‘Land Grabbing and Land Reform: Diamonds, Rubber and Forests in the New Liberia’ spells out the huge challenges facing the new government of Liberia following a decade and a half of brutal civil war, war fuelled mainly by looted natural resources. ‘Internal debates blight Kimberley Process’ deals with a variety of serious issues that NGOs say are weakening the effectiveness and the credibility of the diamond certification body. In ‘Taylor trial delayed until January 2008’ the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, erstwhile warlord and former president of Liberia, has been postponed until January 7, 2008. ‘PAC Releases 2007 Angola & DRC Reviews: Serious Problems Persist’ focuses on the country’s artisanal diamond mining force – 700,000 diggers who produce the lion’s share of the country’s $700 million in diamond exports, but who earn very little, living and working under appalling conditions. ‘Is conflict bad for private firms?’ concludes that the death of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi caused the stock of firms holding mining concessions in Angola to fall, rather than to rise. In other words, the end of the conflict was bad for business. The newsletter then has book reviews: Doug Farah’s “Merchant of Death” and R.T. Naylor’s “Satanic Purses: Money, Myth and Misinformation in the War on Terror.” It also contains a piece of Media Watch with articles on ‘Blood Rubies’ and the Burmese Junta and ‘Conflict diamonds go to school.’
