Curious Worldview (Spotify)

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Tim Butcher Episode (Blood River Congo) -

King Leopold's Ghost Book - https://www.amazon.com.au/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Adam-Hochshild/dp/0618001905

From 1885, for 13 years, one man, King Leopold II, owned, as his personal property, one of the largest pieces of geography on earth. The Congo is four times larger than France, it’s bigger than India, it’s bigger than Texas, Alaska, California & Montana combined - the equator runs right through it’s middle and makes it the second largest rainforest on the globe - it’s impossibly rich in resources, and desperately poor in economics. In those 13 years of private ownership, Leopold oversaw potentially one of the most brutal regimes of extraction the world has ever known. The population was estimated to have halved in those 13 years, more than 10 million deaths. It was an exploit in mass slavery, mass death, bodily mutilation and mass extraction. Ivory and wild rubber were in high demand, and so under the guise of media manipulation and PR mastery, Leopold convinced the world that these goods were in fact being traded with, rather than extracted from, the Congo. 
The horror, however, could only be concealed for so long. A fella by the name of Ed Morell who worked for a shipping company in Liverpool noticed the bounty of ivory and rubber arriving from the Congo, with only men and arms making the journey back. His suspicion grew, he found accounts from missionaries and others who had been, and mounted a campaign to undermine the constant wall of propaganda Leopold had financed.
In 1908, the Belgium state purchased the Congo off Leopold… where the country remained a colony of Belgium until 1960. 
And for a myriad of reasons, for which we address in the podcast, the Congo today is still on the back foot. Kinshasa, the capital city already has a bigger population than Paris, and is projected to be as much as 40,000,000 by 2050. The Congo today is among the most resource rich nations on earth, but among the least developed. It still attracts the same predation for extraction as it ever has, although all together less forceful and less violent
The man I speak with on the podcast today wrote the definitive history of this period. His name is Adam Hochschild, he’s an author, journalist and historian and wrote in 1998, 'King Leopold's Ghost'. 

Curious Worldview Podcast (Spotify) - https://open.spotify.com/episode/6vofLaGavfQEEGkkSmwlTi?si=0vc-V65-Qref_ZlZdj--tg

Curious Worldview Podcast (Apple) - https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/axel-humlesj%C3%B6-money-laundering-is-the-biggest/id1540424160?i=1000700665617

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Axel Humlesjö is a Swedish journalist against which money laundering, the plumbing of offshore finance and the cancerous nature of dark money, continuously crash up against.
Axel was a part of the team that uncovered systematic money laundering activities with Swedbank in the Baltics. Part of the team behind the series - The Shadow War - which exposed Russian espionage activities in the Nordics and led to the expulsion of five Russian spies from Sweden. Many other stories as well, but of course co-author of his debut book, The Honey Trap which explores Swedbank's involvement in one of the world's largest money laundering scandals and details this extensive operation for how the Russian security service uses sparrows and other means to honey trap and acquire kompromat on a broad slew of people. Honey traps were used directly to illicit compromising material to infiltrate Swedbank.
This podcast goes into Axel’s views on the evolution of journalism in a globalised world, and the significant role that money plays in shaping political landscapes. He goes as far to say it is the single biggest societal issue facing Europe and how intertwined money laundering is with currying foreign influence. 
This was recorded in person in Stockholm with Axel last December, it was the last interview I recorded before I left the country.

Curious Worldview Podcast (Spotify) - https://open.spotify.com/episode/4EQW5Ylr4lrqLUyj5V0oiA?si=xWxWWkbbTUqoDN5JeyRLtw

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Philippe Gijsels Book - https://www.amazon.com/World-Economy-Trends-superinflation-hyperinnovation/dp/9401409013

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The following is with Philippe Gijsels, the Chief Strategy Officer at BNP Paribas Fortis - he co-wrote a book last year called The New World Economy in 5 Trends - which within, reveals much of the new map we now inhabit, especially in light of the perplexing chaos of spearheaded by America’s sloppy leadership in the last weeks. 
Philippe is an erudite bookophile and a banker, a combination that seems not uncommon among the best investors. He and I have been speaking since last year in anticipation of recording this podcast today. I hope you enjoy it. 
I wanted to get the interview into the meat of the book as quickly as possible, therefore, took more liberties with editing than I usually do and have excised a part of the podcast to the end of the discussion. The excised component  was an explanation and brief discussion on the idea of Reflexivity. 
Consider leaving this 5 stars on Apple or Spotify - nothing does more to drive the show to new viewers.

Curious Worldview Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Zs20Bl4ftN4XPHtxnVAVB?si=hJCvtqvMR-iFq-HLdYt7Rg

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The following is with German political scientist, former beer brewer in the Congo, and author of How Tyrants Fall - Marcel Dirsus
Marcel interviewed coup leaders, dissidents and soldiers to write about the workings and malfunctions of tyrants. Because while the individual personas, eccentricities and reputations might make them all distinct from one another, there are more threads that draw disparate dictator's together than don’t.
I think this excerpt from the book sums up the essence of Marcel’s work and as well, the themes in todays podcast.
“The most powerful tyrants on earth are condemned to live their life in fear. They can make their enemies disappear with a snap of their fingers. They, their families, and their acolytes may control entire countries from the luxury of their palace, but they also have to spend their every waking hour plagued by the fear of losing everything. No matter how powerful they become, they cannot pay for or order that fear to disappear. If such tyrants make one wrong move, they will fall.”
So the interview is about the workings of various tyrants around the world, both living and dead. 
I ask Marcel about applying a prisoners of geography lens to this topic, china and the case for dictators not being all bad all the time, marcel’s rogues gallery of tyrants and as well, Marcel offers a raw reflection of the potential future of authoritarianism in the USA particularly because of the astounding moves made so far under trump. This was recorded the day after the US inauguration.
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Robert Kaplan has been sighted as one of the most influential geopolitical thinkers of the modern era. The Revenge Of Geography, Surrender or Starve, Balkan Ghosts, Asias Cauldron, The Tragic Mind, and so on, I counted 18 books so far with his most recent being - Waste Land: A World In Permanent Crisis.
I’ve listened to many of his books at this point, I found Revenge Of Geography a few years ago whilst preparing for my interviews with Tim Marshall. 
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Curious Worlview Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/episode/26jGHMsGGMuBuBtbB2u2Gw?si=j3bKCO6jQi6ftj6jM3UwoQ

Youtube - https://youtu.be/4MWFzPXQPY8
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Taiwan is the greatest geopolitical question of the 21st century says Kerry Brown,  sinologist, and former Diplomat to the British Embassy in Beijing. 
He is, I am thrilled to say the guest on todays podcast. A sinologist is a scholar and expert of China, its language, history, politics, and culture - and the theme today is top to bottom the myriad questions looming over one of the largest political issues for China… Taiwan. 

Kerry published a book last year called The Taiwan Story: How a Small Island Will Dictate the Global Future. It is marvelous, and my hope was to do as much justice to the various questions which Kerry approaches Taiwan with as possible in a brief podcast.
The big questions being, the economy, given Taiwan’s semi conductor supremacy with its home grown TSMC, the perplexing idea that Xi would view Taiwanese reunification as the most significant achievement to his legacy, how a more fractured, less unified global order creates lots of wiggle room, Taiwan’s history, and that despite having 95% Han ethnicity, what is it about Taiwan which makes them a distinctly different culture to China, Kerrys feeling for the inevitability of an attempt at reunification and lots more between those cracks. 
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Curious Worldview - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bradley-hope-blood-oil-the-story-of-mohammed-bin-salman/id1540424160?i=1000681834477

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Bradley Hope returns to the podcast.
Some of the things that stand out from this episode that I would encourage you to stay around for include…

00:00 - Introduction
02:30 - The Region - Oil, Religion, History
06:45 - Sovereign Wealth Funds
08:50 - Religious Divide Between Gulf Nations
010:41 - Saudi Arabia Young Country
13:40 - Understanding MBS
19:40 - The Shiek Down
27:35 - MBS & Risk
30:58 - MBZ - UAE
33:40 - Bradley’s Contrarian Take On Sportswashing
43:07 - Geopolitical Significance Of The Region
51:10 - Consultancies (McKinsey, etc) In Saudi
55:23 - NEOM
1:00:10 - Journalist Craft
1:05:15 - Has MBS Read Bradley’s Work & Does Bradley Still Love Journalism?
1:08:30 - Bradley Reflects On Changing Media Landscape
1:13:50 - Mecca & Medina
1:15:10 - Misunderstood Parts Of Saudi & Emirates
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James Robinson is winning the Nobel Prize for Economics this year alongside his co-author Daron Acemoglu and fellow economist, Simon Johnson.
This is obviously extremely exciting for him, but as well selfishly, rather exciting for me… because in episode 24, James Robinson was one of the first people I ever interviewed for this podcast. 
James co-wrote an outrageously successful book in 2012 called - ‘Why Nations Fail’ - which is the work for which James has won the Nobel Prize and as well, was the subject of this interview. 
Why Nations Fail introduces an extractive versus inclusive institutions framework that does an unreasonable amount of heavy lifting to explain the distributed economic prosperity between countries.
And just fair warning, it is one of the first interviews I ever did, so it may feel quite a bit different to those more recently - but bare with me and endure my enthusiasm as James reveals where the catalyst for the inclusive/extractive framework comes from, a very hot take on corruption, James’s work as a developmental economist and a whole lot more. 

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Relating Interview's To Slavery On The Curious Worldview

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Out Of The Slave Fields - Bruce Ladebu (Book)
The Children's Rescue Initiative (Donate)
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At this very moment there are over 40,000,000 people around the world trapped in slavery. This is a number larger than at any point before in history… and perniciously, a figure that grows everyday. 
Millions among them are children. And then millions of those are living in the most devastating conditions imaginable. 
Bruce Ladebu runs an initiative called Children's Rescue where he and his team identify and then extract those very children living in the most destitute environments.
To date, the Children's Rescue initiative have rescued over 2,400 children.
Share this podcast with someone. The better informed we are about this reality, at the very least, the more discerning we can be in our consumption that feeds this industry.