Analytical Fingerprint of Wolframite Ore Concentrates

Ongoing violent conflicts in Central Africa are fueled by illegal mining and trading of tantalum, tin, and tungsten ores. The credibility of document‐based traceability systems can be improved by an analytical fingerprint applied as an independent method to confirm or doubt the documented origin of ore minerals. Wolframite (Fe,Mn)WO₄ is the most important ore mineral for tungsten and is subject to artisanal mining in Central Africa. Element concentrations of wolframite grains analyzed by laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry are used to establish the analytical fingerprint. The data from ore concentrate samples are multivariate, not normal or log‐normal distributed. The samples cannot be regarded as representative aliquots of a population. Based on the Kolmogorov–Smirnov distance, a measure of similarity between a sample in question and reference samples from a database is determined. A decision criterion is deduced to recognize samples which do not originate from the declared mine site.     

Greeting A Brand-New Year

Six lessons for the international community to take As we move into the new year with cautious optimism while still facing lingering challenges from 2020, the annus horribilis, and prepare for other challenges, including global warming and those that have not yet emerged but surely will, here are six intersecting lessons to consider as we continue containment and recovery efforts.     

Good Leadership and Common Prosperity

正Beijing recently released a new white paper providing a comprehensive overview of a multitude of efforts to achieve a xiaokang, or moderately prosperous, society, on schedule in 2021, coinciding with the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China(CPC). First described in the modern era by Deng Xiaoping in 1979, subsequent generations of Chinese leadership made this concept central to national development goals.     

America's Anti-China Human Rights Hype

正As U.S. President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken attempt to rebrand post-Donald Trump America through new policies and narratives at home and abroad, the topic of human rights has become, once again, a focal point of Washington’s propaganda. China should welcome this discussion and join it robustly.     

Evaluating the Xi-Biden Summit

The virtual summit has come and gone and what has it changed? Virtually nothing. We had good reason to believe that more would be accomplished. Admittedly, the original meeting read-outs were relatively sparse, and new details emerged in the days that followed, indicating that more was said and done than either side initially conveyed. But the key questions facing us now are: Why did we expect more; why didn't we get it; and what does all of this mean for China-U.S. relations going forward?     

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

Over the many years of accelerated economic growth in China,there has been a general tendency in m any corners to fetishize GDP growth rates as paramount indicators of economic developm ent The simple logic of bigger is better has always been an easy sell to citizens and investors alike,and particularly in the wake of China’s joining the WTO,it has been the story above all others,arguably,that has captivated international attention,along with the persistent concern that at some point,those rates would decline and then,perhaps,all bets would be off.     

DANGERS OF DECOUPLING AMID THE VIRUS

While the current novel coronavirus outbreak continues to affect many in China,loom ing questions remain regarding global im pacts related to health,econom ics and geopolitics.Given current scie n tific understandings of the disease,including its transm ission rates and associated morbidity and mortality(and despite multiple studies indicating a relatively low fatality rate),the costs for China and in particular,Wuhan,the outbreaks epicenter,continue to be substantial.     

Bank power in West Germany revised

This article examines the empirical and theoretical validity of the power of banks over industry in West Germany. An outline of the historical development, structure and institutions of credit in the Federal Republic is followed by discussion of the three alleged factors behind the banks' power: the functional linkage of bank and industrial capital; property rights and ‘personal influence’; the planning and economic guidance capacities of the banks. Finally, it is argued that the thesis of bank power in Germany, in the light of empirical evidence and theoretical reflection, should be somewhat more differentiated.