China reveals plans to extract Tibet's mineral wealth

So it turns out that back in 1999, the Chinese Communist Party conducted a massive secret survey of Tibet's mineral wealth, and that the construction of the Tibetan railroad was expressly designed to get that wealth out of Tibet. Abrahm Lustgarten as Fortune has the full story. Turns out there is a heckuva lot to take, including copper, iron, lead, and zinc. The story makes a big deal of the effect this will have on the iron markets. All told, it looks like China will extract about $128 billion worth of minerals from Tibet.