Can the U.S. keep conflict minerals from Congo out of your laptop?

05/07/13 • 14 min

Marie Jeanne, one of hundreds of thousands of women who has been raped in the conflict in eastern Congo. (Credit: YouTube)

Here’s the basic plot line. Laptops, smart phones, tablets—they all need the rare minerals that Congo has in abundance. And that means that our gadgets are helping to fuel child labor—and rape—on a colossal scale. It’s a long journey from here to there, and it’s complicated. But lawmakers in the U.S. want to leverage our consumer power to bring change to the Congo. The question is: Do they stand a chance of making a difference?

Marie Jeanne, one of hundreds of thousands of women who has been raped in the conflict in eastern Congo. (Credit: YouTube)

Previous Episode

From War on Drugs to legal weed, where will the U.S. lead the world next?

When it comes to marijuana laws, the United States is a basket case.

Creator of the “War on Drugs,” the U.S. is also home to two states — Colorado and Washington — whose voters recently approved the world’s most liberal marijuana policies. In both places, under state guidelines, residents can now grow, smoke, buy, sell and traffic cannabis; that’s a few steps farther than even the Netherlands has gone.

This month’s Latitude News podcast explores the global implications of Colorado and Washington’s new laws — prepare for a sea change in relations between the U.S. and Latin America, and with no country more so than Mexico. As it turns out, the U.S. and Mexico have a shared marijuana history. We may have created the War on Drugs, but Mexico started Reefer Madness.

Listen below or click here to subscribe to the podcast for free. AND if you like what you hear, contribute to our Kickstarter campaign to help turn this podcast into a weekly show that mashes up the local and global!

Next Episode

Mexican, undocumented. . .Mormon?

The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. (Credit: Cookiecaper)

The Mormon Church could be majority Latin American by 2015, and our newest podcast hones in on one person among the faithful. At the young age of 23, Isaac has learned more than most about watching the future slip through his fingers. The trials he has faced help shape his outlook on life. “When we let fear take over us,” he says, “we lose faith, and when we lose faith, we don’t have a future.” In some ways, this podcast is a small story about a personal journey of faith. But from other angles, it’s much bigger than that. And it touches on an issue making headlines every day—immigration—in what might be a surprising context—the Mormon Church.