South Korea’s top mining company made its case on Saturday to be allowed to tap Bolivia’s vast reserves of lithium, the soft metal used to produce batteries for electric or hybrid cars.
“If the Bolivian government gives us the opportunity to get involved with Uyuni’s lithium mines, we are always ready to do so,” Sun Kong, a top executive at the state-run Korea Resources Corporation (KORES), told La Razon newspaper.
Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni houses some 140 million tonnes of lithium, attracting interest from French and Japanese companies.
Sun said his company would not only be interested in processing the lithium but also hoped to be involved in extraction, adding that KORES has specialized mining capability.
Earlier this month Bolivian President Evo Morales said his country is looking for “partners” and not “owners” for its natural resources, including its vast lithium reserves.
“We need investments,” and “companies who respect Bolivian regulations ... who don’t come to play politics” or “conspire against the government,” he said.
“We are interested in exploiting the brine and lithium, and we want to start negotiations, not just with Spanish companies,” the leftwing leader said on an official visit to Madrid.
Mining groups from across the world are pressing for permission to get at the lightweight metal, which is considered “gray gold” in Bolivia, one of the poorest in South America.
Meanwhile, Korea Electric Power Corp, supplier of almost all of South Korea’s electricity, said it will spend 2.8 trillion won (US$2.4 billion) on green technology, in an effort to promote environment-friendly energy policies.
The money will be spent on eight areas of technology, including development of carbon capture and storage and low-emission power systems, the company said in an e-mailed statement in Seoul yesterday.
South Korea, Asia’s third-biggest crude oil importer, said in July it plans to invest 107 trillion won over the next five years in improving energy efficiency.
The navy has installed 13 Phalanx Block 1B close-in weapons systems on its warships, increasing their defensive firepower, a defense official said on Saturday. The systems cost the navy NT$10.16 billion (US$314.67 million), while eight additional Block 1A systems are being upgraded in the US and are expected to be delivered next year, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Phalanx system used by Taiwan to defend its warships and key radar installations is a radar-cued gun system capable of firing 4,500 rounds a minute at targets as far away as 1.5km, the official said. With their superior range of
FINANCIAL RECORD ISSUE: The TPP did not calculate campaign expenditures and such costs were included in the operational expenses, a party official said The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) last year raised NT$84.3 million (US$2.61 million) in donations and spent no money on campaigning, the latest Control Yuan audits on the campaign finances of Taiwanese political parties yesterday revealed. The audit report was published a day after police searched the offices of accounting firms and other companies linked to TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) presidential campaign as part of a probe into alleged corruption and false reporting of campaign finances dating back several years. Last year, the TPP raised NT$46.6 million in individual donations and NT$30.9 million from businesses while spending NT$71 million, including NT$37 million
CARROT AND STICK: Palauan president said in 2020 the Chinese ambassador to a neighboring country pledged to flood his country with tourists if it switches alliance Beijing weaponized tourism to the Pacific archipelago of Palau over its allegiance to Taiwan and its accusations that China was behind a major cyberattack there, Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr told The Associated Press (AP). Palau, along with Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, is one of the three Pacific nations to recognize Taiwan as an independent democracy. Taipei’s allies in the Pacific have dwindled from six countries in 2019. Nauru abandoned its ties in January. Whipps told the AP in an interview late on Thursday that, in 2020, while he was running for his current post, the Chinese ambassador to a neighboring country
ACCOUNTABILITY? Vivian Huang resigned as a TPP Central Standing Committee member, while an accountancy denied it was to blame for campaign finance errors Prosecutors yesterday searched offices of accounting firms and other companies linked to Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) presidential campaign amid allegations of fraud, while TPP Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) resigned from the party’s Central Standing Committee. Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office and Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau personnel collected material at seven locations in and around Taipei, including at marketing firm Muko (木可行銷公關), accounting firm Jing Hua CPA (精華會計師事務所), OCT Entertainment Co (時樂) and Neo Creative Marketing Production Co (尼奧創意行銷). They also searched the residences of Tai Li-ling (戴利玲), who is registered as the owner of OCT Entertainment and Neo