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In order to influence the new laws that encompass the 25 countries of the European Union, now the world's largest single economy, some 15,000 lobbyists have flocked to Brussels, its political heart. The public relations firm Burson-Mastellar is one of the most active among them.

Authorities arrested and charged two executives of a Dutch commodities company whose dumped toxic waste has caused seven deaths and widespread sickness in the Ivory Coast's largest city, a government official said Monday.

Two mining companies want to dig for coal under nearly half of Montgomery County. They plan to use a nontraditional but highly efficient process called "longwall" mining that will cause flat-as-a-dime land to sag like a burst souffle.

Geneva is set to host an international conference in November tackling the thorny issue of private security companies operating in a legal no-man's-land.

The thousands of mercenary security contractors employed in the Bush administration's "War on Terror" are billed to American taxpayers, but they've handed Osama Bin Laden his greatest victories -- public relations coups that have transformed him from just another face in a crowd of radical clerics to a hero of millions in the global South (posters of Bin Laden have been spotted in largely Catholic Latin America during protests against George W. Bush).

Cassiterite, or tin oxide, is the most important source of the metallic element tin, and the DRC is home to fully one-third of the world's reserves. Some cassiterite miners work on sites operated directly by the country's military or other armed groups. Working in the same area are "artisanal" miners who are theoretically independent, like prospectors in America's Old West. But the cassiterite they extract is heavily taxed by the soldiers -- when it's not just stolen outright.

A committee filled with business leaders and academics was created yesterday to consider changes in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other laws and regulations governing securities markets and companies, with the intention of improving competitiveness for American markets.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other large retailers claimed victory in Chicago after the City Council failed to override Mayor Richard Daley's veto of an ordinance requiring them to increase their minimum wage.

The scandal surrounding Hewlett-Packard Co. escalated Monday when members of Congress and federal law enforcement officials announced they would launch inquiries into the tech giant's practices during a controversial probe of media leaks that began last year.

Six people have now died from the toxic waste dumped in the biggest Ivory Coast city, Abidjan, while 9,000 have sought treatment, the government says.