Posting has been light due to internet problems, sorry. A lot of articles on the news about Russian, China stopping sanctions against Mugabe. Russia just wants to make trouble for the US (nothing new here) but China is (to use the US expression) sucking up to African dictators to steal the people's wealth.
If China wasn't "socialist" this would be called neocolonialism...
and if our experience in the Phiippines is any clue, the contracts were granted because of nice "gifts" given to government ministers. Right now in the Philippines, there is a scandal about a broadband contract with China, where a 40 million dollar bribe was given to get the contract instead of a European bid. The reason that the bribe came to light is that it was too big (40percent of the contract, while the usual bribe is 20 percent of the contract).
The UKTelegraph doesn't mention bribes, just that governments like China for not telling them what to do like western governments.
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Full scale work by the Chinese begins to rebuild 2,050 miles of roads in the Democratic Republic of Congo, left to rot in the rainforest after the Belgian colonialists pulled out 48 years ago and further shattered by seven years of war.
The vast project, which will triple Congo's current paved road network, is part of China's largest investment in Africa, a £4.5 billion infrastructure-for-minerals deal signed in January.
As well as the roads, Beijing has promised to repair 2,000 miles of largely defunct railways, build 32 hospitals and 145 health centres, install two electricity distribution networks, construct two hydropower dams and two new airports.
n return, China has won the rights to five copper and cobalt mines in Congo's southern minerals belt which boasts some of the world's richest ore deposits.
The deal has confirmed Beijing as Congo's largest foreign investor and extended its dominance over swathes of Africa previously allied to the West.....
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