Buffett Fooling Self on PetroChina's Darfur Ties

I'm not usually a big fan of "divest from..." campaigns. Most of the time, they're as much about feeling good in the West as they are about actually doing good in the Third World.

And they usually rest on dubious economics. If you "divest" from a company involved in something bad, you just sell your shares to someone else, who then collects the profits. The company's activities, and the profits themselves, need not be affected.

But in the case of PetroChina(PTR Quote) and the Sudan, the campaigners have a point. And Warren Buffett's defense of his large stake in the PetroChina -- that it has no role in the African nation -- has a big hole in it. ...