Fresh into his third presidential term, Rafael Correa is aiming at last to unlock Ecuador's underground wealth of gold, silver, copper and other metals.
"Everyone says that El Salvador has underground wealth – golden valleys and basins of silver – but what does it mean if we allow it to be removed?
Taking advantage of the chaos, a combination of Taliban fighters, local warlords, and most recently Islamic State-affiliated groups, have managed to capture a huge portion of their country's underground wealth.
The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates.
As Adam Nossiter of the New York Times described the resulting situation, "The Niger Delta, where the [petroleum] wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates".
There was little water, but gold and diamonds glittered underground, a promise of wealth to come.
Underground lies long unsuspected wealth: Vaca Muerta ("Dead Cow"), a shale formation the size of Belgium, has the potential to transform the country.Argentina boasts the world's second-biggest shale-gas reserves, most of them in Vaca Muerta.
As an Argentinean, he's been instrumental in drawing attention to his country's wealth of underground electronic music talent and I'm proud to call him a friend.
Such riches may have been first stumbled across in prehistoric times; once the easy pickings had been taken, shafts would be dug to gather the wealth lying deeper underground.
True, the West exhibits a particular fascination with China's shadow banking industry: wealth management products, underground finance, off-the-balance-sheet lending.
Edd is a Golden Boy regular of the underground scene, known for a wealth of taste-defining projects, including his weekly radio show Tomorrowland on PBS 106.7FM and the Wax'o Paradiso parties.
