Britain is throwing its weight behind European efforts to force oil and mining companies to publish details of every penny they pay to governments in poor countries where they operate.
George Osborne told his fellow G20 finance ministers in Paris on Saturday that the coalition was keen to support an effort by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to throw open the operations of the extractive industries in the developing world to public scrutiny.
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/20/george-osborne-oil-mining-africa.