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WASHINGTON -- A U.S.-led ouster of President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and Iraqi opposition leaders.

WASHINGTON, DC -- The construction of a 650 mile long buried pipeline to carry oil from landlocked Chad in central Africa to Cameroon's Atlantic coast is one step closer to reality over the objections of environmental and human rights groups.

Americans know that corporate excess is about more than flawed accounting. It corrupts democracy, drives a wedge between rich and poor, degrades the environment, and disrupts communities. So what might we the people do?

A New Yorker looks at the squandered opportunities to make desperately needed changes in the American psyche and global policy following last September 11th.

In a twist of commercial fate, metal chunks from the World Trade Center are being melted down and recycled at a Malaysian factory -- an hour's drive from a spot where some of the Sept. 11 hijackers plotted. At the huge mill in Banting, outside Malaysia's largest city, Kuala Lumpur, shredded pieces of the fallen twin towers are among scrap headed for furnaces to be rolled into coils of flat steel used to make automobile panels and pipe, among other products.

The International Criminal Court is not likely to prosecute environmental crimes due to military actions, a new report prepared for the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute concludes. It examines the possibilities of environmental damage during military action becoming a criminal liability for military personnel and/or their contractors before the newly formed International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Privacy International yesterday released the fifth annual Privacy and Human Rights survey. The report reviews the state of privacy in over fifty countries around the world. It was released at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

As the Earth Summit closes in Johannesburg, we present this requiem for sustainable development. However, resistance to the big business agenda is alive and well in the streets.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Governor Gray Davis and the California Legislature have done the tobacco industry a favor and cheated the state's kids and taxpayers by agreeing to a budget that slashes funding for the state's highly successful tobacco prevention program and fails to increase the cigarette tax. With this shortsighted budget, California will cease to be the nation's leader in tobacco prevention, and the state will pay a high price as a result. We urge California's leaders to reverse course by increasing the cigarette tax and using some of the revenue to restore funding for tobacco prevention.

WASHINGTON (August 30, 2002) -- As citizens and governments descend on Johannesburg, South Africa, for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the oil industry is gathering in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the World Petroleum Congress. Ten years ago, Rio was host to the first Earth Summit, at which nations of the world promised to combat global warming and enhance global conservation efforts. But a new study released today by the Institute for Policy Studies shows that in the last ten years, over $22 billion in corporate handouts were given to the oil, gas and coal industry operating in Latin America.