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Silicon Valley oligarchs like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen have much to gain from Donald Trump’s seizure of Greenland, both as a source of rare earth minerals to feed the AI boom and as a site for a libertarian “crypto state.”

In 2019, Trump’s ambassador to Denmark and Greenland visited a major rare-earth mining project on the island shortly before Trump’s first calls to buy the country. Opposition to the mine ushered liberal political party Inuit Ataqatigiit into power two years later, which halted the mine and banned all future oil development.

The president’s renewed intention to take over Greenland has reignited debates over its sovereignty, as the country grapples with the trade-offs between economic opportunity and independence from Denmark. As the country’s glaciers recede, it’s also facing sweeping climate-driven transformations, threatening traditional industries like fishing and hunting and exposing valuable mineral resources.

Just two weeks before some of its investors were glad-handing at the Capitol celebrations, KoBold Metals raised $537 million in its latest funding round, bringing its valuation to almost $3 billion. Among the contributors was a leading venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen, an early Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has helped shape the administration’s technology policies, including consulting with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency as a self-proclaimed “unpaid intern.”

“We believe in adventure,” Andreessen wrote in a lengthy 2023 manifesto that outlined his criticisms of centralized government, advocating for technologists to take control, “rebelling against the status quo, mapping uncharted territory, conquering dragons, and bringing home the spoils for our community.” Connie Chan, a general partner at his venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, is listed as a KoBold director in its 2022 Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

In addition to KoBold, Andreessen has also backed other ventures eyeing the arctic nation: he is a significant investor in Praxis Nation, a project aiming to use Greenland to establish a “crypto state,” a self-governing, experimental community built around libertarian ideals and technology like cryptocurrency.

Greenland, however, does not allow private property, an arrangement that historically has given communities a stronger voice in determining how or if its natural resources are developed — and could prove a problem for Brown’s planned utopia. But perhaps that could change under a new government.

“This Is About Critical Minerals” Greenland is warming at a much faster rate than the rest of the planet, causing its glaciers to precipitously retreat. As the ice recedes, these valuable deposits are becoming more accessible. A 2023 European Commission survey revealed that Greenland has twenty-five out of thirty-four minerals classified as critical raw materials, or resources that are essential to the green energy transition but have a high risk of disrupted supply chains. The country boasts some of the world’s largest deposits of nickel and cobalt, and collectively, its mineral reserves almost equal those of the United States.

This wealth of resources has drawn the attention of companies like KoBold Metals, whose Silicon Valley backers have a vested interest in supplying materials for the tech industry.

KoBold has positioned itself as providing critical solutions for climate change, facilitating a global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by supplying the materials needed for batteries and other renewable technologies. The company hailed President Joe Biden’s use of the Defense Production Act to encourage mining in 2022, along with the Inflation Reduction Act’s measures to subsidize international mining for rare earth minerals.

In Greenland, KoBold Metals’ exploration licenses focus on searching for nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum-group minerals — materials important for green energy, but also for data centers’ rapid growth.

United States Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will not be investigating the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who killed Renee Nicole Macklin Good, while also confirming reports that it is looking into charges against top Minnesota officials for encouraging protests.

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday night, Blanche said the civil rights unit of the Justice Department would not bow to pressure to investigate the shooting death of Minneapolis resident and mother Good, 37, earlier this month.

Contents of said letter from daily beast: https://archive.is/YFBK3#selection-773.0-779.748

“Dear Jonas,” the president wrote to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre. “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT.”

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Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig — who was detained by China for more than 1,000 days between 2018 and 2021 — says Prime Minister Mark Carney’s tone and messaging during his trip to China were “worrisome.”

In a bid to reset relations with China and counter trade threats from the United States, Carney became the first Canadian prime minister to travel to the Asian country in eight years this week.

During the trip, Carney took meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and stated progress in Canada-China relations is “(setting) up well for the new world order,” comments which drew widespread reaction, including from Kovrig.

“Diplomacy is necessary, grinning is optional, and looking like a supplicant is undignified,” Kovrig said in an interview airing Sunday on CTV’s Question Period. “That’s not a good look. So, the optics could have been better.”

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Kovrig added he thought the prime minister’s statement about the “new world order” was a “very worrisome way to express things.”

He said Carney “standing and grinning” while shaking Xi’s hand made him uncomfortable, and that “intoning about a new world order,” surrounded by top Chinese officials, “really carries some very Orwellian overtones.”

“It’s a deeply unsettling message, and it’s a very dangerous game,” Kovrig told host Vassy Kapelos, adding it risks endorsing Chinese narratives that are “deeply problematic.”

During the English-language leaders’ debate ahead of last April’s federal election, Carney pointed to China as the biggest security threat facing Canada.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing on Friday, however, when asked whether he still believes that to be true, Carney answered that “the security landscape continues to change.”

“In a world that’s more dangerous and divided, we face many threats,” he said. “That’s the reality. And the job, my responsibilities as prime minister, the job of the government, is to manage those threats.”

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Kovrig has warned against lifting the tariffs on Chinese EVs in the past, calling it a “mistake,” and telling Kapelos last September that it could give China too much leverage in future negotiations and domestic policymaking.

Kovrig, who’s now a senior advisor with the International Crisis Group, said the deal sets a precedent in dealing with China that will have “huge implications for Canada’s industrial policy.”

“You need to free the hostages, and so there needed to be some way of releasing some of that pain. And that matters,” Kovrig said of the pressure from Canadian Prairie provinces for relief from China’s agriculture-sector tariffs. “Those tariffs were painful and politically targeted, but the relief is time-limited and reversible. Beijing kept the leverage.”

“What did Canada give up? Canada broke ranks with the U.S. on Chinese electric vehicles,” he added. “Even with quotas, the signal’s big: market access is negotiable under pressure. That teaches the Chinese Communist Party that pressure works, and it’s likely to test that again.”

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has received an invitation to join the U.S.′ “Board of Peace” for Gaza, the Kremlin said Monday.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would study the details of the proposal to join the peace council created by U.S. President Donald Trump late last year.

Original post below:

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/31822192

You're free to let your community / instance know, to be prepared for when the event starts 🤗

Explanation:

Lemmyvision is an annual song contest that's held here on the threadiverse, with the name inspired by "Eurovision". Instances nominate and choose songs to send into the contest on behalf of their country/region/niche, and then there's another round of voting to choose the winner. We've participated twice so far, articles about those times here:

• https://fedecan.ca/en/announcements/2024-04-08_lemmyvision-2024
• https://fedecan.ca/en/announcements/2025-04-10_lemmyvision-2025

Here is what the contest community has in their sidebar:

Welcome to the Lemmyvision Song Contest where communities and instances of Lemmy submit a song and vote on their favourites!

The aim is to promote different languages and cultures from around the world, to share more between our online communities across Lemmy, and discover songs from lesser known artists.

The second edition of Lemmyvision ran from March 1st to April 8th, stay tuned for the next event ! 🎶

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