
Alice Queen (AQX:AU) has announced Reinstatement to Quotation
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Alice Queen (AQX:AU) has announced Reinstatement to Quotation
Download the PDF here.


Sun Summit Minerals is targeting the delineation of a multi-million-ounce gold-silver resource at its flagship JD project. With strategic positioning in an emerging consolidation hotspot, compelling valuation metrics, and a track record of discovery, Sun Summit is primed to deliver substantial value creation in the coming quarters.
Sun Summit Minerals (TSXV:SMN,OTCQB:SMREF) is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on developing its district-scale gold and copper projects in British Columbia.
The company has completed its 2025 exploration programs at the flagship JD Project and its inaugural exploration program at the Theory Project, located in the Toodoggone District.
Complementing JD and Theory is the company’s Buck project, a large, bulk-tonnage gold-silver system near Houston, BC, with an initial NI 43-101 resource estimate and significant exploration upside.
With capital in hand, a five-year exploration permit secured, and a camp established at JD, Sun Summit is executing a focused strategy to build scale, unlock resource potential and drive shareholder value. Under the leadership of its new CEO, the company has re-focused its strategy with a sharpened vision, a strengthened technical and leadership team, and a portfolio of high-quality, strategically located assets positioned to drive long-term shareholder value.

The JD & Theory projects span more than 25,000 hectares in the heart of the Toodoggone mining district in north-central BC, one of Canada’s most prospective belts for epithermal gold-silver and porphyry copper-gold systems. The district is home to Thesis Gold’s Ranch and Lawyers deposits (4.6 Moz gold equivalent, C$700 million market cap), Centerra’s Kemess underground development, and TDG Gold’s Shasta-Baker project. Infrastructure around the project includes hydroelectric grid access, the nearby Sturdee airstrip and all-season roads.
Results from the 2025 drill campaign at Creek Zone
The JD project hosts a 4.5 km mineralized corridor, known as Creek-Finn, with multiple underexplored targets showing evidence of both high-grade veins and broad disseminated gold systems. Historic and recent drill highlights include:
The Creek Zone features high-grade epithermal veins within broader disseminated zones, supported by strong IP anomalies and gold-in-soil results up to 12.2 g/t gold. The Finn Zone hosts near-surface mineralization with extensive historical drilling (~270 holes) and is open in all directions. Other targets include McClair (porphyry copper), East McClair (copper-gold skarn) and Moosehorn.
Sun Summit Minerals has completed its 2025 21-hole, 6,864 -meter drill program, successfully intersecting gold mineralization in all holes. The results have defined a northwest-trending, structurally controlled zone measuring approximately 750 meters by 300 meters and extending to a vertical depth of around 150 meters. The zone remains open both along strike and at depth, highlighting significant potential for further expansion. A five-year permit secured in April 2025 provides exploration continuity through 2030.
Sun Summit can earn 100 percent of the JD project by making staged cash/share payments and completing work commitments through 2029. Following the completion of its 2025 exploration program, the company closed an $11.5 million financing on December 23, 2025, fully funding the 2026 exploration program and strengthening its ability to advance the earn-in without near-term dilution.
The 100 percent owned Buck project spans 52,000 hectares and is located near key deposits, including Artemis Gold’s Blackwater (8 Moz gold), Imperial’s Huckleberry copper mine, and Newmont’s historic Equity Silver mine. Buck features near-surface bulk-tonnage gold-silver mineralization with porphyry copper-molybdenum potential at depth.
In February 2025, Sun Summit published its inaugural NI 43-101 mineral resource:
Mineralization remains open in all directions.
Buck is considered a strategic asset providing leverage to rising gold prices and future transaction potential, but currently receives minimal capital allocation as JD is prioritized.
Sun Summit can earn 100 percent of the JD project by making staged cash/share payments and completing work commitments through 2029. With ~C$6 million earmarked for the project this year alone, Sun Summit is expected to fulfill its 2025 and 2026 earn-in obligations without additional equity raises.
Niel Marotta has three decades of capital markets experience, including a successful tenure at Fidelity (FMRCo.), where he managed the top-performing Select Gold Fund and oversaw >$1 billion in AUM. He was previously VP at Orezone Resources, where he helped lead its C$350 million acquisition by IAMGOLD. Marotta has raised over $1 billion in financing and is driving Sun Summit’s transition from a legacy explorer to a discovery-focused value generator.
A veteran of the mining industry with 40+ years of executive experience, Brian Lock has led multiple public companies, including Castle Peak Mining and Scorpio Gold. His expertise spans project development, M&A and corporate governance.
A seasoned mining CFO, Waseem Javed ensures disciplined capital deployment and financial controls. His experience spans junior explorers and mid-tier producers across Canada and the US.
Ken MacDonald is a registered professional geologist with over 30 years in mineral exploration and permitting in BC. Formerly with the BC Mines Branch and multiple juniors, he leads Sun Summit’s technical programs and NI 43-101 compliance.
An expert in porphyry and epithermal systems, Christopher Leslie led the discovery of the 8 Moz Blackwater deposit while at Richfield Ventures, and later served as VP exploration for Tower Resources. He was instrumental in advancing the JD-Theory project during its prior ownership.
Founder of several successful exploration companies, including Pioneer Metals and Manhattan Minerals, Robert Willis has 35+ years of technical and executive experience across North and South America.
Founder of Salman Partners and one of Canada’s most influential mining financiers, Terry Salman has backed dozens of successful juniors over a 40-year career in mining investment banking.


Transition Metals offers investors exposure to discovery-driven upside across critical and precious metals through a proven project generator model, a diversified Canadian asset portfolio, and a capital-efficient strategy designed to minimize dilution while retaining meaningful discovery and monetization leverage.
Transition Metals (TSXV:XTM) is a Canada-based, multi-commodity exploration company focused on the discovery of critical and precious metals exclusively within Canada’s most prospective and stable mining jurisdictions. The company has assembled a diversified portfolio of exploration projects spanning platinum group metals, nickel, copper, gold, silver and uranium, providing broad exposure to commodities central to electrification, decarbonization and long-term resource security.
Operating under a disciplined project generator model, Transition advances early-stage assets through geoscience-driven exploration before strategically bringing in partners to participate in funding drilling and development. This approach allows the company to preserve capital, limit shareholder dilution and retain upside through royalties, milestone payments and equity interests, while maintaining operatorship and technical control during key exploration phases.
Transition’s portfolio includes flagship assets such as the Saturday Night/Sunday Lake PGM projects near Thunder Bay, the Gowganda Gold project in Ontario and the Pike Warden polymetallic system in Yukon, alongside a pipeline of additional opportunities across Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. Led by an award-winning technical team with a proven discovery record, the company is positioned to create shareholder value through discovery, disciplined capital management and strategic asset monetization within a secure, Canada-focused footprint.
The Saturday Night and adjacent Sunday Lake projects form one of the most compelling emerging PGM exploration stories in the Thunder Bay region. The properties are associated with early-stage Midcontinent Rift-related mafic-ultramafic intrusions, analogous in age and style to major North American PGM-Ni-Cu deposits such as Eagle (Michigan), Tamarack (Minnesota) and Thunder Bay North (Ontario). Sunday Lake hosts thick, laterally extensive zones of PGM mineralization, while drilling at Saturday Night has confirmed a large rift-related intrusion with basal PGM-Ni-Cu mineralization. Ongoing and planned drilling is focused on expanding the mineralized footprint and testing the basal contact geometry, positioning the project as a potential district-scale PGM system.
Gowganda is a 100-percent-owned, 87 sq km gold project in the historic Gowganda silver-cobalt camp, where Transition reports it made a gold discovery in 2010 less than 1 km from a paved highway. The company describes a widespread gold mineralized system over ~1.25 km of strike, with “visible gold at surface” and highlights including 97 grams per ton (g/t) gold over 40 cm (channel sample) and drill highlights including 2.4 g/t gold over 7.1 m and 82.5 g/t gold over 0.4 m (within 35 m of surface).
Dessert Lake is a strategic uranium exploration opportunity in a large, underexplored basin that shares geological similarities with the Athabasca Basin, which hosts a significant portion of the world’s high-grade uranium deposits. Transition holds the exclusive right to stake claims and is seeking a partner to advance the district-scale opportunity, noting prospective settings along the Wopmay fault and along the basal unconformity/crustal fault intersections.
Pike Warden is a large polymetallic project situated on the northern margin of the Bennett Lake Caldera, one of the largest collapsed caldera complexes in Canada. Pike Warden is an emerging epithermal gold-silver/porphyry copper system near the Yukon–BC border, ~70 km southwest of Whitehorse, where Transition retains the option to earn 100% of the 41 sq km property. Transition reports 25+ zones of gold-silver-copper-molybdenum-lead mineralization identified to date and sampling highlights up to 48.1 g/t gold, 11,270 g/t silver, 7.49 percent copper, 2.37 percent molybdenum and 59.6 percent lead, with recent work and targeting supported by geophysics and systematic sampling.
Jolly Gold is a large, 100-percent-owned and optioned land package covering the western extension of the Beardmore–Geraldton greenstone belt, with multiple undrilled occurrences of high-grade gold mineralization. The company highlights major and splay structures intersecting favourable stratigraphy, describing the target as a camp-scale exploration opportunity.
Cryderman is a gold project in the Shining Tree West camp located along the Ridout Deformation Zone and sits 55 km east of IAMGOLS’s Côté gold project and 16 km west of Aris Gold’s Juby gold project. It is a gold-mineralized system over ~500 m of strike hosted in N–S trending, multi-phase quartz-carbonate veins. The company reports channel sample highlights including 9.15 g/t gold over 1.07 m (with additional high-grade sub-intervals).
The Maud Lake project is a high-tenor nickel-copper-cobalt-PGM magmatic sulphide system located ~10 km north of Schreiber, Ontario. Transition reports surface sampling up to 6.23 percent nickel, 0.719 percent copper, 0.085 percent cobalt, and 1.042 g/t PGM (platinum+palladium+gold), and notes drilling that intersected a semi-continuous zone of magmatic sulphides near the base of a gabbroic intrusion including 20.01 m averaging 0.33 percent nickel and 0.28 percent copper (including 4 m averaging 0.61 percent nickel and 0.52 percent copper).
Homathko is a high-grade, drill-ready gold prospect exposed by receding glaciers in British Columbia, with an interpreted lode gold system traced along ~1.5 km of strike and grab sample highlights up to 87 g/t gold.
Island Copper is an IOCG (iron oxide copper-gold) opportunity north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, with Transition reporting two separate mineralized showings along Highway 556. Recent samples and historical drill holes returned values up to 9 percent copper.
Wollaston Copper is a >30 sq km property in north-central Saskatchewan south of the Athabasca Basin, where Transition describes two sediment-hosted base metal target opportunities. The company cites historic drilling by Noranda (1990) including 10.82 m grading 0.25 percent copper and 7.4 m grading 0.49 percent copper (both within 40 m of surface), and a separate zinc showing with 17.0 m grading 2.52 percent zinc and 4.0 m grading 7.18 percent zinc, within the Wollaston Supergroup.
Pipestone is a 33 sq km gold project in the Porcupine camp ~25 km north of Timmins, covering ~13 km of interpreted strike extension of the Pipestone structure (one of two main structural breaks recognized in the Timmins camp). The property is subject to a participating joint venture with Gowest Gold, with provisions for dilution to a 2 percent NSR (with a 1 percent buyback for $1 million).
Bancroft is a southern Ontario nickel-coper-cobalt-PGM greenfield land package that has benefited from ~$5 million in exploration expenditures and includes drilling intersections of 5.05 m averaging 1.98 g/t PGM and 60 m of 1.34 g/t PGM. It comprises 2,789 hectares of mining claims and is located less than a 2-hour drive from Toronto.
Scott McLean has over 30 years of experience in mineral exploration and corporate leadership. He spent 23 years with Falconbridge Limited where he was involved in the discovery of the Nickel Rim South deposit in Sudbury, Ontario. For this work, he was named Prospector of the Year (2004) by the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada. McLean is responsible for corporate vision, capital structure, governance and investor relations, and also serves as an executive director of SPC Nickel Corp.
Greg Collins is a professional geologist with more than 25 years of experience across gold and base metals exploration, resource estimation, mine planning, operations and management. His career spans Canada and international jurisdictions. Collins is a founding partner and COO of Transition Metals and is also CEO of Canadian Gold Miner.
Carmelo Marrelli is a chartered professional accountant and principal of The Marrelli Group of Companies. He acts as CFO for a number of public issuers on the TSX, TSX Venture Exchange and CSE, bringing financial, governance and regulatory expertise. Marrelli holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
Bill Stormont is a capital markets executive with experience in institutional equity (buy-side, sell-side and fund management), investor relations and stakeholder engagement. He has served in equity analyst and institutional sales roles, worked as a European equity fund manager, and supports business development, partnerships and strategic communications for Transition Metals. Stormont holds an MBA from the University of British Columbia.
Tom Hart is an award-winning geologist with over 40 years of exploration experience across government and industry, including Inco and the Ontario Geological Survey. He specializes in lode gold and base metal systems and has expertise in soil, till and rock analytical methods. Hart was co-recipient of the Northwestern Ontario Prospectors Association’s Discovery of the Year Award (2004).
Benjamin Williams has more than 10 years of geological experience and has been with Transition Metals since 2018. He obtained a BSc with Honours in Geology from Saint Mary;s University, Halifax, followed by Graduate work at Carleton University in Ottawa, where his work focused on igneous petrology and isotope geochemistry. Prior to joining Transition Metals, Mr. Williams worked in collaboration with the Northwest Territories Geological Survey, as a Senior Mapping and Research Assistant, where he conducted various value-added mapping and isotopic research programs on Neoarchean volcanic belts within the Slave Craton, with a focus on VMS-style mineralization.
Sarah Reese is a geological engineer with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Geological Engineering from Queen’s University. She contributes to field programs and geological interpretation, while developing her professional expertise through ongoing education and field experience.
Iranian protesters are facing their deadliest days yet as security forces unleash mass killings and executions in a sweeping crackdown some have labeled ‘genocide,’ new reports say.
According to The Sunday Times, a report compiled by doctors entrenched in the region and reviewed by the outlet, estimates that security forces have killed at least 16,500 protesters and injured more than 330,000 others.
The report also described the violence as an ‘utter slaughter,’ warning that the true toll may be even higher due to restricted access to hospitals and the near-total shutdown of communications.
Most of the victims, the report says, are believed to be under the age of 30, underscoring the heavy toll on Iran’s younger generation as the regime intensifies its efforts to crush dissent.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged Sunday that ‘several thousands’ have been killed since protests erupted Dec. 28.
In a televised address, he blamed demonstrators, calling them ‘foot-soldiers of the U.S.’ and falsely claiming protesters were armed with imported live ammunition.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that as of day 22 of the protests, verified figures show 3,919 people killed, with 8,949 additional deaths under investigation, 2,109 severely injured, and 24,669 detainees.
HRANA noted that the true toll is likely far higher due to the internet shutdown.
Professor Amir Parasta, an Iranian-German eye surgeon and medical director of Munich MED, said in The Sunday Times report that doctors across Iran are ‘shocked and crying,’ despite having experience treating war injuries.
‘This is a whole new level of brutality,’ Parasta said. He added that Starlink terminals smuggled into Iran have been the only means of communication since authorities cut internet access on Jan. 8.
Eyewitnesses who fled Iran also described snipers targeting protesters’ heads, mass shootings and systematic blinding using pellet guns.
One former Iranian resident said in the report that doctors reported more than 800 eye removals in a single night in the capital alone, with possibly more than 8,000 people blinded nationwide.
‘This is genocide under the cover of digital darkness,’ Parasta said.
Alongside the street killings, executions have surged dramatically, according to Ali Safavi, a senior official with the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Safavi told Fox News Digital that 2,200 people were executed in 2025, while 153 have already been hanged in the first 18 days of January 2026, averaging more than eight executions per day.
‘Ali Khamenei is continuing mass executions in parallel with the killing of young protesters,’ Safavi said. ‘Three executions in the form of hanging are now happening every hour according to our data.’
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi previously disputed high death tolls reported in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, claiming fatalities were only in the hundreds and dismissing higher figures as ‘misinformation.’
President Donald Trump sharply condemned Khamenei over the weekend, calling him a ‘sick man’ and urging new leadership in Iran.
In an interview with Politico, Trump accused Khamenei of overseeing ‘the complete destruction of the country’ and using ‘violence at levels never seen before,’ adding that Iran’s leadership should ‘stop killing people.’
Russia is preparing to target Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant’s power lines in a move that could unfold within days, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Ukrainian officials had said Moscow’s plan was focused on high-voltage transmission infrastructure rather than direct strikes on nuclear reactors, but a source has since claimed the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lines (ZNPP) are Moscow’s focus.
In a statement released Jan. 17, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry (HUR) had warned that Russia was weighing attacks on substations critical to nuclear power generation.
‘In order to force Ukraine to sign unacceptable surrender demands to end the war, the aggressor state Russia is considering the option of attacking strategic facilities of our state’s energy system — we are talking about electricity transmission substations that ensure the operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.’
‘The threat is at ZNPP,’ a source told Fox News Digital. ‘There are talks of a massive attack either tonight or in the coming nights,’ the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that ‘the talks within the Ukrainian government are about ZNPP and the lines, and these talks have not been for the first time.’
According to The Associated Press, Russia also targeted energy infrastructure in Odesa region overnight Sunday, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service.
ZNPP is located in southern Ukraine and consists of six VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors, and has been under Russian occupation since March 2022, according to reports.
Although the reactors are no longer producing electricity, the plant needs external power to maintain cooling and safety systems.
The IAEA has repeatedly warned that disruptions to off-site power supplies and lines pose a serious nuclear safety risk.
A Jan. 16 localized ceasefire was agreed between Russia and Ukraine for repairs under IAEA coordination on one backup power line at ZNPP that had already been damaged.
In a statement, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Jan. 16: ‘The IAEA continues to work closely with both sides to ensure nuclear safety at the ZNPP and to prevent a nuclear accident during the conflict. This temporary ceasefire, the fourth we have negotiated, demonstrates the indispensable role that we continue to play.’
‘A deterioration of Ukraine’s power grid from persistent military activity has direct implications on the nuclear safety of its nuclear facilities,’ Grossi said.
‘Russia is said to be going to do this strike, maybe even tonight,’ the source said of the ZNPP operation.
‘Information also from the Ukrainian Parliament and Ukrainian Security Service, or internally, is that the Russian army told the Ukrainian army that if they don’t stop shelling their tankers in the sea or shelling their oil refineries, as well as their electric stations like power stations,’ the source said, ‘then they will fully destroy Kyiv energy facilities aswell.’
‘The parliament knows this. But we keep shelling,’ the source added.
‘This is a very difficult situation,’ the source continued, saying Ukrainian leadership, the Ukrainian parliament and ‘obviously the office of the president’ are fully aware that ‘if we keep shelling Russian tankers and oil refineries, then they will destroy everything that we have.’
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also recently urged NATO allies to urgently deliver additional air-defense missiles, warning that some systems are running low on ammunition, according to reports.
‘To actually preserve the energy in the country when it is minus 20 outside and people are literally suffering hugely,’ the source added. ‘People don’t have electricity, don’t have warmth and some don’t even have water.’
‘And this is a very controversial situation,’ the source said, ‘particularly for the Ukrainian people sitting inside, hungry and freezing, and overall being in this disastrous humanitarian situation.’
Fox News Digital has reached out to President Zelenskyy’s office for comment.

Alice Queen (AQX:AU) has announced Suspension from Quotation
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The Nobel Foundation weighed in Sunday after Venezuela’s opposition leader gifted her Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump.
Maria Corina Machado gave her Peace Prize to Trump during a meeting at the White House last week. The Nobel Foundation pushed back on the legitimacy of such a transfer on Sunday, however.
‘One of the core missions of the Nobel Foundation is to safeguard the dignity of the Nobel Prizes and their administration. The Foundation upholds Alfred Nobel’s will and its stipulations. It states that the prizes shall be awarded to those who ‘have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind,’ and it specifies who has the right to award each respective prize,’ the foundation wrote in a statement.
‘A prize can therefore not, even symbolically, be passed on or further distributed,’ the statement continued.
Machado explained her decision to give Trump her award in an interview with Fox News.
‘He deserves it,’ Machado told ‘FOX & Friends Weekend’ co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy. ‘It was a very emotional moment.’
Machado said she presented the prize to the president on behalf of the Venezuelan people, crediting him for the historic work he did in liberating the country from its dictator Nicolás Maduro.
‘[Venezuelans] appreciate so much what he has done for, not only the freedom of the Venezuelan people, but I would say the whole hemisphere,’ she said.
As a longtime Maduro critic, Machado has been vocal in supporting Trump’s unprecedented removal of the disgraced Venezuelan leader, prompting her to credit him with the prize for the historic capture.
Trump appeared pleased and gratified by Machado’s gesture.
‘It was my Great Honor to meet María Corina Machado, of Venezuela, today,’ Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. ‘María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.’
The Norwegian Nobel Institute had tried to shut down the transfer before Machado met with Trump earlier this month.
‘Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others,’ the institute said in a statement. ‘The decision is final and stands for all time.’
The United States has extended invitations to multiple foreign governments to join President Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace,’ with at least six countries confirming on Sunday that they were invited.
The Associated Press reported the six countries are: Jordan, Greece, Cyprus, Pakistan, Hungary and India.
Canada, Turkey, Egypt, Paraguay, Argentina and Albania have already said they too were invited, according to the outlet.
The White House on Friday released a statement outlining the next phase of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, naming senior international figures to oversee governance, reconstruction and long-term development of the enclave.
‘The Board of Peace will play an essential role in fulfilling all 20 points of the President’s plan, providing strategic oversight, mobilizing international resources, and ensuring accountability as Gaza transitions from conflict to peace and development,’ the statement said in part.
Trump will chair the board and be joined by a group of senior political, diplomatic and business figures, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and billionaire Marc Rowan, among others.
The Gaza Executive Board, which supports governance and the delivery of services, will work alongside the Office of the High Representative and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza to advance ‘peace, stability, and prosperity.’
Notably, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi were named as appointed members.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on X that the composition of the Gaza Executive Board was not coordinated with Israel and ‘runs contrary to its policy.’
Netanyahu’s office said it told Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to contact Rubio to convey Israel’s concerns.
Under Trump’s plan, Hamas was to turn over all living and deceased hostages that were still being held in Gaza. To date, one dead hostage, Ran Gvili, has yet to be handed over.
The White House said additional Executive Board and Gaza Executive Board members will be announced over the coming weeks.
Greenland rarely draws global attention. But as ice melts and great powers inch closer, the world’s largest island has become a strategic prize — one that caught President Donald Trump’s eye long before most Americans were paying attention.
A semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, Greenland is home to a key U.S. military base and has become increasingly important to global security and trade as melting ice opens new shipping lanes and access to natural resources.
That shift underscores the serious geopolitical calculation behind Trump’s interest in the island’s location, military value and the rapidly changing Arctic.
Greenland is divided into five municipalities, with most of its roughly 56,000 residents living in small coastal towns, leaving the island’s vast interior largely uninhabited. Put another way, Greenland has roughly one person for every 1,000 soccer fields of land.
Greenland’s sparse population is largely a product of its geography. Roughly 80% of the island is covered by an ice sheet formed about 3 million years ago, leaving vast areas of the territory uninhabitable.
Despite its small population, Greenland occupies a landmass comparable to global powers. By land area, it ranks among the world’s largest territories — a scale that has drawn attention from countries such as the United States, Russia and China as competition in the Arctic intensifies. It is nearly the size of Alaska and Texas combined.
Greenland’s location off Canada’s northeastern coast places it at the heart of Arctic defense planning. The U.S. has maintained a military outpost in northwestern Greenland since 1953 at the Pituffik Space Base, now operated by the U.S. Space Force.
Russia also maintains several military installations in the region, while China has sought greater access since declaring itself a ‘near-Arctic state’ in 2018.
But geography isn’t the only reason Greenland draws global interest. Retreating Arctic ice is opening shipping lanes around the island that could significantly shorten trade routes between North America, Europe and Asia, adding an economic layer to its strategic importance.
The changing landscape has also drawn attention to Greenland’s deposits of rare earth elements and other critical minerals essential to modern technology, renewable energy and military systems.
Rare earth elements — a group of 17 minerals — sit at the center of modern economies and militaries. They allow electronics to be smaller, more powerful and more efficient and are especially important in high-performance magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, generators and precision guidance systems.
Their importance is even more pronounced in defense, where rare earths are used in missile guidance, radar, sonar, satellites and advanced aircraft. Because many of these applications have no easy substitutes, access to rare earths directly affects military readiness and technological advantage.
The world’s largest rare earth deposits are found in China, Vietnam, Brazil, Russia, Australia, Greenland and the United States. But China dominates the supply chain, accounting for roughly 60% of global mining and more than 90% of processing capacity.
The United States lacks a reliable, end-to-end supply chain for rare earths, leaving it dependent on foreign sources.
As the U.S. and European Union seek to reduce their reliance on China, Greenland has emerged as a potential counterweight to Beijing’s dominance and a focal point in the competition over critical minerals.
Whether the Trump administration is able to strike a deal to take over Greenland remains unclear. But as ice melts and competition in the Arctic intensifies, the island’s strategic importance is only likely to grow.
President Donald Trump lashed out at Minnesota Democrats on social media Sunday, saying they were using the ongoing federal operations to distract from the state’s massive fraud issue.
Trump made the statement on his Truth Social media platform, saying federal agents in Minneapolis and St. Paul were targeting ‘violent criminals.’
‘ICE is removing some of the most violent criminals in the World from our Country, and bring them back home, where they belong. Why is Minnesota fighting this? Do they really want murderers and drug dealers to be ensconced in their community? The thugs that are protesting include many highly paid professional agitators and anarchists. Is this really what Minnesota wants?’ Trump wrote.
Trump went on to call out Gov. Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., saying they ‘don’t mind because it keeps the focus of attention off the 18 Billion Dollar, Plus, FRAUD, that has taken place in the State!’
‘Don’t worry, we’re on it!’ Trump added.
Federal agents have faced harassment and protests from agitators in Minnesota in recent weeks. Federal prosecutors are investigating both Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly impeding law enforcement efforts in the blue state.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News the duo’s anti-ICE rhetoric was teetering on a federal crime.
‘When the governor or the mayor threaten our officers, when the mayor suggests that he’s encouraging citizens to call 911 when they see ICE officers, that is very close to a federal crime,’ Blanche said.
Bondi added on X, ‘A reminder to all those in Minnesota: No one is above the law.’
Walz responded to the news on Friday by accusing the Trump administration of ‘weaponizing the justice system.’
‘Two days ago, it was Elissa Slotkin. Last week it was Jerome Powell. Before that, Mark Kelly,’ Walz wrote in an X post. ‘Weaponizing the justice system against your opponents is an authoritarian tactic. The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.’
Frey also weighed in on social media, asserting he ‘will not be intimidated.’
‘This is an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, local law enforcement, and residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our city,’ Frey wrote on X. ‘I will not be intimidated. My focus remains where it’s always been: keeping our city safe.