and his ruling National Front coalition capture 127 of the country's 222 seats in parliament. The Lynas pop is easy to explain. The company, whose shares were down 19 percent this year going into Monday's session, is building the largest rare earths production facility in the world outside of China. That $800 million facility is located in the Malaysian city of Kuantan. In a scenario reminiscent of what American voters see in nearly every election, Najib favors construction of the Lynas facility. His defeated opponent, Anwar Ibrahim, said during his campaign he would re-visit Lynas' permit for the operation if he won power,

. And as is sometimes the case with related issues in the U.S., Lynas has faced strong opposition from environmental groups in Malaysia regarding its plant. That is understandable because rare earths mining is highly toxic for the environment, something that the Prius and Tesla owners of the world often forget. To put into context the environmental risks of rare earths mining, consider this: China, which controls over 90 percent of the global rare earths export market, produces more than five times the waste gas, including deadly fluorine and sulfur dioxide, than the total flared by all miners and oil refiners in the U.S.,