Conflict Minerals

http://www.wsj.com/

Companies are buying more conflict-free tin, tungsten and tantalum as they face stricter reporting requirements about the source of their minerals

Companies are buying fewer minerals connected to militia groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the Enough Project, a human rights group.

Enough found that armed groups control less of the trade in tin, tungsten and tantalum in the DRC than they did five or 10 years ago. That means more of the metals – used in everything from wedding rings to soup cans to cell phones – can be considered conflict free, the group said in a report released Tuesday.

Read more

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Seven years ago, Carolyn Duran realized the company she worked for had blood on its hands.

Intel — the world’s largest semiconductor maker, where Duran led sustainability efforts — was building many of its products with minerals and metals extracted from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten, all crucial components in many electronics, fund an on-again-off-again civil war marked by rape and brutal violence.

But getting these conflict minerals out of Intel’s supply chain was not as simple as prohibiting purchases from militant-controlled mines.

Read more

http://www.theguardian.com/

A group of African nations have developed a framework that will make it easier for companies to keep conflict minerals out of their supply chains.

The new certification framework, known as the Regional Certification Mechanism, was developed by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), an intergovernmental organization of 12 African countries, and released in August. It includes multiple steps and a system of checks and balances that experts say will make it easier for companies to clean up their supply chains.

“For the first time in Congo’s history, there is a thorough, multi-stakeholder process to assess whether rebel groups or the army are profiting from mines,” said Sasha Lezhnev, associate director of policy at the Enough Project.

The advocacy group works to end war crimes in Africa. “Considering the past decades of conflict mining and the more recent history of pillaging minerals to support war, this is a very important step,” she said.

According to the Enough Project’s latest report, out of 180 mines assessed in the war-stricken Democratic Republic of Congo, 140 have now been validated as conflict-free.

Read more

http://america.aljazeera.com/

Minerals from countries where sales fund corruption and violence continue to enter the US, as oversight proves tricky

Efforts by the United States to reduce the devastating violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by regulating the trade in conflict minerals — a group of four minerals, mined in Congo and neighboring countries, where they help to finance conflict there — are proving difficult to enforce as illegal armed groups and corrupt members of the national military continue to create instability in the region, according to a report released this summer by the Government Accountability Office.

“We do see these armed groups are still present and they are most likely still benefiting from the mineral trade,” Evie Francq, a DRC researcher with Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera America by phone from Nairobi.

“What we see is there are still very big displacements of the population, people that are fleeing abuses by rebel groups,” said Francq, adding that civilians have also become caught up in army operations against those groups, like the Democratic Force for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

“Often civilians are targeted either by the armed group or by the [Congolese] army because they’re suspected of giving information about the group to the army, or about different groups that are fighting against each other,” she said.

Read more

http://www.nytimes.com/

A pink My Little Pony balloon does not usually evoke images of rifle-toting warlords in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Still, Party City Holdings, the decorations and costumes retailer, recently disclosed a possible link to securities regulators, helping to put it near the bottom of a list ranking companies on their compliance with laws against using minerals mined in war-torn regions across Africa.

Party City is just one of 1,262 companies that filed the required disclosures on their use of so-called conflict minerals. Ninety percent of those companies, including Microsoft, Apple, General Electric and Ford Motor, said they also might be using tainted supplies. Yet Party City landed near the bottom of a list compiled by Tulane University researchers that ranked the companies’ compliance records in this area, while giants like Microsoft achieved perfect scores.

“Anybody with a relative interest in ethical sourcing would be interested in this list,” said Matthew Whitteker, the marketing director for Assent Compliance, a software and services firm in Ottawa that commissioned the Tulane study. “For any company that manages this well, both Wall Street and Main Street will look at their brand favorably.”

The Tulane study is just one example of a growing business opportunity for consultants, auditors, lawyers and software firms looking to cash in on a complex provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that requires companies to disclose their use of conflict minerals “necessary to the functionality or production” of products they make or contract out for manufacturing.

Read more

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Finally, some good news for brutal militias.

WASHINGTON — Warlords in the Democratic Republic of Congo got some help from two conservative judges on Tuesday, when a federal appeals court for the District of Columbia ruled against part of a key regulation on conflict minerals.

But they also got an unlikely assist from Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White, whose very agency was defending the rule before the court.

Armed militias in eastern Congo have long relied on the mining of tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold to finance more than a decade of violence, much of it targeting civilians. But militia access to mining wealth was dramatically curbed in 2012, when the SEC adopted a new regulation requiring U.S. companies to audit their supply chains for conflict minerals. The agency also required corporations to disclose the findings of those audits to consumers in simple language that explains whether their products are “DRC conflict free.”

Congress directed the SEC to write the rule as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Read more

http://www.theregister.co.uk/

Dodd-Frank stupidity writ large

Worstall on Wednesday I have muttered around here more than a few times about the various idiocies of the Blood in the Mobile campaign. This was the idea that we could stop the appalling (and true) levels of violence in Eastern Congo’s mining trade by making American companies fill out lots of documents.

The idea was that if they all had to say whether they used conflict minerals, they’d all prefer to be able to say “no” and therefore there wouldn’t be the violence over the minerals trade that happens today.

We were told that this would cost some $10m originally, one cent on the price of each mobile phone. By the time the legislature got at it, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it would cost $4bn in the first year alone.

I rather railed against this, insisting that there was a much easier, cheaper and simpler system available; one that the industry itself was already implementing.

Read more

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/

Game industry’s track record of making sure its money doesn’t fund war crimes in DR Congo is improving, but still appalling

Massacres, child soldiers, mass rape, razed villages, summary executions… It’s all been happening the Democratic Republic of the Congo as armed groups have torn the country apart for years, in part funded by the sale of locally mined resources like tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold, sometimes abbreviated as 3TG or more commonly referred to as conflict minerals.

Yesterday, I covered Activision’s latest SEC filing on its sourcing of conflict minerals. The good news was that Activision has no reason to believe Skylanders or the other merchandise it sells are funding the violent conflict in DR Congo.

The bad news is that it couldn’t say the same thing last year. And as I discovered upon looking at filings from other big companies in the games industry, the worse news is that Activision’s position–based on surveys completed by its supply partners and unspecified “independent research”–is about as good as it gets.

Conflict minerals aren’t an issue for most games industry companies. Game discs don’t need conflict minerals, so the concern is generally limited to those making hardware or high-tech toys. For Activision, that means Skylanders and Blizzard merchandise.

Read more

http://uk.reuters.com/

BRUSSELS – The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to ban all products that contain “blood metals” sold by African warlords, but the legislation is likely to be blocked by EU governments who fear it would impose an unrealistic burden on business.

The surprise result marked a defeat for the pro-business European People’s Party (EPP), the parliament’s biggest grouping, who need fellow centrist allies to pass laws following last year’s EU elections where protest parties did well.

The European Parliament voted 402 in favour versus 118 against with 171 abstentions on a proposal to require companies, including electronics firms, that buy gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten to certify imports do not finance warlords in Africa.

“Parliament votes for mandatory transparency against conflict minerals. Big success!” tweeted German Green Ska Keller after the vote in Strasbourg as some lawmakers broke out in applause while others stood in huddles, surprised by the result.

The result is set to paralyse the bill because European Union governments say firms across the 28 EU countries cannot track materials from small mines all the way through commodity exchanges to component manufacturers and the final product.

Read more

http://www.catholicsentinel.org/

OXFORD, England — An international consortium of Catholic aid agencies charged that European businesses are causing suffering and death by importing minerals from regions of the world experiencing armed conflict.

The Brussels-based International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity, or CIDSE, demanded firmer action by businesses to ensure that minerals used in consumer products such as cellphones and laptop computers are responsibly sourced.

“The exploitation and trade of natural resources finances armed groups responsible for serious abuses of local populations. We can all take action to end this violence,” said the CIDSE statement released March 9.

“In sourcing resources from conflict-affected or high-risk areas, European businesses risk fueling violence to the detriment of human rights, peace and development. In this way, blood minerals find their way into our computers, telephones and cars,” CIDSE said.

The statement was released ahead of March18-19 discussions in the European Parliament of a draft law, developed by the European Union’s governing commission, to control minerals from conflict-torn regions.

Read more