Tag Archives: Democratic Republic of (Congo-Kinshasa)

The leaders of more than half of Africa’s nations gathered this week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s sprawling seaside metropolis, to commit to the biggest burst of spending on electric-power generation in Africa’s history. The World Bank, African Development Bank and others are pledging at least $35 billion to expand electricity across a continent where more than a half-billion people …

We set out again at sunrise, and soon arrived at a mud pit in a hillside. There an industry had emerged in pushing and pulling vehicles up and down the hill. There were belching diesel fumes, and a great deal of yelling. I nicknamed the place Mordor, after Tolkien’s hellscape. Scrambling up the hill, I thought about how everything entering …