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Contractors who have worked in Iraq are returning home with the same kinds of combat-related mental health problems that afflict United States military personnel, according to contractors, industry officials and mental health experts.

New U.S. data show how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of the war-torn nation.

A Singapore-based company was involved in slashing and burning Indonesian forests to make way for palm oil plantations that feed the growing market for biofuels, environmental and activist groups claimed Tuesday. The company emphatically denied the allegations.

The experience of São Tomé, a poor country that supports itself by selling cocoa and commemorative stamps featuring celebrities like Elvis Presley and Brigitte Bardot, shows how just the hint of oil can set off a scramble for riches.

Consumers have embraced living green, and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism. But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists, a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls "light greens."

On the first floor of a tan building inside Baghdad's Green Zone, the full scope of Iraq's daily carnage is condensed into a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation. The intelligence was compiled not by the U.S. military, but by a British security firm, Aegis Defence Services Ltd. The Reconstruction Operations Center is the most visible example of how intelligence collection is now among the responsibilities handled by a network of private security companies that work in the shadows of the U.S. military.

Anger is mounting over a new bonus scheme at Tesco that will reward chief executive Sir Terry Leahy with a £11.5m windfall if the supermarket group's US venture Fresh & Easy succeeds.

Maine Gov. John Baldacci last week signed into law a measure requiring developers of retail stores exceeding 75,000 square feet to conduct studies gauging the project's impact on municipal services, the environment and local businesses. Similar measures have been passed in other states.

The families of four Blackwater employees who were killed in Iraq have filed a lawsuit that accuses the world's largest private security firm of negligence; Blackwater is suing back.

The British and US governments are on a diplomatic collision course after the US Department of Justice launched a formal investigation into allegations of corruption at defence company BAE Systems. The US investigation will scrutinise BAE's dealings with Saudi Arabia to expose an account allegedly held by the Bank of England that is used to facilitate Saudi payments for arms.