Answer to Question 1
It is both good and bad. If properly handled, both sides can benefit. Local politics,
if corrupt, can render a dismal result. It can enrich local oligarchs while impoverishing and
exploiting the general population.
Answer to Question 2
Your friend is both right and wrong. If the charge is stationary, there will be zero
magnetic force on it; a charge must be moving to have a magnetic force acting. Zero is twice
as great as zero, so in this sense your friend is correct.
Undoubtedly, though, the friend meant that factor of two to mean something. He or she
thought that there was a definite nonzero answer for the force, and this cannot be correct.