M23 rebels obviously funded by the Russians - especially ex-military who are doing gun runs in the bush in return for precious stones, gold or rare earths.
It's always been a weird exchange, Russia has vast resources, untapped and unmeasured, yet they are here providing arms to locals to defend their resources, in exchange for resources.
The entire playground mentality towards African resources is nuts.
"Hmm hows the economy?... good?... cool lets go fuck africa"
China is building and trading. The west does fuck all and just extracts. There's a huge difference there that can be materially seen.
That's why Africa leans towards the East, there's mutually agreed trade, like there was 1000 years ago, prior to Western colonialism.
Europe has none of these resources but demand for these resources are so high they NEED to do it to survive. That is why, for the past 500 years, Africa, and the DRC in particular, has failed to develop substantially as one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
Anyway, the boys are going to Europe to collect, so IDK?
Games and stupid greed. Just look at Goma and Kivu province.
With the Chinese though, occasional fucking typical shite. Working in Angola years ago, we kept hearing that deal done to build new airport. We were waiting and waiting cause airport was shit. They finally broke ground. We celebrated. Building stopped and took 3 months before we found out from our connected Angolan friends what happened. Construction company told government the soil was great and would it be OK to ship to China. Took the Angolans couple months to figure out they'd found diamonds.
There's a new mine there now but thats why relations soured around 15 years ago. Took a while before big Chinese projects started there again.
yeah 100% the case - lot's of fuckery out here in the bush, but there's a net-positive exchange with the Chinese than there has been with the West. China's consumption rate of raw materials needs Africa to be receptive to it. Even if it means building airports or harbours and highways and stuff just to get the resources out easier....
France was only kicked out last year from Mali. Can you imagine, I think they've been there for 400 something years just extracting gold and wealth from Mali to prop their economy and society. No wonder France is so black these days.
Did you see market price and price actually paid by those cunts for the yearly uranium extraction?
nah, I actually cycled out of Uranium - out of my depth. What was it?
My numbers will be wrong without hunting around but they were paying few hundred million bucks for billions worth every year. Im loading up on popcorn for watching France. Years of glorious nuclear energy all achieved by fucking Africa. Karma coming
yeah always the case, but Africa adds no value to the product, it's raw extraction too. Saw some logs being transported over the weekend, at least we could add value by chipping and then shipping? but nope, send the raw resource for cheaper.
Do you think thats by design though? By "interests"?
a bit of natural trade dynamics and interests.
After all, unless they are big market movers, the price for the commodity is relative to the market demand/supply.
It's the insurance on transport that adds the cost.
interests can create things like "the Houthi's" or "ISIS" or "Al Queda" to spike insurance premiums on war routing etc. that's where the money is really made.
Hmm. Be nice to see some sovereignty and development of actual refined products and widgets. The continent has so much potential
