The lucky ones have secured leases and permits to mine a newly reopened treasure house.

ECONOMIST: New Congo, same old ways

Messrs Bayart and Ellis and Ms Hibou argue that Africa is, and always has been, a treasure house looted by foreigners in collaboration with a few local bosses.

ECONOMIST: Books on Africa

Sarah Brown, director of the York Glaziers Trust, which carried out the restoration of the five panels displayed in the orb, said the minster was "a great treasure house of stained glass".

BBC: Metal York Minster 'orb' displays medieval stained glass

Chinese agents have poured for years into this sprawling treasure-house, and not much has got in their way.

ECONOMIST: I spy...

And while Google, the king of cloud computing, has been cagey about revealing just how many servers house its treasure trove of data, the company said that of that 1 to 1.5 percent, it accounted for less than 1 percent -- meaning, just a hundredth of a percent of all the electricity consumed last year.

ENGADGET: Report: data centers accounted for just 1 to 1.5 percent of electricity use last year, Google claims less than 1 percent of that

The traditionalists have got hold of a treasure trove of presidential tapes, revealing White House deliberations under Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon between 1962 and 1973.

ECONOMIST: Taping for posterity