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Liberia hands Mittal "state within a state"-report
The world's largest steel group Mittal Steel [now part of Arcelor Mittal] exploited a legal void in war-torn Liberia to snap up enormous iron reserves in a deal which makes it a "state within a state", Global Witness said in a report. The corporate governance campaigner said the $900 million deal signed by Liberia's unelected interim government in the wake of a 1989-2003 civil war ceded important state rights.