Student, Shoukria positions a stone for cutting at the Turquoise Mountain Gem cutting class on May 18, 2011, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The mineral resources of Afghanistan are relatively unexplored even with Afghanistan's mineral wealth of coal, copper, gold and iron ore, with precious and semiprecious stones, including high-quality emerald, lapis lazuli, red garnet and ruby. Given the country's remote and rugged terrain, on-going instability plus an inadequate infrastructure and transportation means that mining is still difficult. While many are trying to bring positive changes, Afghanistan's mining industry uses unregulated, primitive methods and outdated equipment. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

In modern Russia there are no free elections, therefore the political elite is almost constant.

Photo: Valentina Matvienko, Mayor of St. Petersburg, attends the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on June 17, 2011 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Global business leaders have gathered in Russia for the three-day conference. (Photo by Alexander Aleshkin/Epsilon/Getty Images)

This handout picture released by Jordan's Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) on July 23, 2019 shows a Jordanian Armed Forces armored vehicle lies on the seabed of the Red Sea off the coast of the southern port city of Aqaba, part of a new underwater military museum. (Photo by Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority via Reuters)

Police officers try to stop medical students as they protest against Sri Lanka's crippling economic crisis, outside the Health Ministry in Colombo on April 6, 2022. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

A participant stands next to a robot during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia on June 15, 2022. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

A man stands in front of a display with an artificial coral inside the Davos Congress Center at the eve of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sunday, January 15, 2023. The site specific data sculpture by media artist Refik Anadol based on approximately one billion coral images processed by machine learning classification models. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from Jan. 16 until Jan. 20, 2023. (Photo by Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)

A demonstrator wears a feather headdress during the “No on APEC” protest on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Meeting in San Francisco, California, on November 12, 2023. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP Photo)

People protest for greater action against climate change during the People's Climate March on September 21, 2014 in New York City. The march, which calls for drastic political and economic changes to slow global warming, has been organized by a coalition of unions, activists, politicians and scientists. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)