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Accelerates permitting procedures to develop American Energy Dominance... In response to President Donald J. Trump’s declaration of a National Energy Emergency, the U.S. Department of the Interior will implement emergency permitting procedures to accelerate the development of domestic energy resources and critical minerals. These measures are designed to expedite the review and approval, if appropriate, of projects related to the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, or generation of energy within the United States. The new permitting procedures will take a multi-year process down to just 28 days at most...

Ukraine and the United States on Thursday signed a memorandum as an initial step towards the clinching of an agreement on developing minerals in Ukraine, Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's first deputy prime minister and economy minister, said. "We are happy to announce the signing, with our American partners, of a Memorandum of Intent, which paves the way for an Economic Partnership Agreement and the establishment of the Investment Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine," Svyrydenko wrote on the social media platform X.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the U.S. would sign a new minerals deal next Thursday, in an apparent reference to talks with Ukraine.

Ukraine and the U.S. could sign online a memorandum of intent on Thursday on the minerals deal currently being negotiated by the two countries, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. President Donald Trump has pushed for a deal that would allow the United States to have privileged access to Ukraine's natural resources and critical minerals in what he casts as repayment for military aid provided by Washington to Ukraine under the previous presidency of Joe Biden. The Ukrainian delegation traveled to Washington at the end of last week for negotiations after the Trump administration offered a new, more expansive deal. The initial...

China has halted exports of seven critical rare earth elements to the United States, a move that threatens to disrupt supply chains across key American industries, including automotive, semiconductor, and aerospace sectors. China’s Ministry of Commerce recently added seven rare earth elements—including dysprosium, terbium, and lutetium—to its restricted export list. These elements are essential for manufacturing high-performance magnets used in electric vehicles, advanced weaponry, and consumer electronics. NY Times reported:

A significant rare earth elements deposit has been found in Kazakhstan's Karagandy, with potential reserves of 20 million tonnes. Further exploration is required. On the eve of the EU-Central Asian Summit in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan announced the discovery of a large deposit of rare earth elements. The find was made in Karagandy, the central region of Kazakhstan. Now dubbed "New Kazakhstan," the deposit is said to have almost 1 million tonnes of cerium, lanthanum, neodymium and yttrium, elements used as components in devices such as smartphones, digital cameras and computer hard disks. “Four prospective areas have been identified within the site...

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Félix Tshisekedi, has reached out directly to President Donald J. Trump with a historic proposal: help defeat a brutal rebel force terrorizing his nation, and in return, America will gain direct access to one of the world’s richest untapped troves of critical minerals—worth an estimated $24 trillion. According to a letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal, President Tshisekedi offered Trump exclusive mining opportunities through the newly launched U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund, a Trump-led initiative aimed at reshaping global investment through pro-American partnerships. “Your election has ushered in the golden age...

Reasons to use coal? Here you are.

Video podcast discussion about the current Ukraine events. Martin is being interviewed with another guest, worth listening to, especially about the secret deal Zelensky made with England.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly told Fox News on March 4 that there are no plans to sign a mineral resources deal with Ukraine following Donald Trump’s speech to Congress. His statement comes after earlier reports suggesting Trump intended to announce the agreement during his upcoming address. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Feb. 28 visit to the White House was originally intended to finalize the long-debated agreement on jointly developing Ukraine’s mineral resources. The meeting instead turned into a public clash, with Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance berating Zelensky. The Ukrainian president later left the White House without signing...

Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is still "ready to sign" a US-Ukraine minerals deal after leaving the White House without it being agreed. Ukraine's president told reporters that despite a fractious meeting with US President Donald Trump last week, he is still willing to have a "constructive dialogue" with the US, but said: "I just want the Ukrainian position to be heard." "We want our partners to remember who the aggressor is in this war," he added. When relations between the US and Ukraine first became strained over the Trump administration's handing of peace talks with Russia, the minerals deal...

Friday, during an appearance on FNC’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had turned down two earlier opportunities to sign a proposed minerals deal with the United States. According to Bessent, Zelensky was given chances in Kyiv by him once in Munich with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Friday’s dust-up with President Donald Trump was his third chance. “[I] know you had a meeting scheduled — an economic meeting scheduled a few weeks back with President Zelensky,” host Laura Ingraham said. “And tell us about his arrival and punctuality or lack thereof and seemed...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is slated to meet with US President Donald Trump at the White on Friday to finalize the widely publicized mineral deal. The initial demand for $500 billion in minerals was perhaps a reminder to Ukraine of how much the US has spent on their war. The current draft would establish a jointly managed Reconstruction Investment Fund. It is estimated that Ukraine holds 5% of world’s critical raw materials. Ukrainian officials believe they have 19 million tonnes of graphite reserves and significant deposits of titanium, rare earth metals, and lithium. The current plan would require harvesting up...

While President Trump has been trying to make progress on a deal to end the war in Ukraine, the US has also been negotiating a mineral rights deal designed to pay the US back for some of the support we've given Ukraine over the past three years since the Russian invasion. Today, both the US and Ukraine say a deal has been reached.The US and Ukraine have agreed to terms on a deal over natural resources and reconstruction, according to a Ukrainian official.The source said the terms were agreed after “everything unacceptable was taken out of the text and it...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the Ukraine: Year 2025 forum that Kiev does not recognize a $500 billion debt to the United States, insisting that the aid it received was in the form of grants, not loans. "I don't even recognize $100 billion. We agreed with Biden that it was a grant, not a debt," the Ukrainian president claimed. The administration of United States President Donald Trump has asked Ukraine for a deal that would include giving it access to its minerals as a way to repay for the aid Washington provided for Kiev. Despite rejecting the debt, Zelnesky...

Donald Trump appears to have won his trade standoff with Volodymyr Zelensky, as the Ukrainian president is set to give in and sign a deal giving the U.S. access to deposits of critical minerals. The deal was seen as crucial for satisfying Washington's demands for a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia to end their three-year long war. Zelensky said on Friday that officials from his country and the U.S. were working on concluding an economic deal to ensure that the accord worked and was fair to Kyiv. 'We're signing an agreement, hopefully in the next fairly short period of...

Donald Trump appears to have won his trade standoff with Volodymyr Zelensky, as the Ukrainian president is set to give in and sign a deal giving the U.S. access to deposits of critical minerals.

Kyiv holds $15 trillion in natural resources which would help break the US’s dependence on China. The strategic significance of Ukraine’s mineral resources “cannot be overstated”, according to publicly-available Nato briefings. Its vast reserves span more than 100 metals across some 20,000 deposits, including several that have been identified as critically important by both the US and Europe.

The British paper The Telegraph claims to have has access to a draft of the ‘pre-decisional contract’, sent by the US to Volodymyr Zelensky, dealing with a demand for a $500bn ‘payback’ from Ukraine for the aid already delivered. The document, marked ‘Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025, has caused ‘consternation and panic’ in Kiev, according to the Telegraph report. The writer Ambrose Evans Pritchard is ‘shocked’ by the draconian terms, calls it ‘economic colonization of Ukraine’, a ‘burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved’. (“It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment...

KOLWEZI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Little about Kolwezi, a small city in southern Democratic Republic of Congo, hints at its global importance. Nondescript and ringed by slag heaps, pits and quarry lakes, the city is home to some of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the world. Now, Kolwezi is at the center of U.S.-Chinese competition over critical minerals. Earlier this year, mining firms began shipping ore along a U.S.-backed railway that terminates in Angola's Atlantic port of Lobito. A massive infrastructure project is focused on this rail line -- which is viewed as a bid to counter...