I.T. Prices to raise? “Conflict Materials”, from Congo’s War to your Mac/PC, will now need a “pitstop” in Asia.
U.S. President Barack Obama has today approved a law in which electronics companies will be required to trace and know the origins of the materials used to make their products. Minerals such as gold, tungsten, tantalum and tin are mined and sold to fund war in Central Africa.
While Intel and Apple have recently joined the Conflict-Free Smelter program ahead of the legislation, perhaps to avoid any unwanted attention, and it’s the right thing to do, speculation on prices raising for all Hardware Pieces appears after the declaration of John Kanyoni, president of the mineral exporters association of North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo:
“There is a de-facto embargo, it’s very clear. We’re committed to continue with all these programs. But at the same time we’re traveling soon to Asia to find alternatives.”
At the same time that the american companies will no longer buy the “conflict materials”; nothing in the new law avoids them from buying it from asiatic countries (such as China) producer companies (such as Foxconn), which would be able to re-sell them double or triple priced, “laundered from the African War blood”.
While a Step-Forward in regulating some of the many abuses in the line of production of I.T. Hardware, the time in which this happens raised a debate in the situation of Middle Africa and South-Asia: Is this measure a way to ensure the monopoly of these minerals and even a way to keep their price artificially high?
Feel free to opine!
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COPYLEFT ANTOINE LAVOISIER 
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Internet Civilian Mark
Free Bradley Manning!
"...well it was forwarded to WikiLeaks,
and god knows what happens now.
Hopefully worldwide discussion , debates , and reforms
if not...
Than we're doomed as a species"
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