122: Nicholas Niarchos | Mining In The Heart Of Darkness - Cobalt & The Congo

🎙️: https://atlasgeographica.com/nicholas-niarchos/

Nicholas Niarchos is journalist who has been published in The New Yorker, The Nation, TIME, The Guardian, The NY Times, Die Welt and many, many more.

In a podcast that could have been separated into two distinct chapters you can expect to hear some of the following. 

• The Congo in Nicholas’s words
• A brief history of kleptocracy and the plundering of Congos natural resources
• An explanation of Cobalt
• What its like meeting Alec Baldwin
• Getting arrested in the Congo
• And more…

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• 00:00 – Introduction.
• 01:41 – Introducing The Congo & A History Of Kleptocracy.
• 19:43 – Robert Freidland.
• 21:59 – What Is The Current State Of The Congo?
• 32:01 – What Is Cobalt? Where Is It From? The Problem Of Greenwashing.
• 47:01 – Nicholas Niarchos New Yorker Article & Freelance Mining In The Congo.
• 57:51 – Child Labour & Abuse.
• 1:04:26 – Nicholas Writing A Book & New Yorker Status.
• 1:14:58 – Nicholas’s Journey. Freelance Journalism. Advice For Me.
• 1:25:13 – Meeting Alec Baldwin.
• 1:27:49 – Serendipity & Being Arrested In The Congo.
• 1:34:14 – Country Nicholas Niarchos Is Bullish On.
• 1:35:41 – Conversation Between Any Two People Of History.

🍻☕: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ryanhogg

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Nicholas Nyarkos is a journalist who has been published in the New Yorker, The Nation Time, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Velt, and many, many, many more. He is again a guest on this podcast whose work delves into the journalistic adventure tropes for which I project so heavily onto. Nicholas is the author of a yet-to-be named book which will be an intimate investigation of cobalt mining of the Congo and the role of cobalt in in the international supply chain. Nicholas is actually now banned from the Congo after being arrested there last year in uh circumstances where he was poking his nose around in a place that the authorities in retrospect said he could not. So it's a little bit of a corrupt botch job there. A full write-up of this experience is soon to be published in the Interlope magazine. In this podcast, you can expect to hear the Congo in Nicholas's words, a brief history of kleptocracy in the Congo and the plundering of its natural resources, an explanation of Cobalt, uh what it was like meeting Alec Baldwin, getting arrested in the Congo, and more and more. Now, you guys know the drill, this podcast took me over five hours to put together, but will only take you five seconds to review. So I thoroughly encourage you to pump your good juice with lots of force and vigour into the algorithm. So swipe up your phone right now, whether it's Spotify, 5 stars, Apple, 5 stars, and a nice comment, anywhere else you listen, put energy into the algorithm, and that happens via interactions, five star reviews, playing it, telling a friend, telling your mate, telling your mum, telling a colleague. Spread a curious worldview far and wide. And without any further ado, here is the great Nicholas Niakos. Nick, introduce the Congo to us. It's beauty, its demographics, its economy, its people, and its corruption.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Um so the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a giant country in the middle of uh Africa. Um it is a country that was first colonized by uh the Belgians uh starting in uh the late nineteenth century. And um after 1960 it became independent and was ruled um after a series of uh rebellions and so on, um by a uh sort of pretty ruthless and very corrupt um but westerned western backed uh dictator known as Mubutu Sese Seko. Um and uh he basically uh drained the money from the country, um and then what you know infrastructure and so on was left was um largely destroyed in a series of uh wars after 1997, um which left uh more people dead than the uh Second World War. There was a uh sorry, not more people dead, more people than any conflict um since the Second World War uh dead and um displaced um millions and and wounded uh thousands of people and so on and so forth. So um you know it's a very turbulent, a very uh corrupt country. Um it's the size of Western Europe, it's bisected by a giant rainforest in the south. There's a lot of um uh copper, cobalt, and uh and some lithium uh deposits, um, making it one of the richest uh uh country in terms of natural resources. In the west, um sort of southwest, there are a lot of diamonds, in the northeast, uh there is coal tan, there is tin, um there are tourmalines. So it's a country of great uh natural abundance, but it is also a country um where that natural abundance is uh stolen on a regular basis, um both by internal and external actors. Um and then also there there is uh uh there are resources that are that are uh legally exploited um by sort of legitimate outside companies, but there are also questions about how those companies came by the contracts um uh that allowed them to exploit those resources. So that was a long answer.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

No, it's good. It's population?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

It is a country of 92 million people.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

And you uh hinted quite a lot at the kleptocracy uh the Congo has experienced, I guess, in its recorded history. Um can you speak specifically to that and then as well open up on this Dan Gertler fellow?

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Okay, so um kleptocracy in the history of Congo, I mean the Belgians first started exploiting Congo for rubber. Um actually they first started for ivory, really, and they they were looking for gold. Um and then uh rubber became very popular because of uh bicycle tires and uh and then shortly after car tires. And um this became a sort of incredibly sort of sought after in the increasingly globalized world, this became an incredi increasingly sought-after um raw material, and it came from trees which took quite a long time to yield um to yield uh rubber and um in it which made it very difficult to plant in other pl parts of the world. So for for a while Congo had a sort of monopoly on rubber, um, which is ironic because um the uh you know the current state of affairs is that uh Congo has a lot of co cobalt and and now actually quite a lot of lithium, which is central to the uh uh automotive industry. And um and you know there was a there was a uh you know it's it's it's funny the house h history is sort of repeating itself again, that this that this uh resource that was key for key for the automotive industry. Exactly. Um in the late 19th century. Um it's kind of you know, we're we're only we're talking about batteries now. Um and anyway, so the Belgians sort of came in and sort of fairly ruthless, I mean very ruthlessly exploited rubber, and then that was re revealed on a kind of mass scale by uh by a whole uh series of people, um, including Roger Casement, who was an Irish diplomat, who was sent to uh the DRC, um and or the Belgian Congo as it was then known, and that became a huge uh sort of human rights issue, one of the first sort of big human rights issues of the modern era. Um and uh King Leopold, who ran the Congo as a kind of personal fiefdom, um and he it was his kind of personal property, wasn't part of the Belgian state, was forced to give over his uh his um his realm to to the Belgian state, and then it became administered directly by uh by Belgian in I think in 1906, but it was the early sort of sort of mid-1910s. Um and at that point um Belgians were quite lucky again to have this colony um because rubber, you know, the rubber trees in other parts of the world had started sprouting, um, and you know, they'd lost the monopoly on rubber, but suddenly everybody needed uh copper for copper wiring and um for you know munitions during the war and so on. So and copper prices jumped again. So so this was a kind of um another boon to Belgian industry and so on. Um and so uh Congo was once more exploitative of copper, not in a particularly not not in as brutal a fashion as it had been for rubber, but um, but certainly in a way that was not particularly um beneficial, shall we say, for the for the uh Congolese people on the ground. Um there was some sort of attempt to uh educate and uh train uh engineers and people to work in the in the in the copper industry. Um and that sort of showed after independence quite a lot of the kind of um intelligentsia of post-independence. Con Congo were these people who'd been educated um in the copper-producing regions in the south. Um, but it also created this kind of um well, there was historically a difference between North and South, but uh but it also exacerbated that difference. Um so one can talk about you know colonialism being um being a kind of uh uh uh stoking the fires of these sort of separatist and sort of ethnonationalist movements. Um then again, you know, the the South really historically had very little to do with n the North as well. So there are arguments on both sides of that. Anyway, um not to go too far down that down that road. Uh so anyway, um going back to um Dan Gertler who you asked about, and I hope you can edit that out about randomly having an alarm. Um Dan Gertler, um so copper was obviously a very important commodity to the DRC, um, and diamonds were as well. Um what is very interesting um in the sort of uh history of like post-independence Congo, sorry, post-uh post-Mobutu Congo. So fast forward all the way up until the 90s, um, Mabutu has kind of completely stripped the copper industry um in the south of uh most of its assets, including most of the heavy machinery, you know, the copper mines are shells and they're falling to pieces. He's basically allowed people to engage in artisanal exploitation, um, which is which is uh basically digging, using uh Stone Age tools, you know, um picks and and shovels and so on, um, to uh remove this uh you know the very rich and and not particularly deep, which is one of the keys, um, or from from the ground and then sell it on to sort of small traders who sm who sell it on to kind of medium traders who'll then kind of sell it into the international market. Um and um so Dan Gartner comes to DRC in his I think he's 23 or 24 in 97 and he or 98 um and uh Mobutu has just fallen and um the uh uh you know the the uh the Congolese army is is is en route and the rebels have taken Kinshasa and the airport has just been secured, and this guy who's just finished his Israeli military service um uh lands, and he's the son of uh son of or grandson of uh one of the founders of the Israeli Diamond Exchange. And one of his ambitions uh basically is to um vertically integrate the the uh vertically integrate diamond trading from the bottom all the way to the top and um from mine to buyer basically. Um and I think he's called Moshe Schnitzer, his grandfather, but don't grow up great name. And um so then what happens is that he um makes friends, nobody really understands who introduced them, but some people say it's um it's through another um interesting character called Benny Steinmetz, who was um who was uh involved in a mine with Guinea. Exactly, in Guinea. Um uh and he basically um and I'm not sure whether that's necessarily true. That it's it I mean it's pretty well documented documented that they are or they were at one point pretty close, um, but it's unclear how again he met um he met uh the ruling family um that had just sort of come in with the uh at the head of the rebels, um, which is the Kabila family, and um he very quickly became friends with the younger Joseph Kabila, who was about the same age, uh, who was um sort of top military commander in the rebel um movement. And then he was given the entire di so this is the sort of early 2000s, he was given the entire output of diamonds, he was sort of managing the entire diamond output of the DRC and had a sort of monopoly on on Congolese exported diamonds. Um and then a lot of uh international NGOs made us think about it, and uh and he by by 2003 was was sort of kicked out of um uh of that role, and everybody thought, okay, well, you know, this was a br and people say that Blood Diamond was based on him off this. I I I don't really think that's true. Um, but um but maybe he was one of the characters that I mean it just doesn't really track with the the story of Blood Diamond, but um he certainly was he was certainly able to to uh to take control of these these uh diamond resources very quickly. Um some people say it's because he um helped arrange uh military training for uh Congolese troops in uh the east part of the country because they were uh then at war at war with Rwanda. Um but again nobody's really ever been able to get to the bottom of that story. Um and he has strenuously denied it. Um so those so that's a kind of background of Dangarda. And then suddenly um he sort of comes back onto the scene again in about 2004, 2005, um, after the father of uh Joseph Kabila has been assassinated by one of his bodyguards, um, and Joseph Kabila basically gives him uh the opportunity to buy a series of mines in the south of DRC for very, very cheap. And he takes control of these mines and then sells them on to larger multinational companies, including um including Glencore, including uh um including uh what's it called? Freeport MacMoran, including these sort of larger companies, um which are able to then um you know make these mines into into kind of uh great sort of profit centers, but at the time they're kind of very run-down ass uh assets. Um the argument that you know people at those big multinational mining companies say is uh have is that they they say, listen, nobody would have bought those assets at that time and um and and put the amount of money that we put into it into them. Um whether or not that was true, it was very clear that Gertler was buying these assets for and I think that is true to to a large extent, actually. I I just think that one also has to look that uh at these assets that Gertler acquired for a very knocked down price, and then think about where the money was going. Um and there's been a lot of you know reporting by various different uh uh outlets out there, and and uh you know Michael Kavanaugh uh Bloomberg has kind of led led the charge, but there's also been a you know a great deal of other um people sort of working on this. Um but uh Gertler has essentially Gertler seems to have sort of funneled a lot of this money into um into sort of uh bank accounts in the um in the British Virgin Islands, and uh there seems to have been a lot of connections with the uh Kabila family, and there's lots of suggestions about you know where that money went. Anyway, um without getting too sort of into the weeds on that, um he sort of became a sta and and there there are many people like Dan Goether as well, um, but he sort of became a stand-in for the entire corruption of the Kabila regime. And I'm not sure if you saw recently, I mean he agreed to hand back um most of his assets, I think basically all of his assets, to the to the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So, so uh the Gertler story in some way has sort of ended, although it never really ends. It seems to have ended several times um now. Uh and there's a question as to whether he was as influential as as many people thought, but he is he is a fascinating character. Um he seems to have also lost quite a lot of the money that he had. Um which is which is uh quite interesting because if you look at you know what he was selling these mines for, I mean he should be uh a billionaire many times over. Um so one also has to wonder where a lot of a lot of that money went.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

And interesting details about him is that he um has been chased, I think US law Trump pardoned him or something like this. I don't know what the details are.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah, Trump he was sanctioned and then Trump removed the sanctions and then Biden put them back on, or he froze the sanctions or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Oh sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

No, no, no, no. And and yeah, he had four different there were four different uh international investigations of him and so on.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Do you consider Robert Friedland uh to be in the same ballpark as uh Dan Gertler? Or is there also an element of very legitimate mining business happening in the Congo?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

No, I mean I think that uh Friedland found an asset which was um which was very, very rich. I don't think anybody I mean, I think that that that that's a case of um you know, they found something that was really out there. Nobody really thought that it was worth anything, and they have developed it. Uh now the I think there are different questions around that mine. Um and I think that you know he has been involved with the other mining companies, um, you know, trying to uh who have all kind of tried to to actually I I I I want to be a bit careful here because I I I think um they have committed to pay at like a fair share and so on, and they do have they have do have good um they do have a fairly good public image in the DRC, um Ivanhoe. However, um there still are questions about displacement of uh local populations. I mean, you know, obviously these these discoveries don't happen in a vacu vacuum. Um I think that Friedland is also a very canny operator. I think there's also a lot of Chinese involvement in the mine, and um that of course uh pisses off the Americans. Um and but I think it's I think it's pretty legitimate. Um I mean I haven't really I haven't really gone much further than that because I've been focused mainly on mines that have cobalt and uh there's very little cobalt at the Komoko Kula mine. Um yeah, I mean it's it's also it's also a fairly new mine, so we so we don't really so we haven't really um seen much of much of what's happening there.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

You spent quite a lot of time in the country, um as well spoken I presumably extensively with lots of other people who spent lots of time in the country and then even more who live in the country. So wha what is the state that the Congo has been left in after all of this kleptocracy, after all of the Dangertlers of the world and all the colonial history? I mean, there is the Congo pretty much tops the list and all the bad economic indicators in the world. Can you give your own explanation in your own words, like what the Congo is like as a consequence of all this?

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Well, I mean, it's a country in which there are four different wars happening. Um it's a country in which, you know, if you are stopped by a policeman on the side of the road, you do not stop for them because um, you know, the likely consequence of you doing that is them putting a gun in your face and and demanding a bribe. Um it's also a country in which um there is uh complete breakdown in trust uh in any form of uh official um explanation for anything. So it's a lot of conspiracy theories um and a very sort of maybe warped is not the correct word, but it is a it is warped because it's been it's been warped by you know two centuries almost of of being lied to as a as a people. Um and uh I think that really has a kind of like uh an effect on on on people. I think I think if you're constantly lied to you start losing faith and and and start acting in ways that uh that don't really make sense to the rest of the world and so on. And um you know, at the same time, I think it's also a place where there's a lot of hope and there's a lot of um there's a very young population, um which could with you know not necessarily like direct intervention by by government governments, but at least like kind of like insistence on on the rule of law and and uh fighting against corruption and kind of uh initiatives to to to to promote sort of um clean copper, clean cobalt, clean um diamonds, whatever, um that might kind of uh open the door to um more faith in the rule of law, because at the moment there there's really very little faith in the rule of law, and the country has really suffered as a result of it. And you know, this constant wave of violence. I'm um I'm sure you followed the um the M23 rebellion in the Northeast and this kind of sense of impunity with which external actors think that they can operate inside the Congo or inside DRC um is uh has led to a kind of the sort of free-for-all for for a lot of very bad actors. So yeah. I don't know what international body would would would be best suited to doing so. But um, but yeah, somebody some some some sort of whether it's the United Nations or or or uh or a kind of uh uh organization of African States or something like that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

That's quite a desolate picture. Um but like we said, maybe 90 million, super young population. Um in the discussions you have with people and from your own opinion and understanding, is there any sort of way out of it?

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Um yeah, I mean I think I I think this kind of like insistence on the rule of law um is one of the ways out of it. I think also um holding Congo to a much higher standards, much higher standard um with regards to elections, you know, during the last election it was pretty clear that um uh Felix Antoine Chisekedi's the current president, um did something very strange with regards to the vote. And um you know the the uh Martin Fayulu, who's the opposition, was you know very far in the lead, and then you know, suddenly the internet and and and uh and uh and telecommunications go down in the country, and then suddenly, you know, a couple of days later that you know they they they they turn everything on and they say, look, well look, Fuyulu's lost and Chisagedis won, and then there are all these um sort of reports about um backroom deals done between the previous president and the current president, and then just this kind of mass corruption that's going on. And you know, um I think it's pretty I mean it's pretty clear what's happening at the moment. I mean, if you look at just the the the people around the president, um, you know, there have been ministers and special advisors who have been caught on camera sort of offering all kinds of corrupt deals. I mean, if you look at the president's um watch collection, it seems to have flourished in the last couple of years. I mean, it's uh and it's just really happening right in front of our faces, and anybody who watches anything that happens in the DRC is sort of very frustrated by it because this is a president who came to power in a very, very flawed, if not stolen, election, which was then accredited by the US government because they were worried about well, nobody really knows why, but one assumes because they were worried about about um post-election violence. And then uh um and then somebody who sort of proceeds to um basically uh preside over one of the uh you know a a cycle of another cycle of corruption. Um I don't think it sends the right message to Congolese. And the thing is that what while you know obviously Congolese aren't sort of born corrupt and so on, um you have to look back at the Mabutu era when corruption was basically endorsed by Mabutu as a kind of uh as a Zairean or Congolese way of being, um, in which he said there's an unwritten article to the constitution which is which is you have to suddenly to take advantage, which which which means basically like to make do. And you know, that means and he said to the to you know to the army, he said, well, you know, you shouldn't worry about worry about not being paid. You have a gun, go out and you know, go out and ask people for money, kind of thing. And it's just like that mentality gets reinforced by you know when they see the president stealing the election, when they see uh the president's family stealing, then you know, you're a a motorcycle driver in uh who's come from the president's province, um, and you decide to you know you decide to rob whatever in in in uh in this town in a town. Sorry, this is actually quite a specific incident that I'm referring to, so I'm not gonna go too far into this. But basically a lot of people have left the president's province and now are getting accused um uh of you know behaving like they own the rest of the Congo and so on, um or rest of Congo. Um uh they and I think that like there's a certain nihilism that creeps in and uh that people sort of think, well, you know, if this is the way the system is, if the system is rigged, I might as well make do as best I can. Um and and you know, there's no reason to follow the rule of law if I'm not gonna get prosecuted and I can make enough. Um and that can be at a very small scale as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So if this horrible exploitation started with Leopold all the way back then, went from Well, I think it started before Leopold.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

It's it started, you know, that it started with Portuguese slave owners in the north, it started with and don't forget as well that you know pre-colonial times there was quite a lot of um there was quite a lot of exploitation and and different um people uh you know kingdoms raiding each other and so on. Um but obviously it became sort of industrialized uh during colonial times.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

But if we think of um the specific um resource exploitation from ivory to rubber to copper to diamonds to now all these rare earth metals, is the cobalt phenomenon really rare earths, but but but b battery metals. Resource metals. Resource metals. Um are they is cobalt just another step in that line, or is there something special about cobalt and its potential or something different with how it's happening?

SPEAKER_02 32:26

No, not not really. There's it's it's basically the same because cobalt comes with copper, and all these mines are not really cobalt mines. Um they're you know, and they're not first and foremost cobalt mines, they weren't initially developed as cobalt mines. Um they have now become very important as cobalt mines because of the boom in cobalt prices, but they were developed as copper mines. Um, and copper is a is a by uh cobalt is a byproduct of copper. So um the the the two come together. You don't get pure cobalt in the ground.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Can you introduce cobalt to us?

SPEAKER_02 33:07

So cobalt is uh used in batteries um in the cathode, which is the um positive electrode, uh and um it's used uh as a kind of um as a basically uh all the the different electrodes store lithium ions, and lithium ions move between the electrodes and then they release a charge which gives us electricity and allows us to store electricity. Um cobalt is just a very efficient and quite safe um material to use in the construction of uh the positive electrodes of the um of of lithium ion batteries. Um it's also used in um what else is it used in these? It's used in kind of industrial um uh processes and shipbuilding. It's used in sort of as a pigment as well, and used I think there's a kind of atomic bomb as well that uses cobalt. Um but um but I think that was more of a thing in the 60s. Um but I don't know very much about that actually. Um so yeah, it's uh 70% of it comes from the DRC. Um and uh most of the rest of it comes from sort of Russia, Indonesia, and a couple of other places. And it's a kind of uh it's um you know key key for the construction of batteries today and uh has very uh very high energy density uh allows one to have very high energy density um uh in in batteries and and sort of uh creates uh you know there there are other battery technologies, but um but cobalt uh in conjunction with nickel and manganese or um just in conjunction with uh lithium and uh uh as a sort of cobalt oxide, um though that that basically allows you to have a much higher energy density than the other battery technology, which is uh lithium-ion phosphate um batteries, uh, which is used in mainly short-range cars produced in China. Um but you know, uh if you get into an electric car in the US, it's usually a nickel-manganese cobalt. Um the computer that you're using, the cell phone that I'm using to record this conversation com conversation, they have um uh batteries that have lithium cobalt oxide. And um so cobalt is kind of key to the uh portable device and electric car revolutions, um, which we have seen over the past 20, 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

How overhyped is cobalt's role in the green economy, if at all?

SPEAKER_02 36:22

I don't know if it's overhyped. I think it's one one of the arguments that you'll hear from people is that, well, we can innovate away from cobalt very quickly, but I don't think we can ever innovate to zero cobalt. So if you look to pr look at projected demand, cobalt is uh is gonna be in very short supply um unless there's some completely other battery technology, a completely other battery technology. I think there was a um big Chinese battery manufacturer came out the other day and said that they've come out with this they've come up with a sodium ion battery. But it's very clear, uh unclear whether that's gonna be able to. They haven't really released many details about it, but that but whether it's gonna be a small battery or a large battery or so on. Um so yes, I think COBOL is gonna be with us for the next you know 20 years at least. Um and you know, the DRC is going to be a key place for that. DSC DRC also has lithium, which is key in battery construction. They also have um uh coal tan, which is a uh tantalite. It's like a tantalite ore, which uh which is key for uh constructing sort of batteries and high-tech electronics. So I think that uh not necessarily cobalt itself, but I think co and of course copper is key to all of these things because uh you know an electric car uses something like three times the amount of copper um uh that a normal car uses. So um than a normal car uses. Um so the I I believe that you know it's not necessarily overhyped, but I think it's it's it it's uh it's definitely sort of central to the way that we should be thinking about where these um you know where these kind of wonderful new machines are coming from. And I think there's also a kind of like cognitive dissonance happening in that you know everybody sort of believes that everybody really understands where sort of crude oil comes from, and there's like a insistence on sort of having uh low o oil consumption, but these but the you know when you get into a Tesla, when you get into a to a Nissan Leaf, whatever, you don't really have an idea of where these um the these chemicals and metals and so on that go into the battery are coming from. And people, I mean, at least people I speak to think seem to think it comes from this kind of like magical realm of like not being very polluting. Um But I was in I was at some nickel cobalt mines in Indonesia the other day, and they're all powered by coal, coal power plants, massive coal power plants that they've built over the last ten years, um, you know, and cut down huge amounts of forest and are pumping in, you know, pumping the sea full of chemicals, and all the fish have died, and all the fishermen are out of jobs, and you know, people are people are sort of getting these terrible warts on their skin if they get into the water and so on. So it's I I I feel like we've displaced a lot of the pollution from from cities or or we're in the process of displacing um pollution from wealthy cities to these like poorer areas, really on the fringes of of like the known my I I don't know what you want to call it, but like the the the world that um people in the West or in Europe in the US, whatever are aware of. And we've kind of we've kind of like sort of forgotten about these parts of the world, and we've kind of it's almost like there's a tacit agreement that you know those sort of parts of the world, many of many of which are somewhat unspoiled, um, can sort of go to hell because because it sort of uh means that we're not gonna be living in in smog-filled cities. I'm not sure whether it necessarily means that um, you know, if if we continue to mine in very polluting and dirty ways, um, especially ways that use a great deal of great many fossil fuels, um I'm not sure if it necessarily means that electric cars will be um less polluting. And it uh I mean I think there are there there are studies that say that they're less polluting after 30,000 or so miles. Um but I think it's very, very difficult to measure everything that you know, measure the pollution that goes into constructing an electric car battery, and I just don't think the data are really there. Um so I think it's something that we really have to sort of sit and think about and policymakers have to think about. Um I don't think anybody has done that in a in a serious way so far. I think that people have sort of congratulated themselves on moving away from you know carbon to something else, but maybe we're just sort of you know jumping from the frying pan to the fire.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

On the topic of uh how a company might try to measure its environmental impact through its entire supply chain and then on out on the other end produce a number and say, hey, look, this is our amount of pollution per unit of clothing made or something like that. There's a company here in Stockholm which I think is uh I mean, this is very, very accusatory, but like a fraud on uh I met um one of the guys who who who's uh almost runs it um who isn't a very good guy, but anyway, he um was explaining how it works and through a through an example uh company that they have, which is a giant Swedish clothing brand, you know, you take a guess, you probably get it. And you know, they want to be able to say that this item of clothing cost X amount of carbon um emitted into the atmosphere. And it immediately falls apart because it goes like one layer deep in their supply chain, not not understanding that maybe they sourced their cotton from you know someone who sourced it from someone who then sourced it from like 50 original um producers who none of them maybe are are are adhering to the best environmental practices or whatever that they supposedly say they are at the top. I mean it's another form of greenwashing, right? That example I just meant, but as well the one that you were saying with the with the electric car after 30,000 miles, you're green neutral. I mean prove it.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

Yeah. I just I I think it's it's it's almost impossible to prove, and yeah, I mean let's let's see. But um unless somebody comes up with a really good system, I haven't seen a a good system, and you know, people go off these sort of ESG metrics and so on, um, in a more simplistic way when they're you know when they're buying stocks and so on, and it's just like what does that even mean?

SPEAKER_00 43:45

And like it requires way too much complexity for people to be uh taking account. Um and as soon as your supply chain crosses a border and one of your suppliers in the supply chain crosses his own multiple borders. You know, just two steps away from the final product, you're already in a mess that's almost unsolvable. What are you gonna do when you're HM and you've got maybe like a thousand subsidiaries who each have their own thousand subsidiaries?

SPEAKER_02 44:14

That's why I think these things are not as important as kind of just having really strong regulation al along every step of the supply chain. And maybe that's the company's job, and but I think it's more the job of governments and uh Yeah, the company won't do it if they're not in a sports.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

So you said 70% of the cobalt is in the Congo. Is there something special about the Congo that 70% is there, or is that just a consequence of where we've looked for it?

SPEAKER_02 44:48

It is uh it's a sp it's something special about the Congo because it was part of it was an ancient sea and it dried in a certain way, that these salts were formed, and then the salts were buried, and they were quite they're not particularly deep. Um Australia has also quite a lot of Congo uh of cobalt, but um, but it's very deep. Um and uh exploiting it is more expensive. Um however, uh I mean there are a lot of people talking about deep sea mining now, which is very also another complex environmental process. Um and um you know there are various different uh questions about you know destruction of organisms on the seafloor. Some people argue that you know these organisms are less valuable than you know organisms that might be saved by lowering carbon output on the other end and so on. I d I mean there's also a debate to be had there. Um I just don't think that this has been, you know, any of these debates have been had really seriously, um, especially at the policy level, um anywhere. And uh that is that that's basically why I'm interested in writing about it, because because uh I think that um at least giving people the the opportunity to think about it and the opportunity to to read about it and and the information which is often um sort of hidden and uh or or just difficult to access because they're again far-flying places and um you know the companies that are involved in it are not necessarily the most you know disclosing country companies. Um I think that's why it's interesting and that's why it's hopefully, you know, that I mean that's why something that that's why I'm trying to trying to trying to do this.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Alright, so we've um you know introduced the Congo, um we've introduced Cobalt. Um now let's look to your New Yorker piece, which is this fascinating look into sort of artisanal mining versus big giants uh uh scale mining, and then this phenomenon that I'd never even thought of like freelance mining, people just digging in their own backyard. Um so wherever you would like to take it, please.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Um well the New York piece, um and Brett thank you for your kind words about it, is is basically um a look at uh one specific uh artisanal mine uh called Casolo and um looking at um the kind of mining boom that started in 2014 there, um and how that sort of translated into that you know neighborhood. It's like a sort of uh it's a suburb of a larger city called Kolwese. Basically, the neighborhood started sort of falling in on itself, and then everybody was sort of kicked off um by the former governor uh who cut a deal deal with a Chinese company, who basically said we will accept people who work as artisanal mining uh miners for a cooperative um and who are properly formed uh as miners. Uh they're properly uh trained as miners, but forgive me, I start thinking about mining vocabulary in French. Um they're properly uh trained as miners and and accredited by uh by uh by a kind of um Congolese regulatory body, loose, very loose regulatory body. Um and so then like everybody else was kicked off the ground, then the Chinese started paying very low prices, then there was a sort of riot against the Chinese, and so on and so forth. Um, and that kind of goes that I go into that in the piece, um, and then I look at this as a kind of just one story that kind of illuminates um some of the larger trends happening in in DRC. Um, but yeah, no, artisanal mining isn't necessarily and there's a way in which artisanal mining can be good and uh provide people with an alternative form of livelihood, but I think we've reached the threshold firstly of how many people can do that. Uh, and there's been a huge kind of internal migration within DRC to the mineral mineral-rich south. Um and um the infrastructure there really can't handle it, and you know, there's millions not millions, hundreds of thousands of people living in these kind of shanty towns and um, you know, people arriving every day basically. Um so yeah, I mean there's an aspect of the California gold rush to this, but the fact is that cobalt sells for very low prices and um people just kind of get stuck in a in a cycle of misery, um, which kind of which they're trapped in because they can't, you know, it's not as if they're gonna strike it big and then you know retire and buy a you know house house in South Africa or something like that, which is which is kind of the myth that that there were these at one point these entrepreneurs who did that. It's more likely that people who are relatively successful end up trading cobalt. Um, that does happen. And I spoke to a couple of people who did that. Um, but nobody's really kind of ended up being and I guess some people have become cooperative bosses and so on, but that seems to be much more connected to the like local political grind. Um and you know, a lot of these artisanal miners work for cooperatives that are own uh are owned by politicians, which is technically illegal, but uh but basically they're doing the the the politicians' dirty work of mining and being paid a pittance for it.

SPEAKER_00 51:29

Have you seen uh the Sebastias Salgado photo of gold of the Artisanal Gold in Brazil? Are there any scenes dramatic like that that you've come across by going through these different cobalt mines in former copper pits throughout the Congo?

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Yeah, that's exactly what it looks like. Um the most dramatic uh scene that I saw, there are two that stand out in my mind. Um one is this mine called Kawama, which is these kind of illegal miners um gathered into a syndicate uh or a cooperative, forgive me, um, called Comekat. And that is on technically on Glencord land outside of outside of Kolwaze. Um and it's just you know to the right as you enter just before the the the checkpoint, I think, um, to get into town, um, and or like the highway, whatever highway toll place. Um, and uh then you have and so that's like a kind of mountain, and you've got the people sort of like a just a sea of humanity mining and kind of chipping away, and people kind of crawling over you know rocks and and and sort of wedging themselves into these little tunnels and so on. The other one that I uh that I saw is actually in a um in area it's actually a tin mining area, tin and coal tan, which was um we spoke about a little bit earlier. Um that's a tantalite ore. Um and you see just hundreds, if not thousands, of people spread over these sites, um, old Belgian sites um where there are houses and they're kind of mining under the houses, and the houses are collapsing in front of you as you're sort of watching, basically. And it's really, really that's I mean the most visual uh um experience. And then I mean it's really children mining. Um the only question the only and and whereas in the kind of Copper Cobal area, it's like it's big business, and um local politicians will try and stop you seeing that, especially try and stop you seeing children in the mines. Um in this area, which is called Monono, um in uh the Tanganika province, um, which is just north of uh a couple of days' journey north of uh of where um where the the copper and cobalt is. Um it's people sort of scraping an existence off tin mining, and it's not a huge business. Well, it's not a massive business business, and it's much less politically sensitive. Um that said, um that area should be sort of you know heading into a boom because it's the world's largest uh lithium deposit, and an Australian company, once again, um called AVZ, um has uh has bought the or has the right to mine there. Um the only problem is that they have um they ran into some difficulties because a Chinese company tried to take it off them and now they've got forced into to I I'm not 100% sure about what what what's happened recently, but basically a Chinese company has come in with this Australian company and the um how they yeah, great collaboration. Then there's a big question about because lithium um you have to exp uh if you mine it, you have to exp export it in bulk, um, unless you like really have like very high-tech refining um capability on site, which you can't do because there's no electricity supply um in that town. And besides, I mean you'd need to ship out chemicals and so on. So, anyway, the most efficient way is to rebuild this road, but I went along this road and took three days to get down, so it doesn't seem to be a particularly uh easy uh task for whoever's trying to well, I met the people who are trying to get it out, and um you know it's sort of daunting that they were approaching it with uh with um sort of uh uh an old-fashioned zeal, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

I'd love to uh see photos. Uh I'm assuming you took photos, whether professional or just with your phone, um it'd be I mean fascinating to see. Uh how did you feel when you saw this um what I'm assuming if it's anything like the Salgado photo, just extremely primal, um every man for himself type atmosphere.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

Um yeah, I mean it's I'd seen this at Salgado photos before, and I was just kind of like you know, when you kind of see something that you uh have seen pre but also this those photos are from the 80s. So I was like I was like, wow, this is still kind of happening as well. That's like the that's crazy, yeah. The thing that the thing that really shocked me. And I uh and then also you just feel really sad because these people are very desperate and the children are really I mean it's kind of heart-wrenching. So I guess it's that. Um it's that sort of like I don't know, I'm sure there's some kind of like Freudian term for it, uh, you know, kind of identification of of something that you something that kind of existed only in your imagination, and then uh and then also just an intense sadness as well.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

A quote from the New Yorker piece children who work in the mines are often drugged in order to suppress hunger. So I'd love to hear you talk about child labor in all of this as well. Your your discoveries, and then as well, perhaps how pervasive it might be, um, what can be done about it. Is it also the other side of the argument, like hey, the kids got literally no better option.

SPEAKER_02 58:14

Yeah, but I don't think I mean I don't think children should be mining full stop. I mean it's a very, very dangerous activity. I I I agree, but I'm just saying for the sake of the No no no no I I mean I'm just uh I I I look there's a all over Africa you're gonna and in many in many sort of um less wealthy countries you'll find children working on a right regular belt basis. Um but I think mining specifically is a very, very dangerous activity. Um and uh you're also working with chemicals that are not safe for adults and even more dangerous for children. Um you know, people don't really live very long there. Um and so and and even the people who are mining us, you know, are saying, well, I'm doing this so my children won't have to. So I mean I think everybody understands that it's not it's not a great situation for children to to do that. Um yeah, I mean nobody knows how many children are involved in in mining there, and I don't think there's a pro there's probably not a fixed number um because it's very informal. And you know, there are probably uh several thousand. I mean, uh actually putting an exact number on this, uh or even a kind of ballpark number, but I would say there are there are many, many children working in in the mines. Um and there are many children doing work uh which is dependent to m to mining, including washing of minerals, including sorting of miner minerals, including um, you know, kind of lugging minerals around in sacks. So it's stuff that's kind of not, you know, they're not going down into the mines, but they're doing the they're doing all this other uh labor with the minerals, which are again um not particularly um healthy for them to be carrying. And also, you know, obviously if you're involved in child labor, you're not um you know, you're not going to school and you're not uh you're not um you're not you're not studying and doing your homework and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

So kind of uh perpetuates the cycle of misery and poverty and um and uh ensures that another generation is kind of left out Can you tell a personal anecdote from an experience you had with child labor?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

Um well I can tell you about what can I tell you? Um I went to several schools, and uh one which was run by a Catholic charity called Bompastar, and then another one which was run by a uh charity that I'd actually um volunteered with in Greece um to do some teaching called Still I Rise, and they have uh they have a school called Pomoja. And you know, you sit there and and and both both schools very kindly, you know, uh were able to introduce me to children and uh and um I was able to speak to them uh sort of broadly about their stories. It's just sort of heart-wrenching. I mean, there are the children who will tell you that they have been, you know, working in the minds longer than they can remember. And some children will say, you know, I started when I was three, and at the time there was one kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Oh, sorry, I shouldn't have said anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Well, no, no, but I'll tell you what utility. So there's one kid who I actually talk about in the New Yorker piece called Zicki, who was who was doing this supposedly when he was three, and I said, Listen, that can't be true. And he said, You know, they said, No, no, no. You know, um, I didn't believe this either. This was speaking to a Kenyan lady and and she said, but then I I went to the mines and I saw the kids, and what they do is they they sort the minerals as very young, ch very young children. And then there was like a point where I was speaking to some official, and he was like, Oh, yeah, well, the children really understand, like, we're quite proud of our children because they they they they really know the difference between minerals, so it's like uh I mean I'm I'm sure it's not that useful, but I mean I'm sure there would be like you know, there's a much more efficient way of doing it. But um but that's basically what you know what happens. I think it's it's very, very, very depressing. And then there's a lot of prostitution around the mines, there's a lot of drugs, there's a lot of you know, and not that these miners are terrible people, I mean they're probably terrible people among them, but um but I think that mining in general, you know, especially this kind of small-scale artisanal mining, brings out um, you know, there's a kind of uh uh very dark side to to to what happens, and you know, you get a lot of young men, you get a lot of uh a lot of uh you know it's it's it's it's it's very violent and a lot of bribes being paid, a lot of illegal activity, and uh obviously that's a very, very dangerous environment for children to be in.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

So all of this knowledge that you've um accumulated on cobalt mining in the Congo is in with the purpose of writing a book. I wonder, you know, what what is your hope from the book? Um do you want to cause change in people thinking about batteries or how the environmental cost of mining? Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:42

Yeah, I think all of the above. I think I mean I I I would I I I just as I was saying earlier, I I don't want people to to continue living in this sort of dream world where they believe that um all of this stuff sort of comes from the heavens um or from you know the wizardry of Silicon Valley without any negative effect elsewhere. And so I guess even that kind of you know coming to terms with with this sort of um basic hypocrisy of what we' what what we call the Green Revolution, and then hopefully sort of starting or hopefully contributing or adding fire to a conversation that's being had you know in small small circles and maybe expanding those circles slightly about um actually doing this. I mean, because you can do all of this in a way that's that's environmental, and you can do all this in a way that's that's clean, and you can do all this in in a way that that gives back to the people whose land that you're doing this on. Um but I feel like we've

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

chosen uh a way that um that involves mass displacement and it involves um you know mass pollution and it involves these really nasty things like child labor on one end of the spectrum and it involves corruption on the other end of the spectrum and basically I I I hope that the message is is optimistic but it's also saying you know it's saying listen there is a better world that's possible but at the same time saying look wake up this is this is not the right way of doing these things um so but uh one one wonders what the utility of uh writing books is these days I mean maybe maybe maybe it would be better to do it on TikTok um what is the actual tangible change that could happen presumably you could enforce really really really strict third party bodies that are going to ensure the supply chain meets all these requirements that you set out for in your book but what can be done when fundamentally the country it comes from whether that's the Congo you know Chad Indonesia wherever they are not locally enforcing those rules therefore the incentive is greater to employ the child to um expose people to the horrific chemicals um and all of the really horrific downside that that we've spoken about.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

Like I think you can make the yeah yeah I mean I think that that's part of the problem and I think that you the part of the problem is that China doesn't have such a strong insistence upon these kind of I mean to put it very lightly doesn't have such a strong um will to get this done.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:04

Don't give a fuck be a lightly way to say it no not necessarily I think the Chinese I mean I think there are some Chinese companies that have better environmental standards than others and I think there are lots of Chinese companies that don't buy from children for example there are very notable ones that do um and uh yeah I mean I think I think basically kind of trying to you know have the the buyers um maybe one has to compel them to do so because uh through legislation to really um to insist on a better standard and a better quality of uh of um of you know uh um you know labor or or it it it insist on better labor rules better environmental rules and so on um and I think that you know if it were I mean maybe you know again it's it's it's about getting that conversation going I I I mean I think that that that that will be incredibly complicated and there's a lot of work to do so um but I think that you know if you start insisting on the rule of law in DRC if you start insisting on you know or Chad or or wherever we're talking about um you know that's the first kind of step and start you know start sort of penalizing um institutions and so on that don't follow it rather than I mean this is my point about the president rather than sort of paying lip service to somebody who who is who is uh continuing to act in a very corrupt way um and sort of turning a blind eye to corruption I think that's like that's the first step is is is saying listen like we need free and fair elections and by the way stop stealing um stop stealing your country's resources stop blundering Nick any more um anything left that we've left on the table in terms of your work in the Congo, the Congo itself and cobalt mining no that I mean there's well there's probably a huge amount left um but uh I think we hit hit a lot of bases and I think we had a good conversation. Nice. Well it's not over yet if uh you would allow me a bit more time I'd like to completely switch gears and just ask you a little bit more um you know personal interest questions that I felt yeah wrote down sure knowing I was talking to you. Um what what what sort of status does one get in the journalistic world literary world by being a New Yorker writer?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:07

Um well I am not a New Yorker staff writer so I would not be able to tell you what kind of status one one gets from that but uh I think um obviously it's a great byline to have I think the great thing about the New Yorker is the editing process um and it's an amazing place to work it's uh um you know I I worked uh as a fact checker at the New Orker for quite a long time almost five years and the the dedication and sort of um insistence on the process that uh uh people bring to the bring to their work every day I mean that's you don't really don't really see that many other places I mean it's also sort of you know pretty well resourced um and uh it allows you to write at length which is which is a great plus I mean I I also write for the nation which is a great place to work as well um and uh the only thing that I would say is is you know you you can write a much greater length uh the New Yorker um and uh and that is that is obviously a plus um come a bit closer to the mic oh yeah uh so obviously you can you can write a you know the New Orker allows you to write it in sort of nine ten eleven twelve if you're lucky thousand words and that is a great plus because you know you can really develop some d develop an idea and when you're talking about you know something like cobalt mining which is marries science geology politics history you know etc it's very difficult to do that in sort of a compressed um you know 2000 word piece what would it take for me to get a job at the New Yorker someone who has zero pedigree in journalism well I think you could apply to the fact checking department um uh or the um the copy desk I guess um I think there are sort of editorial roles at the um on the online desk but usually I think they're looking for a little bit of journalistic experience um a lot of people um do internships at other magazines and then because the New York doesn't do internships um and then sort of jump over to the uh I was being a bit flippant more saying what does it take you know what type of person do you need to be what type of thing do you need to write about um I don't know I mean I think you know I there's this idea that this is like the like a collection of nerds or like like almost academics or whatever but I think everybody's quite sort of relaxed and just people who sort of enthusiastic and like also can can kind of see the um the kind of um who who who sort of don't take themselves too seriously I I suppose um that's been my experience so everybody's like very um you know they're they're quite like uh obviously there are exceptions but but um you know the the the the people are very well well versed in their subjects but they also you know don't don't sort of run around showing off I think it's nice but it's a good place to work because of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:59

Did you always know that you wanted to do journalism?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

Um I uh wanted to do journalism since I did a kind of like uh sort of underground newspaper at my high school and almost got kicked out because we accused these teachers of all kinds of things and then it turned out that like justified that we were we were onto some story about like Chinese students being allowed in and then it like ended up blowing up into like a major scandal at some point because a Chinese Communist Party's official a Chinese Communist Party official's wife ended up killing the person that was getting these kids into our school in England. I mean it was it was really it was really crazy and we had that story and then it was kind of suppressed by the school anyway so two years before the FT had it or whatever it was it's so I was like oh god I wish but you know that was my great scoop that I missed.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:00

And so you fell in love with it or maybe not fell in love with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:04

Maybe I'm just uh connecting the dots way too aggressively but at least you did it in high school uh did you then go and do like a traditional education in journalism no I yeah no I went to um school in the States um I was at Yale I went to the Yale Daily News which is a kind of daily newspaper it's like a very old storied daily newspaper and I uh helped reinvent and sort of recreate the um the arts and living section there with some friends and we did some kind of we kind of moved the we shifted the insistence to sort of uh long form journalism and sometimes you wouldn't call what we wrote journalism either. And I did my degree in English and French and sort of world literature I guess and critical theory and things like that. And then I did a series of internships and I thought you know what I actually really enjoy journalism and I love writing like this and I like academic writing but at a certain point there was like a you know choice there's a choice that one has to make and I quite like the kind of experiential aspect of journalism. You know going out to different places and meeting lots of people and so on.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:34

So that was that was kind of that was sort of what made me that sort of pushed me towards um various different publications after college and then I went to journalism school uh after a year of working at the independent in the UK And are you officially like a freelance journalist who has Yeah okay can you explain um the economics of freelance journalism not good yeah no actually it's a bad question. I more mean because you've got the New Yorker and the Atlantic you said you write for so m presumably there is some the sorry the nation um so presumably there is you know there's at least some r reliable income there in addition to I have a I have a book deal um and I'd also be lying if I I I have some family uh some money for my family as well so I'm able to kind of like put things you know have things kind of ticking over um it is unfortunately not a great thing to do if you want a real reliable stream of it in income.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:51

The trick is I would say just kind of diversifying and doing kind of lots of little jobs here and there. And so I've ended up doing all kinds of things I've like taking photos photographs of brands I've um I got involved in like a shoe brand taking pictures and like you know trying to do stuff that would I I wrote travel articles as well for um Tatler magazine in the UK um I have judged literary awards I've done like I've done all kinds of weird little things and that all kind of um manages to manages to sort of put things together.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:44

I think basically that's kind of you know I I I I think being a pure freelance journalist is very very very difficult um and only yeah only doing freelance journalism um I have sort of diversified income streams and yeah I'm uh I I I'm I'm struggling to just ask the question that I want to ask which is direct advice from you I've got a story um about two from Sweden you know one about a ridiculous surge in uh cocaine importing and cocaine demand and all the drug viance that comes with that and then as well one about the sort of disconnect between the Stockholm um virtue signaling about a Sami mine all the way up the top of the country who uh they don't want um an iron or an iron mine to go there. So two stories obviously they've got extremely narrow interest you know people aren't going to be Google searching it but nonetheless I I I think um irrespective of how well they're written or anything like that but just the stories have uh some play somewhere I am someone with zero journalistic pedigree I have had one freelance article published in American magazine but it's not like it went to any readership at all so your advice to me how do I shop this around how do I maximize the um time put in it'd be nice to break even I've got no ambition of of profiting but to just not have it you know waste away in a blog um I think go sort of work out which um publications you really like and think about where it would um work well have they published um not the same story obviously because you don't want you don't want to be reporting what they've already done but have they published similar pieces and um you know is it the right tone is it you know do you do you do you see it more as a kind of you know indictment of um the people who are going to be exploiting this mine or do you see it as more of a kind of like conversational um uh kind of chatty piece like is it is it more of a uh magazine story or is it a newspaper story um what length do you want to write it at just just think about that and then and then just like look around your favorite publications and then just start pitching I mean it's it's always good to pitch to places that you read because you can talk about those places.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:28

If you're pitching to kind of magazines that you've never read before then you're gonna have to do a lot of reading to kind of work out who their sort of most famous writers are and their their you know what their editorial style is like if it's a if it's you know if you're if you're talking about a somewhere that you know you can kind of hit the ground running. And then I don't know I I was just I'm just thinking about those two ideas. I mean uh the Swedish mine I mean that's quite difficult because these sort of environmental stories unfortunately are very very difficult to pitch to various places but um yeah I mean I'm a big fan of the nation and they do have uh they do have uh they do have coverage of various places I'm not sure if they necessarily um would take it completely unsolicited and then I'm where else maybe somewhere like Mother Jones but I don't really um yeah I would say probably somewhere like that um in English sorry in American press and then maybe the guardian in the UK press or and then sort of try and figure out um who the editors are there and somebody actually gave me a very good piece of advice which was um which was uh or somebody when I was at journalism school said listen you are developing these skills in investigative journalists so do your sort of investigation of whatever publication you want to pitch to and figure out who the editors are and what they you know what they w want to be pitched um so figure out the writers on publications that you like and um figure out you know uh who their editors are and then sort of speak to those writers and see whether they'll put you in touch with editors and so on. And you yeah. And then the cocaine story I mean I'm sorry if other people have told you this but it does sound like a sort of made for vice story because they've always been very good at covering that kind of thing. But maybe not I don't know. And I don't know anything about Swedish publications but maybe there's a Swedish publication that also publishes in English.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:01

Yeah there's one there's one but it's more for like affiliate links and stuff you know so the top ten cafes, the top ten restaurants, you know how to get a visa, this type of stuff. Yeah. Anyway, thank you I I I really sincerely really appreciate the advice um we'll see how it goes. I've got two gossipy questions for you and then three that I try to ask every single guest.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:25

The first what is Alec Baldwin like Alec Baldwin um was very nice and um was sorry that's an awful answer. Alec Baldwin was no I I mean I was amazed that Alec Baldwin you know he actually his production team contacted me and then and then I said listen call me back um on on my telephone because as as you've seen I'm terrible on emails and uh and so then in the middle of the night I got a call from him and he was very sort of gracious and said listen um am I disturbing you are you are you working? Unfortunately I'm actually in bed but um yeah um and then um no I just met him for that conversation and you can hear that kind of conversation he's he's very um he was very respectful and and um very supportive of journalists journalism so um and journalists uh so that was that was that was always very positive.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:36

Yeah cool yeah I thought it was a a a really good um uh podcast as well like he was a good host he's got terrific voice such a great voice isn't he yeah uh John Lee Anderson this is a person I've been trying to track down for several years um because of his Chay biography he's an absolute perfect person to be a guest on this podcast are you mates with him he's a writer um I don't I don't know him very well um um but he is I have fact tracked a piece that he wrote and um and he was a wonderful yeah he was like a kind of um wonderful person to work with and he's really he's really like uh cool cool guy so Bill Finnegan too the New Yorker has much cool writers yeah really cool Bill Finnegan is uh I read the surfing book um last year and I loved it it's amazing um and I'm not a surfer in any way shape or form so nice um all right mate three questions I try to ask every guest the first could you please talk about the role that serendipity has played in your life um I mean

SPEAKER_02 1:28:00

Just endless amounts of serendipity, but um you know uh I think it's probably the most important force, and especially in journalism as well. I mean, you you know, you especially I mean on this last reporting trip I made to Indonesia, you know, we stopped in this town and the fixer was saying, you know, the translator was very, very conf concerned about you know who we spoke to, whether they were going to be a reporter to local police. We sat down and these people agreed to you know make coffee for us, and then it turned out that they had actually been displaced by one of the mining companies, and it was, I mean, the whole thing was kind of just sort of uh fell into um fell into shape thanks to these just sort of stream of serendipitous interviews. Um I think oftentimes when you're uh when you're reporting in places where um people are less used to um you know scheduling things months and months in advance, obviously um one has to rely a little bit on serendipity.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:12

Beautiful. And I'm really sorry, I just realized I'm looking at my notes, we we totally skipped over you being arrested in the Congo. Um Yeah, I um do you want to do you want to speak about that for a minute or or is it too disconnected from where we are?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:30

Sure. Um I was arrested in Congo for reporting on one of these sort of separatist groups. Um and um well, I mean I was just I was basically following a lead that somebody told me that somebody had given me about them being involved in mining. It seems like it pissed off the government that I was speaking to them. There's also a suggestion that that they thought that we were close to another story about the president's family being involved in mining. Um but uh it really wasn't what we were reporting on, so I'm not sure if that's them sort of just getting the wrong end of the stick. Anyway, we were me and uh my translator were were taken and we were arrested, we were shipped across the country, and we were sort of held in incognito, sorry, in communicado in detention. Um while we were being transferred, I um slipp somebody a note and um uh we were transferred on a civilian flight. So uh I was able to uh pass a note to the pilot and to uh and to a passenger saying, Listen, I'm an American citizen, here's my passport number, and uh yeah, that's basically what happened. And you know, the the consulate got involved and I was released after almost six days and or five and a half days, and the my translator was released uh two weeks later, which was pretty pretty um nerve-wracking, you know. It was kind of it was very worried for him. Um you know, not we didn't really get fed very much, but we were treated I mean, as well as one can be treated in that kind of situation. Um, you know, the obviously was pretty pretty grim in many ways, but um, you know, not beaten or anything like that, so that was good.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:50

And do you think that had you not been able to slip a note, you may have fallen much, much deeper into that whole corrupt system?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:02

Yes, and um and I think we would have been stuck there for many more weeks. But I also had lots of people asking where it was, and actually Johnny Anderson was a was a was a key link. Um he I think he uh he uh met with somebody in a bar in Nairobi who said, listen, there's a New Yorker writer who's been who's been locked up in Congo, and then he got in touch with the um editor-in-chief who who was sort of uh David Remnick, who was who was incredibly, incredibly uh along with a whole bunch of other people, but um he was one of the kind of main main reasons that I that I was uh released so quickly and um very, very appreciative to everybody who sort of worked tirelessly to to secure my release.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:01

And does it make you think twice about uh future troops to the Congo?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:07

Uh I'm not allowed, I'm not allowed back in, so for the moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:10

Ever again in your life or at least. Shit, I'm sorry. Is that is that um like a terrible loss for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:22

Yes, it's really sad. But um, and there are many things that I'd love to be covering there at the moment, but uh fuck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:37

Okay. Um thank you for answering that. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:45

I'm also not allowed into Morocco for very similar reasons. So Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:51

So you've got two African countries off the list.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:54

African countries off the list.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:56

Um I'm sorry for not uh yeah including that in the COBOL part of the conversation. But um thank you for um yeah, for for answering as well. And if you're ready, I say we conclude with the two questions that I try to give every guest. The first being, what is a country that you're particularly bullish on?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:17

Um well, I mean, I think China probably has a pretty bright future. I'm not sure if I would invest in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:23

Um even with the demographic collapse looming?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:28

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think well maybe that will maybe that will make it um even more appealing. Um concentrate concentrate uh concentrate wealth in the country. Anyway. Um but uh I think I don't know. Um I mean you know, optimistic.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:54

I mean there's this there's quite a lot to be pessimistic about in the world these days, so um it's such a shame how how more trending that answer is over the last few months. More and more guests are saying, I can't even think of one example. Um it's a terrible signal.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:14

Yeah. I mean, I think Indonesia has a lot going for it, but then like you look at this this like recent sort of ban on you know sexual relations outside of marriage, and uh and uh you worry about the kind of the the the the the the the backsliding into into um sort of theocra the a theocracy and so on. So I think that's I think that's very concerning.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:44

Final question. Um if you could witness a conversation between any two people of history, dead or alive, no language barrier, so it would be a podcast. Who are you listening to?

SPEAKER_02 1:35:57

Oh god. Probably um I don't I have no idea. Well, I mean I think I mean i i it i i if if one could just click one's fingers, I mean there are just there I mean be fascinated, you know, to to to to hear sort of great people of the you know the the the the very evil and very famous people of the twentieth of 20th century history speak to one another or like you know Einstein or whatever, but it probably would be fascinating. I mean to me it would be even more fascinating to see people who had never um were never sort of recorded um in in actual life. So somebody I probably like uh maybe like Clate, uh maybe uh Socrates and uh and uh then somebody somebody from the Eastern tradition, but who I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:19

Let's say Einstein and Socrates Nice one I like it, that'd be quite the chat.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:28

But there are so many good ones, I mean I've been I've been listening to lots of Joan Didian um lectures recently and I've I'm just I love listening to her voice and she's I think she's just a genius anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:44

What what does she talk about?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:50

The way that America has had you know developed over the last 50 years and so on. I just think she's she's a a real she's incredible anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:00

W where do you where is your cultural roots? Where do you feel like you belong to?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:06

Um I am Greek, but have been kind of I'm a member of the Greek diaspora, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:18

Diasporic nation.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:26

And uh for being so generous with your answers. Um and I really hope that when the book comes out uh we get another chance to speak and promote it.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:38

Yeah, well, I'll send you a copy if you'd like.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:43

Alright. Cheers. Stay well, and uh cheers, and don't get too cold in in Sweden.