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Africa Mining

Why Africa bleeds diamond revenues – by Neusa e Silva (DW.com – February 20, 2023)

https://www.dw.com/en/

Africa holds mineral wealth with diverse commodities that are sought after the world over. In the diamond industry, local communities miss out on profits despite multilateral certification measures.

In diamond-rich parts of Africa, the revenue generated from mineral extraction does little to improve quality of life for the people who live in those countries, with Botswana being the only exception. Instead of uplifting communities through mineral riches, many people find themselves stuck in a vicious cycle of exploitation and abuse.

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African Mining Indaba unlocks industry investment potential (Mining Weekly – February 13, 2023)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The 2023 African Mining Indaba launched this week in Cape Town, drawing mining sector heavyweights from across the country and the globe. Promoting international collaboration and showcasing Africa’s continued potential in the mining sector, the theme for this year’s event is “Unlocking African Mining Investment: Stability, Security and Supply”.

Mining Indaba senior manager for communication strategy, Laura Cornish said that “when industry and government are actually able to come together and explore collaborative opportunities, it fosters an alignment of ideas and that decreases or actually lessens the barriers to alignment.”

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How African gold pays for Russia’s war in Ukraine – by Brian Latham (The Spectator – February 12, 2023)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/

African wars are paying for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at least indirectly. When Vladimir Putin was running low on manpower and money in October last year, he turned to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group for more of both. Wagner have had troops in the Donbas region as far back as 2014, though in limited numbers.

Now the Wagner group is providing thousands of troops throughout occupied Ukraine and funding the Russian army with its spoils from Africa. That though is creating a cashflow crisis for Prigozhin whose income is primarily from African gold and diamonds.

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BOOKS: The horrors behind the mining industry that powers your life – by Russ Mitchell (Los Angeles Times – February 13, 2023)

https://www.latimes.com/

You, the smartphone addict. The modern nomad, lugging your fancy laptop. The electric car driver, smug in your certainty that you’re making the world a better place. Look over here, under this rock; look at what you’d rather not see.

That’s what Siddharth Kara invites you to do in his damning new book, “Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives.” Maybe you already know our booming battery-based economy depends on cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. You’ve heard things are bad there. But I’d guess that, like me — smartphone addict, laptop lugger, owner of an electric car — you had no idea just how bad.

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Analysis | Why Congo and Rwanda Are at Each Other’s Throats – by Michael J. Kavanagh (Bloomberg News – February 2, 2023)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is escalating and fears are mounting of a wider conflict in what has long been one of Africa’s most volatile regions. President Felix Tshisekedi accuses his counterpart in neighboring Rwanda, Paul Kagame, of supporting a rebel group known as M23.

Kagame denies the allegation and counters that Tshisekedi’s inability to control events in his own country poses a security risk to Rwanda. The acrimony reached new heights in late January, when Rwanda’s army shot and damaged a Congolese fighter jet that it says violated its airspace.

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Microsoft calls for ‘coalition’ to improve Congo’s informal cobalt mines (Reuters – February 8, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

CAPE TOWN, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Microsoft visited an artisanal cobalt mine in Democratic Republic of Congo in December as part of attempts to jump-start formalisation of the little-regulated and dangerous industry that experts say is key to meeting global demand for the battery material.

Congo accounts for three-quarters of the world’s mined cobalt supply. Industrial mines produce most of Congo’s cobalt, but “artisanal” miners, who dig by hand and often die when tunnels cave in, account for up to 30% of production, though that fluctuates depending on price.

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Congo is being ‘martyred’ for its natural resources. Will Pope Francis challenge the US, China? – by Christopher White (National Catholic Reporter – January 31, 2023)

https://www.ncronline.org/

Could the world’s smallest state, the Vatican, effectively put pressure on the world’s two leading superpowers, China and the United States, during Pope Francis’ three-day visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo? Yes — hopefully — according to some of the country’s Catholic leaders who are also environmental experts and advocates.

“There’s a race between China and the U.S. because of critical natural resources like lithium, cobalt and copper,” said Congolese Jesuit Fr. Jacques Nzumbu. “To win the competition, you need these minerals. And Congo is suffering because of this competition.”

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Russian Mercenaries Are Destabilizing Africa – by Colin P. Clarke (New York Times – January 31, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

One of the groups that have risen to international prominence (or infamy) with the invasion of Ukraine is Wagner, a Kremlin-backed mercenary outfit that regularly employs former criminals. In Ukraine, they often fight when conventional Russian Army troops flee the battlefield, and they are noted for their brutality.

But it’s Wagner’s activities in Africa, especially the geopolitically important Sahel region, that require closer attention. Formed in 2014 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a longtime loyalist of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Wagner was created to support Russia’s initial foray into Ukraine nine years ago.

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‘Hands off Africa!’: Pope blasts foreign plundering of Congo – by Nicole Winfield, Jean-Yves Kamale and Christina Malkia (Associated Press – January 31, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Pope Francis demanded Tuesday that foreign powers stop plundering Africa’s natural resources for the “poison of their own greed” as he arrived in Congo to a raucous welcome by Congolese grateful he was focusing the world’s attention on their forgotten plight.

Tens of thousands of people lined the main road into the capital, Kinshasa, to welcome Francis after he landed at the airport, some standing three or four deep, with children in school uniforms taking the front row.

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Wagner Group Plundering CAR Diamonds (ADF Magazine – January 24, 2023)

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New reporting is showing how Russia uses its Wagner Group mercenaries to extract diamonds from the Central African Republic (CAR).

Research published in December 2022 by Belgian newspaper De Standaard, the media network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), and the All Eyes on Wagner project concluded that “in exchange for military support to the government in the CAR, the Russian Wagner Group gets access to precious raw materials.”

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How Is Your Phone Powered? Problematically. – by Matthieu Aikins (New York Times – January 23, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Siddharth Kara’s “Cobalt Red” takes a deep dive into the horrors of mining the valuable mineral — and the many who benefit from others’ suffering.

Cobalt, a mineral essential to the batteries of smart devices and electric vehicles — and therefore to the future — is haunted by a past of slavery and colonialism. The phone in your hand contains several grams of this element; some of it, as Siddharth Kara shows in “Cobalt Red,” was likely mined by people hacking away in toxic pits for subsistence wages.

Used as a source of blue pigment since antiquity, cobalt has joined blood diamonds and forced-labor shrimp as the latest bête noire of critics of globalization. Nearly half of the world’s reserves are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a conflict-stricken country that has long been the site of a geopolitical scramble for strategic resources.

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Zimbabwe joins wave of resource nationalism with ban on raw ore exports – by Isabeau van Halm (New Zimbabwe – January 21, 2023)

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In December 2022, Zimbabwe banned raw lithium ore exports to minimise the economic potential of artisanal mining and encourage investments in state-approved production facilities. Then in January 2023 another ban followed, according to the state-owned newspaper The Herald, this time for covering all base mineral ores.

“No lithium-bearing ores, or unbeneficiated lithium whatsoever, shall be exported from Zimbabwe to another country except under the written permission of the minister,” the country’s mining minister Winston Chitando said in December about the lithium export ban.

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U.S. strikes at China with EV battery deal – by David Iaconangelo (E & E News – January 20, 2023)

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The U.S. moved this week to counter China’s control over production of electric vehicle batteries at a time of widespread concerns over global shortages of key minerals and labor abuses in African mines.

In a memorandum of understanding Wednesday, the State Department pledged to help build an EV battery supply chain in Congo and Zambia. The department and other U.S. agencies will offer technical assistance to the two countries, cooperate on feasibility studies and explore opportunities in the sector for U.S. companies, according to the MOU.

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Congo president demands more from $6.2 billion China metals deal – by Jacqueline Simmons and Michael J. Kavanagh (Bloomberg News – January 19, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi criticized a $6.2 billion minerals-for-infrastructure contract with China, saying the world’s largest producer of a key battery metal hasn’t benefited from the deal.

Congo, Africa’s second-largest nation by landmass, is flush with natural resources — including copper and cobalt that are major components in electric vehicles — but remains one of the world’s least-developed countries. Most of its minerals end up in China, which signed a landmark deal with Tshisekedi’s predecessor in 2008 to trade roads and buildings for the two metals.

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DR Congo and UAE join forces against illicit gold (Brussels Times – January 16, 2023)

https://www.brusselstimes.com/

A joint venture created by a new partnership between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a view to ending the illicit movement of precious metals from the DRC has just made its shipment of “fair gold”.

The 28 kilograms of gold bars, displayed at a ceremony in Kinshasa on Friday 13 January, resulted from the first five days of activity by Primera Gold DRC in the east of the country, the company’s director, Joseph Kazibaziba said. That initial shipment was more than the 26 kilograms of artisanal gold officially exported by the DRC in 2021.

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