Bizwatch

Conflicts of Interests
Three years after diamond producers signed up to a scheme designed to end the trade in "conflict diamonds" that were helping to fund some of Africa's bloodiest wars, campaigners are turning up the heat on gold miners.

Last week, New York City-based Human Rights Watch released a report alleging that the lure of gold fueled massive atrocities over the past few years in the northeastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The 159-page report, entitled The Curse of Gold, names Swiss gold refining company Metalor Technologies Group as one of those that has purchased Congo's conflict gold. It also alleges that the world's second biggest gold mining company, AngloGold Ashanti, which has a 10,000-sq-km concession in Ituri, made payments as recently as six months ago to a militia group responsible for atrocities. The South African firm concedes it yielded to "extortion" when it paid some $9,000 but says that it has already set up systems to make sure it never happens again.

Two weeks ago, Metalor Technologies said it would stop buying gold from Uganda, the export route for much of Congo's gold. Anti-conflict campaigns aren't aimed at just diamonds and gold. Oil firms have long been targeted for their role in stoking conflict, while more recently activists have highlighted the exploitation of coltan, a rare mineral used in cell phones. The next targets? Fish and water, says Alex Yearsley, a campaigner with London-based NGO Global Witness. Yearsley, who joined a panel to discuss the role of business in conflict at the World Economic Forum's Africa Economic Summit in Cape Town last week, says that "predatory looting of Africa's ocean assets" could destabilize already fragile societies. Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa says there is "a lot of resentment among people who see themselves left with the scales and bones while all the fish flesh is taken away to Europe." Conflict fish, anyone? — By Simon Robinson

Read All Over
It has been an extraordinarily positive 12 months for the global newspaper industry," cheered Timothy Balding, head of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), last week. Worldwide daily circulation grew 2% in 2004, reaching €95 million sales. Global ad revenue leapt more than 5%, the biggest jump in five years. But for really screaming headlines, look to the developing world.

While circulation of dailies skidded further in North America and Europe, growing populations, literacy rates and disposable income, as well as slicker distribution channels, have helped drive newspaper sales in developing markets. In China, for example, sales have grown by more than a quarter over the last five years. Not surprisingly, Western publishers are eyeing the fledgling markets, says Jim Chisholm, adviser to WAN. "Internationalization is a growing theme of our business," he says. As is miniaturization: a record 56 titles made the switch from broadsheet to tabloid last year, with compacts accounting for 36% of all newspapers. Since Britain's Times and Independent downsized fully last year, circulation has soared. Expect more to make the change. "Readers are bamboozled" by big papers, says Chisholm. And with the number of Web-based newspapers rising almost 11% last year, what can't be shrunk to fit can go online. — By Adam Smith

The Bottom Line
	There are more important things to do than take that gladiatorial contest to Geneva.
		PETER MANDELSON, E.U. Trade Commissioner, lamenting U.S. and E.U. moves to refer the trade fight between Boeing and Airbus to the World Trade Organization