I'm not allowed to say.

significant fabrications

orrupt politicians often rule

One, two, or three soldiers will force their way into a family’s home, announcing, “We’re living with you and you will do as we say.” Anyone who resists will be killed. Then the men and boys are put to work digging and hauling minerals. Women and girls also dig and sort stone, do the housework, cook, and suffer regular sexual assaults. The violence and rape increase when the soldiers get drunk or stoned.

A little chaos is good for criminal business, but too much is disruptive, even for warlords

Nature is willing, but the people are broken. War has shattered minds and bodies and any semblance or expectation of order; life has become a scramble for survival in a population divided between those with guns and those without. This chaos is the perfect breeding ground for slavery. When valuable minerals are stirred into the mix, the odds of a slavery outbreak are even higher.

He sold these “concessions” to speculators who used torture and murder to drive whole communities into the jungle to harvest rubber.

These eastern provinces are called North Kivu and South Kivu, and they hold some of the wildest, most deeply beautiful and seriously dangerous terrain on the planet. The mixture of mountains, river valleys, great lakes, and volcanoes is spectacular, though the endemic parasites and diseases, including typhoid and plague, are a constant threat. The nature reserves and national parks in the Kivus are some of the last places to find a number of threatened animal species, like the great gorillas. Two kinds of elephants roam the forests, and hippos work the riverbanks. High in their treetop nests, this is the only place in the world to find our closest relative, the bonobo chimpanzee. Sometimes called the “hippie chimp,” bonobos are known for resolving conflicts peacefully, through sexy cuddling rather than violence—a trick humans haven’t quite mastered. But when the rebel groups pushed into these protected forests and habitats, deforestation and illegal poaching followed, and the bonobo population fell by 95 percent. But this isn’t the first time the Congo has been trampled.

Yours is probably within arm’s reach right now.

As we climbed the hill from the landing field, I took my cellphone from my pocket, out of habit more than anything. I assumed it would be useless here, but then watched as the little bars built up on its screen. No electricity or running water, no paving on the roads, and good luck if you needed a doctor, but incredibly I had a signal. “This is why I am here,” I thought, “I can’t live without my phone, and people here are dying because of it.”

Let’s talk about our phones

I started in the Eastern Congo, where all the pieces of the puzzle are exposed—slavery, greed, a war against both nature and people, all for resources that flowed right back into our consumer economy, into our work and homes and pockets. I knew if I could get there—and stay clear of the warlords and their armed gangs— I could begin to uncover the truth.

Slavery, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas producers, is hidden from us.

When it comes to global warming, these slaveholders outpace all but the very biggest polluters. Adding together their slave-based deforestation and other CO2-producing crimes leads to a sobering conclusion. If slavery were an American state it would have the population of California and the economic output of the District of Columbia, but it would be the world’s third-largest producer of CO2, after China and the United States.

Slavery is a great way to keep your costs down, but there’s another reason why that granite is so cheap—the quarries themselves are illegal, paying no mining permits or taxes.

Slavery in granite quarries is a family affair enforced by a tricky scheme based on debt

Careful handling means handwork, which requires people with drills and chisels, hammers and crowbars gently working the granite out of the ground. And in India, the most cost effective way to achieve that is slavery.

Granite for German tombstones used to come from the beautiful Harz Mountains, but now no one is allowed to mine there and risk spoiling this protected national park and favorite tourist destination

tombstone

We think of Steve Jobs in his black turtleneck as the origin of our iPhones.

helps students build their own digital portfolio.