The World's Jonesin' for Lithium, and Bolivia is the Mack Daddy

Lithium has become one of the hottest new accessories for multinational automobile conglomerates, with Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Ford all chomping at the bit to get to the mostly unexplored reserves of the substance, traditionally only used to power shit calculators. 

Bolivia happens to possess up to 54% of the world's Lithium deposits (pictured above in the hellish landscape of the Uyune Salt Flats), which caused the USA to freak out, as evidenced by this article in the Herald Tribune (link). 

The article is clearly slightly panicked at the fact that Bolivia's socialist leader Evo Morales doesn't really like the USA, and is also interested in ensuring that "indigenous groups here in the remote salt desert share in the eventual bounty". This is terrible news for Oji Baba of Mistubishi's glamorous Base Metals Unit, who worries that "if we want to be a force in the next wave of automobiles and the batteries that power them, we must be here".

Here's to hoping that Morales doesn't give in to the wave of threats and wheedling from the car manufacturers of the world, and fights for Bolivia's right to use its national resources to achieve equitable economic development (also, to party).