tv Democracy Now LINKTV July 13, 2023 8:00am-9:01am PDT
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07/13/23 07/13/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! pres. biden: our commitment to ukraine will not weekend. we will set for liberty and freedom for as long as it takes. amy: president biden warns the war in ukraine may continue for a long time as nato nations vow to increase support for ukraine in its fight against russia. but china is blasting nato for
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adopting a cold war mentality. we will get the latest. then to "cobalt red: how the blood of the congo powers our lives." we will look at how the world's increasing reliance on cobalt for mobile phones and electric cars has had a devastating impact on the congo. >> as the world now learns of this new congo or, the morale, encasement, and harassment of our time will be summoned to the cause of bringing an end to this vile scramble for loot that is drenched in the blood of the congolese people that powers our lives. amy: we will speak to siddharth kara, author of the new book "cobalt red." all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. heads of state from 31 nato
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member nations have wrapped up their annual summit in vilnius, lithuania, pledging to support ukraine in its war against russia for as long as it takes. on wednesday, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy met with president joe biden on the sidelines of the talks, one day after he sharply criticized nato's refusal to commit to a timeline for ukraine to join the military alliance as unprecedented and absurd. >> in simple terms, the moment the war is over, ukraine will definitely be invited to join nato and will become a member of the lines. amy: before leaving vilnius, biden delivered a major address reaffirming u.s. support for ukraine to join nato some day and declaring nato is now stronger than ever. president biden is in helsinki, finland, for a meeting with scandinavian leaders. finland recently joined nato and sweden is poised to join as its
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32nd member nation. biden is the first u.s. president to visit finland since then-president donald trump met with vladimir putin at a 2018 u.s.-russia summit in helsinki. we'll have more on the nato summit after headlines. in ukraine, at least one person was killed as russia launched a wave of drone and missile attacks on the capital kyiv for the third straight night. the attacks came amid mounting signs of a crackdown by the kremlin on leaders of the failed june 23 mutiny by wagner group mercenaries. a russian lawmaker close to president putin said wednesday the deputy commander of russia's military operation in ukraine is "currently resting" and "not available for now." sergei surovikin reportedly had advance knowledge of the wagner rebellion. he has not been seen publicly since shortly after the failed mutiny. on wednesday, russia's foreign intelligence chief sergey
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naryshkin said he spoke with the director of the u.s. central intelligence agency william burns and a phone call late last month to discuss the wagner rebellion and the war in ukraine. the u.n. security council is meeting today to discuss north korea launching an intercontinental ballistic missile wednesday, its 12th such test this year. the launch came after pyongyang threatened to retaliate against alleged u.s. spy plane incursions over its territory. japan and south korea's leaders condemned the launch from the nato summit. the u.n. is calling for an investigation over a mass grave in sudan's west darfur which contained at least 87 bodies, including members of the ethnic masalit community. the u.n.'s human rights chief said there is credible information that the paramilitary rapid support forces are responsible. this comes as peace talks appear to have hit a wall and as the u.n. warns sudan is on the brink
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of a full-scale civil war after three months of deadly fighting. to see our discussion about sudan, go to democracynow.org. guatemala is facing deepening political turmoil as the attorney general's office suspended the progressive semilla party wednesday just minutes later, election officials certified the results of the first round of the presidential election, sending conservative former first-lady sandra torres and semilla's bernardo arévalo to the august runoff. following the second place position in june's first round, torres and her allies challenged the results, challenging the results. arévalo is running on an anti-corruption platform. he is the son of guatemala's first democratically elected president juan josé arévalo. in lebanon, several members of
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-- the move forward party received support from voters in thailand's may elections but he was awarded in today's vote by the senate that was appointed after a military coup in 2014. move forward has vowed to reform thailand's laws which saw people arrested and jailed for insulting the monarchy following mass youth led protests in 2020 calling for reforms to the royal system. further votes will not be scheduled to select the leader. move forward could decide to advance the candidate again. in india, authorities in the capital new delhi are warning of shortages of drinking water after the city of 20 million people was inundated by torrential rains, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people in low-lying neighborhoods. recent flooding in india has left at least 22 people dead.
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southern europe is baking under an unrelenting heat wave, with parts of spain forecast to top 45 degrees celsius, or 113 degrees fahrenheit. this week a report in the journal nature medicine found europe's historically hot summer last year resulted in more than 61,000 premature deaths. here in the united states, multiple tornadoes touched down wednesday across the chicago area, including a twister that struck near chicago o'hare international airport, prompting passengers to take cover and disrupting hundreds of flights. more than 112 million people across the u.s. were under heat alerts on wednesday with more blistering heat in the forecast through the weekend. this is meteorologist tom frieders of the national weather service. >> we are looking at potential daily records for high temperatures being broken from california to the west, through arizona all the way into west texas.
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amy: meanwhile, vermont, chest suffered from major flooding come is expecting major rainfall this weekend. in the caribbean, marine biologists are warning unprecedented ocean heat is further stressing a coral reef system that's already on the brink of collapse. this week, the farmers insurance company said it would no longer cover properties in florida citing increasingly frequent extreme weather and flooding events caused by the climate crisis. colombian officials said wednesday deforestation in colombia's amazon rainforest dropped by 26% last year as the government worked with former rebels to protect the environment. this follows the release of new figures showing deforestation in the brazilian amazon fell by one-third in the first half of 2023 amid a government crackdown on illegal miners and loggers. the brazilian president luiz inacio lula da silva and his colombian counterpart gustavo petro met at a regional summit over the weekend, where they
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pledged to work together to safeguard the amazon. president petro said indigenous communities deserve an economy that doesn't rely on extractive industries. >> the northern people killed the indigenous people. do we have to do the same? or is there an entirely different perspective opening up? there is another kind of development that has to do with not cutting down the trees. amy: a new report by "the wall street journal" reveals at&t, verizon, and other telecom companies for decades covered up the dangers of their lead-containing phone cables for workers and the environment. but the companies failed to take action to mitigate or monitor the risks posed by sprawling networks of cables despite internal reports showing dangerously high levels found in
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the blood of workers. at least 2000, though likely many more, lead-covered cables remain under water, in soil, and in overhead poles throughout the united states. in related news, the epa is proposing stricter limits on lead dust from homes and child-care facilities built before 1978 as an official asserted "there is no safe level of lead." the new rule would deem any quantity of dust in floors and window sills from lead-based paint as hazardous, requiring abatement. babies and young children are the most vulnerable to lead exposure, which can cause damage to the brain and nervous system. several lawyers who've had business before the u.s. supreme court used the online payment app venmo to send money to a top aide to justice clarence thomas. that's according to the guardian, which reports the payments to the aide rajan vasisht appear to have been made in connection with a 2019 christmas party held by thomas. among those making payments was patrick strawbridge, who
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recently successfully argued that affirmative action violated the u.s. constitution, and elbert lin, who played a key role in a case that saw the supreme court limit the epa's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. former white house ethics lawyer richard painter responded -- "there is no excuse for it. a federal government employee collecting money from lawyers for any reason. i don't see how that works." republican members of the house judiciary committee grilled fbi director christopher wray wednesday, accusing the agency of politicization as they took issue with wray's response to the capitol insurrection, investigations and to donald trump and president biden and his family, and the agency's use of the foreign intelligence surveillance act, among other things. this is fbi director christopher wray during a heated exchange with wyoming congressmember harriet hageman who accused wray of "weaponizing the fbi against conservatives." >> the idea i am biased against
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conservatives seems somewhat insane to me given my own personal background. amy: christopher wray is a registered republican. he was appointed by trump. the union representing more than 160,000 hollywood actors and performers is on the cusp of a strike. this morning, a negotiating committee with the screen actors guild voted unanimously to recommend a walkout after talks with a federal mediator aimed at hammering out a new labor contract failed at the 11th hour. guild president fran drescher said in a statement -- "the alliance of motion picture and television producers' responses to the union's most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry." hollywood writers have been on strike since may 2. joelle sellner, a writer who joined picket lines in burbank, california, on wednesday, said a walkout by actors will turn up pressure on big studios. >> if sag goes on strike, they
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lose their reality and game shows and they're going to start to feel it because right now they have stockpiled for it and they have things in the pipeline. they think they can do without writers. you really can't do anything without actors. amy: democracy now! employees are represented by sag aftra but are covered by different union contract that hollywood actors. and long-time political prisoner mutulu shakur has died from cancer at the age of 72, just seven months after his release on parole and nearly 37 years in prison. the stepfather of the late hip-hop icon tupac shakur was convicted in 1988 of conspiracy in several armed robberies and for aiding the 1979 prison escape of assata shakur, who fled to cuba. in the 1970's, mutulu shakur was part of the black nationalist group republic of new afrika that worked with the black panther party and young lords to start the first acupuncture detoxification program in the
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united states as drugs flooded their communities. >> [indiscernible] we would detoxify people off drugs. a lot of love and commitment to it. amy: mutulu shakur speaking in the vice documentary "dope is death." and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. when we come back, president biden warns the war in ukraine may continue for a long time as nato evasions thou support
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amy: "the dangling conversation" by simon & garfunkel. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman, joined by my democracy now! co-host nermeen shaikh. hi, nermeen. nermeen: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: president biden has vowed to support ukraine for as long as it takes. biden made the pledge after the closing of a major nato summit in lithuania where the military alliance agreed to invite ukraine to nato some day but no timeline was announced. during his speech, biden drew parallels between the cold war and efforts today to push russia out of ukraine. pres. biden: nato is stronger,
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more energized, yes, more united than ever in its history. indeed, for our shared future. it did not happen by accident. when putin and his -- unleashed his brutal war in ukraine, he was betting nato would break apart. he was betting nato would break. he thought our unity would shatter at the first testing. he thought democratic leaders would be weak. but he thought wrong. amy: after the nato summit in lithuania, biden flew to helsinki, the capital of finland, the newest member of nato. finland shares an 830-mile border with russia. while much of the nato summit focused on ukraine, nato nations also issued a communique criticizing china's growing military power saying beijing's actions are threatening the security of nato nations. on wednesday, wang wenbin, a spokesperson for the chinese
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foreign ministry criticized what he called nato's cold war mentality. >> we urge nato to immediately stop distorting and smearing china and fabricating lies. abandon the outdated concept of the cold war mentality and zero-sum game. blind faith in pursuit of absolute security and abandon the dangerous behavior of disrupting europe in the asian-pacific. do not fabricate excuses for the continued expansion and play constructive role in world peace and stability. amy: china also criticized what it called nato's eastward march after leaders from australia, japan, new zealand, and south korea took part in the nato talks. meanwhile, talks between china and the united states are continuing. secretary of state tony blinken is expected to meet today with china's top diplomat wang yi in indonesia at a meeting of asean, the association of southeast asian nations.
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meanwhile, biden's climate envoy john kerry is scheduled to visit china next week. to talk more about the nato summit, we are joined by stephen wertheim. he is a senior fellow in the american statecraft program at the carnegie endowment for international peace and a visiting lecturer at yale law school and catholic university. he is the author of "tomorrow, the world: the birth of u.s. global supremacy." his recent op-ed piece for "the new york times" is titled "the tale the west tells itself about ukraine." you wrote that, stephen wertheim , before nato, but tell us what you believe is the tale that is told, that is wrong. >> the basic story, and it is not all wrong, that is predominant in western capitals is that russia launched its war of aggression, its full-scale invasion of ukraine in february last year for reasons entirely
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internal to russia. that is, russia fears a democracy in ukraine that is on its border or russia is imperialistic and covets ukrainian territory. that is all true to a large extent, but part of the tale is the west took no actions that causally contributed to the decision by russia to launch its aggression against ukraine. and i think that's simply not true or that over draws the distinction. the fact is, yes, russia has an imperial mentality, especially when it comes to ukraine. but it is partly for that reason that russia has been, over the years, so opposed to nato enlargement and the incorporation of ukraine.
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to be clear, through ukrainians own choices, into western orientation. nermeen: if you could elaborate on that and talk not just about ukraine but other former soviet states and other countries previously aligned with the then soviet union that have expressed any interest, as you say, in joining nato and subsequently did and how russia responded then. >> yes, so this is a complicated story but there was a so-called big bang round of enlargement, the second major round after the cold war that occurred in 2004. at that time, seven countries join nato, including the three baltic republics that had been soviet republics. that is not just parts of the former warsaw pact but in fact constituent parts of the soviet union. at that time, moscow did not
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react too harshly. it was a time when vladimir putin, a new president, was trying to cultivate positive relations with the west and he thought there was an opportunity to partner with washington around the global war on terror. you could use that to his advantage. but the real source of intense controversy came in 2008 when george w. bush tried to get nato allies to agree to give a membership action plan, that is a concrete plan for ukraine and georgia to join nato. and that is when this strange compromise was forged at the summit held in bucharest in 2008 stating ukraine and georgia will become members of nato but not
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giving them a plan or a timeline to actually do so. and i think that is, in many ways, the sort of proximate source of the tensions between nato and ukraine on the one hand and russia on the other hand. leading up to that summit, a guy who is the current cia director phil burrs, he was then the ambassador to russia, and he warned condoleezza rice, secretary of state, that ukraine joining nato would constitute the brightest of all redlines for the russian elite, not just putin. unfortunately, his advice was not heeded. it is a reminder many leading officials and analysts have understood over the years that flirting with the notion of ukraine in particular or georgia joining nato would be something
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that would run a very real risk causing russia to take aggressive steps against those countries in a bid to prevent their alignment with nato. i have to say, looking at the history since then, russia has reacted very badly. it has committed aggression against ukraine. i think it has backfired on russia spectacularly. when russia has metal in ukraine, ukrainians have turned further west. but we have to appreciate this whole dynamic of this history in order to create a more stable and peaceful future coming out of this war when it ends, and it might be quite a while before it ends. by erasing this history of the dynamic between western actions and russian actions, that can make us overlook factors that
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will cause problems in the future. specifically, bringing ukraine into nato or try to do that is something that could well cause russia to re-invade ukraine or at least give it excuse to do so after the current war ends. ukrainians and many others in the west think bringing ukraine into nato is some kind of silver bullet solution. it is the strongest possible guarantee of security for ukraine. but i fear they may be incorrect about that. nermeen: you mentioned the 2008 bucharest summit, nato summit, and you said uncle a tweet that this summit in vilnius intended to deliver a "bucharest plus statement on ukraine's future membership" but right "i wonder if it has in fact produced bucharest minus."
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if you could expand what you mean by that and whether or not you advocate namely that ukraine should be armed and able to defend itself but not be given nato membership? isn't that effectively come even if not explicitly, what was agreed in vilnius? >> that is a really good question. i think you could read the vilnius statement in the way you have suggested. what actually came out at the summit? there had been a big push in the weeks and months prior to make it very clear statement about ukraine getting into nato and laying out an actual timetable or plan to make that happen. and that is not what happened. the allies, including the white house, tried to deliver bucharest plus. they tried to make it sound like ukraine was coming closer to nato membership than ever and
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that this would be a very real likelihood after the war, and yet in the process of doing so, they actually reveal the alliance was split and they came up with the formulation that has -- basically, the alliance would be in a position to offer membership to ukraine when allies agree and conditions are met. so that is pretty much true for any country. in a way, by revealing -- by putting pressure on this question, they have revealed there are very serious hesitations about bringing ukraine into nato and no clear agreement on what conditions ukraine would have to meet. and the white house itself i think seems to be putting contradictory logics. on the one hand, biden says clearly, and i think he means this, the united states
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absolutely should not go to war with russia over ukraine. that would imply not doing so not only now but also in the future. on the other hand, a pledge of nato membership would be something that if deterrence fails would presumably bring the united states into a direct war with russia and he is also entertaining sort of the idea that ukraine has to meet certain standards, democratic standards in order to join. which is it? that has not been resolved. it has been punted toward the future so this drama will go on. what we did see come to your point, actually come out of the summit, was a remarkable statement by the g-7 countries promising long-term economic and security assistance to ukraine. we can expect other countries will join this framework and it
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is part of creating what you might call either armed neutrality or an israel model for ukraine by which ukraine can defend itself and it will be well armed and well supported outside of the nato framework by its international partners. that is the model that actually moved forward in this summit. amy: finally, stephen wertheim, if you can comment on china? all of the attention is on ukraine but in fact that is not what was ashley happening in nato. there was a lot of sidelining and going after china and china struck back, calling nato's eastward march, warning about it, talking about the new cold war. now you have blinken meeting with top diplomat china in jakarta and yet john kerry going to china. can you talk about the significance of what is coming
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out of this? >> i would not say there is much that was concrete about china or new coming out of the summit, but china is concerned about the attempts of the alliance to integrate european allies with u.s. allies and partners in the indo pacific. i will say the people's republic of china tends to call a whole lot of things are product of "cold war mentality." at this point, i think that kind of mentality or mentality of intense durable, strategic competition is pretty well entrenched in western capitals as well as in moscow and in beijing. but, you know, one thing that the nato alliance should think very carefully about is, first of all, exactly where it is going with respect to actions in
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the indo pacific. the united states has chosen, under president biden, not to take actions that would encourage a more balanced military relationship between the transatlantic allies and thus would allow the and it is states to shift its focus on deterrence in the asia-pacific. instead, it is trying to be the leading provider of security in europe and asia simultaneously and hope that it's allies and partners in each region support the goals of one another. amy: we have to leave it there. stephen wertheim, thank you for being with us, senior fellow in the american statecraft program at the carnegie endowment for international peace and a n author of "tomorrow, the world: the birth of u.s. global supremacy." we will link to your "new york
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times" op-ed titled "the tale the west tells itself about ukraine." next up, we look at the world's lines on cobalt that has a devastating impact on the congo. we will speak with siddharth kara, author of the new book "cobalt red: how the blood of the congo powers our lives." back in 30 seconds. ♪♪ [music break]
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amy: "my people" by yassou n'dour. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we end today's show looking at -- looking how the world's reliance on cobalt for mobile phones, electric cars has had a devastating impact on the congo. cobalt is a key component in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. nearly three quarters of the world supply is mined in the congo under horrific conditions. siddharth kara documents that human rights and environmental catastrophe in the congo in his new book "cobalt red: how the blood of the congo powers our lives." in it he writes -- "there are many episodes in the history of the congo that are bloodier than what is happening in the mining sector today, but none of these episodes ever involved so much suffering for so much profit linked so
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indispensably to the lives of billions of people around the world." he continues -- "spend a short time watching the filth-caked children of the katanga region scrounge at the earth for cobalt, and you would be unable to determine whether they were working for the benefit of leopold or a tech company." that's siddharth kara writing in "cobalt red: how the blood of the congo powers our lives." his previous book, "sex trafficking: insid the business of modern slavery," won the 2010 frederick douglass book prize, awarded for the best book written in english on slavery or abolition. siddharth kara, welcome to democracy now! it is great to have you with us from london. this book is absolutely devastating, but of course, it is describing that reality on the ground in congo. tell us the story of how you came to focus on this and how
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cobalt links the devastation of the congo to the west. >> thank you so much for inviting me to speak with you about this crucial and very urgent matter. i have been doing research on various forms of slavery and child labor around the world for many years starting in 2000. around 2016, i heard from some colleagues in the field about appalling conditions in the mining of cobalt in the dr congo. i had no idea what cobalt was. i thought it was a color. i did not know it was in rechargeable batteries. it took time to organize my first trip and establish relationships. i got into congo the first time in 2018. what i saw was so horrific, so extreme and severe. the fact that it was at the bottom of supply chains that
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reach out like a crack across the global economy and touch the lives of everyone, everyone listening to us right now cannot function for 24 hours without cobalt. as you noted in your remarks, roughly three force of the world supply comes from congo and it is mined in conditions does she read -- it is mind in conditions that are like the colonial times where the people of africa are reduced to brute labor, their lives are not valued, their labor is not valued, their humanity is not valued. that is the reality that exists at the bottom of cobalt supply chains. nermeen: the book is magnificent. as amy said, it is completely devastating. if you could explain to us the difference between artisanal mining and the conditions that exist on artisanal mines, areas where artisanal miners search
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for cobalt, and industrial mining? and then describe some of the conditions. who are these miners? how many children are involved? how big are these mines? you said some of them are as large as european cities, including london. >> let's spend a moment and understand what is happening on the ground and that part of the congo. this is the southeastern part from the towns between lubumbashi and kolwezi. when you get to that part of the congo, there are massive operations. outside of the congo, consumer facing tech and ev companies will have you believe all of their cobalt supply in their batteries for their gadgets and cars comes only from these industrial mines. industrial means what it sounds like, heavy machineries, excavators digging and gouging at the earth. it is not sustainable in terms of industrial activity.
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millions of trees are cleared, massive destruction and contamination of the environment. alongside that and the reality is, inside of these industrial operations, there are hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of children, who did by hand. the term given to them is artisanal mining. that makes you think they're walking around making bread or doing work in pleasing conditions, but nothing could be further from the truth. artisanal mining means these tens of thousands of children, hundreds of thousands of people, scrounging at the ground with pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar, or their bare hands to pull cobalt out of the ground and feed it up the chain. many of these people are digging inside industrial mines and outside of the congo, tech and ev companies will have you believe that does not happen but the truth on the ground is very different. they also dig all around the countryside because cobalt is everywhere. there are more reserves of
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cobalt in that part of the congo than the rest of the planet combined. the local population has been displaced by enormous mining operations. you make note some of these are his biggest cities. well, these mining concessions, concessions means the territory of foreign mining companies is allowed to exploit, the biggest one in that part of the congo is the size of london where i'm sitting right now. imagine london-sized swath of countryside that is been completely gouged i'm destroyed, clear-cut, and contaminated in this scramble to get cobalt of the chain. imagine a hundreds of thousands of people who used to live in that territory forcibly displaced, now without homes, without a way to live, and all they can do is scramble back into that ground and try to dig some cobalt out of the earth and feed it up the chain for a dollar or two a day. amy: i want to turn to a clip from a 2022 special report on
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child miners in the drc cobalt mines. >> when i wake up every morning, i feel terrible knowing i have to come back here again. everything hurts. >> when i'm working here, i'm suffering. my mother is already dead and i have to work all day and my head hurts me. amy: this is a clip from a documentary produced by a show is -- australia's public broadcaster titled "blood cobalt: the congo's dangerous and deadly green energy mines," and artisanal miner "mama natalie" explains why she works in the mines accompanied by her two children. >> i come to the my to hustle. if i'm lucky, i make some money and i buy food for the kids.
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but if i don't, they go to sleep hungry. we collect dirt most of the kids help i packing it up and washing it. they also sort through it looking for minerals. it is not a good life for children. we just don't have any other options. amy: siddharth kara, as we hear these voices of the people who are actually digging for the cobalt, what about the responsibility of the corporations -- names we know so well, whether we are talking about apple or -- well, you name the names. then talk about what -- how they explain this level of exploitation. certainly, not something you could see in the children of california doing. >> well, by and large, these consumer facing tech and ev companies look the other way.
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these are the big names we are familiar with -- apple, tesla, google, microsoft, samsung. you can go down the list. they all buy some, most, or all of their cobalt from the congo because there is no other cobalt to buy. they are all aware, i'm sure, to some degree the conditions on the ground. i am large, they say the supply chains are audited, they are certified, they protect and preserve the human rights of every participant in their supply chain, that they have zero tolerance policies on child labor, that mining is done sustainably. so you as the consumer, shareholder, don't worry about it. but the truth the congolese people have to share is completely different. they are at the bottom of the supply chain with no alternative but to eke out this hazard is miserable existence for one dollar or two dollars a day feeding cobalt the chain to these behemoth tech and ev
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companies. as your clip mentioned, the mother said there is no alternative. these people have been displaced and pushed to a cliffs edge. if they want to eat, they have to put their lives at risk to dig cobalt out of the ground. it is part of this scramble. there is so much demand, especially being driven by this transition to electric vehicles. there is so much demand for cobalt that mining companies cannot get it out of the ground quick enough. if you have thousands of poor people digging it out of the ground, it is up anyway -- penny wage way to dig it out of the ground. cobalt is toxic. it is toxic to touch, toxic to breathe. i've seen thousands of women with babies strapped to their backs inhaling toxic cobalt dust day in and day out. children exposed to toxic cobalt. and the ore often has traces of
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radioactive uranium in it. the public health catastrophe, on top of the human rights violence, on top of the environmental destruction, is unlike anything we've ever seen in the modern context. the fact it is linked to companies worth trillions and that our lives depend on this enormous violence has to be dealt with. nermeen: i will just read a short quote of yours because you mentioned what these mines are pay. you said the most unfortunate tunnel diggers in kolwezi earned about $3000 a year. i way of comparison, the ceos of the technology and car companies that by the cobalt mine from kolwezi earned $3000 in an hour. and they do so without having to put their lives at risk each day that they go to work." if you could explain -- first of
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all, $7 were eight dollars is the maximum a day that people learn. what do these children get? these 4, 5, 6, 7-year-old children and countless teenagers? >> yes, well, you see the riches that are enjoyed at the top of the chain, they are stacked to the sky on top of the niro beleaguered shoulders of the children of the congo. start with the family unit. man and teenage boys with some strength, they might be digging tunnels in a neighborhood like kolwezi that you just mentioned, which is ground zero for cobalt mining. they dig shafts into the ground up to 100 feet deep to try to find slightly higher grades of cobalt ore. so instead of earning one dollar or two dollars or three dollars, they will earn three dollars, $4, $6. they are crashed in darkness. they don't have room to sit up
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as they were for 18 hours at a time underground and those tunnels often collapse, bearing alive everyone inside. on the ground you will have younger children and maybe mothers digging in pits and trenches that could be a few meters deep. they will gather sacks of dirt and stone and fill them up and take them over to putrid rinsing pools where young children, little boys and girls, will use a sib to try to separate dirt and stone from cobalt bearing order. they go through this process throughout an entire day to fill one sack for which the family might get two dollars or three dollars or four dollars from the buyers from the chinese buyers, who then sell it to formal industrial mining companies. at the bottom end, children to be earning $.50 to a dollar for rinsing and sorting and at best, on the best day, tunnel digging meals and teenage boys might turn five or six or seven dollars but putting their lives
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at risk for potentially horrid demise each and every day. amy: can you talk about the responsibility of the congolese government? of china? of the united states? >> ultimately, what needs to happen is that companies at the top of the chain, they have to accept responsibility for the conditions at the bottom of their cobalt supply chains. it is that lack of accountability, the lack of accepting responsibility for the conditions of labor of the congolese people and the environmental destruction that leads to a host of other ills. every actor in the supply chain from the chinese mining companies to the congolese government, they are all parts of a chain that starts at the top and there are bad actors at every level. the congolese government has its role to play in not adequately and equitably allocating mining revenues to the population there. there is corruption which
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plagues the country of the congo. but china dominates and controls mining production on the ground. what i have seen with my own eyes and what any congolese person living in the region will tell you is they paid no heed to the human rights of the congolese people and they pay no heed to the environmental protection. mining companies, especially the chinese ones, dump toxic affluence into the earth, air, water. i've seen villages with children playing in the dirt covered in sulfuric acid powder that is wafting over the entire countryside from mineral processing plants, chinese companies. millions of trees have been clear-cut. i never met anyone in the congo who said they saw anyone planting one tree to replace them. their waterways, lakes and rivers, have also been polluted so fish and animal stocks are polluted, vegetables are polluted. everyone is being slowly poisoned to death by cobalt
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mining operations. that is the truth the stakeholders at the top of the chain don't want us to know. that is the truth the congolese people are desperate to share. nermeen: you talked about how is it that china came to play such a huge role in the cobalt mining industry, owning and financing as many of the mines, 15 out of the 19 major complexes in the main cobalt producing provinces that you visited? how is china come to play this role? and then talk about the depots, the bosses you spoke to -- it was very difficult to get into because they have armed guards and so on -- what did the chinese bosses of these depots tell you about the conditions there, what they're doing there? and did they take any responsibility at all for the conditions under which these miners were working?
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>> well, in a way yet to give china credit. 15 plus years ago, they saw the future was going to be rechargeable batteries. that meant cobalt. they shrewdly determined all the cobalts in the congo and starting in 2009 with their previous administration of president kabila, they started sending deals. the first when they signed was a $6 billion loan and infrastructure deal in exchange for access to several copper cobalt mines in the congo. that opened the floodgates and it was one state run chinese mining company after another signing deals with the kabila administration possible for the west to what was happening, china had locked down the bottom of the cobalt apply chain. from that point forward, they vertically integrated as they control probably 70% to 80% of money contract -- on the ground possible as to about 80% of the world supply of refined cobalt and probably have of the world supply of rechargeable batteries
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for phones, laptops, and cars. how does this artisanal cobalt enter into that formal supply chain? there is an informal ecosystem that exists right next to the formal supply chain. imagine it like this. you have hundreds of thousands of people digging all around that part of the countryside, filling up sacks of cobalt. they take it to these depots -- they are also called buying houses. most of them are run by chinese agents. their job is to buy up artisanal cobalt and sell it straight to industrial mining companies. you could just sit outside. the advertised is a copper cobalt depot, $depot. artisanal miners sell their cobalt to these buying houses and at the end of the day, you see huge cargo trucks from the industrial mines pull up and buy
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up hundreds and hundreds of sacks of tons of cobalt being purchased and they take them right into the industrial mine where it is then mixed with the industrial production. from that point forward, this is import for people to understand, from that point forward there is no way to disaggregate which cobalt was pulled out of the ground by an excavator in which cobalt was pulled out of the ground by the hands of a child. any company that claims otherwise is either recklessly ignorant of the truth on the ground or they are dealing in falsehood. amy: we are talking to siddharth kara, author of "cobalt red." you and your book quoting the last letter of patrice lumumba to his wife, the congolese independence leader, first prime minister who was assassinated in 1961. the u.s. went after them specifically the cia, belgium.
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talk about this quote you right -- >> well, let's go back to the moment of independence in 1960 in the dr congo and 17 countries in africa got independence from the colonial powers that year. congo was coming out of centuries of the slave trade and then belgian colonialism. patrice lumumba was a very bold a popular nationalist leader elected in that country's first democratically elections to be their first president prime minister. he had a bold vision that the congo's mineral wealth, it's rich resources in the congo was blessed with enormous riches
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and resources, his vision was those resources should be for the benefit of the congolese people and not for empowers. 11 days after independence, belgium amputated the part of the congo that we are talking about right now where all of the mineral resources are and that was 80% of the country's economy . 11 days, the country had 11 days of freedom before belgium went in and amputated the most important part of the country. lumumba asked the united nations for help expelling the belgians. they did not cooperate. so then he turned toward the soviet union and asked for their help. well, the thought the congo's mineral riches would flow toward the soviet union and not continue flowing to the west send those neocolonial powers into a tailspin and they hatched a plan quickly to dispatch lumumba, u.s., cia -- they're
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all involved in capturing lumumba. they flew him to the belgian stronghold in katanga, tortured him, shot him, chopped into pieces, dissolved his body in acid, ground his bones to dust so no trace could ever be found except for one tooth that was held as a souvenir by one of the belgian assassins. in fact, that too was just returned by belgium to lumumba's descendants last year. so the lesson was, unless you play ball with the west, we will chop you down and replace it with some who will post up as you noted, that person ended up being joseph mobutu for three decades, corrupt, bloodthirsty desperate who ran the congo into the ground. the congo really never had a chance. it is been one set of corrupt leadership after another but they had their chance at freedom and maybe a completely different
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path with lumumba after independence but, sadly, the colonial powers had other plans. nermeen: if we could go back to the stories that you heard while you're in the congo, what has become of the place. you interviewed many miners and families of miners in the book. could you tell us the story of elode? tell us what they told you, who they are. >>elode was a young girl i met on my first trip to the congo. she was 15 years old, and it orphan. she was digging in an area near a village in the kolwezi area. she had been orphaned by cobalt mining. her father died in a tunnel collapse inside an industrial mine right next to where she was
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digging when i met her. her mother died from some infection or illness, she wasn't sure, but her mother was someone who rinsed cobalt stones in the very toxic waters at the lake. elode was an orphan on her own and there are thousands of children who have been orphaned by cobalt mining. they scramble and scrounge for cobalt. in her case, she cannot make end s meet. she had a prostitute herself as a teenager to try to get money to survive. when i met her, it was clear to me she was in the later stages of hiv. she had a two-month-old son strapped to her back. she was wiry, mucus-crested, very ill. what i saw in her was the face of what the global economy was doing to the congo. it is almost impossible to imagine that the degradation of this child and children like her
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can be transformed by the global economy into shiny phones and cars. at that is exactly what is happened. she was sort of the quintessence of this story, the complete degradation of congolese children, children thrown to a pack of wolves by a global economy that transformed their degradation, their suffering into the indispensable gadgets and cars that we rely on every day. that is an injustice. that is an utterly caustic miserable formula that needs to be set right because we can't conduct our rechargeable economy in our daily lives by inflicting such violence and suffering on some of the poorest children in the world. amy: siddharth kara, thank you for being with us, author of the new book "cobalt red: how the blood of the congo powers our lives."
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his previous book, "sex trafficking: inside the business of modern slavery" won the 2010 frederick douglass book prize, awarded for the best book written in english on slavery or abolition. that does it for our show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your
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[suspenseful piano music plays] [mechanical reverberations echo] [suspenseful piano music plays] [chiwetel] the earth from space. [classical music builds] the only known planet in the universe with surface water. [suspenseful piano music plays] water is what made life and civilization possible. but the ancient water patterns on earth are shifting. no one can be sure anymore where tomorrow's water is coming from. [classical music builds]
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