🌍 The EU and US jump aboard Angola’s mineral train

Hi there Intriguer. Most people head to Lake Havasu City in Arizona for the water sports or sandy beaches. But history nerds have another reason to visit: in 1968, a chainsaw tycoon bought London Bridge and rebuilt it brick by brick in the middle of the desert.

Today’s briefing is a 4 min read:

• 🚂 Angola jumps aboard the mineral train.

• 🇦🇺 An Australian journalist finally returns home.

• ➕ Plus: An intriguing supercar, how the papers are covering Israel and Gaza, and why Austrians are googling a crypto exchange.

1. 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan: Chinese carmaker BYD, the world’s largest electric vehicle producer, has announced plans to open a plant in Uzbekistan. The company has identified Southeast and Central Asia as its next target markets, after becoming the top seller in China.

2. 🇸🇪 Sweden: Stockholm will ban gas and diesel vehicles in the capital’s downtown area from 2025. Some European capitals have started tariffing combustion vehicle drivers who head downtown, but Stockholm would be the first major capital to ban them.

3. 🇲🇲 Myanmar: Two senior generals in Myanmar’s junta have been sentenced to life in prison for corruption after being arrested last month. One of the men, Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun, served on the junta’s highest governing body (the State Administration Council).

4. 🇨🇺 Cuba: Nairobi has ended a deal in which Kenyan doctors get training in Cuba, and Cuban doctors work in Kenya. The deal has been unpopular with Kenya’s health union, as Nairobi pays the visiting Cuban doctors double the typical salary of a Kenyan doctor.

5. 🇨🇩 DRC: A government spokesperson announced Tuesday (10 October) that the UN’s DRC peacekeeping mission must end by 8 December because of a “lack of satisfactory results on the ground”. The DRC will hold elections on 20 December.

🚂 Angola | Trade

The EU and US back an African railway project

Angola has awarded the tender to operate the country’s second-largest port to European-owned Africa Global Logistics, which promises it’ll help “boost trade in the region and support industrialisation efforts”.

Why’s this important?

The port of Lobito is the end destination for the Lobito Corridor, a new railway project connecting three minerally-rich countries (two of which are virtually landlocked) to the rest of the world:

• 🇦🇴 Angola has extensive diamond, copper and iron reserves

• 🇨🇩 DRC is the world's main source of cobalt (used in batteries), and

• 🇿🇲 Zambia has copper plus 20% of the world’s emeralds.

The Lobito Corridor has also attracted some intriguing backers: the US and EU pledged their support last month, with President Biden calling the project a “game-changing regional investment”.

Why would Washington and Brussels get involved?

1. ⛏️ Minerals – Both are working to secure critical mineral supplies, to enable their green transition and minimise dependence on others

2. 🇨🇳 Competition – China is by far the largest investor in Sub-Saharan infrastructure, investing $155B there over the past 20 years

3. 🤞 Credibility – To compete, Washington’s new Africa Strategy last year pledged a renewed emphasis on economic opportunity, and

4. 👷 Commerce – It’ll help the Western-led consortium that won last year’s tender to upgrade the railway, beating out a Chinese bid.

Intrigue's take: For years, some in the West have arguably focussed more on complaining about – rather than competing with – China’s vast Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

So with Beijing now seemingly tapping the BRI brakes after years of expansion (and related growing pains), there’s space for other financiers.

Now it’s just up to the US and EU to show they can deliver.

Also worth noting:

• Metals producers have previously voiced reluctance to commit to using the planned railway upgrade, citing a lack of visible progress.

• The consortium behind the railway upgrade is led by Trafigura, the world’s largest private metals trader. It’s had a controversial history since its founding by European traders in 1993.

• The new Lobito port operator is owned by MSC, the world’s largest shipping company, which is owned in turn by Italy’s billionaire Aponte family.

📰 How newspapers covered…

Israel and Gaza

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🇦🇺 Australia | Geopolitics

China releases an Australian journalist

Cheng Lei, an Australian journalist who was detained more than three years ago in China, returned home to Melbourne yesterday (Wednesday).

Ms Cheng was arrested in August 2020 while working as an anchor at one of China’s state-owned broadcasters. Beijing offered few details on why she was arrested, and Australian officials weren’t allowed at her trial in March.

Then yesterday, Cheng suddenly touched down at Melbourne airport, accompanied by Australia’s ambassador to China. Beijing later said:

• she’d been sentenced, served her term, then been deported, and

• her alleged crime was “providing state secrets to an overseas party”.

Intrigue’s take: Statements out of both Canberra and Beijing have been careful to note that Cheng’s release marked the end of a legal process in China. But of course, the timing is intriguing:

• Cheng’s arrest coincided with a collapse in China-Australia ties

• Her release coincides with a bilateral repair effort (Australia’s prime minister will soon visit China for the first time in seven years), and

• Her reported sentence effectively covers the time in between.

So all this timing, opacity, and (for a supposed national security conviction) brevity, plus backgrounding out of Canberra, points to a deal being done.

Also worth noting:

• Cheng released her first public statement from prison in August.

• Other Australians remain in detention under unclear circumstances in China, including writer Yang Hengjun.

➕ Extra Intrigue

Here’s what folks around the world googled yesterday, Wednesday 11 October

• 🇦🇹 Austrians looked up ‘Bitpanda’, a local crypto trading platform that announced a $123M loss for the latest financial year.

• 🇦🇷 Argentines searched ‘11 de octubre’ (11th of October) to track daily prices, as annual inflation there hovers around 124%.

• 🇮🇩 And Indonesians googled for updates on ‘gempa terkini’ (latest earthquake) after a shock rattled its islands.

🗳️ Poll time!

📸 Photo of the day

The batmobile-looking car above has one surprising feature: it’s from Afghanistan. The Simurgh made its official debut this weekend in Doha, after reportedly taking a team of 30 people five years to build. The car is named after a mythical Persian bird with the head of a dog and claws of a lion.

Yesterday’s poll: If you could re-do your education, what would you study?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 📜 History (13%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧪 Science (11%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ➕ Mathematics (5%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🩺 Medicine (11%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 💸 Economics / Business (13%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 📕 International relations (15%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎨 Art (4%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💻 Computer science (18%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (9%)

Your two cents:

• ✍️ M.J.H: “I really wish I could do my basic education over. There was a lot that I “learned” by memorizing to pass tests, but now I’m finding how much I really wish I actually learned the processes or a more in depth why.”

• ✍️ R.L: “At the rate the world is going? Subsistence agriculture.”

• Honourable mentions: Languages, philosophy, psychology, engineering, law, literature and architecture.