Lake Kivu, the CIA and collapsing governments.

This December (2009) and January (2010) I will head back to Eastern Congo; I can't wait. Unfortunately, if it is not the fighting it is other things that will keep my mom worried: here a recent story by the New York Times on mazuku; "evil wind" in Swahili. That is, a story about the bubbles of carbon dioxide above and around Lake Kivu that are the product of large reservoirs of methane and carbon dioxide inside the lake.

A few days ago I quickly wanted some general information on the DR Congo. I visited the CIA World Factbook. These guys recently updated their website and each country now has nice dropdown menus - "introduction", "geography", etc. - with the option to expand or collapse these menus if one hovers over them. When hovering with the mouse-pointer over "Government" (try it here) the website gives the option to:

Expand/ Collapse Government

A bit scary knowing we are talking about the CIA and the Democratic Republic of Congo. ;)