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obmar
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Joined: 14 Apr 2006
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The Inquisitor
Joined: 17 Jun 2006
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 Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Very interesting site, obmar. That person looks very knowledgeable about your country. |
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obmar
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| Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 8:21 am Post subject: |
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| She is malaysian, so that would not be a surprise, TI. |
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The Inquisitor
Joined: 17 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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obmar,
Do you guys mine much coltan in Malaysia?? I have just read a very distressing article about the viciousness of corporations mining that in Africa and causing the deaths of millions of people. It's an ore that is used to make capacitors for cell phones, lap tops and other electronic devices.
Have you heard much about that?? |
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obmar
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 1:57 pm Post subject: |
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Maybe, I don't know
produced
as a by-product of tin mining and smelting. |
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Radiate_Truth
Joined: 18 Aug 2007
Posts: 1056
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 3:18 am Post subject: |
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| The Inquisitor wrote: | obmar,
Do you guys mine much coltan in Malaysia?? I have just read a very distressing article about the viciousness of corporations mining that in Africa and causing the deaths of millions of people. It's an ore that is used to make capacitors for cell phones, lap tops and other electronic devices.
Have you heard much about that?? |
Had no idea but it makes for some pretty interesting reading when researching...
Coltan is the colloquial African name for columbite-tantalite, a metallic ore used to produce the elements niobium and tantalum. Mineral concentrates containing tantalum are usually referred to as 'tantalite' [1]. In appearance, coltan is a dull black mineral. The exportation of coltan helped fuel the war in the Congo, a conflict that has resulted in approximately 3.8 million deaths [2]. Coltan is the ore for tantalum used in consumer electronics products such as cell phones, DVD players, computers, and games consoles.
Coltan in the Congo
The Congo is a politically unstable area. The Rwandan occupation in the east of the Congo has meant the DRC has been unable to exploit the resource for its own benefit. A recent UN Security Council report charged that a great deal of the ore is mined illegally and smuggled over the country's eastern borders by militias from neighbouring Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda.[1]
Coltan smuggling has also been implicated as a major source of income for the military occupation of Congo. To many, this raises ethical questions akin to those of conflict diamonds. Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate mining operations, several electronics manufacturers have decided to forgo central African coltan altogether, relying on other sources.[citation needed] In any case the high-tech industry's demand for tantalum clearly has fueled an increase in coltan mining worldwide - including in the Congo region. After all, the trading companies sell coltan to processing companies, which in turn sell to tantalum capacitor manufacturers - whose clients are none other than high-tech companies such as Ericsson, Intel and Nokia.[citation needed]
These companies deny any knowledge that tantalum originating in the Congo is used in their products. That's not surprising, considering how murky the supply chain out of the Congo is and how complicated the global trade in tantalum gets. The reality is that there's little way to prove that the tantalum used in our cell phones and laptops is or is not from the Congo.
All three countries named by the United Nations as smugglers of coltan have denied being involved. Austrian journalist Klaus Werner has documented links between multi-national companies like Bayer and the illegal coltan traffic [2].
READ REST AT SOURCE
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