👐📲The cobalt in your phone, computer and electric car is mined in conditions of modern-day slavery    70-75% of the world’s cobalt is produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where so-called “artisanal” miners working with their bare hands and basic tools are paid ~$2 a day (and less than half that if they’re women and children). 👉 Big traders like Glencore (Switzerland), Trafigura (Singapore) and Huayou Cobalt (China) operate enrichment plants in the country, mixing the cheaply bought, hand-mined cobalt with industrially mined material to “purify” it and make it eligible for export. The industry is rife with middlemen. Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler was one of the most prominent businessmen associated with the DRC’s cobalt sector until 2022, acting as a go-between for multinationals and the state for two decades.   💵 Dirty trade, global spread   DRC cobalt feeds lithium-ion battery makers, who sell their products to your favorite consumer electronics and electric car makers, including Apple, Google, Samsung and Tesla. 💰 The $1-2 earned by small miners is not a purchasing power issue. A living wage in mining hubs like Kolwezi is ~$520 a month, or ~$20 a day. Instead, what miners are really “earning” for their backbreaking labor is a severely shortened life expectancy, lung diseases, silicosis and tuberculosis, and even elevated levels of heavy metals in their families’ blood, causing birth defects and miscarriages. Equivalent to “blood diamonds,” which have attracted international attention and celebrity informational campaigns, critical minerals and rare earths like cobalt have received nowhere near the same amount of consideration. 🇨🇩 The DRC’s struggle against the chains of neocolonialism was cut short in 1961, when President Patrice Lumumba was murdered by the Belgians and the CIA after trying to get a better deal for the nation’s vast mineral exports. The most infuriating part? The DRC has an eyewatering $24-25T in untapped mineral assets, which means it should be one of the richest countries in the world. Instead it’s one of the poorest.

My mood for the entire month.

They are telling you everywhere 🪐

IRAN ORDER EVACUATION OF ISRAEL FMR CIA LARRY JOHNSON JOIN youtube.com/live/wFubepBmK1I…

#WarData ◾️ The Kiev regime’s gruesome terrorist attack on the academic building and dormitory of the Lugansk State Pedagogical University College claimed 21 young lives (most of them girls born in 2006-2007), with more than 60 people injured. Two days later, after rescuers had completed their search, foreign correspondents were invited to visit the site of the tragedy. The @BBC was not among them – it refused outright. @CNN was absent, citing holidays. Japanese journalists did not come either – Tokyo banned them from travelling to #Starobelsk. Many others, however, chose to see with their own eyes the aftermath of the crime committed by the Ukrainian militants on the night of May 22: the ruins, the witnesses, and the hospital where the injured are being treated. Here is what they saw... Source: Russian MFA ➡️ Subscribe @News_of_Donbass

Is this normal?