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An investment branch of the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) aid agency has come under fire for subsidizing Avance Ingenieros to build elite housing projects in El Salvador at the expense of the UK taxpayer, according to an investigation by the Guardian newspaper.

Caterpillar - one of the world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment - used a subsidiary in Switzerland to avoid paying $2.4 billion in taxes over a period of 13 years, according to a new U.S. Senate report titled 'Caterpillar's Offshore Tax Strategy.'

Sacyr, the Spanish construction giant, has threatened to halt work on the expansion of the Panama canal unless it is paid an extra $1.6 billion. The company leads a consortium that won the 2009 contract after bidding to do the job for $1.1 billion less than the next bidder.

A mysterious fire and a missing activist have contributed to the concerns of Russian activists fighting a new highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The highway is being built by a consortium that involves Vinci, a French construction multinational, and individuals rumored to be close to prime minister Vladimir Putin.

Asbestos, a known carcinogen, causes 100,000 occupational deaths per year. Although banned in much of the world, asbestos is a common and dangerous building block in much of Asia's development boom, and its export remains both legal and profitable -- to the health detriment of the region.

Former EPA Administrator William Reilly testified on Tuesday that a top Gore aide encouraged him to issue a trial-burn permit for the WTI incinerator located in East Liverpool -- despite Gore's promises not to before the people of the Ohio River Valley.

An American financier is pitching a vast theme park in Baghdad, not out of kindness, but as he says, "for profit."

One year ago this Tuesday, a gas-exploration well part-owned by the Australian mining giant Santos blew, sending a geyser of mud and toxic gas into the air. Nearby villages and factories were flooded, then a big highway and railway were covered, and later East Java's main gas pipeline ruptured.

Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.

Being a columnist is hardly the influential position it's cracked up to be. For weeks I've been trying to convince Ralph Nader voters that they have an obligation to vote for Al Gore or risk right-wing domination of government's three branches. For me, it's a no-brainer since George W. Bush has named Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia as his role models for the three to five Supreme Court appointments he's likely to make.

An Arkansas company and three of its employees face federal charges for alleged improprieties in their work at Fort Leonard Wood.