I think it's really ironic that I'm reading your post on an HP laptop with
Vista!
I LOVE HP!
Reece
Visit me here for advice and discounts!
www.emjenn-security-solutions.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Astromancer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 12:44:32 AM
Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Playstation 2 component incites African war
That confirms my comitment to buy PC only games...I bet HP uses that
blood-tainted stuff in its computers...(spit!!!)
I am me, said the stranger, and I work for the ones who pay my fee...and
that's not you." - The Side Street Chonicles by C.W. Badie
--- On Fri, 7/25/08, ravenadal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: ravenadal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [scifinoir2] Playstation 2 component incites African war
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, July 25, 2008, 7:45 AM
Playstation 2 component incites African war
Console war reaches past the couch and into the Congo, claims report.
By Ben Silverman
Has the video game industry dug up its very own blood diamond?
According to a report by activist site Toward Freedom, for the past
decade the search for a rare metal necessary in the manufacturing of
Sony's Playstation 2 game console has fueled a brutal conflict in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
At the center of the conflict is the unrefined metallic ore, coltan.
After processing, coltan turns into a powder called tantalum, which is
used extensively in a wealth of western electronic devices including
cell phones, computers and, of course, game consoles.
Allegedly, the demand for coltan prompted Rwandan military groups and
western mining companies to plunder hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of the rare metal, often by forcing prisoners-of- war and even
children to work in the country's coltan mines.
"Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in
Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms,"
said Ex-British Parliament Member Oona King.
So where's the connection to Sony? According to Toward Freedom, during
the 2000 launch of the PS2, the electronics giant was having trouble
meeting consumer demand. To pump out more units, Sony required a
significant increase in the production of electric capacitors, which
are primarily made with tantalum. This helped drive the world price of
the powder from $49/pound to a whopping $275/pound, resulting in the
frenzied scouring of the Congolese hills known for being ripe with coltan.
Sony has since sworn off using tantalum acquired from the Congo,
claiming that current builds of the PS2, PSP and PS3 consoles are
sourced from a variety of mines in several different countries.
But according to researcher David Barouski, they're hardly off the hook.
"SONY's PlayStation 2 launch...was a big part of the huge increase in
demand for coltan that began in early 1999," he explained. "SONY and
other companies like it, have the benefit of plausible deniability,
because the coltan ore trades hands so many times from when it is
mined to when SONY gets a processed product, that a company often has
no idea where the original coltan ore came from, and frankly don't
care to know. But statistical analysis shows it to be nearly
inconceivable that SONY made all its PlayStations without using
Congolese coltan."
Currently, the Playstation 2 is the best-selling video game console of
all-time, having sold through over 140 million units.
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