China's fake development deals

 StrategyPage has a long discussion of China's investment in the Congo, which was supposed to include money for roads and development.

but a lot of the money went to the usual suspects:

The investigators found evidence that the engineering contract was used to distribute $55 million to senior members of former President Joseph Kabila’s government. The bribery plot used several shell companies in Congo and elsewhere that made the operation look legitimate. The shell companies provided fake invoices and other paperwork. One even provided fake telephone justifications for payment. 

since Kabila is out of power, they are working on new deals.

and just ignore the cooperation of western banks to this type of embezzlement of development money/stealing resources of poor countries:

Some of the money flowed through major European and American banks. .... 

then you have the scam of China giving aid lending money and then stealing stuff when you can't repay them. This is something we see in Asia and the Philippines is worried that their aid here will let them steal our resources and ports too.

December 3, 2021: A recent report looked at Zambia’s debts to China. Here’s the bottom line. From 2000 to 2010 Chinese financial groups loaned Zambia around $10.3 billion. So far Zambia has only repaid $1.2 billion. Zambia fears it will be another victim of Chinese Debt Trap tactics which involve offers to settle such debts by taking possession of key items, like ports, railroads or mining rights, that China wants to control....

and then there is this: 

 

 December 1, 2021: China is urging Chinese citizens now in eastern Congo (South Kivu, North Kivu and Ituri provinces) to immediately move to safer areas in Congo. In the last month at least a dozen Chinese citizens living in these provinces have been attacked or kidnapped. It is believed most Chinese nationals in these areas are involved in businesses dealing in minerals and other manufacturing resources.

so are they planning to keep them until ransom is paid, like the terrorists in the Philippines, or will China send in Wolf Warrior II to rescue them a la Rambo? 

the African resistance to covid

 I have cited this elsewhere, but am posting here so I don't lose the link.

Although people of African heritage are more prone to get and die of covid in the USA and UK, (maybe due to the lack of Vitamin D caused by darker skin blocking sunlight), there are fewer deaths in the African continent.

And this might be a genetic factor.

Austin Bay (10 2020) noted 

Chinese are a growing presence in Africa where they are making large investments in mining and other enterprises. As a result, there is a lot of travel between China and Africa and covid19 showed up in Africa but has not become an epidemic. The public health systems in Africa are far less capable as those in the rest of the world like China.

 

Chinese researchers discovered that Africans are less likely to catch covid19 because they have one fifth as many cellular receptors in their lungs than Chinese.

italics mine. 

That difference enables covid19 to cause breathing problems more, or less, readily. Other researchers found that this genetic difference was most helpful for Africans and most harmful for East Asians. People in other parts of the world have less resistance to covid19 than Africans.

Lung damage is the most frequent cause of death among covid19 victims. By April Africa, with 18 percent of the world population, has only suffered about 0.3 percent of the covid19 infections. Africans are not immune, just less likely to get infected or suffer the breathing problems that cause most covid10 related deaths.

 again, italics mine.

Such genetic differences are common and account for some ethnic groups having different health problems, or advantages.

the article then goes on to note a few other racial traits that are associated with less disease, such as malaria and sickle cell. Light skin colour and less rickets and fewer maternal deaths from rickets also was a strong evolutionary reason for pale Koreans and Scandanavians.