KONGO WETU

It was half past five on a Monday morning in February 2003 when the first men arrived. They ran to the centre of the village carrying machetes and spears and rifles. Some invaded the houses and shot residents in their sleep, others cut them up with their machetes; another group set the huts on fire and burnt the families alive.

As time went by, the commanders of the group put some chairs under the mango trees close to the village and began to drink beer. By the end of the afternoon, dead bodies of around 200 people were scattered on the ground; and the commanders were drunk.

This is how the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) describes the attack on Bogoro, a village in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to the prosecutor's team of investigators and lawyers, the attack is only one of many events that make the conflict in Central Africa one of the bloodiest since World War II. For almost ten years the ICC team has been building a case against the alleged perpetrators of this particular attack. Now the final stage has been reached.

Analysis of Canadian owned producing mines in Africa in 2011 and 2012.

Canadian Mining in Africa

WASHINGTON — The growing demand for new technologies, questionable supply lines and production in unfriendly or dangerous countries are putting NATO and allied militaries at risk of losing access to critical

• Cobalt. Primarily mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), cobalt is used in alloys with other metals to make gas turbines and jet engines. The DRC has been troubled by civil war and rebellion since it gained independence from Belgium in the early 1960s. At least 5.4 million people have died there since 1998, many because of preventable diseases, according to a report by the International Rescue Committee.

• Tantalum. A rare, hard, blue-gray metal that is used in jet engines, nuclear weapons and missile parts. Its non-military uses include electronics as well as medical equipment and implants. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the world's largest sources of tantalum.