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Over 25,000 low-wage employees working at McDonald's franchises in California, Michigan and New York are being systematically cheated of their wages, say attorneys who filed seven simultaneous lawsuits last week against McDonald's and its franchisees for violations of labor law.

Villagers in Koh Kong, Cambodia, say that their lands have been bulldozed by employees of the Union Development Group, a Chinese company, which is building a massive casino on a 45,000-hectare-land concession inside Botum Sakor National Park.

Some 230 staff are being paid to work at the new Fiona Stanley Hospital in West Australia, even though it will not open to patients till March 2015. The project has been labeled a "privatization disaster" and Serco, the contractor, has come under fire for the soaring costs.

Two U.S. companies - Linode of New Jersey and Rackspace of Texas - have been hosting surveillance software designed by Hacking Team of Italy, according to a new report. The software was allegedly been used by governments in Ethiopia, Morocco, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to track dissidents.

Thomson Safaris, a Massachusetts company that runs the luxury Enashiva tourist camp near the Serengeti wildlife park in Tanzania, has been sued over 10,000 acres of land that the company allegedly acquired illegally from Maasai tribes.

A whistleblower who previously worked for Ernst & Young, the international auditing firm, has alleged that his bosses turned a blind eye to discoveries that Kaloti Jewellery International - one of the world's biggest gold companies - dealt in minerals from undocumented sources that may have included conflict zones.

Gazprom of Russia has begun fracking in western Siberia with the help of Anglo-Dutch giant Shell. The joint venture is introducing new technology developed in the U.S. to tap a vast reserve of oil known as the Bazhenov shale that lies under a 2.3 million square kilometer expanse.

The World Bank has agreed to investigate Amalgamated Plantations Private Limited (APPL) in India for abusive working conditions on tea plantations in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, following a formal complaint by workers. A Columbia Law School team has confirmed the workers allegations.

Toyota is expected to announce a billion dollar settlement with the U.S. government for failing to disclose complaints by drivers that its cars were accelerating unintentionally. News of the negotiations were reported by the Wall Street Journal.

A major U.S. government report on the Keystone XL pipeline was written by oil industry consultants, say activist groups. The report, which was commissioned by the State Department and published two weeks ago, downplays the environmental impact of the pipeline and has been seen as key to potential approval.