Weekend Box #140: Congo In Crisis, Reeves Builds Her Arc & More

Editor's Note

Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s round-up of interesting or obscure political, business, and cultural news from around the world.

At the end of every busy week in Westminster, ministerial private offices ask their departments to submit papers to the ‘weekend box’ for Ministers and Secretaries of State to catch up with over the weekend. Similarly, we would like to send you into the weekend with a few stories to catch up with at your leisure.

So, let’s delve inside The Weekend Box.

Congo In Crisis

A new crisis is rocking the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with the ethnic Tutsi M23 rebel group, supported by Rwandan troops, this week capturing the eastern city of Goma. The surprise attack caused widespread panic, with around 500,000 already thought to have fled the area. Those who remain are dangerously isolated, without utilities and basic medical care due to hospitals being overwhelmed by the wounded. M23 forces are now pushing on to Bukavu, provincial capital of South Kivu that borders Rwanda.

The broader crisis highlights the resurgence of deep-rooted ethnic conflicts that extend across borders, Rwanda's growing influence in its fragile but mineral-rich neighbor, and the complex involvement of other African nations. Among them is South Africa, which has condemned the killing of 13 of its soldiers who were deployed to eastern?DRC as peacekeepers.?

The M23 rebels claim they are fighting to protect the rights of the Banyamulenge, a minority Tutsi group originally from Rwanda but currently living in the South Kivu region of DRC. Some 800,000 Tutsis were murdered by Hutu militias during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, before Paul Kagame, then leader of the Tutsi rebels, seized power to become president.

The violence in Goma is sadly not a new phenomenon - Rwanda has previously invaded DRC twice on the pretext of pursuing Hutu militias, and was allegedly behind the resurgence of the M23 group in 2021. The Rwandan government denies these claims, but the UN estimates that some 4,000 Rwandan troops are fighting with M23.?

Beyond ethnic disputes, Goma's mineral assets are also key. The city is a gateway to mining areas that produce gold, tin, and coltan, with M23 poised to benefit in the illicit market. The group already raises an estimated?$800,000 per month through a production tax on coltan, which is crucial for manufacturing smartphones and electronic devices.?

DRC president Félix Tshisekedi has vowed to defeat M23 and demanded more support from other African nations. Regional?heads of state met at a special summit in Zimbabwe yesterday to discuss the conflict - we shall see whether Tshisekedi has been successful in harnessing further international support for his cause.?

Image Credit: Monusco Photos.?License.?

Reeves Builds Her Arc

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has revitalised a major project to develop the 120-mile corridor of land in southeast England known as the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.

In a speech on the government’s growth plans on Wednesday, she pledged to transform the region into “Europe’s Silicon Valley” through infrastructure development, housing expansion, and investment in science and technology. The plan is designed to maintain Britain’s leadership in innovation, ensuring two centres of global academic and research excellence can continue to grow.

The project, which the?government estimates could add up to ￡78 billion to the economy by 2035, includes significant transport upgrades, including East-West Rail, to improve connectivity between the two cities. The government aims to ease planning restrictions to accelerate development: in her speech, Reeves announced the government would drop its previous objection to the building of 4,500 new homes in Cambridge.

Policy?wonks were particularly excited by the plan to create a new train station in the unassuming Bedfordshire village of Tempsford. Last year, think tank UK Day One recommended creating Tempsford New Town to house 250,000 people as a way to alleviate chronic housing shortages in south east England.

The plans aren’t universally popular. Critics point out that many of the proposals - such as transport links and investment reforms - have been previously discussed without?materialising. Local resistance remains an obstacle, particularly from environmental groups and residents concerned about large-scale development and its impact on green spaces.

Ms Reeves is staking her political future – and the fortunes of this government – on reinvigorating growth and investment. But it didn’t take long for?commentators to question the coherence of her approach, given the tax rises on businesses announced last year.

The ambition for growth is there, but how long it will take to arrive and how much voters will feel the benefits are the real tests for?Labour.? ?

Image Credit: World Economic Forum.?License.

DeepSeek Sinks Tech Stocks

In last week’s edition we covered the release of DeepSeek’s latest large language AI model, which offers a cut-price challenge to US AI dominance. The app’s underlying artificial intelligence model is widely seen as competitive with OpenAI and Meta’s latest releases, but crucially claims to cost significantly less to train and develop.

However, this is now just part of the story. Over the last week, DeepSeek’s soar in popularity has surely defied even the most optimistic of predictions, displacing ChatGPT at the top of app stores in both the US and UK, and reaching the Top 10 in 109 other countries.

Even more striking though, were the shockwaves that DeepSeek’s release sent through the stock market on Monday. In a climate where investors were already beginning to question whether the share prices of US technology giants had been overblown following a two-year AI-led frenzy, DeepSeek’s arrival on the global stage as a low-cost competitor sent shares plummeting.

Shares in California-based Nvidia, one of the biggest beneficiaries of spending on AI chips, plunged 17 per cent, wiping out almost $600bn of market value - a record loss for any company in US stock market history. Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Alphabet all saw their stocks come under pressure too, with market analysts estimating combined losses across US tech at well over $1 trillion.

According to Bloomberg, the world’s 500 richest people lost a combined $108 billion on Monday alone,?led by a 20% drop in wealth for Nvidia?co-founder Jensen Huang.?

DeepSeek’s impact is all the more remarkable considering its comparative size. The company was founded less than two years ago and developed the R-1 model for under $10 million. To contextualise, this figure is dwarfed by ChatGPT-4's estimated technical creation cost of?$41 million to $78 million. The secretive nature of the industry means these estimates are clouded by a degree of uncertainty, but it cannot be denied that DeepSeek's newest release has certainly raised eyebrows from a cost perspective.?

Commentators have likened the AI arms race to the Space Race of the 1950s and '60s. Certainly, DeepSeek’s emergence feels like something of a ‘Sputnik moment’ for those in Silicon Valley – and perhaps in Washington too.

Image Credit: Tim Reckmann. License.

Fuji's Fall

An allegation of sexual misconduct by a famous celebrity face continues to damage the reputation of one of Japan’s biggest broadcasters, leading to an unusual response this week.

Famed Japanese TV host and former popstar Masahiro Nakai was reported by tabloid Shukan Bunshun in December to have paid an unnamed woman ￥90 million ($570,000) in a settlement related to alleged sexual misconduct. Broadcaster Fuji TV, part of Fuji Media Holdings Inc, cancelled its weekly programme featuring Nakai indefinitely and Nakai has resigned from the entertainment industry.

After Fuji admitted that it had failed to fully investigate or report complaints from a female staff member in 2023, a heavily criticised press conference open to only a select few journalists did little to quell public outrage. The company has since faced intense investor backlash, with nearly 80 major corporations withdrawing advertising from its television broadcasts in the past week.?

In an attempt to salvage its reputation, Fuji took the unusual tack of hosting a press conference on Monday that anyone who identified themselves as a journalist was allowed to attend; in all, 437 people.

During the conference, which ran for over ten hours, Fuji Television’s representatives, including President Koichi Minato and Chairman Shuji Kano, came under fire from attendees. The president and chairman ultimately resigned, with Minato apologising for his “lack of awareness regarding human rights” and “for undermining trust in the media.”

Fuji’s crisis is the latest to rock Japan’s struggling entertainment industry, which has come under increased scrutiny for the serious abuses of power it has overlooked, and which has scrambled to find new sources of revenue in recent years as the domestic market continues to struggle.

Fuji Media Holdings Inc owns real estate assets and many stocks in other Japanese listed companies, in addition to producing mainly entertainment programming through Fuji TV.

Image Credit: Antonio Tajuelo.?License.

Lights, Camera, Legal Action!?

A Hollywood actor has this week lost a court battle over, of all things, whether he should pay his council tax. Mercer Boffey, an (albeit little known) Hollywood actor, currently resides in a “charming” (the judge’s words, not ours) Grade-II listed property in Richmond. In a bizarre turn, Boffey decided to launch a legal case in 2023, arguing that charging domestic property owners council tax was illegal.

Boffey argued that ‘the absolute right in every Englishman,’ not excluding an American living lawfully in England, was the ‘free use, enjoyment and disposal of all his acquisitions.’ According to his novel interpretation of the law,?Boffey asserted that this meant council tax should be scrapped for those using the property solely for domestic purposes.

Underpinning his argument was the notion, he claimed, that his home was not a ‘dwelling’ for the purposes of section 3(2) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. As the judge noted, a previous case bore striking similarities to Boffey’s argument, stating it was essentially ‘the very same conclusion as that contended for, and rejected’ by Mr Justice?Fordham in Doyle v Roberts (Listing Officer) [2021] EWHC 659.

In that case, the judge found: ‘A unit of property used wholly for the purposes of living accommodation attracts council tax by reference to that use…. It is true of a flat or house which is rented from a private landlord. But it is also true of such a flat or house with an owner-occupier. They can all be hereditaments.’

The High Court Judge, Mr Justice Constable, conceded that Boffey made "articulate" arguments in his favour, but that they were nevertheless incorrect. He also noted that by granting him a court victory, it would fundamentally "undermine" the huge amount of money raised for local councils each year. It is estimated that figure sits?arounds the ￡50 billion mark.

The verdict ends an almost two-year court battle for Boffey, as he returns cap-in-hand to his sprawling, eighteenth-century Petersham property. No doubt struggling, debt-ridden local councils all over the country are breathing a sigh of relief at the winning verdict.

Image Credit: Katrin Bolovtsova.?License.?

And that's it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at [email protected]

For now, that's the Weekend Box officially closed.

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