Reminds me of that scene from eternal sunshine of the spotless mind [TW: animal mistreatment]

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/56132298

Here is the study: Democratic Republic of Congo: Expansion of Chinese-Owned Cobalt and Copper Mines in the Lualaba Province

• Researchers used commercial satellite imagery to document major expansion at three Chinese-controlled DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] mines: Sicomines, Tenke Fungurume, and Kisanfu.
• Evidence shows China is building an integrated upstream ecosystem combining extraction, processing, logistics, and transportation—not merely increasing raw output.
• Cobalt is critical for aerospace, defense, and advanced batteries, making China's tightening grip a serious strategic concern for Western nations.
• Satellite analysis cannot directly measure production volumes, and the study is limited to three operations, leaving broader industry trends unexamined.

....

The risks of human rights violations in these mines are extremely high. Much of the mining at these industrial mines is performed by “artisanal miners,” freelance workers who perform the mining using shovels or pickaxes in chemically toxic environments for the equivalent of a few US dollars per day.[16] Artisanal mining is prohibited by law, but is still present at most mines in the DRC.[16] Miners are often physically abused, sexually harassed, and discriminated against based on their race or gender.

Studies have revealed that many of these labor rights violations have been committed in several Chinese-owned mines, including the Kamoto Mine, the Tenke Fungurume Mine, Sicomines, Metalkol Roan Tialings Reclamation (RTR) Mine, and Dewiza Mine.

...

Chinese firms control or hold majority stakes in almost three-fourths of cobalt and copper mines in the DRC, including the Sicomines Copper-Cobalt Mine, the Tenke Fungurume Mine, and the Kisanfu Mine. The consolidated Chinese presence now accounts for an estimated 70% of the DRC’s cobalt exports and a substantial share of its copper production, effectively shaping global market prices and supply reliability ... The DRC itself produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt and about 10% of its copper, making the country indispensable to the global economy.

...

Historically, the clearing of forestry has served as an accurate indicator of a future expansion of operations. There have been several instances of forestry clearance across mines, which means that mines likely have future expansion plans on the way.

...

Web Archive link

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/48595579

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/62340497

🤔 Interesting

cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/mildlyinfuriating/p/1784290/interesting

Russia's Alabuga Start program offers training and jobs to Latin American women under the pretense of employment in the hospitality or logistics sectors, only to ultimately hire them to assemble drones used against Ukraine.

...

Introducing yourself in a video, holding a valid passport and learning 100 words of Russian: That is all it takes to be hired by Russia for its Alabuga Start program, which recruits young women aged 18 to 22 from 77 countries across Africa, Asia and now Latin America.

As described on its website, Alabuga Start, a "relocation program to Russia for work experience," theoretically offers training and jobs in seven professional fields, including hospitality, vehicle operation and logistics. However, the women recruited and employed in the city of Yelabuga, in Tatarstan, located 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow, unknowingly contribute to Russia's war effort. Once there, far from the initial promises they received, they are put to work assembling drones used against Ukraine: Iranian Shahed-type drones, which are licensed to Russia, upgraded and then named "Geran-2" and "Geran-3."

...

Since 2022, the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ), in Yelabuga, has become Russia's main center for Shahed-type drone production. Despite a shortage of local labor and Western sanctions, production has intensified since 2024. No current study can precisely estimate the scale of recruitment in Latin America, which began as early as June 2024, according to openly available data. However, according to The Reporter, an Ethiopian newspaper, since 2022, 200 women from various African countries, where the program was first promoted, have joined it.

Since then, the program has established new recruitment channels in 13 Latin American countries, particularly in 2025, backed by advertisements on social media platforms, including AI-generated content and partnerships with local influencers. In Ecuador, Club Deportivo El Nacional, one of the country's four largest football clubs, featured the Alabuga Start logo on its 2025 jersey. In Mexico, the program signed a partnership with the town of Abasolo – population 10,000 – and four Colombian influencers even visited the SEZ in summer 2024 to promote the program.

...

This practice of supplementing the recruitment of Russian citizens has raised concerns abroad about how Moscow has been able to project its message, "even at a time when the Russian military is exhausted by the ongoing war of aggression," said political scientist Marie Mendras, author of La Guerre Permanente. L'Ultime Stratégie du Kremlin ("Permanent War. The Kremlin's Ultimate Strategy").

...

Although recruitment in Latin America started more recently than in Africa and appears less significant so far, several voices have spoken out against it, calling out the fact that it seems to constitute labor exploitation, or even human trafficking. For those who travel to Russia, the program, which lasts at least two years, promises "guaranteed stability and social security, official salary and confidence in the future," according to its website. The offer is particularly economically attractive for many, with starting salaries above $500 (€440) per month, hostel accommodation for just $40 and a one-way ticket to Moscow, all covered by the program.

However, the program's African recruits have shared a very different reality on social media platforms: relentless work schedules, exposure to dangerous chemicals and restrictions on their freedom of movement. After these accounts, the Associated Press published an investigation in October 2024, in which one woman said she and others were "maltreated like donkeys, being slaved." Once these Russian practices were exposed, Alabuga Start's Meta, TikTok and Google accounts were deleted, slowing the program's spread in Latin America, which had been intended to become Moscow's next major recruitment pool.

...

Beyond the industrial workforce Moscow has recruited through Alabuga Start, it has also been recruiting fighters from Latin America for its war in Ukraine. In 2026, more than 5,000 Cubans have been sent to fight on the Donbas front.

...

The Kremlin has succeeded in convincing people through the influence network it has established in South America since the Cold War. "Moscow believes that countries which were once within the USSR's sphere of influence are its 'near abroad' and that it has the right to control them. To confront the United States, Russia must do so in the American 'near abroad,' meaning Latin America," said Farah, adding, "If you look back at Russian disinformation operations in the region, they really took off in 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, so influence and war efforts are clearly linked."

...

That year, the Russian propaganda outlets Sputnik and Russia Today (RT) launched a Spanish-language channel and opened offices in Latin America. These extensive influence networks, which include local content creators, media outlets and agents, have become highly developed. Will they succeed in maintaining a steady recruitment base of Latin American labor? That seems unlikely. "Russia is no longer a superpower. It keeps up the pressure through these operations. Interference is the weapon of the weak, for a declining power," said Mendras.

...

Archive Today link

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday contrasted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s (D) policies with President Trump’s, responding to cries against socialism amid the recent wave of democratic socialist primary election victories.

“Trump cuts funding for childcare, Mamdani thinks that we should have free and universal childcare,” Sanders told online progressive commentator Jack Cocchiarella on MeidasTouch’s “On Sunday” show on YouTube. “Mamdani is trying to build low-income and affordable housing in New York City. Trump is cutting funding.”

Sanders added that Mamdani opposes, “as most of us do, the endless wars that are being fought right now through Trump, as well as the extremist Israeli government and their genocidal policies in Gaza,” whereas “Trump supports Netanyahu,” referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Who do you think is on the side of the American people on these issues?” Sanders said. “I think what we are talking about is where the American people want us to be.”

by Mendakonaru

Twitter・Danbooru

So I bought a black-and-white toner printer in 2021 or 2022 but I rarely used it for anything. I also bought a huge pack of envelopes. Now I believe I have reason to make a delivery of 50 to 100 letters in my area. Over the weekend, Trump again threatened to bomb Iran and by that I mean destroy the whole country and make it uninhabitable (while also wiping out the world economy at the same time). Trump said it would have been the largest U.S. operation since World War 2 but as usual he called it off. This type of bluffing and fooling around is unacceptable yet somehow it has become normalised.

There are 3 main ideas I'm writing about and it's to do with the media's poor reporting on the bigger picture and other distortions:

• Scale of consequence (much focus on small problems versus ignoring the risk of a global catastrophe)

• Exaggerations of battlefield effectiveness (constant false claims about the imminent collapse of Putin's Regime™ or the defeat of the Russian Army, also false claims about Iranian society and how Iranians think)

• Background information ignored (eg. mentioning a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and columns and columns of tanks without saying why this happened and without hearing the Russian government's own explanation for its actions)

I also mention the misuse of the phrase "strategic miscalculation".

I'm trying to think about this as rationally as I can while writing concisely - even if it's rigid and the paragraphs just change subject. I don't care too much as it's just a brief summary. My goal is to avoid wordiness and convey information without getting into details and going on a tangent. If someone can spot a typo or re-phrase my grammar, that'd be cool, but I think I'm pretty much ready to print. I'm using the Carlito font in Libre Office because I've been advised by an employment consultant not to use the stock fonts of Liberation sans-serif or Liberation serif (it looks cramped and out-dated, styles have changed over time).

I get spam in my letterbox all the time so I believe the local laws are on my side. Last week I wrote "world at war" on approximately 50 envelopes. It was really hard to think of something both timely and timeless. "world at war" seems broad enough that even if I hesitated now, I could use the same envelopes a few months from now.

I highly encourage people to think about doing this in their own neighbourhood, if your local laws allow for you to send unaddressed mail (or just FTP and do it regardless of local regulations lol)

Here is what I've got so far. You can copy'n'paste into Libre Office and use the Carlito font and see what it looks like:

Hi there

I’m sending this letter because New Zealanders have been lied to about current conflicts around the world. I ask that you arm yourself with real knowledge, instead of believing the simplified explanations from the TV and radio. Regarding Iran, for example, the NZ media has focussed too much on petrol prices and not enough on the history of American war mongering this century. The media likes to talk about what they call “Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine” while ignoring the fact that most wars have been started by America, including wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Iran. These wars only benefit the rich and make our countries less secure. Increased petrol prices and Trump’s personality shouldn’t be in focus. The bigger picture is that America has always invaded countries, because American presidents are puppets who’re operated by the machinery of politics. This machinery does not change. Americans will fight wars indefinitely until a decisive strategic defeat of the U.S. Army on the ground.

Trump has previously threatened to destroy Iranian civilisation by bombing power plants, oil refineries and critical water infrastructure. On the weekend, the 2nd of August, Trump made the threat again, but at the last moment he declined to launch the attack. Trump said that the operations planned against Iran would be larger than U.S. Army operations in World War 2, which suggests that his plan involves a full-scale ground invasion of Iran. I believe that it’s extremely poor of journalists to report on this with a straight face. Meanwhile, politicians refuse to condemn it. When Trump threatened to destroy Iranian civilisation and make Iran uninhabitable for humans, Christopher Luxon merely described the comments as unhelpful. These so-called journalists ought to provide greater background information to better explain these wars. Journalists should also assess the claims being made about battlefield success and the necessity for wars, while also considering that a war could have serious consequences (by that I mean a cost that’s worse than paying an extra dollar per litre of fuel, which is a small and reversible consequence).

On the 1st of August the Christchurch Press published an article titled “Putin faces another Black August”. The article claims, without evidence, that Russian people are on the verge of overthrowing Vladimir Putin and that Russia is on the brink of defeat in Ukraine. The article states that “[Russian] oil facilities have gone up in smoke”. As if videos of black smoke somehow indicate a strategic victory. The article states that e-commerce warehouses have been targetted “in an attempt to cripple the banking system”. Yet the article provides no evidence that attacks on Wildberries warehouses will cripple Russia’s economy. The warehouses are the same type of business as Amazon. To me it’s unclear how these attacks are a success for Ukraine. How can destroying cosmetic products, clothes and consumer electronics help Ukraine to win the war? It’s simply a public relations stunt by Ukraine, so that European countries will continue to fund Ukraine’s bankrupt economy and continue the war. Journalists never explain this part.

Recently China fired a missile as part of a live-fire exercise in the Pacific, which one media outlet referred to as a “strategic miscalculation”. I don’t think journalists understand the scale of consequences. Firing a missile in an exercise isn’t a strategic miscalculation and this phrase should be reserved for a time when the consequences are severe for either the whole world or a continent. For example, America’s full-scale invasion of Iraq in 2003 could fairly be referred to as a strategic miscalculation as it ruined Iraq and led to the rise of Islamic State beyond Iraq’s border.

(I'm going to add an email address or website URL at the bottom)

@sophsartsz

Although there are a few ways to mitigate the risk, the only way to block it is to get AI to differentiate instructions from data, which is impossible today.

“My view is that the broader challenge is therefore not simply to prevent systems from interpreting external content as instructions, but to evaluate whether those instructions align with the user’s goals and the context in which the system is operating,” he added.

Problem hard to overstate

Mike Wilkes, enterprise CISO at Aikido Security, said it would be difficult to overstate the potential problems from this situation.

“This is a significant issue because it moves prompt injection from a single compromised interaction into a potentially self-propagating document integrity attack,” he said, noting that it is not a conventional worm that spreads automatically. A user or Copilot workflow must still bring an infected document into the model’s context. “But once that happens, the malicious instructions can reportedly alter business information, conceal themselves inside the resulting Word document and turn a legitimate internal file into the next carrier,” he said.

A new dispute mechanism enables communities to challenge Chinese-backed mining developments, but it may have already failed its first test

...

At 4,700 metres above sea level, oxygen is a lot harder to come by. But what is truly scarce in the highlands of the Morococha district, deep within the Peruvian Andes, is hope.

In 2012, the Aluminium Corporation of China (Chinalco) began developing this area’s town of Nueva Morococha, a red-roofed settlement built from scratch. It rehoused 5,000 people, who were displaced by what is now one of Peru’s most important copper mines, named Toromocho.

Residents were supposed to receive compensation and new housing and stable jobs at the mine. However, according to residents, the new town turned out to be a lifeless model village, a place that failed to do justice to local ways of life and community bonds. They say jobs proved to be temporary and precarious, often ending after mere months without so much as a goodbye.

However, five families refused to sign up for this future. For 13 years, they resisted. This meant living without a regular water supply and having to light their homes using solar panels once the water and electricity services were cut off. Elvis Atachahua, 48, who makes a living repairing computers or doing whatever manual labour is available, was the voice of that resistance. He says they felt like strangers on their own land, and the former buzz of their township dissipated.

“Right now, all five families are drifting from place to place, living in nearby towns with relatives and friends who have taken us in.”

These families have also faced lawsuits brought by Chinalco regarding land disputes.

...

Over the past two decades, China has become South America’s main trading partner. It is projected that Chinese trade with Latin America will exceed USD 700 billion by 2035. China-Peru trade reached USD 24 billion in 2024, of which copper ore accounted for 62%. Atachahua and others like him are experiencing the reality of this development first-hand.

On 19 September 2025, noise returned to Morococha: the stomp of boots and the clash of shields. Two hundred and fifty police officers had arrived to clear out the remaining residents. “It was a forced and inhuman displacement. They didn’t respect us. They demolished our homes, took our belongings, even our animals. They treated us like criminals,” Atachahua tells Dialogue Earth.

...

Against this backdrop, a major Chinese industry association, the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters (CCCMC), has been developing an accountability mechanism since late 2022. Communities should be able to use it to raise grievances against Chinese mining companies and seek conflict resolution.

...

According to a forthcoming study by Sustainable Latin America (LAS), an organisation focused on investigating the impact of Chinese capital in Latin America, Chinese companies have secured 59 mining projects in the region in just five years.

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As Chinese capital has proliferated across the region, local communities have discovered a lack of avenues for challenging developers. As LAS puts it, an “accountability gap” has opened up.

...

Experts warn that, while the mechanism sounds smooth on paper, the reality is rougher. Caitlin Daniel from Accountability Counsel, a non-profit legal aid organisation, warns Dialogue Earth that the mechanism has yet to prove itself:

“We believe it could be highly beneficial and can formulate proposals that bring parties closer to an agreement. However, until the CCCMC takes action, it remains unclear whether there will be a genuine opportunity for dialogue to resolve this issue.”

...

The Toromocho case was supposed to offer the CCCMC mechanism its first test. After the complaint was accepted, a historic visit was announced: Chinese mediators would travel to Peru in April this year to hear from Elvis Atachahua and his neighbours. However, the visit was cancelled with one day’s notice. The CCCMC’s explanation was brief, telling affected families that travel authorisation had not been granted. No further details or proposals for reorganising the trip were shared.

...

Meanwhile, in recent years, the Chinese government has published a plethora of documents aimed at raising the human rights and environmental standards of Chinese companies’ investments overseas ... Belt and Road Initiative projects, [the Chinese government] states, should be “green, clean and sustainable”. It also urges companies to conduct “human rights due diligence”. Late last year, China’s Ministry of Commerce and the China Mining Association also released more stringent guidelines for environmental and social responsibilities, and for ESG reporting by Chinese mining companies operating overseas.

But Garzón points out that ... conflicts between communities and Chinese-led projects are likely to “keep intensifying and deepening”, adding: “This will undoubtedly cause increasingly large and unmanageable problems, which will pose ever more serious challenges to bilateral relations.”

...

Web Archive link

Dana Bash on CNN calling the BS out