Congo

Friday

Geoff Hill

Congo’s silent genocide

Should we call Gaza a genocide? Maybe. An estimated 75,000 dead is serious. But surely the more pressing question is, why is this the only tragedy that exercises the West? What about the millions of poor souls who’ve perished in Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC?  The ongoing fighting in eastern Congo is the most lethal conflict since WWII, with no end in sight, and bodies piling up by the day. But is there a “Black Lives Matter” protest in New York or London? The war rarely gets a mention on CNN, Fox or the BBC, busy as they are with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And it’s not just the West. South Africa is mounting a legal case against Israel at The Hague, yet Pretoria is silent when people are being slaughtered close to home.

Congo Rwanda

Thursday

Lloyd Evans

What a slippery, hateful toad Fred Goodwin was

From our UK edition

Make It Happen is a portrait of a bullying control freak, Fred Goodwin, who turned RBS into the largest bank in the world until it came crashing down in 2008. Fred the Shred’s character makes him a tough subject for a drama. His morning meetings were called ‘morning beatings’ by terrified staff. He ordered executives to pitch him an idea in the time it took him to eat a banana. Inciting arguments between staff amused him and he once sacked an employee for saying ‘I tried’ instead of ‘I succeeded’. He was obsessed with colours and fabrics and he personally oversaw the design of the carpets and even the handwash at the bank’s headquarters. But James Graham’s play offers us very few clues about the origins of his character flaws.

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Massacres in Syria & the Congo: why aren’t Western elites drawing attention to religious persecution?

From our UK edition

28 min listen

After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, many people voiced fears that the religious minorities in the country could face increased persecution. This could be at the hands of the new government’s supporters, or simply because the new regime can't protect them. Now those fears appear to have been realised. There is rising sectarian violence against Christians, the Alawites and the Druze (pictured). There are also frequent barbaric attacks on Christians in parts of Africa: more than 40 Christians have just been murdered by Islamists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while attending church.

Monday

Amy Rose Everett

The elephants I’ll never forget

"No lions?” “No lions. It’s fast-flowing water, so there shouldn’t be any leeches. We do have slender-snouted crocodiles, but they’re quite shy.” “Hippos?” “One we see every now and again.” Swamp-walking hadn’t been on the year’s bingo card, but I’d found myself wading through clusters of floating dung and algae in the largest tropical rainforest on the African continent. Rubber slip-ons heavy with silt, sulfurous foam collecting in my shirt pockets, I felt strangely calm. As a day, this was turning out to be exceptional. It had been the invitation of a lifetime: to add my name to the list of a few hundred outsiders who have stamped a boot in the Congo Basin, one of the wildest and most remote places on Earth.

elephants