News from around the World

Between the ongoing political and social rift taking place in America, the destabilization of Western Europe due to the refugee crisis, and North Korea's increasingly hostile threats, it's easy to forget that there's shit going on everywhere. There are a ton of wars, conflicts, and crises that the cable news cycle rarely reports on, going on all over the globe. While these problems may not be as large or even important as what we see in the daily news, I believe it's still important to stay updated on events that don't directly affect us. Even if, and especially if, you rarely hear about it in the media.

I know this post is long, but this stuff is actually important. Please, if you get a moment, read through it and understand what's happening in the world.

VENEZUELA - There's simply no sugarcoating it: Venezuela is a failed state. A long history of corruption and lazy administrating, brought to the boiling point by falling oil prices and a ban that keeps American banks from doing business with the country, have led to its downfall. The Bolivar, once one of the strongest currencies in South America, has rapidly lost nearly all of its value due to hyperinflation. Prices are rising over 80% a month, and they double every 34 days. That statistic came from the National Assembly's Finance Committee, as President Nicolas Maduro's govt stopped releasing inflation data long ago. In January 2017, one U.S. dollar was equal to about 3,150 Bolivars. By December, it had climbed to well over 120,000, the highest inflation rate of any country in the world.

Looters pillaging shops tend to ignore any stacks of Bolivars they may find, no matter how large or how valuable they claim to be. The Bolivar is now more useful as kindling or wallpaper than as currency. Venezuela is undergoing the first instance of hyperinflation the West has seen in a generation, and it is surely a sobering and depressing sight. With credit agencies around the world ready to declare the country in default of its $100+ bn debt, there are few signs that the situation will improve.

President Maduro has responded in an alarming fashion: by deepening the hole and consolidating power for himself. During a recent televised address, he made a stunning announcement. He declared that any opposition party that boycotted last year's municipal elections (which were accused of being rigged) would be unable to participate in the presidential election, which takes place in late July. Last August, he also completely replaced the National Assembly, the opposition-controlled legislature, with a new, completely loyal Constituent Assembly. Maduro also told the country that the govt would be funding new welfare programs, including a program aimed at assisting 500,000 pregnant women. Though this may temporarily increase his popularity, which he desperately needs to win the presidential election in late July, it is likely nothing more than a pipe dream: the govt simply doesn't have the money to pay its debts and fund the already-failing welfare services it currently has in place, let alone tack on more.

The opposition's response to these developments has been mediocre at best, and disastrous at worst. Seen as elitist and plagued by corruption accusations, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, known as the MUD, has struggled to effectively fight Maduro's decrees. The MUD is a coalition of smaller parties, and though it has attempted to give the impression of a united opposition, the cracks are showing. When President Maduro decreed that all newly-elected governors would have to be sworn in by the Constituent Assembly, effectively recognizing the legality of Maduro's puppet legislature, the responses from the MUD were contradictory. Officially, the leaders of the coalition declared they would not recognize it, and instead boycott the swearing-in. But when the time came, four of the only five opposition governors that had won in their respective states caved, and were sworn in, playing right to the President's tune. In the picture above, three of the newly-elected governors meet with Maduro and his lieutenants, including Delcy Rodriguez, chief of the Constituent Assembly. In a humiliating moment for the MUD, Rodriguez appeared to stifle a laugh during the swearing-in. To be fair, however, the governors elected on the opposition ticket asked what boycotting the ceremony was going to accomplish, as they simply would've been replaced by Maduro loyalists.

The MUD has attempted to negotiate with Maduro on neutral grounds, outside of Venezuela. Many South American countries, and Spain, have joined in talks, hosted by the Dominican Republic, which are aimed at easing the country's pains. Though the talks are currently ongoing, so far the results have not been good. One key sticking point is the story of Oscar Perez, a Venezuelan national police officer who became a symbol of resistance last July. He orchestrated a dramatic lone-wolf attack on the pro-Maduro Supreme Court, launching grenades from a helicopter. He was on the run for half a year until he was hunted down and killed by govt forces this week. The President's Interior Minister has claimed that Perez was located with the assistance of the MUD, which has angered the opposition's already-disillusioned base. The MUD has demanded that the Interior Minister take back his comments, in addition to promising fair and free elections, acceptance of humanitarian aid, and the release of political prisoners and dissidents. Maduro's faction has demanded the opposition accept the authority of the Constituent Assembly and join in calling for the lifting of sanctions on the country - particularly President Trump's ban on American businessmen. The talks are not going well, with the MUD having walked out on Thursday evening. Two of the countries participating, Mexico and Chile, have stated they might pull out of the talks entirely. The two countries, as well as several other Spanish-speaking nations participating in the talks, have so far refused to recognize the authority of the Constituent Assembly, which would prove disastrous for Venezuelan trade and diplomacy. Though Maduro has so far bested his opponents, anger is growing within the country, and is only going to strengthen as the economic and political turmoil gets worse. A dictator in charge of a nation in chaos is no dictator at all.

AFRICA - There is a desperate humanitarian crisis going on in a small African country that almost nobody knows about. I'm not talking about Somalia, or Libya, or Nigeria. It's a country I would bet didn't pop into your head, a country that rarely shows up in the news: The Republic of the Congo. Not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is facing its own problems and is focused on far more heavily, the Republic of the Congo sits to the West of the DRC, and is very much its own country. Also called Congo-Brazzaville (the name of its capitol) to avoid confusion, the RotC's southern Pool region has been engulfed in a war since 2016. Fighting between govt forces and anti-govt militias, known as "Ninjas," has taken its toll on the already-small civilian population.

The country is ruled with an iron fist under Denis Sassou Nguesso, who seized power in 1979 with his Marxist-Leninist Congolese Labour Party, and has ruled for all but five years since then. In the 1990s, the military fought the Ninjas, a rebel militia led by Frederic Bintsamou, better known in the country as Pastor Ntumi. Bintsamou and the Ninjas largely demobilized in 1998, and a period of relative peace followed. The situation changed in 2015 when Nguesso passed a heavily-contested referendum which removed the presidency's senior age and term limits, paving the way for another term. This led to an increase in tensions. In March 2016, Nguesso, now 74 years old, won the heavily-disputed presidential election while battling accusations of fraud and corruption. The day the election took place, several attacks took place in Brazzaville. Several govt, police, and military buildings were burned, and 17 people died, three of them police officers. The govt blamed a resurgent Ninja movement, and immediately declared war, despite Pastor Ntumi denying responsibility. The day after the elections, military forces began operations in the Pool region, in which Ntumi and what was left of his militia were based.

With human rights and news organizations consistently and almost unfailingly denied access to Congo-Brazzaville, the war has mostly gone unnoticed. A Google News search for "Republic of the Congo" yields top results focusing almost entirely on the Democratic Republic. As I wrote this, the only result referring to Congo-Brazzaville was about President Nguesso's plan to join the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, as the RotC is one of the largest crude producers in the region. Even a search for "Congo-Brazzaville" yields results referring largely to a continental soccer tournament that RotC participated in. There is almost nothing on the war, save for an article written by an IRIN correspondent who was allowed rare journalistic access to the country, which is the source for almost all of this post's information. IRIN is a now-independent reporting agency that once worked under the UN. According to an anonymous aid worker in Brazzaville, "'You walk into some of the embassies in Kinshasa [the capital of the DRC] and they don’t even know what is happening... Donors to the central Africa humanitarian network are overstretched.'"

Both sides in this hidden conflict have done terrible things, although it appears the military is responsible for many more atrocities than the Ninjas. It seems the military's favorite tactic is a scorched earth tactic: completely obliterate villages where Ninjas are, or were, known to operate out of. The military often strikes with helicopters, bombing a village until absolutely nothing is left. It doesn't matter if Ninja forces no longer live there, according to civilians who manage to escape the reign of terror. Every village that once housed Ninjas at some point in history is a target. Tens of thousands of people have been forced from their homes, and entire districts lay empty and deserted. The IRIN correspondent who reported this claims that along the entire 60 kilometer highway from Brazzaville to the major city of Kinkala, he passed only 10 vehicles. For over a year, the govt refused to even acknowledge the existence of the war. When this did finally happen in July 2017, aid and news organizations began trickling in, albeit very slowly. In a country of just 4.5 million, over 138,000 were in need of humanitarian aid last year. As of now, it is unknown how many people have been killed, though the number is estimated to be in the hundreds to the thousands.

Daily life is filled with pain for those trying to survive. The rule of law in government-controlled areas has completely broken down. Young men suspected of being Ninjas, even on arbitrary or absolutely no evidence, are persecuted. One father recounts how his grown son attracted the attention of soldiers, who searched his home. They found a purple scarf, a color associated with the Ninjas. Even though it's believed the scarf belonged to the young man's older brother, who was a member of the militia in the 90s, the military put him on a helicopter anyway, and his father never saw him again. Anything could be reason enough to be rounded up: having dreadlocks or arm tattoos, looking at soldiers the wrong way, even wearing a torn shirt. Rape is also a massive problem as well. Between April and September of last year, the UN documented 110 cases by "men in uniform." Though this could technically apply to either side of the conflict, as the UN understands it, the vast majority of attacks are committed by soldiers in the army.

Despite the atrocities committed by Nguesso's forces, the Ninjas are hardly saints. Whether or not they committed the Brazzaville attacks the day after the 2016 election, Pastor Ntumi quickly reformed the insurgency when the govt first began bombing the villages in Pool. Since then, Ninja fighters have bombed rail lines to slow trade, destroyed bridges, and killed an unknown number of govt soldiers. They've also indiscriminately targeted civilians in ambushes. The IRIN report mentions a civilian ambulance that was attacked while trying to rescue people stuck in an overturned bus that the Ninjas had attacked earlier. Ninja fighters killed most of the medics, as well as a wounded man lying on a stretcher in the ambulance. He was killed when a Ninja torched the vehicle with a Molotov cocktail.

In addition to the war, the country faces economic issues as well. Just like Venezuela, Congo-Brazzaville is heavily dependent on oil exports for revenue. Oil prices have fallen in the last couple years, draining the state treasury. The public debt, meanwhile, has risen to 110% of the country's GDP, leaving no room for govt relief. Any assistance has come from outside organizations, and aid camps now dot the Pool region. The lack of awareness on the country's crisis hasn't helped relief efforts. Despite the misery, there may yet be hope. To the relief of millions, a ceasefire agreement was reached in December. The agreement calls for the Ninjas to demobilize (again) and disarm, and the govt to allow free trade and small business, as well as work to re-integrate Ninja fighters. It's unknown how long it will last, if this is truly the end of the war, but many citizens are sick of being caught in a conflict they have no stake in. One woman living in an aid camp with her malnourished daughter says this is the second time she's had to flee her home, the first being the civil war in the 90s. She says she will only return home again if two conditions are met: "'The soldiers must leave and the Ninjas must leave.'"

COLOMBIA - Although the 52 year-long civil war between govt forces and the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia finally ended in 2016, it seems the state now has a new enemy - and it isn't the cocaine trade. Illegal gold miners are spread throughout the mountainous jungle country, and it's much more dangerous than it sounds. Armed with backhoes, these criminals excavate land looking for trace deposits of the metal that has entranced humanity for thousands of years. It's much more profitable than the cocaine industry that Colombia is notorious for - and just as bloody. Generating $2.4 bn of shadowy cash annually, believed to be three times as much as the cocaine industry, criminal gangs and drug traffickers have co-opted this trade, and it's paying off. To compare, a kilo of cocaine in Colombia would sell for about $2500 in 2014. A kilo of gold 2014? $30,000-$40,000. In 2015, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who negotiated the peace treaty that ended Colombia's long civil war, stated, "'Today, criminal mining brings more money to criminal groups, to guerrilla groups, to mafias ... than drug trafficking.'"

The reason for the booming business is that, ultimately, no one knows it's even a problem. Cocaine is obvious, everybody knows it's illegal. There's no other substance like it, so it's easy to detect at airports, seaports, and border checkpoints. This forces traffickers to come up with creative smuggling methods or buy expensive bribes. Gold, on the other hand, is gold. Legal or illegal, it's still the same material at the end of the day. It isn't illegal to buy or sell anywhere in the world, and humans will always have a fascination with it. So if there is a large flow of legally mined gold, is it really so hard to inject illegally mined gold as well, and make a ton of money on it? Criminal organizations have figured this out, and it is dramatically affecting Colombia's exports. Exports believe as much as 80% of exported gold is done so illegally. On paper, the country exports much more gold than it produces through its legally owned operations - eight times as much, actually. Legally, the country produced 8 tons of gold in 2016, but somehow 64 tons were exported. While much of that is clearly mined illegally in the country, much of it is also smuggled up to Colombia from other South American countries, surely from illegal operations. From there, it gets shipped to Europe and America. All it takes to make illegal gold look legitimate is falsified documents made up by well-paid middlemen. It's easy to do, hard to prosecute, and most importantly, lucrative.

In Colombia, gold miners, called barequeros, are required to sign documents sourcing where their gold came from, and the documents often come with the names of individual miners. It's a system designed to allow small, working class individuals to benefit from the global trade, rather than be part of a faceless corporation. Unfortunately, it's easy to forge. In 2016, the ministry of mines researched 110,000 barequeros whose names were listed on exports. It was discovered that over 8,000 of those people were either dead or simply never existed. In some cases, a single miner could be credited for exporting over 200 grams a month, which was 10 times the average.

The human toll for this illegal business is high. Much like the famous "Blood Diamond" trade in central Africa, the illegal gold mining in South America is heavily dependent on forced labor. Many miners are simply people trying to eke out a living for their families. Unfortunately, heavy state regulations have given the impression that mining with a permit will not end well. The state encourages legal barequeros to use more environmentally friendly - but more expensive - equipment, and the miners say, at least right now, they simply can't afford it. So they venture into the untamed Colombian jungle to start mining unsupervised, without a permit, and, importantly, without protection. This makes them easy targets for criminal gangs and mafias, many of whom have experience in smuggling and extortion from the cocaine trade. They force the miners to work for them rather than their families, or face severe punishment. The barequeros are trapped between heavy govt regulations which would keep them from supporting their families, and a vicious criminal element looking for an easy and well-paying score. In addition, the sex trade is currently mingling with the illegal gold trade. Prostitutes are making their way to the mines, knowing that criminals will have cash to spend. This leads to a dramatic increase in STIs. In Peru, one human rights group found over 2,000 sex workers that were employed in a single mining area - 60% of them were children.

There's a heavy environmental cost as well. Colombia is generally regarded as one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world. There are parts of the country that to this day haven't ever been seen by human eyes, and an unknown number of undiscovered species call the jungle home. The illegal gold trade is taking its toll. Illegal barequeros, especially the gangs and cartels, destroy the environment in the mining process - leaking mercury and cyanide into the environment, and cutting down huge swaths of forest to make room for their operations. Mercury and cyanide are apparently needed for the extraction of the gold, and unregulated use has left its mark. Some rivers are so polluted with mercury that many villages have stopped fishing for fear of poisoning. In 2014, the UN estimated that over 60,000 kilometers of forest had been destroyed to set up operations, and that illegal gold was the largest cause of deforestation in the country. Though the war that rocked Colombia for over half a century is finally over, the country now has a new war to fight: the war on the cartels.

Not my dog tax

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a journalist or an expert on international affairs. I'm merely a mediocre college student with a mild interest in these things, so I may have gotten some information wrong. If you're interested as well, I highly suggest you do your own research. The more we understand what's happening in the world, the better equipped we are to change it.

SAUCES:

-VENEZUELA:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/01/17/in-venezuela-money-has-stopped-working/?utm_term=.9fef19495f53

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13581

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/venezuelan-opposition-skips-reconciliation-talks-with-maduro-government/2018/01/18/12088416-fc6a-11e7-9b5d-bbf0da31214d_story.html?utm_term=.77e1ba976b4b

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/venezuelas-maduro-cements-control-as-the-opposition-fractures/2017/10/27/4b284b7a-ba5f-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.7c667371f28e

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/how-hyperinflation-stole-christmas-in-venezuela/2017/12/22/0a85e876-e06a-11e7-b2e9-8c636f076c76_story.html?utm_term=.d517db6f3c0f

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/01/venezuelas-dubious-new-constituent-assembly-explained/?utm_term=.8147db326d87

-REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO:
https://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2018/01/18/exclusive-congo-brazzaville-s-hidden-war

http://allafrica.com/stories/201712260093.html

-COLOMBIA:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/colombia/article194188034.html

http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/world/article194919479.html