| Saudi Arabia: Mercenaries, Inc. by William D. Hartung, The Progressive April 1st, 1996 The sanitized version of American foreign policy asserts that the United States is hard at work promoting democratic values around the world in the face of attacks from totalitarian ideologies ranging from communism during the Cold War to Islamic fundamentalism today. Every once in a while an incident occurs that contradicts this reassuring rhetoric by revealing the secret underside of American policy, which is far more concerned with propping up pliable regimes that serve the interests of U.S. multinational corporations than it is with any meaningful notion of democracy. The November 13, 1995 bombing of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) headquarters and an adjacent building housing a U.S. military training mission is one such incident. |
| Brazil: Amazon Contractor Raytheon has CIA Ties by Pratap Chatterjee, Inter Press Service December 3rd, 1995 A contract to monitor the Amazon rainforest in Brazil will include a shadowy company once described as ''virtually indistinguishable'' from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The 1.4-billion-dollar contract for satellite monitoring of drug trafficking and deforestation in the 3.2-million-square-kilometre forests in the Brazilian Amazon was awarded last summer to Raytheon, a 12-billion-dollar, Massachusetts-based company, Raytheon, that makes Patriot and Sidewinder missiles. |
| Brazil: Police Wiretap Jeopardizes Raytheon Radar Project
by Katherine Ellison , The Miami Herald November 25th, 1995 It was meant to be a shining model of the new era of inter-American trade: a $1.4 billion U.S. contract -- the largest ever awarded in Brazil -- in which the Massachusetts- based Raytheon Corp. would build a vast radar project in the Amazon jungle. |
| South Korea: General Dynamics Denies Bribery Allegations by John Mintz, Washington Post October 26th, 1995 A South Korean legislator alleged yesterday that General Dynamics Corp. paid former president Roh Tae Woo at least $100 million in 1991 in a successful effort to persuade the South Korean military to buy the company's F-16 fighters. The Falls Church-based company strenuously denied the allegation. |
| World: Bribe Probe For US Arms Firms by Mark Tran, Guardian (London) September 2nd, 1995 The US government is investigating two of America's biggest defence contractors, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, for possible bribery in foreign sales - with the world's most widely used fighter, the F-16, the apparent focus of interest. |
| INDIA: Setting the Record Straight
by Joshua Karliner December 4th, 1994 A Conversation with Edward A. Munoz, former Managing Director of Union Carbide India, Limited. An interview with the former head of Union Carbide India conducted by Joshua Karliner, Executive Director of CorpWatch, in association with the Bhopal Action Resource Center of the Council on International and Public Affairs. |
| US: Missile-Blower by Daniel Golden, Boston Globe July 19th, 1992 When MIT professor Theodore Postol punctured the Patriot missile's invincible reputation, he made some powerful enemies: Raytheon, the Army, and MIT administrators who valued corporate contributions over academic freedom |
| US: General Electric Expose Garners an Oscar by Megan Rosenfeld, Washington Post April 23rd, 1992 Chasnoff's film indicts the multi-billion-dollar corporation on two counts: failing to clean up the site of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, and knowingly poisoning workers with asbestos and radiation at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, N.Y. Scenes of Hanford area residents who have had or know of birth defects and cancer are juxtaposed with the familiar jingle: "GE: We bring good things to life." |
| Turkey: U.S. Businessman Slain; Terror Group Claims Responsibility by Ahmet Balan, New York Times March 22nd, 1991 Gunmen today killed a former U.S. Air Force officer working for an American company in Turkey, police said. A Marxist terrorist group claimed responsibility. It was the third time in two months the group - Dev Sol, or Revolutionary Left - said it was behind armed attacks on Americans. |
| US: The "Patriots" at Raytheon by Jim Donahue, Multinational Monitor March 1st, 1991 Raytheon Corporation has recently become known throughout the United States as an outstanding defender of democracy thanks to its Patriot missile, which has attracted so much media attention for its role in the Persian Gulf War. |
| US: Secret Task Led to Web Of Firms; Virginian Ran Covert Missions Washington Post March 22nd, 1987 The mission that apparently launched the network of private companies now embroiled in the Iran-contra affair took place in October 1983, when an obscure U.S. Army unit asked a retired lieutenant colonel to undertake a secret job in the Caribbean, according to informed sources. |
| US: Oman Hold Delicate Negotiations Over Bases; Sultanate Pushing for Greater Control Over Access to Persian Gulf Facilities by David B. Ottaway, Washington Post July 19th, 1985 The United States has been involved for two months in delicate negotiations with the Persian Gulf sultanate of Oman, which is seeking more control over U.S. access to, and use of, its strategically located airfields and other military facilities. |
| Saudi Arabia: How U.S. Is Helping in Huge Arms Buildup by Saudi Arabia by Smith Hempstone, U.S. News & World Report April 17th, 1978 An impressive combination of U.S. weapons and American know-how is helping turn this thinly populated kingdom into one of the leading military powers in the entire Middle East. |
| Saudi Arabia: This Gun For Hire by Kim Willenson with Nicholas C. Profitt in Beirut and Lloyd Norman in Washington, Newsweek February 24th, 1975 In the aptly named Los Angeles suburb of Alhambra last week, a private contractor was recruiting a ragtag army of Vietnam veterans for a paradoxical mission: to train Saudi Arabian troops to defend the very oil fields that Henry Kissinger recently warned the U.S. might one day have to invade. |
| Saudi Arabia: Vinnell Adds Saudis To Its Trainee Roster Business Week February 24th, 1975 Vinnell Corp., has a $77-million contract to train Saudi Arabian forces to defend Saudi oil fields, but the Pentagon sidesteppped any probing questions about the contract, shunting them to the State Dept., which had approved it. |
| ARGENTINA: High Court Provides a Roadmap Against Pollution by Marcela Valente, Inter Press News Service The Matanza-Riachuelo river basin, the most polluted in Argentina for more than a century, could begin to see some cleaner waters as the result of an innovative ruling by the National Supreme Court of Justice -- considered a landmark in the history of Latin American environmental law. |
| US: Merck Research Plant Chemicals Kill Fish in Pennsylvania Federal Authorities Say
by Deborah Yao, The Associated Press Drugmaker Merck & Co.'s research facility in West Point dumped a chemical compound that included cyanide into the sewer system, killing more than 1,000 fish in Wissahickon Creek, federal authorities said Thursday. |
| US: Company Ties Not Always Noted in Security Push When the storm erupted several months ago over plans by a United Arab Emirates-based company to take over management of a half-dozen American port terminals, one voice resonated in Washington. Stephen E. Flynn has advocated a port security system that can check every container bound for the United States for radioactive threats. |
| INDIA: Creating dispensable citizens by Usha Ramanathan, The Hindu This is not merely about whether the dam should be constructed or not. It is about condoning state inaction and then blaming the victim. |