, Columnist
Copper's Political Risks Lie in Wait
While companies are better behaved and prepared, political risks lie in wait.
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Chief executives of global companies still lose sleep over political risks, but since the heyday of the British East India Company not many businesses can claim to have played a part in a country's descent into civil war.
Rio Tinto is one. Protests by landowners about its Panguna mine on the Papua New Guinean island of Bougainville were among the triggers for a decade-long conflict in which as many as 15,000 people died between 1988 and 1998, according to an Australian parliamentary inquiry.