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I reported last Thursday that Shirlington Limousine and Transportation, Inc., a firm allegedly used by defense contractor Brent Wilkes to provide prostitutes to ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham, is headed by a man who has a long criminal rap sheet and is also a contractor for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It was Mitchell Wade, another defense contractor who has acknowledged bribing Cunningham, and who is cooperating with investigators, who reportedly told prosecutors about Shirlington's relationship with Wilkes and the latter's alleged pimping scheme. (Wilkes's attorney denies the charge.)

Mr. van Kouwenhoven, 63, is also charged with war crimes. He is accused of supplying Mr. Taylor with militia fighters from his lumber companies. He is further charged with violating a United Nations embargo by smuggling weapons into Liberia. His trial, held under a new mix of national and international law, is drawing attention because it is the second time a Dutch court is prosecuting a Dutch businessman for being involved with human rights abuses on another continent.

Along with environmentalists and community activists, big business has descended upon Johannesburg, South Africa, to tout its own "green" growth strategies in the summit on Earth-friendly development. But if the environmental record of one key corporate player is any indication, the overtures are pure "greenwash."

While director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden contracted the services of a top executive at the company at the center of the Cunningham bribery scandal, according to two former employees of the company.

A prosecutor tried to poke holes in the testimony of Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former Enron chief executive, today by boring in on stock sales he made in the months after he left the company and before the energy company declared bankruptcy.

In a Houston courtroom this week, former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling took the witness stand to plead his innocence, telling jurors that “My life is on the line.”

United Nations sanctions against Saddam Hussein may have failed to end his regime but they succeeded in enriching both the Iraqi dictator and corporations able to manipulate the scandal-ridden world body's Oil-for-Food program. Among the profiteers was the Australian Wheat Board, a former state-owned monopoly, which funneled over $200 million into Saddam's coffers even as the "Coalition of the Willing" was preparing for invasion.

A defense lawyer in the trial of former Enron CEOs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling spent Thursday morning trying to undermine the testimony of the government's star witness and questioning the authenticity of a "smoking gun" document.

Andrew Fastow considered himself "a hero for Enron'' for hiding losses and bolstering earnings for the company through partnership deals he created.

For the first time in the four-week trial of two former Enron executives, the actions of the company's directors in a critical month in 2001 came under scrutiny during a cross-examination.

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.

BOMBAY -- An exhibition of black-and-white photographs capturing the suffering of victims of the world's worst industrial accident is set to open in Johannesburg on Tuesday to coincide with the Earth Summit.

Three British bankers may be extradited to the United States to face Enron-related fraud charges, the High Court ruled on Tuesday in a ruling that was the first test case of laws introduced to speed the transfer of suspected terrorists.

A lawyer for Jeffrey K. Skilling, a former Enron chief executive, tried Wednesday to portray the head of the company's broadband unit as an out-of-touch manager who was criticized for his free-spending ways and did not even know how many employees were working under him.

A Republican staffer on the Senate foreign relations Committee tells CounterPunch the little-known Cambone, who like so many others on the Bush war team skillfully avoided military service, has quietly become one of the most powerful men in the Pentagon, rivaling even Paul Wolfowitz.

Enron Corp.'s former investor-relations chief grew tense Tuesday when challenged about his testimony that suggested former CEO Jeffrey Skilling participated in schemes to hike earnings estimates or minimize how much revenue stemmed from asset sales.

Now that Liberia is struggling to transition to peace and democracy, the US government cannot turn its back on this resource-rich, yet fragile country.

KENNETH L. LAY and his second in command, Jeffrey K. Skilling, were the public faces of Enron, painting a rosy picture of strong profits and healthy businesses. But as the facts began to tumble out, in the fall of 2001, the company swiftly collapsed, taking with it the fortunes and retirement savings of thousands of employees.