Slashdot Mirror
Thirst For Coltan Fueling African Conflict
MetaPhyzx writes "According to an article put forth by the Toward Freedom website, the metallic ore known as columbite-tantalite or coltan for short is fueling conflict in central Africa. The relevance to us who read news for geeks: Coltan is in quite a few consumer electronics; the article references the Sony Playstation series." As reader fahrvergnugen points out in the comments below, there's reason to more than doubt the currency of the claims in the above-linked article, as outlined in a post at Joystiq.
Congo sourced coltan is less than 1% of the world market which is currently dominated by Australian production. How much better control do you want than sourcing 99% elsewhere?
Tantalum capacitors are used in a lot of electronics. While they are used in Playstations, that doesn't mean Sony (as much as I dislike them) are at the majority of fault. And now Sony doesn't use coltan from that region, so as not to support conflict. They just threw the playstation name around for publicity, I think they could have done better.
The exploitation of coltan was one of the main plot points for John LeCarre's excellent book "The Mission Song". The book is at least a couple of years old, so this has obviously been known for a while.
I'm a huge LeCarre fan and he always manages to stay relevant and current, while it seems like the majority of spy novelists floundered after the end of the cold war until the "war on terror" gave them another easy boogeyman.
Actually... From here...
In season 1, episode 4, "Heavy Metal", of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles , it is stated that the endoskeleton of the Terminator machines is made using alloys derived from coltan to make them hardened to heat.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Joystiq has posted an excellent refutation of this tempest in a tea-pot.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
In the rugged volcanic mountains of the Congo the conflict known as Africa's World War continues to smolder after ten grueling years. The conflict earned its name because at the height of the war eight African nations and over 25 militias were in the combatant mix. But more recently the conflict was given another name: The PlayStation War. The name came about because of a black metallic ore called coltan. Extensive evidence shows that during the war hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coltan was stolen from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The UN and several NGOs claim some of the most active thieves were the Rwandan military, several militias supported by the Rwandan government, and also a number of western-based mining companies, metal brokers, and metal processors that had allegedly partnered with these Rwandan factions. After it is refined, coltan becomes a bluish-gray powder called tantalum, which is defined as a transition metal. For the most part, tantalum has one significant use: to satisfy the West's insatiable appetite for personal technology. Tantalum is used to make cell phones, laptops and other electronics made, for example, by SONY, a multi-billion dollar multinational based in Japan that manufactures the iconic PlayStation, a video game console. And while allegations of plundering coltan from a nation in desperate need of revenue seem bad enough, the UN also discovered that Rwandan troops and rebels were using prisoners-of-war and children to mine for the "black gold." "Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms," said British politician Oona King, who was a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2005. Most of the fighting from Africa's World War ended in 2003 following a peace accord. But reports of troop tension, instability and rampant sexual violence against women continue to emerge from where the war was at its most intense: the eastern portion of the DRC, near the city of Goma and in the DRC province of North Kivu. This is a region where millions of Congolese live among active volcanoes and endangered Mountain Gorillas. But even if many have put down their guns, a London-based non-government office called Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) continues to fight its own battle against scores of Western-based mining companies that continued to work in the DRC, or purchase minerals and metals allegedly stolen from the DRC, as the war raged on. These companies, such as Eagle Wings Resources International of Ohio, Cabot Corporation of Boston, Mass., and Chemie Pharmacie Holland of the Netherlands, were charged with having stolen millions of dollars worth of resources out of the DRC, or made millions processing stolen resources from the DRC, namely coltan. When the war started in 1998, the UN and others believed that one area of the conflict was the product of tribal and ethnic rivalries. The Rwandan government, for instance, told the world they invaded the DRC, their neighbor to the West, to go after those who committed atrocities during the 1994 genocide that killed over 800,000 people. Yet, according to the UN, the Rwandans were shedding blood for something far cheaper; they were shooting it out for the mines that pockmarked the volcanic mountains of DRC's eastern regions. These mines contained deposits of cobalt, uranium, gold and, of course, coltan. A UN Panel of Experts investigation would expose the resource war in 2001, releasing several reports entitled "The Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the DRC". The reports made disturbing charges against scores of multinational mining companies, like Eagle Wings Resources International and Chemie Pharmacie Holland. The UN alleged the mining companies directly and indirectly fueled the war, paralyzing the DRC government, and using the conflict to keep the coltan flowing cheaply out of the Congo. Some companies were also accused by the UN of aligning with elements of the warring parties. Fast forward to 2008,
And it wants its story back.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0DE1D7113CF931A2575BC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Warning, cape does not enable user to fly
Although not as dense, newer conventional electrolytics, as well as higher capacity multilayer ceramics, seem to be increasingly preferred to tantalums in new designs due to their improving density and decreasing cost. Eg you can now get X7R ceramic 22uF in 1206 packages - once exclusively the realm of tantalums, and with better ESR and temperature stability. So are tantalum's days numbered anyway?
Yep - That's all it takes. That's why, as soon as word got out about the horrors and hardships that blood diamonds were encouraging, the Congo immediately shut down all of its diamond mining capabilities. Just let the world know how ugly the situation is and they'll gladly give up their luxuries or pay a little bit extra to get them from somewhere a little more stable.
What?
They wont? The DRC is still exporting 8% of the world's diamonds and refusing to tell the UN where they're coming from and how they're attaining them? Well that's just sick...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
This was already ancient news when a nearly identical story came my way nine months ago.
Here is Nokia's statement from 2006 (one of many companies to establish a policy regarding tantalum sourcing as a result of the Congo conflict), sitting in plain sight on their website:
http://www.nokia.com/A4230065
"Our position: Tantalum / Coltan
"Nokia is not buying tantalum or other raw materials but processed components and assemblies from suppliers around the world. Suppliers' activities account for a substantial part of the life-cycle environmental impact of Nokia products. Nokia has a comprehensive set of global Nokia Supplier Requirements. These requirements also include environmental requirements. It is an integral part of Nokia's supply chain management to ensure that the suppliers comply with the requirements. To ensure compliance, trained Nokia personnel conduct regular assessments as part of normal supplier assessment.
"Nokia does not use any endangered species for any business purpose and furthermore requests that its suppliers avoid raw material procurement from an origin where there are clear human or animal rights abuse, or the method of procurement or distribution is illegal. In marketing and other company activities, Nokia will depict animals in a dignified manner.
"Nokia has sent a notification of the Congo situation to its suppliers using Tantalum asking them to follow the situation, and to avoid purchasing tantalum from Congo. Nokia is also reducing the use of tantalum in its products."
811.29.3.2
Are you kidding? It appears your "/sarcasm off" is about WMD. Nigeria has huge oil reserves and they are a major producer. Is it customary for your comments to be so ill informed?
There is no economic value in producing a weapon.
Sure there is, it makes defense contractors lots of money. But it is a drain on the economy, there's the opportunity cost, money that could have been used more wisely.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Yes, that line is in the Foundations. The Good Doctor was tipping his literary hat to another Good Doctor, Samuel Johnson, the harmless drudge : "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"