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The world has been dazzled in recent years by the economic strides being made by China. But it has come at a huge cost to the country's environment. Pollution is a serious and costly problem. Pan Yue of the ministry of the environment says these problems will soon overwhelm the country and will create millions of "environmental refugees."

US military interrogators -- who will work at sites ranging from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay -- must first receive training at one obscure military fort in Southern Arizona. Today, that training has been taken over by private contractors working for profit.

ALSO: An Interrogator Speaks Out

A former military interrogator talks about what went wrong at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Halliburton says the operation is entirely legal. The law allows foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations to do business in Iran under strict conditions. Other U.S. oil services companies, like Weatherford and Baker Hughes, also are in Iran. And foreign subsidiaries of General Electric, have sold equipment to Iran, though the company says it will make no more sales.

According to a recent United Nations report, South Africa is among the top three suppliers of personnel for private military companies operating in Iraq next to the US and the UK. At least 10 South African based companies have been sending people to Iraq. Most of those recruited operate as drivers and bodyguards, protecting supply routes and valuable resources.

Unemployed men with little or no experience are being lured by American firms to risk their lives in Iraq as private security contractors, according to a security consultant. People are being offered between $8,000 and $10,000 a month tax free to go out there. It's now got to the point where some firms are taking on inexperienced people instead of those they should be employing," he said. "They can get away with paying them less."

Documents unearthed as part of a whistleblower suit against private security company, Custer Battles, reveal the extent to which the defense contractor is accused of gouging the Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq following the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003.

Partnerships between multinational companies and tribal businesses, most of them Alaska Native corporations, have skyrocketed in recent years.

Congressman Henry Waxman wants information on pacts awarded to a defense contractor whose board of directors includes President Bush's uncle.

Ibrahim Jaafari, the prime-minister-to-be in Iraq, is unlikely to hand over the nation's valuable oil assets to foreign companies, but he won't be able to do much about the rest of the Iraqi economy, which was strangled by Coalition Provisional Authority chief L. Paul Bremer in rules and regulations benefiting Western business.