Congo Connection (2009): The mineral Coltan has fuelled a technological revolution in the West, but in the DRC it has become a talisman of brutal violence.

For similar stories, see:
Rage Of War In Congo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhHFHSNvTjo
Thousands Displaced In The Congo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk9ZG20ymeE
The Future of Virunga's Mountain Gorillas Is In Jeopardy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYTht_-lOuw

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Modern technology relies upon a mineral found in the Congo. Is our appetite for the latest gadgets fuelling rebel fighting in the Congo - threatening the survival of central Africa’s great gorillas?

On the inside of many devices like mobile phones and laptops is the mineral ‘Coltan’, which has made our gadgets smaller and more complex. In the mineral-rich Congo, armed militia watch over the children digging this mineral from the ground. “"The government only pretends to help us"” says one miner, who pays a government official just to work. “"The Congo is a shifting sands of various militia, the largest of which is the Congolese state itself”," explains an expert on blood minerals.

Yet the miners depend on the little they get from mining to survive. Electronic giants like Apple now claim they will no longer use Coltan from this area but experts are convinced the militias will “smuggle it onto the market” regardless. For local miners, the move away from African minerals is “just another way of penalising Africans”. Coltan fuels a conflict, which has seen national parks become war zones, gorillas killed for meat and hundreds of houses set on fire in turf wars over mineral territory. Yet it also feeds 400,000 petty traders. Why did it take a mobile phone to make us appreciate the injustice in the Congo?

ABC Australia – Ref. 4553

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The Real Mobile Phone Wars - DRC, 10 October 2001

As the high tech age takes over more and more of our lives manufacturers will go to any lengths to get the sometimes scarce minerals that go into them. Tantalum is one such rare ingredient. Few of us know that in the middle of Africa much human suffering is created in the pursuit of it.

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Coltan is a valuable metal because it can be processed and manufactured into a component called a capacitor, which sits on the circuit board of mobile phone and other portable electronic devices. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the world's second biggest supplier of coltan (after Australia), supplying an estimated 18 per cent of the world market. The trouble with coltan from Congo is that it is fuelling the war there. Various rebel groups and militias are mining, stealing, taxing and/or smuggling coltan to raise funds for their war effort. A recent UN report has declared the trade in coltan from Congo illegal because the legitimate and internationally recognised Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo does not license it. Instead the trade of coltan is helping to destabilise that government. Our reporter, JULIANA RUHFUS, travels via Uganda across the Kasindi border crossing, to Congo, her quest to find the source of coltan. Her often dangerous journey takes her via coltan traders, miners and warlords including the Mayi Mayi.

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A report by Juliana Ruhfus for Unreported World. Produced by Mentorn. Ref. 1170
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

HAPI Talks with HAPI Cast Member Dr. Leonard Jeffries about Economics, Politics and Culture.

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When we walk into a supermarket, we assume that we have the widest possible choice of healthy foods. But in fact, over the course of the 20th century, our food system was co-opted by corporate forces whose interests do not lie in providing the public with fresh, healthy, sustainably-produced food.

Fortunately for America, an alternative emerged from the counter-culture of California in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where a group of political anti-corporate protesters–led by Alice Waters–voiced their dissent by creating a food chain outside of the conventional system. The unintended result was the birth of a vital local-sustainable-organic food movement which has brought back taste and variety to our tables.

FOOD FIGHT is a fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement has created a counter-revolution against big agribusiness.

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Produced by Chris Taylor
How Corporations Ruined Food (Food Industry Documentary) - Real Stories