"... but store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests. Lokolama’s swamps, it turned out, are part of the biggest network of tropical peatlands in the world, covering over 55,000 square miles of Central Africa and storing more than 30 billion tons of carbon. This vast peatland is relatively undisturbed, for now. But should that carbon vault be opened, it could have catastrophic consequences for the planet. In those peatlands are stored the carbon equivalent of 20 years of U.S. fossil fuel emissions. Roads could be built giving loggers better access to the forest. Politicians could decide to convert peatland into farms. In these scenarios, the peat would dry out and release carbon into the atmosphere and, the researchers warned, become not only endangered but dangerous.... Outsiders have long exploited Congo’s wealth of natural resources — rubber, diamonds, gold and, most recently, cobalt. While these new outsiders said peat had value only if it remained in the ground, to the people in this region, known as the Cuvette Centrale, the sudden interest suggested someone would be making money...."
From "What Do the Protectors of Congo's Peatlands Get in Return?" (NYT).
"The evacuation order comes on the heels of a warning by the Goma Volcano Observatory (OVG), which monitors the pulse of Nyiragongo and the Nyamuragira volcano, 13 kilometres (nine miles) away.... In the first two scenarios, Nyiragongo would erupt again, sending renewed lava flows southwards towards Goma and Gisenyi, destroying buildings in their path before reaching Lake Kivu.... But in the worst-case scenario, lava flows from Nyiragongo would combine with volcanic activity under the floor of the lake... In this scenario, 'a limnic eruption would take place and dissolved gas in the lake's deep water would rise to the surface, especially CO2, asphyxiating all living beings around Lake Kivu on the Congolese and Rwandan side.'"
From "'Limnic eruption': DR Congo's volcano nightmare" (France 24).
Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecological surgeon... works in one of the most traumatized places in the world: the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In a bare hospital in the hills above Bukavu, where for years there was little electricity or enough anesthetic, Dr. Mukwege has performed surgery on countless women who have trudged into his hospital a few steps away from death.....
“I have seen what has been done to them. I have heard them tell me that armed attackers raped them and killed their husband, raped them and killed their children. I now understand this in a different way and my thoughts are with the women of my country who have suffered so much.”
[Nadia] Murad was abducted alongside thousands of other women and girls from the Yazidi minority when Islamic State overran her homeland in northern Iraq in 2014, and she was singled out for rape by the group, also known as ISIS.
Whereas the majority of women who escaped ISIS refused to be named, Ms. Murad insisted to reporters that she wanted to be identified and photographed. She embarked on a worldwide campaign, telling and retelling her story of suffering to the United Nations Security Council, the United States House of Representatives, Britain’s House of Commons and numerous other global bodies.
Ms. Murad has said that she was exhausted by having to repeatedly speak out, but she knew that other Yazidi women were being raped back home: “I will go back to my life when women in captivity go back to their lives, when my community has a place, when I see people accountable for their crimes.”
"It's remarkable that there are parts of the planet that are still uncharted territory.... Few people venture into these swamps as they are quite difficult places to move around in and work in."It took satellite photography to get a clue this thing existed.
Still, as Feingold stumbled his way through the muddy, steep terrain, the [Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park] apparently reminded him of the Midwest, and he later mused about the bright tourist prospects for Congo should the country become more stable. Wildlife could be brought back. “We did that in Wisconsin,” he pointed out. “There had been elks, and one state senator said, ‘Let’s reintroduce elks.’ So they did, and now they’re all over the place.”
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