World Bank President Ajay Banga on Friday said the development lender has set a goal of quintupling its critical minerals business ​in five years, and has identified 20 countries that it ‌can partner with on critical minerals development projects…The World Bank's new Metals and Minerals ​implementation plan is targeting $19 billion in critical minerals financing over the fiscal 2026-2030 period, compared with $3.6 billion in the fiscal 2021-2025 period…Critical minerals development is an area where ​the United States, the World Bank's largest shareholder, has called for the ​bank to devote more financing resources…US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week ‌that ⁠he wanted the bank to play a bigger role in enabling critical minerals mining and processing capacity through project de-risking and finance and investment in enabling infrastructure. He said this includes deep-sea mining projects.

China has proposed export controls on 12 technologies used to make solar equipment, citing national security concerns, as part ​of a broader revision that also covers AI and biotechnology…The ministry ‌of commerce proposed adding the photovoltaic technologies to China's export-control list, it said in a statement on Friday, adding that greater oversight is needed because solar technologies are ​increasingly being used in sensitive areas like aerospace and national ​defense…China would ​ban technologies including ​those used to ⁠make some thin wafers, perovskite and tandem solar cells, as well as large-scale fluidized-bed polysilicon production technologies…Perovskite is ​an emerging technology that offers the potential of increased ​conversion efficiency. ⁠Tandem cells combine perovskite and silicon layers to capture more of the sunlight spectrum.

The largest armed presence inside Venezuela today isn’t Venezuelan at all — it’s Colombia’s ELN and FARC militia dissidents, who control vast stretches of the border region in a brutal war for territory…To pay for guns and grenades, these Colombian terrorist organizations are plundering Venezuela’s critical minerals and selling them to Chinese buyers for big profits. More than 56,000 people have been displaced, fleeing the bloodshed…Speaking from Barranquilla, Colombia last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said these “terrorist organizations … operate with impunity” in the border region “entering [Colombia] committing crimes, murders, and attacks, and then returning and hiding in [Venezuela].”…Across southern Venezuela’s Orinoco region, officials and military commanders partner with terrorists, cartels, and “sindicatos” — Venezuela’s mining-territory crime syndicates — providing trading permits, fuel and access to equipment for a bribe. These groups are given free rein to extract mineral resources: tin, rare earths and coltan — essential inputs for jet engines, data centers, nuclear reactors, and military systems…These minerals aren’t headed for the U.S. defense sector, however. Instead, Chinese intermediaries line up to buy the illicit minerals at high prices. Armed groups smuggle the extracted minerals to ports where they can be shipped to China…Every shipment of illicit critical minerals that Venezuelan criminal groups sell to Chinese buyers increases Beijing’s mineral processing chokehold and weakens America’s economic security.

Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila on Monday joined forces with the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group to head a new outfit, taking a more direct role in the insurgency ravaging the country's volatile east…The tie-up was presented at a joint press conference at Kabila's residence in Goma, the major city in mineral-rich eastern Congo that the M23 has controlled since January 2025…The new group – known as the Front pour la Refondation de la Nation (FRN) – was presented as a "politico-military" outfit that will "pool their strengths, resources and means" with the aim of "putting an end to tyranny by any means, including force."…It will be headed by Kabila and rebel leaders will serve as deputies…Kabila was condemned to death in absentia a year ago for "complicity" with the M23…The 55-year-old Kabila, who ruled from 2001 to 2019, is accused by Congolese authorities of being one of the initiators of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), the now dissolved political wing of the M23.

About 300 Chinese nationals working in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s copper belt were detained earlier this week as part of a crackdown on illegal mining, according to people familiar with the matter…The arrests took place mostly in the mining hub of Kolwezi, the people said, asking not to be named describing a sensitive issue. Chinese companies dominate copper output in Congo, and workers were arrested for their alleged involvement in illicit mining on concessions belonging to other firms, according to some of the people…A wave of mainly Chinese investment has fueled Congo’s copper expansion in recent years, helping the nation triple output since 2015 and surpass Peru as the world’s second-largest producer. But the mining boom has also brought disorder.