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The worldwide financial crisis is hitting people in the Global South with particular venom, and disaster profiteering is alive and well. Take Mexico. While entities like Citigroup-owned Banamex get away with charging Mexican credit account-holders usurious interest rates of up to 100 percent, Banamex itself turned nearly $1 billion in profits in 2008.

Set on India's west coast, Goa is renowned as a beach paradise popular with Indian and foreign tourists alike. Just a few miles inland from the quaint restaurants and the pristine waves lapping the silver shores of India's smallest state, iron-ore mining is destroying the environment, say activists and locals.

For nearly six years Ramatex Textile and Garment Factory barred government regulators from entering industrial premises leased from the City of Windhoek. Ramatex came to Namibia in 2001, lured by the newly implemented African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Evidence of environmental violations finally emerged after the company absconded.

While the nation's economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm paid millions by the U.S. government. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit security company, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death.

The McArthur River winds through Australia's remote Northern Territory, home to four main Aboriginal linguistic groups: the Gurdanji, Yanyuwa, Garawa and Mara. Earlier this month Australian Minister for Environment Peter Garrett announced conditional approval for a bid by Swiss mining giant Xstrata to expand its zinc mining operations in the sacred McArthur River floodplain.

The launch of Russia's stock markets in the early 90s and privatization of state assets has profoundly impacted Russian society. As the case of mining giant Norilsk Nickel illustrates, this experiment has given rise to both immense personal wealth for a new elite, and economic uncertainty for the ordinary citizen.

An Alabama company controlled by a billionaire Kuwaiti family is the biggest supplier of guns to Iraq. These weapons were paid for by the Pentagon which has lost track of them. A new Amnesty international report says that such unrestrained global arms trading schemes may have catastrophic human rights consequences.

Globally, Toyota is known for its innovation and quality of products like the Prius hybrid. A closer look at operations in Japan, the Philippines, Myanmar and the U.S. reveals a story of extreme working conditions, union-busting and other corporate abuses. In Japan and elsewhere, workers are speaking out.

Multinational industries like tobacco and alcohol have responded to increased global public pressure for accountability around corporate operations by creating Voluntary Codes of Conduct to self-regulate their behavior. But how are the results measuring up?

Entergy Nuclear (part of the broader Entergy energy family) is spinning off its northeastern U.S.-based nuclear power plants into a related limited liability corporation, Enexus. Stakeholders in Vermont, home of the Yankee Nuclear power plant, are less than happy, with Entergy also reneging on prior commitments to cover eventual plant decommissioning costs, potentially stranding taxpayers with much of the bill.