Property, Tourism & Transportation

As much as this is a story of privatization and racism, it is also about cronyism. The New York Daily News notes that Dubai Ports World has at least two ties to the Bush Administration - Treasury Secretary John Snow who, a year after joining the administration, sold his company's port operations to the same Dubai firm; and David Sanborn, the head of the U.S. Maritime Administration who still runs Dubai Ports World's European and Latin American operations. Read More

Mexico and Cuba criticized the United States on Monday for demanding that the Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel here order a group of Cuban officials, who were meeting last week with representatives of American oil companies, to check out of the hotel and leave the premises. Read More

PRESIDENT Macapagal-Arroyo has offered to suspend the issuance of new mining permits to try to appease Roman Catholic bishops strongly opposed to the country's new Mining Act, a top Malacanang official said yesterday. Read More

Land conflicts involving indigenous people have multiplied in Brazil over the last few months, generating greater tension and showing once again that the country's roughly 400,000 indigenous people still have a long way to go to win respect for their rights. Read More

Indigenous protesters from northwestern Venezuela marched Friday through the streets of Caracas, which is hosting the sixth World Social Forum (WSF), to protest plans for mining coal on their land. Read More

A bill for busing evacuees from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was $32 million more than it should have been, and the government paid it without question, the Transportation Department inspector general said Friday. Read More

The fed is looking into contracts for evacuation of New Orleans awarded to the FAA and a transportation company with ties to Bush. Did the agency and the company do anything at all post-Katrina? Read More

In 1996, Darius Mehri, a wide-eyed young American engineer, went to Japan to work for Toyota's production system. What he found was an abusive environment where the company controlled every movement - inside and outside work - of its employees. Read More

Less than two weeks after the Ford Motor Company said it would all but eliminate its advertising in publications that cater to gays, the company reversed itself Wednesday. Read More

Independent auditors confirmed Friday to Volkswagen's senior board many of the details published in news reports in recent months about corrupt dealings by managers in the car company's personnel department. Read More