Free Republic

KOLWEZI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Little about Kolwezi, a small city in southern Democratic Republic of Congo, hints at its global importance. Nondescript and ringed by slag heaps, pits and quarry lakes, the city is home to some of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the world. Now, Kolwezi is at the center of U.S.-Chinese competition over critical minerals. Earlier this year, mining firms began shipping ore along a U.S.-backed railway that terminates in Angola's Atlantic port of Lobito. A massive infrastructure project is focused on this rail line -- which is viewed as a bid to counter...

UN military observers have discovered 16 bodies, mainly women and children, in a village in eastern Congo, victims of what appears to be the latest in a series of massacres. A statement from the UN mission in Congo said the victims had been hacked to death with axes, machetes, clubs and knives. Two survivors of the attack, which took place in the village of Ndunda, have been hospitalised and four more people are missing, the statement said. Ndunda lies 20 miles north of Uvira, the main town in Congo's troubled South Kivu province, on the border with Burundi. The United...