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Business News > Mint Authors > Alexandra Wexler

Alexandra Wexler

ARTICLES BY ALEXANDRA WEXLER

An old map depicting a mining operation mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa. (Reuters)

How a Bill Gates-backed company landed in a fight between Congo and Belgium

5 min read . 28 Mar 2026

Shell said it would sell its gas stations in South Africa but it has yet to find a buyer. Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg News

They came for its riches, but big business is souring on South Africa

5 min read . 06 Feb 2026

Around $100 million of investment is pouring into the mine, where workers now sport hard hats, carry emergency breathing devices and use advanced drills and other equipment.

Gold boom spurs miners to dig for the mother lode

4 min read . 27 Jan 2026

Open lockers and scattered personal belongings inside a dormitory at St. Mary's Catholic School in Niger State. bulus dauwa yohanna/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

School kidnappings have become a cruel fact of life in Nigeria

4 min read . 25 Nov 2025

In May, the U.N. food agency ended food distribution to one million refugees in the East African country due to funding shortfalls, largely from U.S. cuts. (AFP)

Refugees in Africa fight over food as US aid cuts take hold

5 min read . 12 Aug 2025

A textile factory in Maseru, Lesotho.

In a country Trump says nobody’s heard of, tariffs bring chaos

5 min read . 01 Aug 2025

Farmers use sticks to harvest cocoa pods at a plantation. Cocoa futures in New York soared 178% last year, hitting a record high of $12,565 a metric ton in December. (File Photo: AFP)

Cocoa farmers uproot their plants despite record prices

4 min read . 08 Jan 2025

An extinct female quagga foal whose tissue was harvested for DNA testing is now housed at the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town. (Charlie Shoemaker for WSJ)

Did scientists revive an extinct animal or just breed a less stripey zebra?

5 min read . 12 Nov 2024

Congolese M23 rebels. Coltan is mined in Congo’s east, a region that has been engulfed in a decades-long war between rebel groups and the Congolese army. (File Photo: Reuters)

How this conflict mineral gets smuggled into everyday tech

5 min read . 06 Oct 2024

There are around 228,000 elephants in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to a 2022 aerial survey of those countries

Drought-stricken countries kill elephants to feed the hungry

5 min read . 05 Oct 2024

Linki Mugidi, 50, relocated to Boekenhouthoek over a year ago to eke out a living by digging for quartz. (Photo: Ilan Godfrey/The Wall Street Journal)

How ‘healing’ crystals are painful to mine

5 min read . 24 Jun 2024

Around 8.5 million Sudanese have been forced from their homes since the start of the war in April 2023. (File Photo: Reuters)

How soda, chocolate and chewing gum are funding war in Sudan

5 min read . 23 May 2024

A worker loads harvested cacao pods into a machine to remove husks. Starting from 30 December, chocolate makers that sell or produce in the EU will have to show that the cocoa they use wasn’t grown on land cut from forests since the end of 2020. (Photo: Bloomberg)

Why cocoa farmers are GPS mapping where their beans are grown

9 min read . 20 May 2024

A Starlink satellite on the roof of a home in Galisteo, New Mexico, US. Photographer: Cate Dingley/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)

Musk’s Starlink cracks down on growing black market

6 min read . 17 Apr 2024

Nigerians flocked to cryptocurrencies in recent years to shelter their savings from a soaring inflation rate, which hit nearly 30% in January, and a plunging currency, one of the worst-performing in the world this year. (Photo: Bloomberg News)

Crypto gets blamed for a real-life currency crisis

6 min read . 12 Mar 2024

Manganese Metal Co. in Mbombela, South Africa, has been operating for decades but only recently drew a surge of interest from Western auto manufacturers. ALEXANDRA WEXLER/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Why Every Western Automaker Is Visiting This Remote Part of South Africa

5 min read . 30 Dec 2023

South Africa’s state utility Eskom, which operates the Matla facility in the country’s east, has delayed its plans to retire coal-fired power plants. WALDO SWIEGERS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Billions in U.S. Funding Hasn’t Convinced Developing World to Ditch Coal

6 min read . 03 Dec 2023

South Africa’s MTN Group agreed to sell a minority stake in its fintech business to Mastercard. (Photo: Bloomberg)

Visa, Mastercard want a slice of Africa’s mobile money

4 min read . 19 Oct 2023

Walmart Goes All In on Africa

Walmart Goes All In on Africa

4 min read . 11 Sept 2023

Violent crime, rising costs put South Africa’s mining industry in a deep hole

6 min read . 18 Jan 2022