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Set on India's west coast, Goa is renowned as a beach paradise popular with Indian and foreign tourists alike. Just a few miles inland from the quaint restaurants and the pristine waves lapping the silver shores of India's smallest state, iron-ore mining is destroying the environment, say activists and locals.

With the economy on the ropes, hundreds of thousands of consumers are turning to "debt settlement" companies like Credit Solutions to escape a crushing pile of bills. State attorneys general are being flooded with complaints about settlement companies and other forms of debt relief.

Less than a year ago, officials pressed mines and factories in northern China to shut down or move away to clear the air for the Beijing Olympics. Now, amid the global economic downturn, priorities have shifted. Cumbersome environmental reviews have been accelerated, and China's powerful state oil companies are pushing hard to postpone nationwide rollout of clean air standards due to the billions of dollars required to invest in their refineries to produce clean diesel.

The U.S. government is widening its investigation of offshore tax evasion to include services sold by the First Data Corporation, a large processor of credit card transactions. The I.R.S. alleged that First Data actively marketed and sold offshore services to American merchants, who in turn used the service to help their clients hide taxable income.

The European Commission threatened Britain with sanctions on Tuesday for allowing use of a new advertising technology, created by Phorm, to track the Web movements of customers. The country's largest service provider, BT, acknowledged last April that it used the tool without customers' consent in 2006 and 2007.

New York State prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating whether the Carlyle Group, one of the nation's largest and most politically connected private equity firms, made millions of dollars in improper payments to intermediaries in exchange for investments from New York's state pension fund.

In a searing opinion, the 13th Court of Appeals has upheld $42.5 million in punitive damages against private prison operator Wackenhut Corrections Corp., now the Geo Group,for the "horrific and gruesome death" of inmate Gregorio De La Rosa Jr. in 2001.

The Obama administration seeks the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation. But Big Oil is not on board. Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving "beyond petroleum," has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. The list goes on.

Multinationals accused of human rights abuses can no longer feel safe now that the oil giant is facing allegations of complicity in the execution of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.

For nearly six years Ramatex Textile and Garment Factory barred government regulators from entering industrial premises leased from the City of Windhoek. Ramatex came to Namibia in 2001, lured by the newly implemented African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Evidence of environmental violations finally emerged after the company absconded.