Newsweek has a special web report on Zimbabwe’s economy and how the US dollar is traded on the black market. From Newsweek: Officially, one U.S dollar is worth about 30,000 Zimbabwean dollars. As of last week the real price on the black market was about 35 million dollars, or 1,166 times the official rate. The bill for [...]

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey stated on Friday that sales of counterfeit goods and piracy are funding terrorist groups around the world. From the AP: Attorney General Michael Mukasey warned Friday that the huge profits generated from piracy and counterfeiting are increasingly flowing into the coffers of terrorist groups. In remarks to Silicon Valley executives at the Tech [...]

Colombian authorities have seized uranium from the guerrilla organization FARC. From Reuters: The material was found in a rural area long considered a guerrilla stronghold just south of the capital city Bogota. It is being examined by state experts, said a Defense Ministry statement. The statement did not say where the uranium came from or what it could [...]

From the Guardian’s Victor Keegan’s “Why piracy isn’t such a bad thing for music”: The industry claims there are 20 illegal downloads for every legal one, yet it is clearly not affecting the real world on that scale. If a teenager downloads 20,000 tracks, what does he or she do with them? Sell them to others, [...]

A new report from Shared Hope International has found that in a single month more than 400 children were working as prostitutes in Las Vegas. From the AP: More than 400 children were found working as prostitutes in Las Vegas during a single month last year, according to a national report that calls the city a hub [...]

eBay’s business model could fundamentally change if the counterfeit case against it is found in favor of jeweler Tiffany & Co. From the Wall Street Journal: A legal showdown between jeweler Tiffany & Co. and eBay Inc. over counterfeit items has the potential to significantly change the way the online auction Web site does business, legal experts [...]

The AP reports on the case against Casa Quivira, an adoption agency in Guatemala, that has been charged with human trafficking and fraud. From the AP: wo Guatemalan lawyers retained by an adoption agency that has sent scores of children to the U.S. have been charged with fraud and human trafficking, their attorneys said on Monday. Vilma Zamora [...]

As Italy’s trash crisis continues, the spread of the smell of toxic trash has spread to the world famous mozzarella cheese of the region. From the NY Times: In the last few months, sales of buffalo mozzarella have dropped 40 percent, the product’s trade association says. The problem makes for a near-perfect morality play about Italy: For [...]

The International Herald Tribune reports on Siberian carvers who are using extinct Woolly Mammoths tusks to create ivory figures. As global warming melts the tundra in Siberia, remains of the Woolly Mammoth emerge from the ground.  Carvers then use the ivory tusks to create figures to sell in Asia. Conservationists are encouraging the use of the Woolly [...]

As China continues its crackdown in Tibet, authorities in China have repeatedly restricted the news and information that is available to its citizens. People in China attempting to receive news are forced to gather information on the black market due to these restrictions. An article by the International Herald Tribune mentions the various websites that [...]