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This is already the post number 19 in a global view!

We want to thank all the people that have been reading the blog during the last 3 months. This is the last post for a while as our team will have a recess.

Don’t worry! the blog will not be over! The inactivity period will last approximately 1 month. Meanwhile we are considering to buy our own domain in order improve and promote the site even more. We are glad for having already some constant traffic from search engines (leading to comments); meaning that we are generating an impact. Nevertheless, this is only the beginning. We are looking forward to become bigger and better.

Do not hesitate in commenting and reading all our articles! If you want to contact us we will be active during the next month in order to answer your questions and receive your support.

Greetings,
A Global View Team

Coltan is an

There is a component that is part of almost every imaginable electronic circuits: tantalum capacitors, a popular variation of an ordinary condenser. If you  disarm  your computer, GPS receiver, cell phone, netbook, media player or any other gadget you have at hand probably find a few of these  inside. In fact, they have become an almost indispensable piece in the manufacture of electronic equipment.

The tantalum is obtained from a mineral called coltan, which is a more or less proportionate mixture of columbite and tantalite. Tantalum has some physical properties such as heat resistance and some unique electrical properties that make it particularly good for making  electrolytic capacitors. Almost all manufacturers need for tantalum  was supplied by Australia. But in recent years, it is  know that the Democratic Republic of Congo has 80% of the estimated world reserves of this mineral.
Coltan is often extracted by children.

However, contrary to what might seem at first glance, the owning large quantities of coltan has become a disgrace to the Congo. Is that, driven by increasing consumer foot electronic equipment that is experiencing the world, the ore has become so valuable as gold or diamonds. And when there are large amounts of money involved, someone will take the  situation to do business. The first allegations were because of the devastation of national parks in order to mine the  ore;  displacing and threaening wildlife. But then it became suspicious of some more serious issues.

According to reports by international agencies such as Independent Media Center, the export of coltan has funded various political factions of the Congo, a country that fights a series of internal conflicts (the Second Congo War), which has already cost the lives of 4 million people. The smuggling and lack of scruples of some companies engaged in the extraction of the mineral, creates  in a more or less direct way the recent explotion of gadgets that we love; inducing multinationals to get the mineral at any price. This price is not just a monetary cost, but the lives of thousands of people (of all ages, including children) exploited in pursuit of the precious ore and so many who die in the crossfire between the warring sides.

Obviously, it is not easy to find a guilty part in the situation. Nor can we throw away our whole system of communications and data processing overnight, for moral reasons. Stop mining coltan, at least for the moment, would mean a significant delay for advance in science and technology.

We could probably help. This is not about to stop buying things, as some extremists say , but curbing our consumerist impulses. If you just consume what we need, our contribution would have a major impact, not only in this but in the environment.  Do we  need a new cellphone every year? Any ideas?

Here you can watch a documentary called Blood Coltan. It will introduce you to the problematic.

zeitgeist addendum dvd cover

This sequel of the first documental (Zeitgeist, the Movie) is way more serious and accurate. It does not focus only in conspiracy theories as the first part did, but mainly gives us real facts that are openly accepted in order to argument the ideas.

It goes deeply into the ideas, having also a philosophical component. I don’t want to tell you anything about the content of the movie, but if you are normally aseptic from this kind of movies, you should probably watch this second part first. For those of you that ever had a macroeconomics class you will feel really familiar with the beginning part of the movie.

I can assure you will enjoy the movie. It will give you for sure a better understanding from the world, the way it works, and as normally about power and greed among human kind. It also proposes a model to follow in order to have a better world, and a way to start achieving it. Nevertheless it is only a utopia far away from reality. And as always there is not a real or unquestionable truth or solution when it comes to social science.

Here there is a link to this great film!

I invite you to discuss again, let me know if you liked it!

Zeitgeist dvd Cover

I will present you a really controversial movie: “Zeitgeist” (2007) by Peter Joseph. It could be cataloged as a “conspiracy theory movie”.  The movie is quite interesting and states things that you probably never considered. Like a real “Da Vinci code” goes deep into many parts of human history arguing that religion, wars, entertainment, media, and education among others, are just a method of control. That the world as we know it is only is only a distortional image manipulated by a small group of people.

It is really reasonable to think that part of this movie message is totally truth as it is coherent and similar cases has been proved before along human history. By the other hand, the movie also makes many statements without having convincing proves and the usage of quotations without referencing is repetitive, making some of them really questionable.

It is also really interesting to observe that there are a lot of people putting effort in giving this information to the public, and in most of the cases without any clear economical  interest. This movie for example was put inside the internet in a free way with the only aim of being watched.

It also impressive how people along history saying similar things where always killed or silenced. Now a days it is enough just to defame them, treat them as out of mind people, and just ignore them or even laugh about them. Now society itself does the work, when being and thinking in a “normal” way is the only socially accepted way, who is telling us what is normal?

Please watch the movie by yourself this is a really good topic for discussion. Here there is a link to the movie, but you can find it in other sources, probably with subtitles in other languages.

Book cover

I would like to recomend you a book from Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

The Shock Doctrine is the unofficial history of the free market. From Chile to Russia, from South Africa to Canada the introduction of free market responds to a program of social and economic engineering that Naomi Klein identifies as “disaster capitalism.”

After a four-year investigation, Klein explores the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically, and that unfettered capitalism goes hand to hand with democracy. By contrast, Klein argues that capitalism constantly uses violence, shock, and reveals the puppet strings that move the most critical  events of the past four decades.

Klein shows that capitalism constantly uses violence and terror against the individual and society. Far from being the path to freedom, takes advantage of the crisis to introduce unpopular economic shock measures, often accompanied by other forms of shock not so metaphorical: the coup of the PRRA of police, torture with electric prods or in the prison cells.

In this exciting story, Klein looks at recent world history to give voice to a single protagonist : the decimated civilian populations under the ruthless greed of the new owners of the world, the industrial conglomerate, commerce and government for those disasters, wars and insecurity of the citizen are the fuel for the “shock economy”.

Here is  the official promotional video about her book.

While the government headed by Álvaro Uribe Vélez announced the deployment of seven brigades (over a thousand troops) on its border with Venezuela, the president of this country, Hugo Chávez, denounced by Washington military spy flights over Venezuelan territory by aircraft unmanned airfield departing Colombians, and announced that his country is preparing to defend against a possible armed aggression launched from the neighboring country.

Much of the international media has put the spotlight on the recent Venezuelan arms purchases as a detonator course for regional escalation, but has omitted some key information: the Bolivarian Republic made such purchases under the pressure of threats of aggression not very veiled by former U.S. government, and that Colombia stars, too, a process arms under the pretext of fighting guerrilla organizations operating in its territory.

Moreover, the commitment of the Colombian authorities in ignoring warnings issued by various governments in the region, including Argentina and Brazil-hand about the dangers of seven military bases the Pentagon, seems part of a deliberate plan to exacerbate tensions in the region and to internationalize internal conflict affecting Colombia.

A clear precedent in this regard, the bloody raid was ordered by Uribe against a camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Ecuadorian territory, launched the first of March last year, an attack that killed the rebel leader Raul Reyes and other members of the armed organization.

So far, the Colombian president had been causing border incidents and disputes with its neighbors, and had used them in order to increase their popularity ratings. The transfer of military bases in Washington, however, can be explained as a Colombia to a U.S. policy of harassment against Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, countries whose governments have been faced with the traditional pursuits of U.S. meddling in the subcontinent.

One consideration that should not be overlooked is that despite the good intentions toward Latin America expressed by Barack Obama as presidential candidate and in his first months as president, Washington’s alignment with the coup that took by assault the power in Honduras in Last June irrefutably showed the limitations of the promises of the new U.S. administration and that the occupant of the White House can´t or will not deal with the continuity of the designs dictated by the neocolonialist machinery Washington politicians and the military , industrial and financial superpower.

Today, Washington has only in South America’s unconditional alignment with the Colombian and Peruvian governments, and based on historical background and the patterns followed by more than a century, is expected to seek a regional conflict in order to make new alliances, or complicities in the area.

Such is the background of tensions between Colombia and Venezuela. Concerns then to the other Latin American states to demand Uribe in order to end the U.S. military presence in Colombia, because it’s the detonator and the main fuel that could escalate into undesirable extremes.

The President of Venezuela expressed in ‘lineas de Chavez’ that “the agents of international reaction are preparing the script to reverse the process of emancipation that our America lives.”

He explained that one of the most important factors in that script will be the permanent presence of U.S. troops in Colombia.

“See the fledgling imperial threat against Venezuela from Colombia: Colombia the brother country,  turned into the Israel of South America,” Chavez said in his letter.

He warned that this situation of uncertainty arises from the confirmation that U.S. foreign policy has not changed with the Government of Barack Obama over that of his predecessor George W. Bush.

“Do not be fooled: the illusion over Obama is over, and the blatant intervention of the new U.S. administration denotes it,” argued the president.

Chavez said that among the evidence of interventionism there is the coup in Honduras against the deposed president, Manuel Zelaya.

It further stressed that the system designed to overthrow Zelaya from now on serves as a model for replication wherever needed.

“The Honduran military dictatorship remains in power. The reaction in all our countries has now a model of coup for the XXI century: hit with legal facade bearing the stamp” made in USA “Chavez said.

Therefore, the Venezuelan president urged his countrymen to be prepared for whatever may happen. “Let us prepare, then, to defend our sovereignty in all fields,” said his written ruling on Sundays.

Do you have any opinions about this situation?, this statements where published among diferent Latin American media during the last 2 todays.

The problem with health care is the lack of morality rather than if it is private or not. It is amazing how people can adversely affect others to earn some money. There is a parallelism between this movie and his new movie “Capitalism: a Love Story”. It is always the case that the greed of some people affects the majority.

Here you can watch the movie online and other interesting documentaries. Have fun.

Perhaps not so entertaining as his other movies, but probably being capable of a mayor impact. I strongly recommend you to watch it. You will probably end with a nice feeling, realising that it could be possible to make a difference. Here there are several links to the movie, but you can also watch it at cinemas right now.

After watching the movie; do you think is there going to be a change soon? or are we far away from it?. Remember that “revolutions” have already taken place in history, and that despite all the control of the system they did happened.