Minerals

The final jetfighter maneuver that took the plane around for final landing into Goma couldn’t even be described as comparable to a roller coaster; not even Montezuma’s Revenge. It came unexpectedly. I had been warned, but even that wasn't sufficient to prepare oneself. Suddenly there was part of me that wondered if I was underwater, or if it just felt like I was swimming for a moment. As it turned out, we were making a Top Gun move instead.

Our flight was just us, the Russian pilots, and a couple of local guys parked on the bags of casiderite that lined the belly of the plane. Does being on a plane loaded with illegally extracted minerals implicate me in this mess that is Congo? It seems that the equivalent in South America would be hoping on a flight loaded down with cocaine.
For those not familiar with issues in Eastern DR Congo, the exploitation of the minerals that power our electronic devices that are fueling the conflict in the region. These include casiterite, coltan, copper, and then the added valuable such as gold and diamonds. They make up what have now been coined as “conflict minerals”. If you want to take action on this, check out the Enough website that shows you how to get involved.

Miel

Corruption in Afghanistan

A friend passed this article on to me and I thought folks would be interested in it. It appears that Transparency International ranked Afghanistan 172nd out of the 179 countries surveyed last year on its corruption-perceptions Index. That's quite something out of a great many corrupt nations!

I'd have to say that dealing with getting passports and visas I've certainly seen evidence to back up this survey. In Afghanistan you must bribe someone for just about anything you do, from getting married to getting from here to there and everything in between.

Working with the Higher Education Project the issue that often comes up is paying for degrees and grades. No one actually wants to put in the effort if they know that they can just buy their degree. In fact, even if they have put in the effort they might have to pay for what they've already earned legitimately.

It's hard to have faith in anything if you know that everything has it's price.

Miel