Russell McMahon wrote:
> 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).
>   

Except for a couple installed backwards, this never happened to me. In a 
40+ year career.
I just keep missing out on the fun stuff.

--Bob
> __________
>
>
> 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.
>>     
>
>   

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