MINING COLTAN, CHILD SLAVERY, BUSH SR, BIN LANDEN & CANADA
https://laborrights.org/in-the-news/plight-african-child-slaves-forced-mines-our-mobile-phones 2010
The massive demand for coltan - short for columbite-tantalite - has fuelled a desperate and bloody battle to seize the river beds where it can be mined.
Coltan smuggling is big business throughout Africa and is a major source of income for warring militias.
This is an industry which is concentrated on forced labour and child labour. It's horrific.
"Their working conditions are inhuman and have accelerated now because it's the dry season and the river beds are dry.
"Children are essential to the process because they can get into smaller holes dug in the river beds."
The UN list includes household names such as Compaq, Dell, IBM, Nokia and Siemens.
The US-based Carlisle Group, a global private equity investment firm fronted by George Bush Snr, made a fortune from coltan.
Their board of directors includes ex-US Secretary of State James Baker, ex-US Defence Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, former UK Prime Minister John Major and until October 2001 was the home to a £1million investment from the bin Laden family.
What is COLTAN?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan
Tantalum from coltan is used to manufacture batteries for electric cars, and in tantalum capacitors it is used in electronic products. Coltan mining[2][3] has helped to finance serious conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example the Ituri conflict and the Second Congo War.[
Tantalum minerals are mined in Colombia, Australia, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.[8] Tantalum is also produced in Thailand and Malaysia as a by-product of tin mining and smelting. Potential future mines, in descending order of magnitude, are being explored in Egypt, Greenland, China, Australia, Finland, Canada and Brazil.[9]
Many global mining companies – 60% of all mining companies – have registered with the lightly regulated stock exchanges in Toronto and Vancouver, with the exception of a single proposed mine in Blue River BC, due to environmental regulations no mining of coltan is currently taking place in Canada itself.[10] In Canada
Reserves have been identified in Afghanistan
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced in 2009 that a significant reserve of coltan was discovered in western Venezuela
The United States responded to conflict minerals with section 1501 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which required that companies who might have conflict minerals in their supply chain to register with the US Securities and Exchange Commission disclose their suppliers