Welcome back to the podcast, Brib, Swindle, or Steele. I'm Alexandra Ragi, and today we'll hear from

journalist Nicholas Nyarkos, who spoke at the Trace Forum in Annapolis. Joining me is Nicholas

New Yorkist, and he's written for The New Yorker, the nation, the guardian, the independent.

I've asked Nicholas if he can just start by setting the scene a little bit and talking about the challenges of mining

in some of the most challenging low rule of law countries in the world.

But I did want to just set the scene a little bit.

The issues specific to mining and compliance are pretty unusual.

So I think if we don't have that context, it's difficult to go from there and talk about the compliance challenges.

So if you would, talk a little bit about your work.

Thanks so much for having me here.

I guess firstly, let's just sort of set the scene of cobalt mining in the DRC.

Cobalt is very important for batteries, and it's also using sort of military technology applications

and aircraft and a couple of other things.

And Congo has 70% of the world's known cobalt supplies.

Before it was a kind of byproduct, not really important as a metal,

but in the 2000s it kind of took off as people needed more of these,

and they needed more laptops, and the mobile phone revolution started.

With that came a great deal of speculation in Congo South, particularly around a town

called Colwezi. Now, there are two types of mines in the DRC under the 2002 Mining Code,

which are artisanal mines, which is when people mine by hand. These people are supposed to be organized into collectives,

and those collectives are supposed to work with a Congolese body called Saimapé,

which used to be called Saisman.

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