Peace and riches

Rwanda and DRC consider peace at last – a A US-brokered deal could bring a close to one of the great tragedies of this century View in browser Fred Harter • Friday 27 June 2025 Dear friend, Welcome to today's Sensemaker. Long stories short Keir Starmer offered rebel Labour MPs "massive concessions" on his controversial welfare bill. The pound hit its highest level against the dollar since 2021. Anna Wintour said she is stepping down as editor-in-chief of US Vogue. Peace and riches Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are expected to sign a US-brokered peace agreement today that could end nearly three decades of conflict and open Central Africa's mineral riches to American investors. So what? The long-running, complex and seemingly intractable conflict in eastern Congo is one of the great tragedies of this century, even more so for the extent to which it has been overlooked. Ending it would finally bring stability to a vast, crisis-torn region where six million people have been killed since 1996; five million people are currently displaced; and women continue to face widespread sexual violence. Proposal. The peace initiative draws inspiration from Donald Trump's minerals deal with Ukraine. In February, Congo's president, Félix Tshisekedi, offered American companies access to his country's natural wealth in return for help kicking out M23, a rebel group backed by Rwanda that captured a large swathe of eastern Congo earlier this year. Trump has mostly shown indifference towards Africa, cutting aid and subjecting parts of the continent to travel bans. But the idea, which aligns with his foreign policy priority of striking profitable deals, piqued his interest. Then. The roots of the conflict are in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, when Hutu extremists killed roughly 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, in 100 days. The perpetrators fled into eastern Congo, pursued by Rwanda's armed forces. Now. Rwanda insists its continued military presence aims to thwart groups connected to the genocide and flatly denies supporting M23, despite ample evidence to the contrary unearthed by UN investigators. Congo accuses Rwanda of sowing chaos in its eastern regions to pillage its minerals. The bonanza. Congo's riches are vast, as it produces roughly 80 per cent of the world's cobalt, the precious metal present in nearly all rechargeable batteries; is the leading producer of tantalum, essential in smartphones; and has huge deposits of copper, tin, zinc, lead and gold. These minerals have helped fuel the crisis. Last year, the UN said M23 generates $300,000 a month in taxes by controlling a single area home to large amounts of tantalum. Congo's foreign minister, Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, said that the country needed to transform the minerals "into a source of hope". View from DC. Nearly all of Congo's cobalt is mined and processed by China. Trump officials want to control part of this crucial supply chain. They also believe the presence of American companies will convince warring parties that stability is more profitable than war. "Trade will lead to peace," a senior state department official told The Observer last month. Cautionary tales. Two separate peace processes led by Angola and Kenya failed last year. The Angolan initiative was meant to culminate in a peace deal signing in December, but the Rwandan president Paul Kagame pulled out at the last minute because Congo refused to commit to dialogue with M23. Unanswered. The full details of the US-brokered agreement have not been made public, but will face similar hurdles. M23, one of 120 militias that have thrived in the regional chaos, is not part of the talks. Still to be addressed is how Rwanda's compliance will be monitored; whether Rwanda has admitted backing M23; and if M23 has agreed to withdraw and disband. Trump's Africa adviser, Massad Boulos, has previously said Rwanda and Congo will sign bilateral minerals deals with the US on the same day as the peace agreement. It is not clear whether this will happen at today's signing, which is between foreign ministers, or at a later heads of state summit. Hard sell. KoBold, a California start-up backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, has already agreed to invest $1 billion in a huge lithium mine in Congo. US firms may not follow suit. Several American companies have pulled out of the country in recent years, frustrated by corruption and the lack of legal protections. What's more… striking a quick deal in Central Africa is the sort of PR-friendly win that appeals to Trump in his efforts to be seen as a peacemaker. But ensuring it ends one of the world's most deadly and enduring crises will take decades of engagement. The Observer News Matrix The Nibs Capital Economy, business and finance Recession roulette Is Russia being honest about the state of its economy? Banking officials have anonymously told Bloomberg that trillions of rubles of bad debt have raised the risk of a systemic crisis, with clients failing to make loan payments due to high interest rates. These rates are partly in place to combat inflation fuelled by defence spending, which increased by 38 per cent in 2024 and represents more than 7 per cent of Russia's GDP. The defence industry is Moscow's main driver of growth, but if there is a banking crisis, the country may struggle to sustain the war effort. The balance sheet doesn't look too rosy in Ukraine either, which relies on western allies to cover its non-military spending and wants $40 billion in budgetary support to keep fighting. War is costly and not just in terms of lives. Technology AI, science and new things New age The UK has done what France could not and convinced adult entertainment conglomerate Aylo to implement enhanced age checks across its pornography sites. While Aylo blocked access to its adult empire in France last month, it said yesterday that it would comply in the UK due to the communications regulator's model being the "most robust" it had seen to date. How Aylo, which owns some of the world's biggest pornography sites, including Pornhub and YouPorn, will verify people's age hasn't been revealed. It has until 25 July to improve upon current checks, which allow users simply to declare that they are over 18. Aylo switched back online in France last week after a court suspended the government decree requiring it to confirm ages with credit card details or ID. Its sites remain inaccessible in 17 US states. The 100-year life Health, education and government Body work Oxford University researchers are trying to create the building blocks of human life from scratch. Scientists on the controversial Synthetic Human Genome project have begun work to make a fully synthetic human chromosome, which represents roughly 2 per cent of our total DNA and is one of the fundamental units of the human genome. It's been 25 years since scientists first sequenced, or read, the genome. Attempting to create our own version will teach us how to design genes, which could lead to cell-based therapies, virus-resistant organs or cures for genetic diseases. There are some who fear the technology could be misused to create 'designer babies' or even bioweapons. But a fully synthetic human genome is still decades away and would cost far more than the £10 million SynHG currently has in funding. Creating a chromosome is only a first step. Our planet Climate and geopolitics War of the words Roughly 90 minutes after Ayatollah Khamenei said that US strikes on Iran's nuclear programme "failed to achieve anything significant", Pete Hegseth took to the Pentagon lectern to state the opposite. "You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated. Choose your word," he said. In a lengthy presser yesterday, the US defence secretary couldn't definitively show the sites were destroyed. The answer, when it comes, will be to do with geology – especially with Fordow, built deep beneath the mountain. The penetration depth of a weapon varies wildly depending on the strength of the rock, and any fractures can shift its direction as it descends towards its goal. This is likely to be why the US dropped multiple bombs and designed a bunker-buster specifically to target the sites. Culture Society, identity and belonging Shaken and stirred Denis Villeneuve, the filmmaker behind Prisoners, Blade Runner 2049 and the Dune franchise, has been announced as the director of the next James Bond film and says he "intends to honour the tradition" of the franchise. Unless he radically changes his style, that would be the tradition of the Daniel Craig movies and not the days of Sean Connery and Roger Moore. But even the introspective Craig era had dollops of pace, flashiness and charm. Villeneuve's films are invariably serious and heavy on exposition, so he may have to learn to add more fun. There's no doubt he is an incredible get for Amazon MGM Studios, which took "creative control" of the franchise in February for more than $1 billion. The question is what movie fans will get. Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up and tell us what you think. Fred Harter @FredHarter Additional reporting by Xavier Greenwood and Stephen Armstrong. Edited by Xavier Greenwood.     More from The Observer Read Should the Parthenon marbles be given back to Greece? In discussing the issue of whether the Parthenon marbles should be returned to Greece – where the Acropolis Museum, designed by the Swiss-American architect Bernard Tschumi, has already been built to house them – Trevor Phillips and Michael Dobbs consider what the sculptures mean to Britain and Greece. Click here to read more → Follow Follow The Observer on social media on your preferred platform:   The Observer     The Observer Food Monthly The Observer Magazine The Observer New Review   Listen Listen for free in the Tortoise app or wherever you get your podcasts: Want to change how you receive these emails? Update email preferences Copyright © 2025 Tortoise Media. All rights reserved. Did this email get caught in your spam filter? Add editor@newsroom.tortoisemedia.com to your address book to never miss an email again. No longer want to receive this newsletter? 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