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British companies with global operations face a growing threat of being sued in the US over their dealings with foreign governments accused of human rights violations, a leading lawyer has warned.

Lord Browne, the chief executive of BP, is facing a possible grilling by the US federal safety watchdog over last year's explosion at the oil giant's Texas refinery, which killed 15 people.

Italian fashion group Fendi S.R.L. sued Wal-Mart Stores in U.S. federal court on Friday, accusing the world's largest retailer of selling counterfeit handbags and passing them off as genuine at its Sam's Club warehouse stores.

A state report on pesticides and birth defects might have been influenced by the company that was its focus, some researchers who worked on the report say.

Huge mines here turning tarry sand into cash for Canada and oil for the United States are taking an unexpectedly high environmental toll, sucking water from rivers and natural gas from wells and producing large amounts of gases linked to global warming.

China's government reiterated on Thursday that foreign Internet companies such as Google Inc. must abide by its laws, which require censoring online material that is considered to be politically sensitive.

Two Merrill Lynch executives convicted for their roles in a Nigerian barge deal that inflated Enron's profits have been ordered released from prison pending their appeal.

Oil field services company Halliburton Co. expects net income and earnings per share to double over the next three to five years, Chief Financial Officer Cris Gaut said today.

"We are here to take care of the land, because we depend on it for a living," said Andrés Sajama, cacique (chief) of Queta, a Kolla indigenous community in the northwestern Argentine province of Jujuy. "We don't want to block mining projects, but we won't allow them to take away what little we have left," he told IPS.

The oil giant BP is under criminal investigation in the US for a big oil spill in Alaska in March that has raised fresh questions about the company's safety record.