Congo links

The war in the Congo, if counted as an ongoing war since 1998, is so far the most destructive war since WWII. To my unending embarassment I completely failed to notice it until at the end of the US elections. The number of dead in the current flare-up is uncertain, but probably very high. At least 2 million people have been internally displaced. It seems to be about resources, not the reported tribal problems, if I'm reading Johann Hari (via Audun Lysbakken) and some reports I heard on the BBC right. Congo is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, which is why things keep destabilising there. The 17.000 UN troops in the region - the biggest UN peacekeeping force in the world - can't do anything about what is happening, apparently because they are scattered and cut off.

Why the war in the Congo is not a huge thing in the news is beyond me. It has a small, but thorough Wikipedia page under the name of "Nord-Kivu fighting" or "Battle of Goma" (much smaller than the South-Ossetia/Georgia/Russia War had just two days into it). Still catching up with this one. 

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Elsewhere, George Soros on the financial crisis.