Global Trade

In 2003, U.S. Steel bought up the bankrupt Sartid steel mill in the eastern Serbian town of Smederevo for $33 million, the first private enterprise to enter the country after the downfall of former leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. On Feb. 1, U.S. Steel sold the mill back for a dollar. Read More

Scalpers are doing a booming business in key medical drugs by taking advantage of U.S. patients and hospitals when they are desperate for supplies from the poorly regulated $46 billion global contract-manufacturing industry. Read More

An oil company whose chief executive has bankrolled the Conservatives won exclusive rights to trade with Libyan rebels during the conflict, following secret talks involving the British Government. Read More

Chinese and South Korean companies are leading an investor rush to Burma to build lucrative cross-country pipelines to deliver Saudi oil and Burmese natural gas to China. Poor communities have been displaced and allegations of human rights abuses are rife in the pipeline's route. Read More

In a settlement for bribery allegations related to the construction and expansion of its Bonny Island natural-gas liquefaction facility, Halliburton Co. agreed to pay $35 million to the Nigerian government. Read More

BYD Co., the Chinese carmaker part- owned by billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., was fined and ordered to surrender seven factories in central China after the government said it used land illegally. Read More

Burger King will stop using palm oil from a leading Indonesian supplier due to concerns about environmental damage. Read More

Originally posted on June 1 on The Huffington Post. The bracing reality that America has two sets of rules -- one for the corporate class and another for the middle class -- has never been more indisputable. Read More

How much money did Charles G. Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, siphon out of his war-shattered country, and where is it? Investigators are developing a new strategy involving filing civil damage claims against companies, governments and international banks that they contend aided Mr. Taylor in illegal transactions. Read More

How much money did Charles G. Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, siphon out of his war-shattered country, and where is it? A review by the International Herald Tribune of court transcripts, bank records, and newly available government receipts and confidential prosecution memos show, for example, how the country's largest timber company sent tax payments to Mr. Taylor's private account rather than the national treasury. Read More