Can China’s ‘Deal of the Century’ Save Congo?

Twenty-four trillion dollars. It is a number that beggars the imagination, almost 40 percent of the global economy, and according to a recent UNEP report it is buried in one of the world’s poorest and most violent countries: The Democratic Republic of Congo. Failed state, rape capital of the world, humanitarian catastrophe…Congo personifies all these but beneath the surface its dark earth holds $24 trillion of copper, cobalt, coltan, the bones and blood of information age manufacturing. For this reason, if for no other, the world cannot ignore Congo. It can’t afford to.