This year the Government will also issue a record number of work permits to people from further afield - seven thousand nurses have arrived from the Philippines and others are being recruited in India, China and Africa. Those who do come here are entitled to the same pay and conditions as their British counterparts but, as Jenny Cuffe discovers, there is evidence that many foreign workers are being exploited. Of the thousands of nurses recruited this year, some have found themselves doing menial jobs in private nursing homes - working long hours at low rates of pay. Presented by Jolyon Jenkins here . Full Transcript Tantalum, a rare metal, is at the heart of the world's electronics revolution and is key to the manufacture of the increasingly miniaturised components used in every day products, including mobile phones.
Tantalum is processed from a base ore called Coltan which used to have little value.
Nowadays it has become a key strategic resource but, as Jolyon Jenkins reports, Coltan is also at the heart of one of Africa's bloodiest conflicts. The eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo holds one of the world's few substantial sources of Coltan. It's an area which has seen some of the worst fighting during the Congalese war that has raged for almost three years and killed some two and a half million people. It's a complex conflict, involving the armies of six African countries and innumerable irregular forces. Eastern Congo is now occupied by both Rwanda and Uganda who say they need to protect their borders against insurgents.