The only thing better would be if America decided to exploit its own substantial mineral wealth.
Now it appears that some of that mineral wealth may exist in the form of oil.
It attributed this in part to growing economic interest in central African mineral wealth.
Guinea's president, Lansana Conte, this week accused Liberia's government of trying to snatch Guinea's mineral wealth.
Congo is also remote, and its politics have also been corrupted by mineral wealth.
Despite its vast mineral wealth, decades of conflict and mismanagement mean most Congolese remain stuck in poverty.
Both have significant oil and mineral wealth, which has played an important role in facilitating their independence.
The government in Beijing thinks Kenya, not Tanzania, is the gateway to the mineral wealth of Congo.
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Australia is carbon-intensive largely because it is rich in coal, one example of its enviable mineral wealth.
We also need to make sure that mineral wealth in developing countries becomes a blessing, not a curse.
Other African countries with mineral wealth - Zimbabwe for example - should beware.
It has huge mineral wealth, roads, railways, ports and connections to the rest of the world unrivalled in Africa.
As well as untapped mineral wealth worth billions of dollars, the territory may also have offshore oil and gas reserves.
Because Bolivians have earned little from their mineral wealth, it is easy to whip up opposition to foreign oil and gas companies.
Yet the combination of rising mineral wealth and continuing poverty is explosive.
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Another problem is that the region's mineral wealth has corrupted local politics.
The UN operation (Monusco) is supporting Congolese army operations against rebel groups competing for control of mineral wealth in lawless areas of the country.
Aceh's mineral wealth is substantial and a new special-autonomy law has brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the hands of the regional government.
In Kazakhstan to the north, the president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, has doled out money and favours (from the country's mineral wealth) to keep himself in power.
Fanciful Pentagon talk of Afghanistan's huge mineral wealth smacks of desperation.
Yet in a country cursed by its mineral wealth, human rights groups warn that impunity will continue unless those who committed war crimes are held to account.
But South Africa's leaders seem to believe that the country's mineral wealth - gold, platinum and diamonds, among others - will see it through its economic problems.
The FFR broke away from the better known Tuareg MNJ rebels, who are fighting for greater autonomy and a larger share of northern Niger's vast mineral wealth.
Extortion by the police and military is a fact of life for the foreign companies who mine much of Indonesia's vast mineral wealth, in Aceh as in every other region.
The government says it wants to protect the wildlife, but many believe that they are motivated by the huge mineral wealth the Kalahari is believed to possess, including diamonds and possible uranium.
Eastern DR Congo has been ravaged by conflict for at least 15 years, with both the army and rebel groups accused of using the fighting as cover to exploit the area's mineral wealth.
One is the control of mineral wealth: the diamond trade thrives in and around Kisangani, and some Ugandans close to Mr Museveni have grown rich exporting gold and other commodities from the country's north-east.
In China, Japan did a great number of resource-for-infrastructure deals, where it built mines, roads, ore processing facilities, rail lines, shipping ports, and much more and took in exchange the mineral wealth that that infrastructure produced and helped to transport.
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This is heady stuff for an army which has lost a lot of ground to rebel militias in the east, amid claims that it has carried out rapes, and worked to help those who are corruptly stealing Congolese mineral wealth.
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