The BRICS group wrapped up its two-day leaders’ summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. The summit’s final communique is a 16,000-word doorstop that covers numerous issues from economics to education.
The communique avoids any direct mention of the United States, and references to “unilateralism” and other coded criticism are also relatively scarce. Rather, the communique keeps the focus on the BRICS’ vision of the strengthening and reform of the global multilateral system ...
Tag: logging
Related Posts
Chinese Companies Engage in Massive “Forest Looting” in the DR Congo
Two Chinese logging companies are now the largest timber harvesters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with concessions sized at more than 3 million hectares. The firms, Wan Peng and Booming Green, are engaged in industrial-scale logging to export raw ...
Illegal Chinese Timber Trade Fuels Insurgency in Mozambique
Officially, Mozambique bans the export of raw timber in an effort to protect what's left of the country's rapidly shrinking forests. But whatever laws are in place are largely disregarded as more than 500,000 tons of timber leave the country each ...
Guarding West Africa’s Forests: Exploring Ways to Put an End to Illegal Chinese Timber Trade
Together, the United States and China import $40 billion worth of timber products each year, quite a bit of which is harvested illegally from West Africa's rapidly shrinking forests. But cracking down on this illicit trade is extremely difficult given that ...
Chinese ‘Illegal Mining Queen’ Jailed in Ghana
Aisha Huang -- a Chinese national with the notorious nickname "Galamsey Queen" -- is now sitting in a Ghanaian prison cell after she was sentenced this week by the High Court in Accra for running a massive illegal mining operation.
Chinese Demand for Illegal Rosewood Leads to Deforestation in Cameroon
Cameroon is just one of a growing number of African countries that is facing a deforestation crisis due in part to the trade in illegal Rosewood. Large organized crime syndicates are felling vast numbers of these prized trees, smuggling them across ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Biden-Tshisekedi Meet on Sidelines of G20
DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi met one-on-one with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, on Friday in the run-up to the G20 summit that took place over the weekend in Rome. There's been a lot of interest in recent months
The Global Marketplace Versus the Global South
This week The Guardian carried two articles about China’s growing influence in the Pacific Island region. The first, under the headline “Pacific Plunder,” highlights how China imports more wood, fish, and minerals from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and elsewhere than any other major ...
Why the Neocolonialism Story Will Never Die
The revelation of what appears to be massive illegal Chinese gold mining and logging operations in rural Sierra Leone could open a contentious new front in Africa-China conversations. Or more accurately, it could revivify one of the ur-themes underlying the whole relationship: the idea that China is a ...
25 “Massive” Illegal Chinese Gold Mines Discovered in a Remote Region of Sierra Leone
A group of unknown Chinese entities has reportedly been operating a large-scale illegal gold mining operation in one of the poorest and most remote regions of eastern Sierra Leone, according to an investigative report published in Sunday's edition of the Sierra Leone Telegraph newspaper. ...
China's Controversial Trade in Africa's Natural Resources
China often faces blistering criticism for its voracious appetite of Africa's natural resources. Chinese companies are spread across the continent mining, logging and fishing to feed both hungry factories and people back home. In most, if not all, African countries, ...
Cameroon's Illegal Timber Finds a Market in China
Cameroon's rainforests are rapidly vanishing due to widespread corruption, according to a new report from Greenpeace Africa. The environmental activist group alleges that much of the illegally-harvested timber from Cameroon ends up in China where customs authorities look ...
Chinese Environmental Sustainability in Africa
The Chinese have a well-earned reputation in Africa for not being very environmentally conscious. From highly mechanized clear cutting of tropical forests to the wholesale slaughter of endangered wildlife, the Chinese do not have an impressive track record on the continent. However, there are ...