Pitman writes "Business is booming in the mining zone that supplied uranium for the atomic bombs unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – despite a decree by Congo's president banning all mining activity here.
President Joseph Kabila ordered the zone closed three months ago amid growing concerns that unregulated nuclear materials could get into the hands of so-called rogue nations or terrorist groups. Yet 1,000 miles away from the capital, Kinshasa, thousands of diggers are still hacking away at a dark cavity of open earth in this southeastern village, filling thousands of burlap sacks a day with black soil rich in cobalt, copper – and radioactive uranium."
P Pitman says "The illegal mining provides stark evidence of how little control Africa's third-largest nation has over its own nuclear resources, highlighting the government's lack of authority beyond the capital in the aftermath of Congo's devastating 1998-2002 war.
"They're digging as fast as they can dig, and everyone is buying it," John Skinner, a mining engineer in the nearby town of Likasi, said of the illegal freelance mining at Shinkolobwe. "The problem is that nobody knows where it's all going. There is no control."
Is Globalization Undermining the Prospects for Sustainable Development? "
by Martin Khor - written 10 years ago in 1997 !!
"The ecological crises that threaten the survival of Earth continue to unfold at breakneck speed under the influence of commercial interests, driven even further by the competitive pressures of globalization. At the same time, the globalization process pits company against company, country against country and individuals against one another.... five years after Rio Summit, the process of globalization linked to liberalization has gained so m ...