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Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the

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Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. There's been a lot of talk

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Speaker 1: about who should replace Daniel Craig now that he is

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Speaker 1: retiring as James Bond, and I think I have found

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Speaker 1: the perfect person. He's handsome, charming, brilliant and multilingual. His

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Speaker 1: name is Nicholas Niarkos and if only he could put

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Speaker 1: down his computer long enough to play the part. Nearkos

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Speaker 1: is a journalist. His choice of unglamorous and at times

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Speaker 1: dangerous profession is all the more surprising when you learn

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Speaker 1: about his background. His grandfather, Stavros Niarkos, founded the international

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Speaker 1: shipping company Nearkos Limited. I first came across Nearkos in

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Speaker 1: the New Yorker magazine. His recent piece Buried Dreams covers

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Speaker 1: the exploitation of workers in the cobalt mines in Central Africa.

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Speaker 1: In his reporting, Narcos exposed the danger and exploitative conditions

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Speaker 1: for the workers in Congolese cobalt minds, many of whom

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Speaker 1: are children, as well as those that stand to profit

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Speaker 1: handsomely off the minds. In addition to being a reporter

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Speaker 1: at large at The New Yorker, Nearcos's work has appeared

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Speaker 1: in Time, the New York Times, and the Nation.

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Speaker 2: I think that all the places that I try and

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Speaker 2: work for require a sort of serious journalistic engagement. And

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Speaker 2: that's what I really seek for. When I look for

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Speaker 2: a publication to write for The New Yorker, I find

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Speaker 2: the fact checking process. I was a fact checker for

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Speaker 2: many years. I think that's a very engaging thing to

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Speaker 2: deal with. I like working directly with the fact checkers.

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Speaker 2: I liked being a fact checker, learning you know a

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Speaker 2: great deal about a subject, you know, for a couple

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Speaker 2: of weeks and then and then sort of moving on.

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Speaker 2: And actually I found now as a reporter actually enhances

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Speaker 2: my reporting. It leads me down new alleys when I'm

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Speaker 2: trying to sort of verify things to the kind of

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Speaker 2: one hundredth designs.

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Speaker 1: When you factor you did it for how long?

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Speaker 2: I did it for five years? Actually, well almost four

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Speaker 2: years and eleven months.

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Speaker 1: Did they confine you to fact checking in a certain

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Speaker 1: realm or did you fact check a lot of different things?

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Speaker 2: I fact checked a lot of different things because I

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Speaker 2: speak French and Italian. Obviously, when there were stories which

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Speaker 2: required those languages, I would.

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Speaker 1: I would be sort of fact you were the go

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Speaker 1: to fact checker sometimes, yeah, when and when you would

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Speaker 1: do the fact checking or I mean, were there ones

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Speaker 1: you enjoyed more, like ones that were like deep and

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Speaker 1: intense and scientific or culture whatever, and did you did

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Speaker 1: you didn't love, You didn't love doing the fact checking

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Speaker 1: of the profile of some actress, or you enjoyed all

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Speaker 1: of it.

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Speaker 2: I enjoyed all of it, you know, Listen. I worked

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Speaker 2: on a piece on TMZ by Nick Schmiddle, which was

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Speaker 2: a kind of investigative piece, and that was a kind

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Speaker 2: of crazy experience. It was kind of well, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: sort of more you know, kind of input and sort

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Speaker 2: of back and forth and lawyers and whatever than most

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Speaker 2: other pieces.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes it would do pieces on Iraq and Afghanistan and

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Speaker 2: so on, and they would require less and less.

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Speaker 1: Rod Loyal Dafi or Harvey Levin exactly exactly.

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Speaker 2: But no, I loved working with I mean, the writers,

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Speaker 2: they're are great, Patrick Keith, Sarah Stillman, Rachel Laviv.

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Speaker 3: I mean, these this kind of Rebecca Meade.

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Speaker 2: Rebecca was actually a sort of wonderful early person who

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Speaker 2: I've fact checked quite quite early on in my career

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Speaker 2: there and then kind of ended up sort of doing

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Speaker 2: quite a lot with her, which was quite fun. And

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Speaker 2: we did a piece i remember on adult and Cabano,

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Speaker 2: and we just had like a lot of back and

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Speaker 2: forth with Doulty Gavan as people, and it was just

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Speaker 2: it was sort of hilarious because sometimes you know, those

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Speaker 2: sort of fashion stories and so on. I mean, if

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Speaker 2: you're talking with people in government and so on, they

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Speaker 2: kind of they have this attitude that, oh, well, it's

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Speaker 2: a story, it's going to go away. Whereas you know,

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Speaker 2: if it's a big fashion house and you know, this

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Speaker 2: is one of the few times that it appears in

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Speaker 2: The New Yorker, you know, this year or in the

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Speaker 2: you know, in five years or whatever, they realized that

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Speaker 2: that's going to stick with.

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Speaker 1: The marketing for them. Yeah, exactly. I agree. Well, I

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Speaker 1: mean I'm obviously an ever reader of The New Yorker.

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Speaker 1: The thing I tend to see when I when I

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Speaker 1: was thinking about your article and budgets and costs and

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Speaker 1: things like that, is that, you know, the magazine has

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Speaker 1: obviously a menu or different articles. There might be a profile,

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Speaker 1: there might be there's obviously the shouts and murmurs and

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Speaker 1: talk of the town and so but if the body

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Speaker 1: of the pieces that are not criticism or art or

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Speaker 1: what have you. There seems to be a limit I

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Speaker 1: would imagine of the number of pieces that are this expansive,

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Speaker 1: because it must be expensive. Correct.

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Speaker 2: You know, I started this piece reporting it for as

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Speaker 2: a book, and that first it started as a as

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Speaker 2: a sort of book reporting and then and then kind

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Speaker 2: of developed into New Yorker reporting.

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Speaker 3: So actually I.

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Speaker 2: Funded some of it for my own money, and then

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Speaker 2: I used some of the New Yorker what the New

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Speaker 2: Yorker paid me to sort of continue the reporting. But actually,

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Speaker 2: you know, this was a sort of budgetless piece at

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Speaker 2: the beginning.

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Speaker 1: You first became aware of this when and how.

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Speaker 2: I first became aware of this issue around cobalt mining

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Speaker 2: because of somebody called Dan Getler. He is a mining

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Speaker 2: billionaire who has sort of made his wealth in the DRC,

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Speaker 2: and he actually made a lot of money. Buy he's

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Speaker 2: from Israel. Originally he came to DRC. It's a crazy story.

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Speaker 2: Came when he was about twenty three, and by the

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Speaker 2: time he was twenty six, he was in charge of

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Speaker 2: the Congo's entire diamond export. And then various sort of

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Speaker 2: human rights groups were like, wait, well, what's happening here.

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Speaker 2: He was very close to the ruling family and so

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Speaker 2: he was kind of booted off that and Congo said, look, listen,

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Speaker 2: look we've dealt with this problem. Suddenly it turned out

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Speaker 2: that he had a bunch of copper and cobalt mines

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Speaker 2: down in the South, which he seemed to be basically,

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Speaker 2: and this is very well documented by the Carter Center

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Speaker 2: and sort of Human Rights Watch and various other institutions,

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Speaker 2: basically he was selling them on for the ruling family

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Speaker 2: to finance their elections. So he'd basically flipped the mines.

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Speaker 1: And he became aware of him.

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Speaker 3: How I became aware of him.

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Speaker 2: I have a very good friend of mine who works

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Speaker 2: in mining, and I was sort of casting around for stories,

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Speaker 2: you know, related to Africa, related to corruption and so on,

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Speaker 2: and he said, well, this is I mean, looks exactly good.

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Speaker 2: And also actually Patrick Keith, who's been a great sort

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Speaker 2: of inspiration to me and who I worked with actually

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Speaker 2: at the New Yorker, and you had Alex Gibney on

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Speaker 2: the show and you know they collaborated on the opioid story.

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Speaker 1: To Patrick on the street the other day, by the way,

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Speaker 1: already okay, with his family down in the village and

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Speaker 1: I just said to myself, my goddo of that? I

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Speaker 1: thought the documentary was sensation, Yeah, sensation.

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Speaker 2: So he'd done a piece on Benny Steinmetz, who was

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Speaker 2: a Israeli mining billionaire. I think he's he's currently been

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Speaker 2: arrested or he's on trial in Switzerland, and he had

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Speaker 2: basically taken control of an iron or mine called Simon Do,

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Speaker 2: which is in Guinea. And so Patrick had done that story,

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Speaker 2: and that was a kind of great inspiration. And then

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Speaker 2: I sort of went to Patrick, and Patrick said this,

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Speaker 2: and you should also follow this story. It's a great idea.

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Speaker 2: I've always wanted to do Gutler. And then I arrived

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Speaker 2: in Congo and I realized that the Gutler story was

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Speaker 2: very interesting, but it wasn't the whole story. And actually

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Speaker 2: what became more interested interesting to me is the lives

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Speaker 2: of these people, just the hellish existence of a cobalt

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Speaker 2: min an artisanal cobalt minor.

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Speaker 3: I have to be preciser in the southern DRC.

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Speaker 1: Now I read the article and you become suspicious, or

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Speaker 1: you become enlightened, if you will, to the idea that

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Speaker 1: huge swaths of this continent are being exploited for these

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Speaker 1: kinds of minerals. And if I may say so, I'll

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Speaker 1: let you speak to this, not just the greatest hits

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Speaker 1: like petroleum based things, but these cobalt for lithium for

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Speaker 1: modern technology, chips, photovoltaic whatever they may be used for batteries,

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Speaker 1: mostly correct the lithium batteries. So was it safe to say,

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Speaker 1: you talk about Guinea, you talk about DRC. Is this

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Speaker 1: happening all over Africa where these minerals exist, I mean, American, Israeli.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter pirates or when they're trying to grab

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Speaker 1: as much of it as they can.

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Speaker 2: Well, it depends where Obviously some places are better regulator

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Speaker 2: than others.

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Speaker 1: Who's doing a good job of regulating if you can say.

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Speaker 2: I think, for example, Zambia has had a better track record,

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Speaker 2: although now the sort of influx of Chinese wealth into

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Speaker 2: Zambia has sort of upended some.

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Speaker 1: Of that, if you but seeking their copper as well.

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Speaker 3: So it's actually on the border with DRC.

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Speaker 2: When I was reporting some of this stuff, I actually

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Speaker 2: flew to Zambia to meet a sort of renegade Congolese

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Speaker 2: politician before he was traveling back into the DRC so yeah, No,

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Speaker 2: it's known as the Copper Belt, and it's a sort

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Speaker 2: of large part.

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Speaker 1: The scene between the two countries exactly exactly.

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Speaker 2: And the other big one is coltan actually, and that's

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Speaker 2: sort of been the focus of a lot of human

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Speaker 2: rights work because it is largely mined by sort of

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Speaker 2: army types and sort of warlords in the northeast of

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Speaker 2: the DRC. And coltan is used in capacitors, which are

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Speaker 2: sort of key for computers and batteries. That's also been

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Speaker 2: a big issue, and people confuse that with cobalt, and

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Speaker 2: actually what's happening there is slightly different from cobalt, which

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Speaker 2: is a kind of more of a mechanized, sort of

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Speaker 2: legitimized type of trade.

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Speaker 1: Well, the thing that also struck me in terms of

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Speaker 1: any store like this where there's danger, describe to me

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Speaker 1: what you had to do in advance security wise. You

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Speaker 1: don't just land at the airport and say in an

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Speaker 1: uber and say take me to you know, Cobalt town.

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Speaker 1: There must have been a lot of preparatory steps you

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Speaker 1: took and security steps you took, if I'm assuming, And

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Speaker 1: then talk about when you first got there for the

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Speaker 1: first time, what went on?

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Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, the security steps.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I've traveled to quite a lot at this

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Speaker 2: point of countries which sort of have different complicated security profiles,

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Speaker 2: places like Yeam in western Sahara, in fact, this southern

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Speaker 2: part of the DRC. You know, there is the threat

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Speaker 2: always of randomized violence, but I, you know, had looked

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Speaker 2: into it. I'd spoken to a couple of people who

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Speaker 2: had been there. I've spoken to a couple of journalists,

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Speaker 2: and I don't think there was a kind of threatening

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Speaker 2: or kind of looming threat we're afraid. I wasn't particularly

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Speaker 2: afraid that. You know, sometimes traveling on the road at night,

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Speaker 2: you'd be stopped at roadblocks and there would be sort

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Speaker 2: of policemen with guns and they'd be drunk, and you know,

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Speaker 2: then you get a little bit nervous, and then we

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Speaker 2: were sort of held up in broad daylight. So I

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Speaker 2: traveled with the local journalists called Jeff Kazadi, who's a

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Speaker 2: wonderful one of and he was a great resource. He

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Speaker 2: worked as a translator. He was incredibly sort of resourceful

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Speaker 2: as well on the ground, and he sort of knew

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Speaker 2: quite a few of the operators and he'd worked with

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Speaker 2: I believe CNN before and some other journalists who had

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Speaker 2: been down to do stories like this or to do

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Speaker 2: other types of stories in southern DRC. He works for

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Speaker 2: a mining trade publication, so you know, oftentimes he wanted

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Speaker 2: to sort of look further into stories, but because he

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Speaker 2: works for an industry publication, it wasn't the type of

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Speaker 2: journalism that.

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Speaker 1: They were interested in.

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Speaker 2: So I contacted Jeff. I also contacted another journalist, Ben Yemba,

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Speaker 2: who's based out of her and he was interested in this.

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Speaker 2: So the first time I went, I went with Jeff

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Speaker 2: and Ben. We kind of thought about the security risks

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Speaker 2: and we discussed the different types of issues along the road.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes there were bandits and so on, but usually if

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Speaker 2: you're traveling in the daytime, you're fairly safe along that road.

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Speaker 2: So when I first arrived in the South, i'd been

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Speaker 2: in Kinshassa for a bit, and in many ways the

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Speaker 2: South is much less hectic. In Conchasta and I arrived

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Speaker 2: on a local flight so we didn't have to deal

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Speaker 2: with customs. I stayed in a sort of very downbeat hotel,

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Speaker 2: which was an interesting experience to say the least. There

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Speaker 2: were a lot of women coming in at night and

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Speaker 2: leaving in the morning.

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Speaker 4: But.

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Speaker 2: Afterwards everywhere, which is everywhere exactly. And then I stayed

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Speaker 2: the next two or three times. I was there in

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Speaker 2: more kind of like hotels that sort of mining execs

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Speaker 2: had made their home. It was you know, kind of

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Speaker 2: immediately there with people at the bar kind of talking

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Speaker 2: about their sort of the you know, the greatest hits

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Speaker 2: of you know, copper mines and cobalt.

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Speaker 1: Mines, some of the work some of the useful work

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Speaker 1: done there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and those are sort of like off the record

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Speaker 2: chats usually, but it helps you get such a good

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Speaker 2: sort of context around the stuff.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: What else was very useful is that I visited a.

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Speaker 2: Mining conference there as well and sort of met a

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Speaker 2: lot of people in the field. It was hosted by

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Speaker 2: a South African firm, but it was kind of visited

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Speaker 2: by all the sort of local potents and so on.

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Speaker 3: It was a sort of eye opening experience.

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Speaker 2: Because people are very aware of the problem of artisanal mining,

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Speaker 2: and you have to make the distinction between artisanal mining

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Speaker 2: and industrial mining. So artisanal mining is something somewhere between

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Speaker 2: ten and thirty percent of Congo's production every year. It

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Speaker 2: really fluctuates depending on you know, supply demand, so on

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Speaker 2: and the rest is industrial which has done much in

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Speaker 2: the way of large mining firms anywhere else in the world.

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Speaker 1: And do the industrials want to put the artisanals out

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Speaker 1: of work?

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Speaker 2: The industrials would probably prefer that the artisanals were not there,

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Speaker 2: because there are serious human rights issues with some of

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Speaker 2: the artisanal minds, which are with many of the artisanal minds.

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Speaker 3: I would say some are led.

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Speaker 2: By cooperatives, and those cooperatives are sort of better about

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Speaker 2: safety than other sort of non cooperative managed artisanal minds. However,

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Speaker 2: the big problem is that there's just been a huge

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Speaker 2: flux of people into that region.

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Speaker 1: It's a gold rush.

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Speaker 2: It's a huge gold rush, and you really feel like

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Speaker 2: just people are arriving every day, that kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: There's a train that comes down from a place called

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Speaker 2: Mambuji Mai, which is in the middle of Congo, and

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Speaker 2: that is a place in which there used to be

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Speaker 2: a huge amount of diamond mining and that's been sort

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Speaker 2: of woefully mismanaged and the industry has kind of fallen

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Speaker 2: into pieces. So a lot of people who had some

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Speaker 2: mining experience now sort of getting on that train which

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Speaker 2: goes through the sort of jungles and wilds of Central

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Speaker 2: Congo and comes to Lumumbashi and sort of people are

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Speaker 2: just sort of hanging off the side of that train

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Speaker 2: and it comes, you know, every two months or something

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Speaker 2: like that. Nobody really the schedule basically works on you know,

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Speaker 2: whenever it's completely full or whenever they can sort of

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Speaker 2: get the engine running. And so with that, you know,

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Speaker 2: people come and then the industrial minds have sort of

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Speaker 2: run by very few people, so they don't have the

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Speaker 2: capacity to observe high resolve that the labor force.

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Speaker 3: Exactly, they don't they can't hire. So yeah, I think

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Speaker 3: that they.

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Speaker 1: Will arrived to participate in artisinal mining.

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Speaker 3: Exactly.

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Speaker 2: You arrived because you think you're going to get rich

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Speaker 2: and there's just like a lot of stories about it

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Speaker 2: and so on, and you arrive and there's nothing to

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Speaker 2: do apart from artisanal mining basically, and people really exploit

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Speaker 2: that they get paid nothing. I mean, it's some people

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Speaker 2: say that there have been people who made lots and

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Speaker 2: lots of money, but I actually found that quite difficult

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Speaker 2: to believe after spending two months there.

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Speaker 1: I just so you went the one on the one

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Speaker 1: trip for two months.

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Speaker 2: So I went on one trip for a month, then

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Speaker 2: I went on another trip for ten days, and then

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Speaker 2: I was there for about almost a month the next time,

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Speaker 2: So yeah, two months.

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Speaker 1: So when you arrive and you are in the more

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Speaker 1: decent hotel with people who seem to be related to

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Speaker 1: the whole enterprise and you can chit chat with him.

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Speaker 1: Is the idea that when you arrive you don't go

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Speaker 1: right into the belly of the beast and go to

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Speaker 1: where the artisanal mining is at full throttle. You kind

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Speaker 1: of work your way toward that. Did you take a

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Speaker 1: few days before you get into the into the pits

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Speaker 1: so to speak?

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Speaker 2: Depends actually on the different trips. On my second trip,

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Speaker 2: I went straight to the artism mining because I'd spent

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Speaker 2: a lot of time, you know, talking with seth Africans about,

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Speaker 2: you know, the benefits of copper mirning for the area.

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Speaker 2: So you know, I had all that material and I

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Speaker 2: wanted to really focus on the artisanal miners.

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Speaker 1: Who were people that sounded like they had not the

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Speaker 1: right idea, but maybe the better ideas about how this

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Speaker 1: should be handled, what should happen there for the greater

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Speaker 1: good of everybody.

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Speaker 2: So there's a Catholic charity called Good Shepherd Calwazy and

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Speaker 2: they've been incredibly sort of outspoken and sort of quite

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Speaker 2: sort of research focused as well around some of these issues.

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Speaker 2: They've put forward this plan which says, listen, you need

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Speaker 2: to develop other types of industry because you have to

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Speaker 2: understand this as like as a cycle of which corruption

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Speaker 2: is only a part. There's also just the basic fact

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Speaker 2: of poverty and need. So they have suggested that agriculture

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Speaker 2: would be a way of engaging the local population. In fact,

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Speaker 2: it's a very fertile region as well, and something like

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Speaker 2: ninety center of Congo's food is imported, so there's this

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Speaker 2: kind of from other areas the region, from Zambia, from

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Speaker 2: from other areas of the region, So there's this kind

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Speaker 2: and import taxes are huge, and people are making money

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Speaker 2: at every step of the way and so on and

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Speaker 2: so forth, often not Congolese. So they say, listen, why

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Speaker 2: don't the Congolese grow their own food here? Why don't

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Speaker 2: people work on farms? And so I think that that's

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Speaker 2: a you know, there are large businesses that obviously invested

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Speaker 2: in this. I think that's actually something which would be

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Speaker 2: positive for them to do. So there are also some

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Speaker 2: other groups like the Fair Cobalt Alliance and then there's

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Speaker 2: another Chinese group. The UN doesn't have a permanent presence,

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Speaker 2: I don't think in Colway's actually a lot of what

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Speaker 2: they do in Congo is to do with rebels in

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Speaker 2: the north, and then they assisted with some war crimes

359
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Speaker 2: tribunals in a city which was not too far away.

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Speaker 2: So they do mainly kind of like armed conflict type

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Speaker 2: stuff there. I didn't see any sort of UN involvement,

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Speaker 2: but I could you know.

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Speaker 1: They could be that, they could be.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there could be a.

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Speaker 2: UN office that focuses on this, but it doesn't seem

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Speaker 2: to be a main priority because they're focused on you know, some.

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Speaker 1: What year did you go there?

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Speaker 3: I went at twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 1: And right before the right before How convenient for you,

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Speaker 1: I know, yeah, how wonderful. And what is the national

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Speaker 1: government to the extent you could ascertain when you were there,

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Speaker 1: what's their position on what's going on there?

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Speaker 2: So the national government makes kind of these overtures over

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Speaker 2: and over again saying we can't have child labor whatever,

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Speaker 2: and then the local government will say the same thing,

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Speaker 2: and they're like, we're cleaning up the minds and then

377
00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:31,480
Speaker 2: they use you know, these kind of mind clean up

378
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Speaker 2: activities in order to basically seize more parts of the

379
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Speaker 2: minds for themselves and you know, kind of co opt

380
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Speaker 2: local cooperatives and so on. And I document that in

381
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Speaker 2: the piece, And at the moment there's a bit of

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Speaker 2: a power struggle happening down in that region, and it's

383
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Speaker 2: very unclear to me what's actually happening in terms of

384
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Speaker 2: like who's getting pieces of the eye, But the fact

385
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Speaker 2: is that it still continues. Actually, I was I was

386
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Speaker 2: speaking to a friend of mine who's a photographer who

387
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Speaker 2: can sell a Cunningham who's done great, great work in

388
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Speaker 2: the DRC. He was there last weekend and he saw

389
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Speaker 2: basically exactly the same condition. So it's not improving.

390
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Speaker 1: But I'm assuming for people who don't understand the way

391
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Speaker 1: these things work, it's that you have the corporate mining,

392
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Speaker 1: you have the industrial mining, which of course the government's

393
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Speaker 1: going to sanction that because they're going to make a

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Speaker 1: lot of money. I'm assuming just like the drug trade

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Speaker 1: in other parts of the world, in South America, for example,

396
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Speaker 1: they don't want it to go away. They can't make

397
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Speaker 1: it go away because there'll be just so much illegal

398
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Speaker 1: activity and violence and bloodshed. Do they sit there and say,

399
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Speaker 1: and they just write it off and say, well, we

400
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Speaker 1: have to tolerate a certain amount of artisanal mining just

401
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Speaker 1: to keep these people quiet and peaceful.

402
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think they can make it go away. Yeah.

403
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Speaker 2: I think sometimes they'll say that, and sometimes they say, well,

404
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Speaker 2: artisanal mining can't exist. And it was funny I interviewed

405
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Speaker 2: the governor at the time and he basically said the same.

406
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Speaker 2: He said both of those things in the same interview.

407
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Speaker 2: So I don't think they really understood how to deal

408
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Speaker 2: with this problem. And it is it's a very very

409
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Speaker 2: complex issue, and I wouldn't say that I have I

410
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:03,679
Speaker 2: have the answers, but I just don't think it's being

411
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:07,280
Speaker 2: engaged with in a particularly robust manner. You also have

412
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Speaker 2: to think about that in terms of, you know, the

413
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Speaker 2: industrial minds which were brought many of them were brought

414
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Speaker 2: through this guy Getler who's now in the US sanctions.

415
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Speaker 2: This actually Trump de sanctioned him for a bit, who

416
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Speaker 2: knows why, and then and then he got re sanctioned.

417
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Speaker 2: And basically you have a system that relies on this

418
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Speaker 2: corruption and those funds are not going back to the people.

419
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Speaker 2: And then you have a situation in which you know

420
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Speaker 2: the minds are sold to big Western companies, and big

421
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Speaker 2: Western companies, you know, maybe don't participate directly in that,

422
00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:42,639
Speaker 2: but they work with people who are certainly questionable. Actually

423
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Speaker 2: it's not and forgive me a big Western companies is

424
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Speaker 2: not entirely correct. A lot of Chinese companies.

425
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Speaker 1: Actually want to get to that too. What are the

426
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Speaker 1: Chinese doing there? And how long have they been? Obviously, well,

427
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Speaker 1: when I think of China, I think of a place

428
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Speaker 1: of this obviously a vast a region of land and

429
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Speaker 1: very geologically and topographically, and media realized what have you here?

430
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's China enormous. They don't have those resources

431
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Speaker 1: in their own territory.

432
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Speaker 2: So something like seventy percent of the world's cobalt is

433
00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:11,399
Speaker 2: actually in DRC. It's like three point four million tons,

434
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Speaker 2: which is a huge, huge amount of cobot is there.

435
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,680
Speaker 2: And you know, there are nickel mines in Indonesia which

436
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Speaker 2: also produce cobalt as a byproduct, and is interesting if

437
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Speaker 2: you look, one of China's biggest battery manufacturers just bought

438
00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:26,120
Speaker 2: one of the biggest nickel mines in Indonesia. So they're

439
00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 2: really kind of making this resource grab and they've understood

440
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:32,760
Speaker 2: how I think Ivan Glaisenberg, who's the head of Glencore,

441
00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:34,479
Speaker 2: one of the big or was the head of Glencore,

442
00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:37,880
Speaker 2: said this summer China Inc. Has realized how important cobolt

443
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:41,439
Speaker 2: is and they're kind of starting to buy everything up.

444
00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:43,960
Speaker 1: And where do western manufacturers include in the US. Where

445
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:45,840
Speaker 1: do they get their cobolt from from the Chinese? From

446
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:47,840
Speaker 1: the Chinese, they're not out buying their own, No, they're not.

447
00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:50,040
Speaker 1: They're not trying to develop that resource for themselves.

448
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:53,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, BMW's is I think one of the few that

449
00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:56,760
Speaker 2: doesn't buy from the Chinese. They buy most of their

450
00:20:57,000 --> 00:20:59,760
Speaker 2: cobalt from a cobalt only mine and Morocco, but that's

451
00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:01,639
Speaker 2: where too small to supply it in Thaire.

452
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:09,359
Speaker 1: World journalist Nicholas Narkos. If you like hearing about the

453
00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:13,200
Speaker 1: inner workings of some of the greatest journalistic outlets of

454
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:16,520
Speaker 1: our time, check out my interview with New Yorker editor

455
00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:17,640
Speaker 1: David Remnick.

456
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:20,520
Speaker 4: The magazine is not the magazine if it doesn't have

457
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:24,720
Speaker 4: a sense of humor. You're not in business to depress

458
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:28,159
Speaker 4: the hell out of the reader unremittingly. It's like a

459
00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:31,800
Speaker 4: band having a set list. If you do everything, it's

460
00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:33,320
Speaker 4: all sixteenth notes ferment.

461
00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:35,399
Speaker 1: So I got a DAVIDO or.

462
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 4: Will you sound like the Ramones? Although I've heard of

463
00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:43,280
Speaker 4: worse things. So you want some variation in tone, in voice,

464
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 4: and that's your responsibility, you feel, I feel all of

465
00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:47,560
Speaker 4: it's my responsibility.

466
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:52,280
Speaker 1: Hear more of my conversation with David Remnick in our

467
00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:56,440
Speaker 1: archives that Here's the Thing dot org after the break

468
00:21:56,560 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 1: Nicholas Nearkos and I talk about his background and the

469
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:14,280
Speaker 1: big story he nearly broke in high school. I'm Malec

470
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:18,639
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Nicholas Niarkos,

471
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 1: who could be living a life of privilege instead can

472
00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:24,960
Speaker 1: be found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, reporting

473
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 1: on human rights violations. Nearkos grew up in London and

474
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 1: came to the United States to attend Yale. His family

475
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: helped him develop his interest in journalism.

476
00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 3: I grew up in the UK.

477
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:37,760
Speaker 1: I grew in London.

478
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:39,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was born here, but grew up in London.

479
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,840
Speaker 1: You're born here, Yeah, your father's Greek, father's Greek. You're

480
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 1: growing up in this famous family and your father is

481
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:48,320
Speaker 1: obviously the son of the guy that was the big

482
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:51,639
Speaker 1: dog there in the shipping business Stavros Niarkos. But what

483
00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:54,280
Speaker 1: was it like in your home and your family was

484
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:57,440
Speaker 1: where you ended up going into Chrism? That was likely.

485
00:22:58,119 --> 00:23:01,159
Speaker 1: Were everybody very interested in politics and current affairs? And

486
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:02,720
Speaker 1: was your dad like rabbit about that?

487
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:05,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad's sort of very interesting in current affairs.

488
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,160
Speaker 2: And you know, my mum's family as well. My grandfather

489
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 2: is a writer, and my great grandparents many of them

490
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:15,959
Speaker 2: were writers and travelers and many such things. And then

491
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 2: actually in high school I did this anti school newspaper

492
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:23,920
Speaker 2: and we actually ended up very very close to blowing

493
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:27,000
Speaker 2: the lid on this kind of strange story where Chinese

494
00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:32,160
Speaker 2: officials were sort of paying this intermediary character to get

495
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:34,120
Speaker 2: their kids into the school that I went to, which

496
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:36,639
Speaker 2: is called Harrow. It's a kind of very stiff boarding school.

497
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:39,639
Speaker 2: So we ended up almost writing the story and the

498
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 2: newspaper was shut down. Two years later in the financial time,

499
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:45,920
Speaker 2: suddenly the guy has revealed to be somehow connected with

500
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 2: m I six and like one of the governors in

501
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 2: China basically was sort of taken down by it. And

502
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 2: this was kind of she jimping, kind of flexing his

503
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 2: muscles for the first time we had been so close

504
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 2: to doing that store. You know, the only reason that

505
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 2: we didn't run it was because the school had basically said, like,

506
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 2: you're not publishing this. So yeah, I think that was

507
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 2: the first time I really like saw the power of journalism.

508
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 2: And it was funny because they banned that it was

509
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:15,000
Speaker 2: hard copy and then people sort of hid it behind

510
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:18,200
Speaker 2: their notice boards in their dorm rooms and then kind

511
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 2: of passed it around, and you know, by three days

512
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 2: after publication, even though the school had destroyed most of

513
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 2: the copies, you know, everybody had read it. And it

514
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 2: was this kind of great affirmation of the power.

515
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 1: Of good start, a noble start. And your mother is

516
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:35,440
Speaker 1: Irish English, she really I went to Dublin once with

517
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,360
Speaker 1: my ex wife and my daughter and we were there

518
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 1: it was Christmas Eve and Saint Stephen's Day and we

519
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 1: were staying at the Shelbourne in Dublin, I as it is,

520
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 1: the famous hotel, and they said to me, oh, you've

521
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,439
Speaker 1: made a mistake though, come in this week because everything's closed.

522
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 1: They said, this week everything's closed, Christmas Eve and Saint

523
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: Stephen's Day, everything's close. Even the Guinness is closed. They said.

524
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:02,399
Speaker 1: They were like, that's rare. I mean, even the Guinness

525
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 1: factories closed and we're like, well, my shit, what are

526
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: we going to do where we're here? So but you

527
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: you know, obviously when I saw your byline, then I

528
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 1: saw your name. You don't have to be my age

529
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 1: to know, you know, there are two great shipping families,

530
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: and yours just as recognizable to my generation as the

531
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 1: other one. But you lived in London and you first

532
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 1: came you were born here, grew up in London. And

533
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 1: when did you come back here to live? How old

534
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 1: were I came back here for college, go to school,

535
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: go to school, and you decided to say.

536
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 3: I decided to stay.

537
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: Now why do you want to live here or not

538
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: from London? And the opposite, I want to live in

539
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: London and leave New York as soon as really. Oh

540
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 1: I love London.

541
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 3: I love you, Yeah, you do. Listen. I feel like London.

542
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,119
Speaker 2: There's you know, there's this kind of idealized London of

543
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 2: my sort of teenage years, which had like a lot

544
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 2: of kind of relaxed hangout places, which has sort of

545
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 2: shut down and it's easy for you here. Well, no,

546
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 2: it's just it's sort of become it's become this kind

547
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 2: of like very I don't know, this kind of fake

548
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 2: version of itself in a way, and I feel like

549
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 2: it's like a lot of these Yeah, and it's a

550
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 2: lot of you know, like heritaging and like news.

551
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 1: I love these. I want to live in a castle.

552
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,120
Speaker 1: I watched The Crown and like, oh God, that would

553
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:12,920
Speaker 1: work for me. I could live there. But when you

554
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: finished school, you decided to stay here. And what were

555
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:17,880
Speaker 1: the first jobs you got in journalism?

556
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 3: So I worked at the Nation.

557
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 1: Describe that experience.

558
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 2: It was a fact Katrina as an old friend of mine,

559
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 2: Katrina Katrina's well, now when.

560
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,440
Speaker 1: They're paying when you talk about budgets, so the Nation

561
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 1: comes out, we were saying, that looks like a college newspaper. Yeah,

562
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,359
Speaker 1: on that very very less expensive paper. And so for them,

563
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: obviously they have their budgetary considerations, but they're irreplaceable in

564
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 1: terms of the reporting. Did you enjoy that experience.

565
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 3: It was a great experience.

566
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 2: I worked directly with Katrina as her fact checker and

567
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 2: with her late husband, Stephen Kohen. And it was the

568
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 2: time of the Syrian chemic chemical weapons, then Obama's Red

569
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 2: Line and so on, and they were you know, I

570
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 2: was called up on a Sunday evening. I think this

571
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 2: is one of my first weeks there was called up

572
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 2: on the Sunday evening and they were like, okay, and

573
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 2: you've got to be on touch, in touch with the

574
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 2: OPCW you know, four o'clock tomorrow morning, cut of thing.

575
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 2: And it was a fantastic experience. And also the nation

576
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 2: treats its in turns very well, which was something I

577
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 2: hadn't necessarily always seen in the UK. And you know,

578
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 2: you were paid minimum wage and there was a kind

579
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 2: of spirit of like community and activism there which was

580
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 2: which was really nice. And actually, by the end of

581
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 2: my time there, I had developed this story based on

582
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 2: a lead that I had gotten a journalism school about

583
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 2: this lawyer who'd been wire tapped called Robert Gottlieb and

584
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:30,880
Speaker 2: he was representing a guy called Adis Mudungjenen and their

585
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 2: conversations had been wire tapped by the FBI, and that

586
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 2: story hadn't been reported, so I sort of reported that

587
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 2: out a little bit and then sort of came to

588
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 2: them and said, listen, I've been working on this in

589
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 2: my spare time, and they sort of took a chance

590
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 2: and published me. Looking back on it, I mean, that's

591
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 2: quite a sort of both sort of risk taking. But

592
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:51,400
Speaker 2: I really appreciated that because that was my first sort

593
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,480
Speaker 2: of big investigative type magazine story.

594
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 1: When you worked for the Guardian, did you go back

595
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: to the UK?

596
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 2: No, So I've written for the Guardian sort of independently

597
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 2: as a free lancer, and then I worked at The

598
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 2: Guardian as a researcher.

599
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 3: Like right when I graduated college.

600
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: What period of times did you work with the Huffington Post.

601
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 2: So I started writing with the Affington Post in college

602
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 2: and then I kind of wrote for them for a

603
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 2: year too afterwards.

604
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 1: You know, for me finding sources, you know, sometimes I

605
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 1: read The Times and I think, well there's the Times again.

606
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,120
Speaker 1: And then sometimes they read the Times and I said,

607
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 1: this is not the Times anymore, you know. I mean

608
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 1: I get really really worried about their priorities, you know.

609
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 1: But The New Yorker has been for me, you know,

610
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: over the arc of many years, the most reliable in

611
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: terms of its integrity and what they cover in stories

612
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: they tell. And you had sent me the article from

613
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 1: John le Anderson, which I think which when I as

614
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: I was reading it, I think I read this article

615
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: when it first came out. Now, that article about South America,

616
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: and I'd read other articles and books about the work

617
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: of Thunai and the uncontacted Indians and so forth. You know,

618
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: I would imagine for you that that and writers like

619
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: Anderson who write these broad and very complex pieces, there's

620
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:02,479
Speaker 1: no shortage of stories for you to cover. I mean

621
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 1: you must be constantly having to make tough decisions as

622
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 1: to which ones, because when they come to you, they

623
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: don't sign, they ask you if you want to do it?

624
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 3: Correct, No, no, no, I was as a freelance I

625
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 3: pitched a place as actually.

626
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: So you pitched, okay, so you pitched to Remnick and

627
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: his staff that you want to do the piece based

628
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: on your beginnings of your book. Yeah, but I would

629
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: imagine again with the corner copia of such stories that

630
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: are out there, you must be constantly wondering which one

631
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: you want to do or are there many ideas you

632
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:30,479
Speaker 1: have for this kind of thing?

633
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, there are many ideas. Part of it is

634
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 2: also sort of editorial interest. I was reading Joan Didion

635
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 2: on El Salvador last night, and she was talking about

636
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 2: when she went, which I think is nineteen eighty two,

637
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 2: and she talked about how it was a period in

638
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 2: which it was like a filin hold, so you know,

639
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: you'd fire your story and then it would be held

640
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 2: by editors because you know, there wasn't a huge amount

641
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 2: of interest in El Salvador. I've actually seen that quite

642
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 2: a lot with Yemen, funnily enough, which is a conflict

643
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 2: that's been going on since twenty fifteen. You know, that's

644
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 2: really something that's very, very difficult to get onto people's radar.

645
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 2: So it's actually also about getting those stories onto editors' radar.

646
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 2: And there's a story that I want to do about

647
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 2: these complicated cooperations between US forces in Africa and local

648
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 2: forces that have led to a lot of civilian casualties

649
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 2: and don't seem to be being authorized on the highest level.

650
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: But that's firstly a hard story to get rolling and

651
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 2: to get sourced up. So I'm trying to sort of

652
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 2: find more sources on that. So if there are any listeners,

653
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 2: please get in touch.

654
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: So everywhere you go around the world, Africa, South America,

655
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: what have you see this exploitation for resources and for minerals.

656
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: And I'm just wondering if we'll ever see the day

657
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: when this country decides to come out on the right

658
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: side of that and try to prevent some of that,

659
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: Like you know what happened in Ecuador. It's just it's tragic.

660
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: It's tragical. Yeah.

661
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that there's so much emphasis on

662
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 2: sort of labor rights here. And I listen to your

663
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 2: show with Lamina Gonzales and know she was talking about how,

664
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 2: you know, people getting the way maging California and farms

665
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 2: and things like that, and I think that there is

666
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 2: a lot of good movement on that in the States.

667
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 2: But somehow I feel like we've just sort of exported

668
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 2: all these issues.

669
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 3: And it's become thistceter rules for us.

670
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and that's kind of become the sort of

671
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 2: wages of globalization.

672
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 1: Journalist Nicholas Nearkos. If you're enjoying this conversation, be sure

673
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: to subscribe to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app,

674
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,

675
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: Nicholas Nearkos talks about some of the more challenging aspects

676
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: of his reporting in the Congo by'm Alec Baldwin and

677
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: this is Here's the Thing Nicholas Nearkos New Yorker article

678
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 1: or Buried Dreams expose the way Congolese cobalt miners are exploited.

679
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: In his reporting for the piece, he witnessed many gut

680
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: wrenching scenes.

681
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the toughest things that I saw were

682
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 2: around the kids. You know, you see a lot of

683
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 2: kids with deformities, firstly because of the radioactive nature of

684
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 2: the cobalt dust heavy metals poisoning. In fact, actually this

685
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 2: is something that one of the fact checkers on the

686
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 2: piece at Katti Nagrinbaden alerted me to that paternal exposure

687
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 2: to some of these materials is actually associated very heavily

688
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 2: with birth the effects. So that was very sad talking

689
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 2: to parents, to wives of people who'd been killed in

690
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 2: these landslides at mines. And then obviously, you know, going

691
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 2: to a school for sort of kids who had been

692
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 2: actually run by good shepherd, so kids who had been

693
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 2: artismal miners. And then just like chatting with his kid, Zicki,

694
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 2: who's in the piece as well. I mean he was

695
00:32:57,120 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 2: working in mind since he was three basically, and just

696
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 2: the sort of pain and suffering. And then there was

697
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 2: this moment where I kind of you know, showed him

698
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 2: my phone. I said, listen, like the new iPhone is

699
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 2: going for a two hundred dollars and everybody there knows

700
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 2: that it's going into batteries. It something like fifty percent

701
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: of the cobalt mine there. It goes into lifting my

702
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 2: own batteries. And I said to him, listen, like, how

703
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 2: do you feel about this? And he was just like,

704
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 2: I feel terrible. And I think he just had this

705
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 2: sort of moment of realization which I really didn't want

706
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 2: to prompt, but he sort of thought, you know, how

707
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 2: can people sort of sanction such violence against people like me.

708
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: When Remnick was on the show, he said, the New

709
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: York Times is the weather. He wakes up in the

710
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 1: morning and the first thing he does is read The

711
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 1: Times of his whole entire media died. What's your media died?

712
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: When you're up in the morning, I.

713
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 3: Would say the Times as well.

714
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 2: I like listening also to the BBC Today program. It's

715
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 2: such a good program, and it's just very good to

716
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 2: keep up with news from.

717
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: The UK as well your TV news.

718
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 3: No, I don't have a TV. I'm not one of

719
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 3: those people.

720
00:33:58,400 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: You know.

721
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 2: Actually, while I was in Africa, I really you know,

722
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 2: reporting actually in the Sahara and so on, like most

723
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 2: of the places you get France Francaire, France twenty four,

724
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 2: you know, everyway everywhere go, and I kind of when

725
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,240
Speaker 2: I'm in Africa, I watch a lot of France twenty

726
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 2: four and a REFI, which is Radio France Ante Nacional.

727
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 3: And that's great as well.

728
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 2: I mean, they're just that they're really like, I don't know,

729
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 2: I find that sort of French quality of journalism, maybe

730
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:28,719
Speaker 2: sometimes influenced by French foreign policy, but actually they go

731
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,279
Speaker 2: very deep into a lot of issues that I'm interested in.

732
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 2: The other publication that I wanted to mention is Jean Afrique,

733
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 2: which is a sort of I think it's France based,

734
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 2: where they cover lots of Africa, especially French speaking Africa,

735
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 2: in depth, and again often with a kind of French

736
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 2: twist or French foreign policy twist.

737
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: What's the status of the book at the moment.

738
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 3: I'm in the middle of writing it, reporting it, traveling.

739
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:56,279
Speaker 1: You're still working out, yeah, exactly when are you guys

740
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 1: got to come out?

741
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 3: I hope to work on it all of next year

742
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 3: and then for the next.

743
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 2: Year basically because you're doing other things, because I'm doing

744
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:04,760
Speaker 2: other things, and I'm also.

745
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 3: Just doing a lot of reporting on this as well.

746
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 1: What's a story you wouldn't tell. What's a story that

747
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:11,840
Speaker 1: people suggested to you and your thought that's not for me.

748
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: Have you ever been asked to do profiles of movie

749
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: stars and things like that to get a paycheck and

750
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 1: to work, and you that didn't interest you. What don't

751
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: you want to do?

752
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 2: I think sort of gossip and sort of crying into

753
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 2: people's personal lives. I'd think probably things that you also

754
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 2: probably wouldn't like, so you didn't know the.

755
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: Half of it.

756
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:29,439
Speaker 3: Yeah.

757
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying this to be kind. I mean,

758
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: you're this incredibly smart guy and I loved your piece.

759
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 1: I can't wait for the book to come out. Do

760
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: you have any appetite for documentary film and filmmaking.

761
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 2: I'd love to do documentary film and filmmaking. Actually, when

762
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 2: I graduated from Columbia, I went and made a mini

763
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 2: doc about a Roma gypsy trumpet players in Serbia and

764
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:53,760
Speaker 2: Subbian nationalists and that was a really, really fun experience.

765
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:55,919
Speaker 2: But you know, writing has always been my first love.

766
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: I feel like the work you're doing, I mean, these

767
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: stories are the stories people need to hear. Where there

768
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,800
Speaker 1: was injustice like this and where this this exploitation we

769
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: have a set of rules here in this country for

770
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: our own and there's things that we would never allow.

771
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:13,759
Speaker 1: We'd be screaming from the mountaintops if we had this

772
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: radioactive situation and children being content. We and we have

773
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 1: things like that in this country now. But when it

774
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: is exposed, when it is brought to light, I'll never forget,

775
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: you know, being a New Yorker. One of the things

776
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 1: I love to about being a New Yorker is the

777
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: indignation and the outrage are never packed away. People carry

778
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 1: a little bottle of it with them. And when the

779
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: needles all washed up and all the medical waste washed

780
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:38,880
Speaker 1: up on the shores of New Jersey years ago, it

781
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,280
Speaker 1: was on the front page of the People went insane.

782
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 1: They were like the beaches of New Jersey and all

783
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: these families go there and all this contaminate. I mean,

784
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:50,880
Speaker 1: people went nuts. And of course writing books is important,

785
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 1: but that medium of film is another layer that you

786
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: should really really consider.

787
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 2: You know, I've written about art, I've written about I

788
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 2: was a restaurant review while I was a fact checker

789
00:36:58,760 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 2: at the New Yorker.

790
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:02,359
Speaker 3: So you review restaurants for the NYOKA in the city,

791
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 3: how old you do that?

792
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: Two years.

793
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 3: It was great and I did bars as well.

794
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 2: It was fun because you know at the time, you

795
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:10,359
Speaker 2: know they would give you a couple of hundred bucks

796
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 2: to go to restaurants.

797
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 1: And I did Del Posto with Frank Bruney. Okay, we

798
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: went to one of his sittings and Laureene doubts it,

799
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: would you like to come with Frank and I and

800
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: a fourth person. He's going to review Del Posto, And

801
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: I said, okay, here's the rules. He orders for everybody

802
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: because he has to eat everything on the menu. So

803
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:28,439
Speaker 1: the four of you have to have what he tells

804
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: you to eat, and they're going to pass the plates

805
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 1: or whatever you can all sample, but he's going to

806
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: do the ordering because he must eat every item on

807
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: the menu. He goes back four and five times and

808
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and and he took me through the

809
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: whole reality of Frank's life. So what was it like?

810
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: Were you going four and five times to a restaurant or.

811
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 3: No, no, no, you go two times to the restaurant.

812
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: Did they eventually catch on who you were? No?

813
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 2: Not really, But one of the best experience experiences doing that.

814
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 2: I went to a Somali restaurant in Harlem, and then

815
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 2: I came back after the review. I live up in Harlem,

816
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 2: so he kind of was trying to wrap Harlem restaurants

817
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 2: and I came back after the review and there were

818
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 2: like lines around the block.

819
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 1: It was great.

820
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 2: It's really fun and it's wonderful place. I stand by

821
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 2: my review, So that was a nice moment.

822
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: Do you identify as Greek, Irish, British, American, a journalist

823
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: or all of the above?

824
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 3: Well, all of the above.

825
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 2: But I think that my Greek roots are very very

826
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 2: important to me, and I feel very strongly that, you know,

827
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 2: Greece is a troubled place but also somewhere where one

828
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 2: can do it a lot of good. I like the

829
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,320
Speaker 2: spirit of Greeks and Greeks abroad and this kind of

830
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 2: journeying spirit. There's a poem by cossadinoska Vafis called Ithaca,

831
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:39,800
Speaker 2: which is probably the most famous modern Greek poem, and

832
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 2: he talks about like hope as you set out for Ithaca,

833
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 2: so you're sort of setting out for coming back home

834
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 2: as Odysseus. You hope that your journey is a long one,

835
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 2: so you hope that you have this kind of like journey,

836
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 2: which is full of adventures and cyclops and Lystragonians and

837
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 2: so on. So I like that sort of aspect, and

838
00:38:57,800 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 2: I think I probably sort of see myself in that

839
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 2: mold as well.

840
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 1: I suppose journalist Nicholas Narkos. This episode was produced by

841
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:13,839
Speaker 1: Kathleen Russo, Carrie Donahue, Maureen Hoben, and Zach MacNeice. Our

842
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing

843
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: is brought to you by iHeart Radio