Follow this industry closely enough and you’ll likely want to visit one or more mines yourself. One way to do that would be to get a job as a miner, although that’s an occupation requiring competence, a capacity for hard work and at least rudimentary English or French. People lacking those qualifications, however, need not despair. They might still find employment writing up sponsored site visits for investor newsletters and mining publications. Still a third approach involves touring historic sites.

Imagine the power—unchecked power, at that—to create money. Then imagine the disaster such power could unleash. While that scenario looms in the foreseeable future, Nomi Prins argues, its precursors have made themselves obvious since 2008. They’re the result of central bank policies and the system that sustains them, institutions absolutely bereft of a Plan B. A mess so manifestly dangerous calls for radical solutions, she maintains.

The project’s first drill campaign in nine years poses a big question: Why was this the project’s first drill campaign in nine years?

Even in the face of highly encouraging historic niobium-tantalum results, this program’s first hole exceeded expectations. More near-surface high grades and wide widths followed, culminating in a fourth hole that surpassed them all. Now Saville Resources TSXV:SRE looks forward to more drilling to build an inferred resource on the Niobium Claim Group in northern Quebec’s Labrador Trough.

They’re vital to several categories of modern essentials including military defence. But rare earths have themselves become weapons in an escalating conflict between China and the U.S. Despite Washington’s heightened awareness of its critical minerals conundrum, the U.S., like the rest of the non-Chinese world, remains almost completely dependent on its rival-turned-enemy for the rare earths that China threatens to cut off.

Not for the faint-hearted, resource stocks hardly suit reckless investors either. Rick Rule’s long and successful career in this volatile world likely stems from shrewd insight borne of a non-conformist outlook. The president/CEO of Sprott U.S. Holdings took time to talk with ResourceClips.com about his favourite commodities, mining management, trade wars and critical minerals as well as—if only to demonstrate the principle of enlightened self-interest—the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium returning to Vancouver from July 29 to August 2.

How often does an investor presentation draw such keen interest from non-investors?
No doubt representatives from a number of governments and industries watched intensely on May 21 as Lynas CEO/managing director Amanda Lacaze accentuated her company’s “will to win.” Lynas has plans in place and funding en route to overcome what previously appeared to be an unattainable ultimatum. Far from becoming a takeover target, let alone a jurisdictional fatality, the miner expects to continue building a rare earths supply chain “focused on rest-of-the-world markets, that is non-Chinese markets.”

This won’t be the first time Washington has seen such a proposal. Announced last week, the American Mineral Security Act encourages the development of domestic resources and supply chains to produce minerals considered essential to the country’s well-being. But the chief backer, Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, acknowledges having introduced similar standalone legislation previously, as well as addressing the topic in a previous energy bill.

The outcome wasn’t as surprising as last time, when the once-marginal New Democratic Party swept to power in what had long been a moderately conservative one-party province. Yet this was probably Alberta’s most dramatic election since 1935, when a victorious upstart tied to the economic movement known as Social Credit grabbed international attention. Rarely has Western alienation played out so strongly as in this campaign, provoked by Ottawa’s stance on, among other issues, the ongoing war against Canadian resource industries. Foreign interference in the form of U.S. money also came to light, while aspects of the culture wars helped inflame passions.

Less than two years ago tensions along an especially sensitive border area sparked fighting between Chinese and Indian troops. Outside Asia, who knew? “As most of the world focused on the Twitter account of the US president and the circus surrounding Brexit, the threat of the two most populous countries on earth going to war was not just a possibility, it looked like becoming a fact,” writes Peter Frankopan. An uneasy truce eventually stalled hostilities but the West’s ignorance of the wider world remains. That’s both symptom and cause of the West’s decline, the author says.

This isn’t the kind of Yankee imperialism Canadian protesters typically protest. Powerful American interests pay Canadian environmental activists big, big money—well over half a billion dollars so far—that does nothing for the environment but undermines our economy and national unity. That’s Vivian Krause’s message and, as the pipeline controversy gains intensity, her story’s gaining prominence. But, she argues, Ottawa still shows no intention of using its power to stop this foreign interference.