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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35637 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Coincidentally I have just recently listened to the latest episode of The Redline podcast related to cobalt mining in Congo. It is an episode within wider miniseries regarding green topics, but it can very well be considered as a standalone episode. I really highly recommend the podcast in general to anyone who wants to keep tabs on what is going on around the world. It has a unique format of interviewing 3-4 experts on any given topic (e.g. civil war in Jemen or what are Private Military Companies about in today's world).

There is fair share of geopolitics of Congo in that podcast episode. Sadly one thing that stuck with me is how bad the situation is there with various warlords. There are apparently over 100 different armed groups in this vast country of 92 million people - a country larger than Mexico. And apparently all these armed groups created a new equilibrium where they basically depend on constant conflict to make money. Additionaly, attention paid to green minerals of the future from developed markets have potential to push Congo even more into some kind of "green minerals" version of petrostate, where the government gets all the profit from resource extraction which gives them no incentive to create healthy economy and tax base to draw power from. I see very bleak future for the country given that it would be extremely challenging to overcome myriads of other obstacles even under the best of circumstances. Listen to it if you want to know more.

Congo has more land mass than France, Spain, Italy and Germany put together. This proclamation of yours would be as if you said that you were to Paris and prefer it to Madrid which somehow impacts on how Germans live.

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