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Sprint Moves To Eliminate 'Blood Minerals' From Cell Phones
Velcroman1 writes "So-called 'blood diamonds' or conflict diamonds are the well-publicized face of the decades-long human rights challenge in Africa. But the mining and sale of a lesser-known but more widely used group of natural resources known as 'blood minerals' has also fueled civil wars in Congo and Uganda — and they're in the latest smartphones. Congress sought to address the issue through the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which included a requirement for companies to disclose conflict minerals. In 2011 the SEC opened a public debate about this disclosure — but Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington is critical of the process. 'They are afraid of being sued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the World Gold Council,' McDermott said. Ahead of the SEC ruling, Sprint has made baby steps to come to terms with the controversy, joining the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) and the Public-Private Alliance for Responsible Minerals Trade (PPA), and said it is working to make device manufacturers aware of the issue. But are they doing enough?"
How much iron is really in a cell phone? Oh wait...
Trolling is a art,
At least it is something for the drug kingpins to do if we finally legalize pot...
Saying "I am not going to buy this very valuable thing from you because you are bad" just gives others the opportunity to make a bit of scratch moving it around.
Well I'll be switching to sprint just for the effort. For a while now I have been purchasing ethically traded products and really trying to decrease my dependence upon slave made and harvested products. (it costs a bit but if we vote with our dollars some change may occur). I also think it is better for the economy (Global and local). Because more money goes to the workers, thus more money moves around.
I may be an idiot or a sucker but at the very least I feel better about myself!
Trying to track down where in Africa minerals are mined will require massive spending on auditors and lawyers. Bribery and corruption is rife. A much more effective approach is to support refugees, wherever they may end up. Furthermore, population growth and AIDS are larger problems than the African civil wars. Rwanda's population is already larger that what is was before the genocide there.
You see, the main problem I see here, is that the FBI could help! But they only work offshore if it's related to software piracy.
Yeah, forget the protection of workers. Let's just compensate them. "Sorry you lost your home and your hand got cut off for not mining enough. But here's a tent!"
Furthermore, population growth and AIDS are larger problems than the African civil wars. Rwanda's population is already larger that what is was before the genocide there.
Population growth and AIDS are partly due to the civil wars. If an area's unsafe, volunteer educators and doctors are far more rare, so STDs spread rampantly. With uncertainty about the future and high rates of child mortality, people reproduce as much as they can, trying to ensure that their family/tribe/group will endure, and even grow large enough to eventually win whatever the current conflict is. These civil wars have grown from centuries of tribal conflict, so the battle plans are laid out on a scale of generations, with parents expecting that their children will some day fight for their tribe in glorious battle, if only those damned Westerners would get out of their way and stop saving whoever's losing the war this decade...
Supporting peaceful endeavors (including "mining companies that won't kill each other") and education is the best way I know of to solve all three problems. With education comes a better economy, sanitation, a more stable future, lower birth rate, which finally leads to better education.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You gotta be pretty bad if your corporation is too evil for the USA.
then why is oracle still here?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Could it be that the problem of poor leadership and exploitation in Africa is a complicated problem than can't be immediately solved by guns?
Western nations, as well as now Eastern nations (read China and Taiwan) can stay the hell out of Africa. Corruption won't occur if no one is providing the dollars, yuan, euros or any other currency with which to bribe and buy influence. We can stop looking toward the third world to provide for our standard of living, and if smart phones and other electronic devices can't be made without slave labor or exploiting workers in a developing nation to keep the price down, then perhaps it's a luxury we can do without. The same goes for oil in the Niger river delta.
Not really.
There are three minerals involved - tungsten, tantalum and tin. The electronics groups have gotten together to work on the first mineral, tantalum and have done it at the smelter scale. There are 45 smelters worldwide that process coltan into tantalum, and from there it's a lot easier.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/cracking-down-on-conflict-minerals
The other two are next challenges (Tin is used for displays and touchscreens, tungsten in motors. Hrm... old style lightbulbs - conflict lightbulbs?)
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/cracking-down-on-conflict-minerals
Blood diamonds are diamonds that have been mined. And up until science came up with a way to create synthetic and flawless diamonds, they were a rare and valuable natural resource. But like I said, until then. What happened after was laws were passed banning the use of synthetic diamonds in jewelry, and by 'happy' coincidence, their use in industrial process as well. Thus the distributors of diamonds in this (and other) countries could continue to command large sums of money for a rare and natural resource -- even though we now had a common and abundantly available supply via industrial process.
And so, because of the decisions of those individuals, corporations, etc., with the kind help of the majority of Congress and the authorization of the President, we helped make it possible for the exploitation of millions. We assisted in the enslavement of human beings, by trading our dollars for the fruit of those unnecessary labors. And we have allowed this to go on for as long as it has, because as long as we don't have to stare into their faces with a recognition of what they've done -- that our dollars do it for us, we can remain in ignorant or apathetic bliss.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
... when Sprint stops taking my blood once every month.
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Congress sought to address the issue through the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which included a requirement for companies to disclose conflict minerals.
Well, right there is part of the problem. If this is something that should be dealt with in U.S. law (I can understand why it is, but I can imagine that there might be a good argument as to why it shouldn't be...and am not interested in arguing that point from either side), it should be in a law all by itself, not as an afterthought tagged on to a banking regulation bill.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison