06/15/10
A truly surprising story
about Afghanistan.
Imagine that country as rich as
Saudi Arabia with all its palaces.
Yes, Afghanistan.
The Pentagon confirmed
buried treasure there:
Mineral reserves worth $1 trillion.
Imagine you're a geologist
working from old dusty maps
in some of the most
forbidden terrain on the planet
discovering lithium found in only
a handful of sites in the world,
iron deposits
alone worth some $400 billion,
copper in
a thousand-year-old mine.
But it won't be easy.
There is no infrastructure yet
to get the minerals out.
There's corruption.
And when bidding begins
in a few months,
mining companies will have to
weigh the risk
of working
in a dangerous country.
アフガニスタンで驚きの発見。
サウジアラビアのように
裕福な国になるかもしれない。
1兆ドル相当の鉱物資源の存在を
国防総省が確認した。
古い地図を手に禁断の地を探索する。
地質学者のようなもの。
世界的にとても希少なリチウムや―
4,000億ドル相当の鉄鉱脈
さらに銅も発見されたのだ。
だが問題は多い。
インフラがなく汚職も横行。
参入企業は不安定な情勢も考えて
入札する必要がある。
