Syrian rebels batter military base near Aleppo

Syrian rebels have battered a military base near Aleppo, Syria's most populous city and its commercial hub, seizing tanks in previous clashes with government troops to pound the Menagh military airport. The main military airfield in the region is southeast of the city.

International diplomacy to resolve the ongoing Syrian uprising has failed. Kofi Annan, who championed a six-point peace plan he declared his resignation as the U.N. and Arab League joint special envoy to Syria.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The government-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported that the military was "killing or wounding dozens of terrorists" in the countryside outside Aleppo.

Government warplanes shelled the western and northern parts of the city, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.

International diplomacy to resolve the ongoing Syrian uprising has failed. Kofi Annan, who championed a six-point peace plan he declared his resignation as the U.N. and Arab League joint special envoy to Syria.

Military defectors have streamed into the opposition's arms over the past several months, substantially strengthening rebel forces. The opposition is now equipped with heavy weaponry, including tanks, the United Nations said, a sign that the armed resistance to President Bashar al-Assad's regime is gaining military might.

In the meantime, shelling and clashes have raged across the city for days, sending thousands of people to flee for their lives. Both rebels and government forces have placed crucial importance on gaining control of the Aleppo.

Cellular networks, landline phones and Internet services, have been cut off in the city. Rebels say the cutoff is part of a regime plan before the government kicks off a full-scale attack.

Activists now can't communicate with one another and can't figure out what's happening in certain neighborhoods. "The regime is trying to prevent pictures of his crimes from reaching the media," Abu Hisham, an activist from Aleppo said.

Capt. Ammar Al-Wawi of the Free Syrian Army said MiG-23 fighter jets struck rebels in an Aleppo village and seven FSA soldiers died in shelling in another location.

In the meantime, Syrian state TV said soldiers "have been able to eliminate scores of terrorists and mercenaries" in Aleppo. The government media claims that the military  is sweeping through the city's Salaheddine neighborhood and towns west of Aleppo.

U.S. officials have said that President Barack Obama had signed a covert directive authorizing U.S. support for Syrian rebels. In the meantime, Syrian state TV said Obama signed "secret documents" to "support terrorists."

The Obama administration had said it would step up its assistance to the opposition after last month's failure by the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the al-Assad regime.

How To Stop Conflict Minerals From Killing Congo

If you thought the 2010 financial regulation law was just about stopping the next financial crisis, you wouldn’t quite be correct. Contained in its 848 pages is an unusual provision that has little to do with Too Big To Fail or bringing transparency to derivatives trading. It’s about minerals.

Or, to be exact, conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose civil war is fueled by trade in tungsten, tin, tantalum, and gold. Section 1502 puts a disclosure requirement on publicly-listed companies to say whether their products contain conflict materials, and to report that information to investors. And it’s likely that major names from the electronics and automotive industries will be affected soon.

70 companies currently have no idea whether their products are 'conflict-free.'

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has lobbied to weaken the provision (though Microsoft, General Electric, and others have distanced themselves from those efforts), but the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is set to enforce the law in the next few weeks. Which leaves companies no choice but to beef up their due diligence procedures--no easy task. PricewaterhouseCoopers says 70 companies currently have no idea whether their products are "conflict-free", while 49 say their supplies could be disrupted.

So what should they, or any other company concerned about the issue, do? A report published in May by Global Witness, a U.K.-based campaign group, gives some practical suggestions. In line with U.N. and OECD guidelines, it recommends strengthening systems to trace minerals to where they were mined; identifying ways in which payments may end up in military hands; being ready to take action if those risks materialize; having independent audits; and publicly disclosing what steps have been taken.

The report encourages collaboration to make the job easier. "Companies can choose to pool their resources to carry out on-the-ground risk assessments and can enlist external experts to help them, as long as the companies retain responsibility for the information gathered and their response to it," it says.

It won’t be easy--though, as campaigners, lawmakers and peacemakers agree, public disclosure is the less painless way forward. Stopping the trade completely would harm both U.S. and DRC companies, and probably raise prices for consumers. This way, the trade stays intact, but has a chance of becoming a little less harmful.

Molycorp increasing rare-earth production

Molycorp (MCP), the largest rare-earth producer in the US, announced that it would scale up its rare-earth production, increasing its share of the global market from the current 4 percent to 30 percent, without providing a time schedule, the Beijing Business Today reported Monday.

The company plans to invest $895 million in its rare-earth business and double its output capacity from 20,000 tons to 40,000 tons, the report said.

Some analysts said the move will put pressure on Chinese exports of rare earth. "This would definitely influence China's rare-earth exports in the future and help the US rare-earth industry reduce its reliance on Chinese exports," Chen Zhanheng, director of the academic department of the Chinese Society of Rare Earths, told the Global Times Monday.

Data from the Rare Earth Information Center revealed that the main buyers of China's rare earth are Japan, the US and France, with the US ranking the second. Between 2004 and 2008, the US purchase of Chinese rare earth declined from over 16,000 tons to 8,000 tons.

However, the Molycorp expansion plan will have little impact on China's rare-earth sales on the whole, as bulk of the country's output is used for domestic consumption, said Chen. China produced 96,900 tons of rare earth in 2011 and exported 18, 600 tons.

The announcement comes after the World Trade Organization announced on July 23 to set up an expert panel to investigate into China's export policies on rare earth, tungsten and molybdenum, following complaints from the countries like US and Japan about China's restrictions on the exports of rare earth.

Why Western countries press China to export rare earth

Production of rare earth result in the huge environmental destruction

At the request of the European Union (EU), the United States and Japan, the World Trade Organization (WTO) organized a special group on July 23, investigating, discussing and settling about China's export control measures on rare earth elements, tungsten and molybdenum.

In March, the E.U., the United States and Japan resorted China's export restriction policies on tungsten, molybdenum and 17 rare earth elements to the WTO. On June 27, they again demanded the WTO to launch the dispute settlement mechanism and set up special group so as to solve the dispute on China's controlling exports of rare earth elements and some other metallic elements.

What is their intention to deliberately provoke rare earth dispute?

China possesses less than 50 percent of total rare earth reserves in the world but it provided the world with 90 percent of rare earth output in 2001 and 97 percent in 2010.

However, so large world market share did not bring monopoly profits to China and the global rare earth had been maintaining at a super low price by 2005. Supported by local governments of all levels, the large, medium and small enterprises poured in rare earth industry and began excessive competition. Driven by short-term profits, plenty of small enterprises predatorily exploited rare earth elements, bringing the productivity of the whole rare earth industry down. The recovery ratio of rare earth exploited by state-owned enterprises only reaches to 60 percent per ton, that of large private enterprises is 40 percent and that of illegal enterprises is only 5 percent. The rare earth resource was squandered a lot, thus causing severe environmental problem.

In order to protect environment and the rare earth resource, Chinese government tried to control the predatory production and exportations of the rare earth resource. The export quota has been reduced to about 30,000 tons from original 65,000 tons from 2005 to 2010, which greatly decreased overexploitation of rare earth resource.

If anything, China has exported too much rather than too little rare earths. Related countries should resume their own production of rare earths, instead of forcing China to increase exports of the valuable resources. It is extremely selfish of Western countries to force China to increase rare earth exports and expect to continue buying the resources at unreasonably low prices, without the regard for the severe environmental damage China has suffered.

Of course, China could say “no” to unreasonable requests from Western countries, but Western-led international trade rules would place it under heavy pressure. China must seriously reflect on why it has sold rare earths at unreasonably low prices, and now even face groundless accusations by Western countries after paying a high environmental price.

The United States has implemented high-technology exports restriction to China for long time. During the Cold War, it initiated the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) to put an arms embargo on socialist countries like China. After the Korean War broke out, a “China sub-committee” of the CoCom was established to impose stricter embargo on China than on the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. Especially the forbade shipment of 207 items beyond the CoCom list were also forbade to China. After the end of the Cold War, the United States played a leading role in replacing the CoCom with the seemingly less strict Wassenaar Arrangement, which is in essence aimed at restricting exports to China.

Despite several reforms in recent years, the United States has retained a relatively strict export control policy toward China. In 2007, the U.S. Department of Commerce published the “Revisions and Clarification of Export and Reexport Controls for the People’s Republic of China (PRC); New Authorization Validated End-User; Revision of Import Certificate and PRC End-User Statement Requirements,” stating that nine items such as aircraft and aircraft engines, avionics, navigation systems, and communications equipment “have the potential to contribute to” China’s military buildup, and are thus not allowed to be exported to China. The U.S. export controls seem to only target items concerning national security such as military and aerospace products, but the ambiguous criteria as well as complicated examination and approval procedures actually constitute a serious obstacle to China’s high-tech imports.

UN, DR Congo helicopter gunships attack rebels

The United Nations and Democratic Republic of Congo army used helicopter gunships on Thursday to attack army mutineers thought to be threatening the main eastern city of Goma.

Three helicopters from the UN country mission and two from the DRC army (FARDC) were seen around the villages of Nkokwe and Bukima, where the so-called M23 rebels are thought to have positions.

The UN and the Congolese army sent MI24 and MI25 helicopters flown by Ukrainian pilots. The gunships, first made by the Soviet Union, strafed hillsides with 30mm rounds and fired rockets, a UN source said.

"We made several passes on rebel positions," the UN official said.

The UN and the troops from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which claims the rebels are a Rwandan proxy, had earlier deployed tanks around Goma in Nord-Kivu province.

However, the rebels said they had no plans to seize the regional capital and only wanted to negotiate with the government in Kinshasa.

"The FARDC are currently attacking our positions, but they don't know where we are. There's no problem," a colonel from the rebels said.

The M23 rebels — named after a failed 2009 peace deal signed on March 23 — are led by Bosco Ntaganda, nicknamed the "Terminator", who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for recruiting child soldiers a decade ago.

His co-accused and former boss Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years in jail on Tuesday.

The mutineers are ex-rebels who were integrated into the regular army in 2009 as part of a deal that followed their failed 2008 offensive on Goma, under the command of Tutsi leader Laurent Nkunda.

They defected in April, ostensibly over pay, but experts argue Ntaganda and his men are flexing military muscle to clinch further rights over the area's lucrative mines.

In Thursday's gunship attacks, a group of women working in fields near Bukima claimed they were caught in the crossfire.

"We were hiding in the banana groves when the helicopters opened fire. There was one person with us who was hit and died immediately," said one woman who asked not to be named.

Nkokwe and Bukima are on the western border of the Virunga national park, some 50km from Goma and home to critically endangered mountain gorillas and the location of two active volcanoes.

The M23 mutineers had launched an offensive in recent days, easily overwhelming the FARDC. Around 600 regular troops and tens of thousands of civilians were forced to seek refuge in Uganda.

"Our mission is not to go to Goma. We are strong but we are also disciplined," M23 spokesman Vianney Kazarama said.

The mutineers had seized a number of towns along the Ugandan border and promptly withdrew from all but Bunagana.

"We have pulled out of those towns, our mission is not to control them. What we want is that the Congolese government sit down at the negotiating table," Kazarama said.

Almost uninterrupted conflict over DR Congo's vast mineral resources — which include gold, diamonds, coltan, tin, tungsten and many others — has left at least two million people dead since 1999, say rights groups.

A diplomat in Kinshasa said an M23 offensive on Goma appeared unlikely.

Direct Line in play as buyout shops circle

Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) and Bain Capital LLC are working on a possible joint offer for Direct Line, a person directly familiar with the plans said on Sunday. Blackstone declined to comment while Bain did not respond to a request for comment.
Another group, comprising KKR & Co LP, Apax Partners LP and BC Partners Ltd, is putting together a rival offer, the Sunday Times reported earlier, quoting city sources as saying both groups were planning to make moves at the end of the month.
KKR, Apax, BC Partners and RBS did not respond to a request for comment.
European regulators have ordered RBS to sell or float Direct Line by the end of 2013 to counterbalance the competitive advantage it received from a British government bailout, which left it 82 percent state-owned.
The buyout interest is boon for RBS, which is in the process of rebuilding its balance sheet and has said it wants to list Direct Line in the fourth quarter. Analysts have estimated it could be valued at around 3 billion pounds ($4.66 billion).
Tungsten, the British buyout vehicle co-founded by financier Edmund Truell, had said in May it could bid for Direct Line but Truell said earlier this month that he was not close to any deal to buy RBS's insurance unit.
On Friday, sources told Reuters RBS had added eight banks to help with Direct Line's IPO. The public offering of a minority stake is being run by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS, who are acting as joint book runners.
Founded in 1985, Direct Line also trades under the Churchill and Privilege brands and owns the Green Flag breakdown recovery service.
RBS needed a 45 billion pound bailout in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis as its acquisition of Dutch bank ABN AMRO in 2007 pushed it close to collapse.
RBS' lengthy turnaround process has made the timetable for any sale of Britain's stake in the troubled bank uncertain, prompting some speculation that the government may consider selling some of the stake at a loss at first.

China Tungsten Industry Report

The wide application of touch screen technology in such electronics as smart phones and tablet PCs boosts the demand for tungsten, and the exploitation of tungsten is circumscribed in many countries, as a result,there is acute conflict between tungsten supply and demand, the prices of tungsten products kept rising in 2010-2011 and still remained high in Q1 2012 though fell slightly.

China, the country with the richest tungsten resources in the world, holds 65% of the global tungsten ore reserves and accounts for around 85% of the global tungsten ore supply. In 2011, China's output of tungsten ore concentrates (WO3 65%) hit all-time record high of 135,700 tons, up 4.60% over 2010. Restricted by the limited new exploited resources and the policies concerning total exploration amount control and export quotas, China's output of tungsten ores will witness little scope for growth in the coming years and the global tungsten market will present tight supply.

In 2011, Jiangxi Province remained as the largest producer of tungsten ore concentrates in China with an output of 65,830 tons, accounting for 48.5% of national exploration amount, followed by Hunan Province with an output of 31,150 tons, which could be mainly attributed to their abundant tungsten ore resources together making up more than 50% of total tungsten ore reserves in China.

Jiangxi-based Chongyi Zhangyuan Tungsten Co., Ltd., Jiangxi Tungsten Industry Group Co., Ltd., Jiangxi Rare Earth and Rare Metals Tungsten Group Corporation and Jiangxi Xiushui Xianglushan Tungsten Co., Ltd., and Hunan-based Hunan Nonferrous Metals Holding Group Co., Ltd. and Hunan Chenzhou Mining Group Co., Ltd. are the major tungsten production and processing enterprises in China and have relatively complete industrial chain. In 2011, benefiting from the rising prices of tungsten products, these enterprises delivered robust performance. Meanwhile, the desire for profit and the constraints on tungsten ore resources have urged them to expand downwards the industry chain.

For instance, Chongyi Zhangyuan Tungsten began to carry out the technological transformation project of high-performance and high-precision coated tips since August 2011. The Phase I will complete installation and debugging in H2 2012 and start preliminary production in Q4 2012. It is estimated that the project will provide the company with 100 tons of cemented carbide tool capacity and RMB280 million of revenue upon full completion in 2014.

Xianglushan Tungsten possessed 10,000 tons of APT production capacity and added one tungsten oxide production line in 2011 and will establish workshop for cemented carbide micro-drills in 2012.

Hunan Nonferrous Metals has strengthened the R & D of cemented carbide products and invested in the technological transformation projects of high-performance ultra-fine grain cemented carbide production line and of special shaped cemented carbide & deep processing line to increase its market share in Chinese cemented carbide field.

It is in the report that covers the followings:

• The reserves and distribution of global tungsten resources, and the supply & demand of global tungsten industry;
• The reserves and distribution of Chinese tungsten resources, and the supply & demand of Chinese tungsten industry;
• Annual indexes of China's total tungsten exploration amount control and export quotas, and indexes allocated to enterprises and regions;
• Competition pattern of Chinese tungsten industry;
• The price changes of global and Chinese tungsten products;
• Import and export of major tungsten products in China;
• Operation of major tungsten production and processing enterprises in China, such as revenue and profit, capacity and output of tungsten ores, main mining resource and production enterprises and their tungsten product business development, etc.