The company’s own target is to produce one million ounces of gold per year, which would make them the twelfth largest gold provider in the world.”He also welcomed news of further acquisitions. John Meyer, at Numis Securities, said: “I would expect Peter Hambro to become a major player over the next few years. The placing is conditional on approval at an extraordinary general meeting on 7 June. However, the board already has irrevocable agreements to vote in favour of the issue from 47.5 per cent of the shareholders. Peter Hambro Mining, the London-listed company which mines gold in Russia, announced plans yesterday to raise at least £40m in a new share issue next month.

A study found that nine in 10 consumers wanted tougher monitoring of ethical products and the same amount urged a ban on misleading labelling. Four in five said they would pay more for ethically sound products. Six in 10 would boycott unethical goods, the NOP/Co-op report said.Danielle Demetriou. For example, the company found that more than half the factories making its products in sub-Saharan Africa were exposing employees to machinery that did not have proper protective and safety devices “No garment factory is perfect,” the report states. “But this process helps ensure that we screen out the worst factories and look for those that have the ability to meet our standards. The beans will come from Ethiopia, Indonesia and Honduras, who will own a quarter of the company.Cahal MilmoTOXINS BAN OFFERS CHANCE OF CLEANER FUTUREA leading retailer declared war on ethically unsound products yesterday by banning several household goods reported to contain toxic chemicals.The Co-operative Group said that amid a growing climate of concern awareness among consumers, they will not stock products containing a certain chemicals still permitted in everyday items such as washing-up liquid, household cleaners and fabric conditioner.The banned chemicals include those which can be absorbed by humans and have been linked to cancer, fertility loss or environmental damage, including nitro and polycyclic musks and phthalates. Managers at Oxfam have struck a deal with three coffee-growing co-operatives in developing countries, and a Glasgow-based coffee roaster, to form a separate company to run the stores, to be called Progreso.The venture aims to increase the return for impoverished growers, because world coffee prices have dropped by 70 per cent since 1997.Progreso hopes to give growers about 6p from the average cup price At present, they get 1p.

“In just about every region of the world right now, we have a fundamental problem with freedom of association,” remarked Auret van Heerden, chief executive of the Fair Labour Association, a Washington-based group that monitors global working conditions.The report highlights efforts by Gap to end the practice of indentured labour in Saipan in the US Marianas Islands. A federal class-action lawsuit against Gap and other clothing companies showed that factories there were hiring workers from abroad but imposing financial debt on them which they were then forced to work off. Gap now insists that workers in any of the island’s factories must be free to leave their work at any time to return home, with management taking on at least some of that debt.COFFEE-GROWERS GET A BETTER DEALAfter pioneering the trade in ethical chocolate and cornering the market in second-hand books, Oxfam will today announce its latest foray into the British high street: the guilt-free latte.The charity is to enter one of the retail industry’s most competitive sectors by funding a chain of coffee shops selling only fair-trade produce. “We have had our differences with Gap in the past, and we may in the future,” said Bruce Raynor, the president of the union. “When we started talking with them, we realised we could work together and create positive change for workers.”A prime concern of many groups is the need for Gap and other retailers to ensure the right of workers in foreign factories to organise and protect themselves against abusive management.

“Customers are asking more and more sophisticated questions,” says Dan Henkle, Gap’s vice-president of global compliance.Among those welcoming the Gap initiative was Unite, a union representing the rights of workers in the apparel industry. China is currently the source of about 16 per cent of the total merchandise on Gap shelves.”In 2003, China accounted for the highest percentage of factories revoked for compliance violations,” the report reveals. “Concealment of overtime and unwillingness to share complete … “If you had good and enlightened management who thought about compliance in a real way, these issues just wouldn’t exist.”While the company said it found few examples of actual physical punishment of workers, its charts suggest that between 1 per cent and 10 per cent of factories in Latin and Central America had been found exercising “physical punishment or coercion”.The company admits that it has been driven to giving more transparency to the issue of foreign worker conditions by its customers. documentation were the main reasons for the high number of revocations.”"We can keep going and policing a factory and finding things wrong, but a lot of times these are management issues,” Anne Gust, Gap’s chief administrative and compliance officer, told the Wall Street Journal, which first made mention of the report.