.

“Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of [sic] those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.”

Finding lithium (15th most abundant element, although scarcer than rare earth) in a dry salt lake as large as those of Bolivia which measures 10,000 square kilometres? Maybe the Pentagon team just got lucky.

Besides if you calculate the value of lithium reserves the way the task force did – and how Elon Musk does it – Nevada also has as much of the battery metal as Afghanistan and Bolivia.

Round up to the nearest trillion

The transcript of a Pentagon press briefing a few days later is not accessible due to website maintenance, but contemporaneous reporting suggests the call did not add much besides clarifying that the $1 trillion was actually $908 billion, but then adding that “a lot of people think that is a conservative number”.

Officials also assured reporters that the task force (Task Force for Business and Stability Operations to give its full name which was never mentioned in the article) just used the USGS as a reference point to conduct more “detailed field work” or as The New York Times described it:

“For the geologists who are now scouring some of the most remote stretches of Afghanistan to complete the technical studies necessary before the international bidding process is begun, there is a growing sense that they are in the midst of one of the great discoveries of their careers.”

What the detailed field work and scouring entailed is never stated. And whatever technical studies were completed were never considered in any international bidding process and the “growing sense” of career making discoveries Risen thought he detected among the geologists is, not to put too fine a point on it, growing nonsense.

Scientific boots on the ground

The most well known copper deposit in Afghanistan is Mes Aynak, which translates to “little source of copper” in Pashto/Persian. Copper workings at Mes Aynak date back to the bronze age.

The scientists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Science magazine in 2014 in an article titled “Mother of all lodes” wrote that after the USGS and the Pentagon “put scientific boots on the ground“ in Afghanistan they found a “vivid panoply of nonferrous mineral formations”.

Of these, Mes Aynak is surely the vividest.

Could Mes Aynak – which did go through a real world tender process – prove that the Pentagon was right all along and $1 trillion – a sum even quoted by the World Bank, responsible for drafting Afghanistan’s mining laws – is on the money?

After a bidding process that included Phelps Dodge (now part of Freeport McMoRan) and Canada’s Hunter Dickinson, state-owned Metallurgical Corporation of China and its minority partner Jiangxi Copper struck a $2.83 billion deal in 2007 for a 30-year lease at Mes Aynak. (Only $997,170,000,000 to go – Ed.)

A stretch

The nine bidders, selected in November 2006, had to rely on a dusty copy of Akocdzhanyan et al., 1974 V/O “Technoexport” Contract 55-184/17500 translated from the Russian.

In the tender information package about Mes Aynak compiled by the Afghanistan and British Geological Survey, the “systematic exploration” of the Soviet Geological Mission “Technoexport” is praised as “exceedingly thorough and well documented”. (Soviet geologist please let us know why it is called Technoexport – Ed.)

The work “included the drilling of several hundred exploration, geotechnical and hydrogeological boreholes, nine underground adits, 70 trenches, and geophysical and topographic surveys.” It was also carried out over 13 years and the geologists only pulled out when the Soviet army did in 1989.

That’s in contrast to the work of “a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists”, who, according to New York Times’ timeline, were busy for only about a year before the article, and were working in the fields of 24 deposits scattered across the entire country.

Whether the task force scouring the “remote stretches” of Afghanistan (Mes Aynak is only 30km (19mi) south of Kabul, btw) also included drillholes, trenches and adits is impossible to say. Rather than attracting international bidders and making careers, the Pentagon technical reports remain buried secrets.

Non-refundable deposit

The Mes Anyak deal was billed as the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan in its modern history.

Perplexingly, this May 2008 press release from Jiangxi Copper put the figure paid to the Afghan government for the mining rights not at $2.83 billion but $808 million, a figure not quoted in any media story.

There were also allegations that the then mines minister Mohammed Ibrahim Adel took some $30 million in bribes related to the tender. (It’s Afghanistan. Don’t get so hung up about missing dollars – Ed.)

The copper project, also the site of an ancient buddhist city, never got off the ground (neither has Hajigak iron ore, the only other deposit which had any prospect of becoming a mine).

MCC blamed the costs of building a smelter, power plant and railway and the steep royalties for halting work. Mention of Mes Aynak disappeared from Jiangxi’s annual reports after 2013 wherein the company blamed the “relocation of historical relics” as the reason for the delay in the project.

Now that the Taliban are in charge that could change – they do not exactly care for Buddhist statues.

Sitting around in pajamas

There was some criticism of the New York Times frontpage story at the time saying that it wasn’t the scoop it was made out to be because of Abdullah and others’ work in the 1970s the 2007 USGS study. Some questioned the timing of the article when the war was going badly in Afghanistan.

Risen was irked by the skepticism telling Yahoo News “bloggers” who are “sitting around in their pajamas” instead of doing real reporting — shouldn’t “deconstruct other people’s stories.” (Go put some pants on – Ed.)

Dean Baquet, who edited the piece and was the Washington bureau chief for the New York Times then (now executive editor) said Risen “is the last person the government would try to get to carry their water,” attributed the criticism to sour grapes for not getting the story first, and that the Pentagon holding a briefing was proof of the article’s newsworthiness.

Task Force for BS Ops

The Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (Task Force for BS Ops) also came under scrutiny – albeit only in 2016 – in a 136 page report by the RAND Corporation titled Lessons from the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations in Afghanistan.

To their credit (and I don’t know how much credit, I only know that the US military, air force and Secretary of Defense stuffed $147.1 million in RAND’s coffers in 2020) RAND said the $908 billion “is notional only; it does not reflect the value of commercially exploitable deposits. Therefore, it is misleading.” (p.22)

It also fell to the think tank to address the biggest elephant in the room full of elephants that was the New York Times story and Pentagon briefing:

“Challenges impede the extraction of this natural wealth. Security concerns aside, most of the mineral rich provinces lack road, rail, or electric power infrastructure, and the nascent mining industry would have to compete with agriculture, an economic mainstay, and municipalities for limited water supplies.”

Let x = x

The manner in which the task force and its teams of mining experts calculated (tonnes x price = x,xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx) the $1 trillion value – or $3 trillion as successive mines & petroleum ministers, and President Karzai was fond of quoting – is not the biggest problem with the New York Times story.

While the number has no real world meaning, it certainly attracts attention – by the paper’s own reporting it led to greater violence in Afghanistan.

To focus only on non-fuel resources in the article also smacks of marketing. Afghanistan also has vast oil and reserves but “No war for oil” protesters had grown in ranks seven years into the Iraq occupation and trotting out a crude message would likely have misfired.

$34,482.76

That all US and most international media outlets continue to parrot the $1 trillion tale a decade later also makes its propaganda value clear.

How easily the Western armchair media swallowed the story is inexcusable, but the way Afghans were duped into believing in their country’s mineral wealth seems cruel.

The New York Times followed up the big scoop a few days later with a piece headlined Afghan Officials Elated by Minerals Report:

“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.”

If not in scope then in tenor, U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan was not dissimilar to the paper’s weapons of mass destruction coverage of a few years earlier.

At least the New York Times has taken some responsibility for boosting the case for the Iraq invasion.

But there’s been no such soul searching by the paper for cheerleading the extension of the US occupation of Afghanistan.