Bolithia

• New York Times, "In Bolivia, Untapped Bounty Meets Nationalism," Simon Romero, February 2, 2009.
  
  
• McClatchy, "Lithium could be Bolivia's future, if politics don't get in way," Tyler Bridges , January 30, 2009.
  
  
• TIME, "For Lithium Car Batteries, Bolivia Is in the Driver's Seat," By Jean Friedman-Rudovsky, January 22, 2009.

Who sent out the memo to every stringer in South America? There's no obvious hook that would have inspired them independently. Did they all see this story last year and decide to carpool out to the Salar de Uyuni salt flats?*

Those grabbed by the haunting photo on the cover of the Gray Lady won't be disappointed. The market for lithium has exploded along with the demand for more efficient car batteries, and as the largest source of the mineral, Bolivia is trying to negotiate how get the maximum social benefit out of this potential windfall. Given the tensions over Bolivia's natural gas reserves and the fact a similar technology-driven mineral boom in the Congo (in that case involving coltan, a key cell phone input) has escalated and drawn out the brutal conflict there, some might worry about a "lithium curse." But the major difference is that lithium is found in the pro-government south, whereas the opposition controls the country's natural gas deposits in the "half-moon" region to the north and east. If President Evo Morales manages the situation prudently, most of the lithium from the salares will end up in Bolivian salaries.

* I typed that facetiously, but copying the links above, I noticed the photo credit for the Times piece is Noah Friedman-Rudovsky, uncannily similar to the author of the TIME story, Jean Friedman-Rudovsky. Trolling the interwebs, I don't see an obvious connection between them, but it does nothing to dispel the perception that foreign reporting is a bit cliquish.