The REAL cost is even higher if you use them - especially if you ship the equipment half way across the world. Tantalum capacitors on other than well controlled voltage level and / or intrinsically low energy circuits are about as entertaining an electronic components to see / hear / smell in operation as can be had. (A CRT or LCD or speaker may do better in one of these areas but not in all 3. A tantalum capacitor can perform in all 3 at once). __________ Re the Congo situation. If it's not tantalum it will be and has been something else, or nothing at all, doing just as badly for the people, sadly. For as long as I can recall (since when it was always called "The Belgian Congo") it has been renowned for continuous bloodshed and brutal massacre. They must be amongst the most brutally treated people on earth. I'm not even certain that you can blame 'big business' of any nation for this specific saga (although it may well be the case). The raw material is desired regardless of who is in charge and it seems likely that you'd do better trying to deal with the incumbents than sponsoring a war and getting a munch of local (military) entrepreneurs aware of your interest. Note that this is rather "old news" (the "civil" war which this is/was part of started in 1999 and many articles on this are dated 2001) so for censored to call it one of the 25 top censored stories of 2007 appears to be a gross fabrication. It doesn't make the plight of the people involved any more palatable. Russell.. . ___________________________________ The version of the story copied below the following references also doesn't sound good, but differs in key areas from the other version From: http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/apr03_2001.html#link5 MDC (Zimbabwe opposition party)(so MAY be considered 'good guys' (by some)). ________ African unification front Their summary A summary of the facts could include the following points: * Some coltan mining and shipments help support the continued civil war in the Congo. * Determining the exact source of coltan is difficult. * Coltan is used to produce tantalum capacitors and other components of modern electronic devices. * Such electronic devices are increasingly in demand. * The Congo is far distant from most people (especially in the United States). The moral issue, then, is whether it is proper to support the killing of innocents in exchange for electronic devices? http://www.africanfront.com/coltantrade.php ______________________________________________________ 32 page PDF International Peace Information Service. Interesting and informative. Maps and more. May even be factual :-) Supporting the War Economy in the DRC: European companies and the coltan trade http://www.grandslacs.net/doc/2343.pdf _______________________ Guns, Money and Cell Phones By Kristi Essick The Industry Standard Magazine Issue Date: Jun 11 2001The industry standard magazine Note the year !!! http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/Articles/TheStandardColtan.asp ____ Kinshasa - Rebel authorities in the DRC announced on Saturday that they were scrapping a monopoly on exports of colombite tantalite, or coltan, the lucrative mineral that is allegedly fuelling the war in the east of the country. Coltan, an ore rich in the element tantalum, is the wonder mineral of the moment. In processed form, coltan is vital to the manufacture of advanced cellphones, jet engines, air bags, night-vision goggles, fibre-optics and, most of all, capacitors, the components that maintain an electric charge in a computer chip. Last Christmas, when shoppers fumed at the shortage of PlayStation 2 platforms the reason was a global shortage of the black sand. An exclusive contract to export 100 tons of coltan every month was granted last November to the Somigl company, which offered $10 (about R80) a kilogram export duty to the rebels, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD). But in February Somigl bought only 27 tons and paid only $270 000 tax, say the RCD authorities, who blame smuggling for most of the shortfall. "We realise the monopoly isn't working so we've decided to get rid of it," said Dr Adolphe Onusumba, the president of the RCD. "We want to raise as much as possible from coltan so that we can realise our main objectives of saving lives, fixing hospitals and getting medicines for people in need." Thousands of labourers digging and sifting black mud on the hillsides of eastern Congo would be glad to learn that the vast profits from their labours will have an impact on social services. At the village of Luruo in North Kivu, where coltan miners and their bosses say each digger makes between $2 and $5 a day, social services are virtually non-existent. Milenge Gasaza, the local teacher, said the school has closed down due to insecurity, and Justin Amani, the village pharmacist, appears to have run out of the most basic medicines. A few huts have been roofed with corrugated iron and some miners have taken second wives, said Emanuel Molindwa, a local priest, last weekend. "But living standards are worse than they were before the war," he said. When war broke out in the Congo in August 1998 hardly anyone had heard of coltan and it was selling on the international market for less than 15 percent of its current price. "At that time no one could know what coltan would cost," said Onusumba, who denied UN reports that coltan is an implicit motive for the war. In the past 18 months the price has doubled and redoubled till it reached about $440 a kilogram last December, before settling at about $330. The miners see little of the proceeds. On average they might dig 5kg a month of coltan ore, which averages about 15 to 18 percent coltan. Each kilo sells for about $10 to the middlemen, who have been forced to sell to Somigl for $20 a kilo. The product is partially refined, till it averages 20 to 50 percent coltan, and then exported to Kigali, the Rwandan capital, and from there to Europe. The value of the Congo's exported coltan ranges between $30 and $80 a kilo, said Nestor Kyimbi, the head of the RCD's mining department. The RCD said coltan raised more for them than gold or diamonds combined. Kyimbi estimated that about 100 to 150 tons had been exported legally or smuggled from the Congo each month since the middle of last year, a claim backed by Victor Ngezayo, the former president of Sakima, a United States-owned mining company in Kivu whose equipment has been confiscated by the rebels. RCD figures suggest total proceeds from Congolese exports of the mineral could amount to $5,5-million to $8-million a month, with the companies exporting from Rwanda making further profits. Ngezayo believes the value per kilogram of the exports could be much higher. UN experts have been investigating how much the top people in Rwanda and the Congo benefit from coltan, and their report was due to be heard on Friday at the UN security council in New York. It may be no coincidence that Onusumba announced the end of Somigl's monopoly on the same day. Politicians and security chiefs in Congo and Rwanda are essential partners for any company doing business in their territory, said Ngezayo, who said the Somigl monopoly was not intended to clamp down on smuggling but to encourage it, thereby netting more profits for an inner group of rebels and Rwandans who organise the smuggling themselves. It is a charge that Onusumba hardly bothers to deny. "I can't say yes or no," he said, when asked if the security chiefs were involved in smuggling. "I can't say that such and such a person is more involved in smuggling than others. We're living in a country where there is no respect for any normal value." President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, whose country's revenues from gold have risen tenfold since Ugandan troops moved into Congo in 1997, has estimated he can keep 20 000 soldiers in the field for just $3-million a month. President Joseph Kabila, whose army is thought to number about 70 000 men, was estimated to be spending $1-million a day on his war effort, including arms purchases, fuel and payments to Zimbabwe. Unlike the Ugandans and Rwandans Kabila is investing heavily in aircraft. A few million a month could go a long way towards financing the lightly armed Rwandan and Congolese forces, who live off the country in the regions that they occupy. Whether the money is in fact spent that way, or lines the pockets of a few in power, is another question. Rwanda's policy is clearly to create a buffer zone to cut off the "negative forces" from their homeland in the hope that they will wither away in a foreign country. Analysts believe Rwanda's exploitation of the Congo has been more systematic than Uganda's, and much of the proceeds may well be channelled into maintaining a buffer zone. In the final analysis, exploiting mineral resources and maintaining border security look like inseparable objectives for the ethnic minority regime in Kigali. __________________________________ Russell. >> Just came across this (See item 5: High-Tech Genocide in Congo): >> >> http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2007/index.htm > I wouldn't say that these are the costs of tantalum caps. This is > rather > part of the cost of judging "things" only by their (monetary) price. > I > don't think that there's a way around this: either we start > including what > we value into the price, or we start acknowledging that the price > (i.e. > /all/ monetary figures) doesn't reflect what we value. Which has > more > consequences than one might think at first look. -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist