News Articles
| SERBIA: One-Dollar Steel Mill Exposes Cracks In Privatisation by Vesna Peric Zimonjic, Inter Press Service February 16th, 2012 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. |
| US/AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN: U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts by Mark Mazzetti, New York Times May 15th, 2010 Top military officials continue to rely on a secret network of private spies set up by Michael D. Furlong, despite concerns about the legality of the operation. A New York Times review found Mr. Furlong’s operatives still providing information, with contractors still being paid under a $22 million contract, managed by Lockheed Martin and supervised by a Pentagon office. |
| US: Senators Call For Changes to Troubled, Costly Afghan Police Training Program by Ryan Knutsen, ProPublica April 15th, 2010 State and Defense department officials took a tongue-lashing today, trying to explain to a Senate subcommittee how the government has poured $6 billion since 2002 into building an effective Afghan police force with disastrous results. |
| AFGHANISTAN/US: Outsourcing intelligence by David Ignatius, Washington Post March 17th, 2010 The headline read like something you might see in the conspiracy-minded Pakistani press: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants." But the story appeared in Monday's New York Times, and it highlighted some big problems that have developed in the murky area between military and intelligence activities. |
| AFGHANISTAN/US: Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants by DEXTER FILKINS and MARK MAZZETTI, New York Times March 15th, 2010 Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States. The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. |
| US: Obama's Budget Calls for Billions in New Spending for Drones by Jason Leopold, Truthout February 2nd, 2010 Shares of major US defense contractors including Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman rose upon the unveiling of President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 spending plan for the Pentagon, part of the president's overall $3.8 trillion budget proposal. More than $2 billion will be used to purchase unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, blamed for a significant rise in civilian casualties in the "war on terror." |
| US/KUWAIT: Settlement possible in military contractor fraud case by Bill Rankin, Atlanta Journal-Constitution January 29th, 2010 Kuwaiti firm Agility (formerly Public Warehousing) indicted here for overcharging the Army on an $8.5 billion contract is negotiating a possible settlement with the Justice Department. On Nov. 9, a federal grand jury in Atlanta indicted the firm on charges it gouged the U.S. government by overcharging on its contract to supply food to American troops in Iraq. |
| US/IRAQ: U.S. Companies Join Race on Iraqi Oil Bonanza by TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times January 13th, 2010 American companies have been arriving in Iraq to pursue an expected multibillion-dollar bonanza of projects to revive the country’s petroleum industry. But there are questions about the Iraqi government’s capacity to police the companies. “These are for-profit concerns and they are trying to make as much money as they can,” said Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch. |
| US: Judge dismisses all charges in Blackwater shooting by Associated Press, Los Angeles Times December 31st, 2009 A federal judge has dismissed all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a deadly Baghdad shooting. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Lost in Limbo: Injured Afghan Translators Struggle to Survive by Pratap Chatterjee, ProPublica December 17th, 2009 Local translators are hidden casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military uses defense contractors to hire local residents to serve as translators for the troops. These local translators often live, sleep and eat with soldiers. And yet when they are wounded, they are often ignored by the U.S. system designed to provide them medical care and disability benefits, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica. |
| JORDAN: For AIG’s Man in Jordan, War Becomes a Business Opportunity by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica December 17th, 2009 For Emad Hatabah, the war in Iraq became a business opportunity. As AIG's chief representative in Jordan, he was responsible for coordinating the care for hundreds of Iraqis who had been injured while working under contract for U.S. troops. He fulfilled his functions by sending business to himself, his friends and business associates, according to interviews and records. |
| US: DynCorp Fires Executive Counsel by August Cole, Wall Street Journal November 28th, 2009 DynCorp International Inc. said it has terminated one of its top lawyers, a move that comes on the heels of the government contractor's disclosure that some of its subcontractors may have broken U.S. law in trying to speed up getting licenses and visas overseas. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Paying Off the Warlords,
Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com November 17th, 2009 Among the dozens of businesses with lucrative Afghan and U.S. taxpayer-financed reconstruction deals are two extremely well connected companies -- Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid -- that helped to swell the election coffers of President Hamid Karzai as well as the family business of his running mate, the country's new vice president, warlord Mohammed Qasim Fahim. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Wackenhut aids inquiry into its Afghanistan contractor http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/03/afghanistan.contractors/ September 3rd, 2009 This week the Project on Government Oversight released damning allegations of deviant hazing at a camp for security guards in Afghanistan. Sparking questions from the State Department, POGO warned the problems are "posing a significant threat to the security of the embassy and its personnel." |
| AFGHANISTAN: Wackenhut aids inquiry into its Afghanistan contractor http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/03/afghanistan.contractors/ September 3rd, 2009 This week the Project on Government Oversight released damning allegations of deviant hazing at a camp for security guards in Afghanistan. Sparking questions from the State Department, POGO warned the problems are "posing a significant threat to the security of the embassy and its personnel." |
| AFGHANISTAN: Wackenhut aids inquiry into its Afghanistan contractor CNN.com September 3rd, 2009 This week the Project on Government Oversight released damning allegations of deviant hazing at a camp for security guards in Afghanistan. Sparking questions from the State Department, POGO warned the problems are "posing a significant threat to the security of the embassy and its personnel." |
| US: New Hire Highlights Altegrity's Growing Ambition by Thomas Heath, Washington Post August 17th, 2009 For more than 12 years, Falls Church-based USIS quietly scrutinized the backgrounds of individuals who needed security clearance to work in the U.S. government or in the private sector. Now re-named Altegrity, the company has ambitions of securing government contracts for much more than investigation and data-collection. |
| US: DynCorp Billed U.S. $50 Million Beyond Costs in Defense Contract by V. Dion Haynes, Washington Post August 12th, 2009 A Defense Department auditor, appearing before the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, testified Tuesday that DynCorp International billed the government $50 million more than the amount specified in a contract to provide dining facilities and living quarters for military personnel in Kuwait. |
| US: Cash-rich SAIC hits the acquisition trail by Sami Lais, Washington Technology August 6th, 2009 Making a big splash in recent weeks, Science Applications International Corp. bought two companies, adding new capabilities in cybersecurity, energy and disaster recovery — areas in which government spending is expected to grow. |
| US: Sued by the forest by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, The Boston Globe July 19th, 2009 Last February, the town of Shapleigh, Maine, population 2,326, passed an unusual ordinance. Like nearby towns, Shapleigh sought to protect its aquifers from the Nestle Corporation, which draws heavily on the region for its Poland Spring bottled water. Shapleigh tried something new. At a town meeting, residents voted to endow all of the town’s natural assets with legal rights. |
| US: Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for U.S. Government by CHRISTOPHER DREW and JOHN MARKOFF, New York Times May 30th, 2009 The Obama administration’s push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts. Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies. |
| US: Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out by Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post April 7th, 2009 The surge in the U.S. military contracting workforce would ebb under Defense Secretary Gates's budget proposal as the Pentagon moves to replace private workers with full-time civil servants. The move could affect companies such as CACI and SAIC. "We are right-sizing the defense acquisition workforce so we can improve our contract oversight and get a better deal for the taxpayers," said the Pentagon's director of defense procurement and acquisition policy. |
| IRAQ: Ex-Blackwater Workers May Return to Iraq Jobs by Rod Nordland, New York Times April 3rd, 2009 Late last month Blackwater Worldwide lost its billion-dollar contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq, but by next month many of its private security guards will be back on the job here. The same individuals will just be wearing new uniforms, working for Triple Canopy, the firm that won the State Department’s new contract. |
| US: Pentagon Weighs Cuts and Revisions of Weapons by Christopher Drew, New York Times April 3rd, 2009 U.S. defense executives and consultants are worried about the sweeping changes in military programs that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected to announce on Monday. Weapons systems like missile defense are likely to endure deep cuts. |
| CHINA: Banks Face Big Losses From Bets on Chinese Realty by David Barboza , New York Times April 3rd, 2009 Evergrande Real Estate Group, now mired in debt, has become a symbol of China’s go-go era of investing, when international bankers, private equity deal makers and hedge fund managers from Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and others rushed here hoping to cash in on the world’s biggest building boom. |
| US/AFGHANISTAN: Unknown Afghanistan by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com March 17th, 2009 Want a billion dollars in development aid? If you happen to live in Afghanistan, the two quickest ways to attract attention and so aid from the U.S. authorities are: Taliban attacks or a flourishing opium trade. For those with neither, the future could be bleak. This piece take a look at the lack of reconstruction aid in areas like Bamiyan, Afghanistan. |
| CHILE: Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water by Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times March 15th, 2009 Nowhere is the system for buying and selling water more permissive than in Chile, where water rights are private property, not a public resource, and can be traded like commodities with little government oversight or safeguards for the environment. The small town of Quillaga is being swallowed up in the country’s intensifying water wars. |
| UGANDA/IRAQ: Why 10,000 Ugandans are eagerly serving in Iraq by Max Delany, Christian Science Monitor March 6th, 2009 Hired out to multibillion-dollar companies for hundreds of dollars a month, 10,000 Ugandans risk their lives seeking fortunes protecting US Army bases, airports, and oil firms in Iraq for as little as $600 per month. Many are looking to go to Afghanistan as the Obama administration increases contracts there. |
| US: Food Problems Elude Private Inspectors by Michael Moss and Andrew Martin, New York Times March 5th, 2009 When food industry giants like Kellogg want to ensure that American consumers are being protected from contaminated products, they rely on private inspectors. With government inspectors overwhelmed by the task of guarding the nation’s food supply, the job of monitoring food plants has in large part fallen to an army of private auditors, and problems are rife. |
| US: 70 Youths Sue Former Judges in Detention Kickback Case by Ian Urbina, New York Times February 26th, 2009 More than 70 juveniles and their families filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday against two former judges who pleaded guilty this month in a scheme that involved their taking kickbacks to put young offenders in privately run detention centers. The two privately operated centers are run by PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care. |
| US: Company Gets Pentagon Contract Despite Death Inquiries by Associated Press, New York Times February 7th, 2009 Private military contractor KBR has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work even though it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two American soldiers in Iraq. |
| US/AFGHANISTAN: Short-staffed USAID tries to keep pace by Ken Dilanian, USA Today February 1st, 2009 Like other government functions, U.S. foreign aid and reconstruction largely has been privatized. USAID now turns to contractors to fulfill its basic mission of fighting poverty and promoting democracy. CorpWatch's 2006 "Afghanistan, Inc" documented problems with Chemonics and other contractors operating in Afghanistan. |
| US: Plea by Blackwater Guard Helps Indict Others by GINGER THOMPSON and JAMES RISEN, New York Times December 9th, 2008 On Monday, the Justice Department unsealed its case against five Blackwater private security guards, built largely around testimony from a sixth guard about the 2007 shootings that left 17 unsuspecting Iraqi civilians dead at a busy Baghdad traffic circle. |
| US/IRAQ: Indiana guardsmen sue defense contractor KBR by Farah Stockman, Boston Globe December 4th, 2008 Sixteen Indiana national guardsmen filed a lawsuit yesterday against military contractor KBR. The complaint alleges that several reservists contracted respiratory system tumors and skin rashes after guarding reconstruction work at the Qarmat Ali treatment plant, strewn with the toxin chromium dichromate. |
| CANADA/IRAQ: Drill, Garner, Drill by Anthony Fenton, Mother Jones November 24th, 2008 In the history of the Iraq War, one name is perhaps synonymous with the collapse of the Bush administration's hopes for a post-Saddam world: Retired Lt. General Jay M. Garner, who served as the first post-war administrator. This year, he and a small group of former US military leaders, officials, and lobbyists have quietly used their Kurdistan connections to help Canadian companies access some of the region's richest oil fields. |
| US: Bank of New York Mellon Will Oversee Bailout Fund by Eric Dash, New York Times October 15th, 2008 The Bank of New York Mellon was named the master custodian firm overseeing the Treasury Department’s $700 billion bailout fund. It will hold and track the distressed assets that the government will buy as well as run and report on the auctions used to buy the assets. Government officials called it the “prime contractor of the purchase program.” |
| IRAQ: Iraq Case Sheds Light On Secret Contractors by Siobhan Gorman and August Cole, Wall Street Journal July 17th, 2008 Court documents and interviews with whistleblowers shed light on persistent problems in the operations of private military and security company MVM, Inc., a top provider of secret security to U.S. intelligence agencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
| US: Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over KBR Stir by James Risen, New York Times June 17th, 2008 Charles M. Smith, the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war, says he was ousted for refusing to approve payment for more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR. The Pentagon has recently awarded KBR part of a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq. |
| US: Washington Blocks Exports of Munitions Firm Suspected of Fraud by C. J. CHIVERS, New York Times April 4th, 2008 The U.S. State Department on Thursday suspended the international export activities of AEY Inc., a Miami Beach arms-dealing company led by a 22-year-old man whose munitions procurements for the Pentagon are under criminal investigation. |
| UGANDA: Privatization of Seeds Moving Apace by Aileen Kwa, IPS February 21st, 2008 The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. According to an inside government source, seeds companies including Monsanto have been lobbying for such intellectual property protection. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Copper project tests Afghanistan’s resources by Jon Boone, Financial Times January 8th, 2008 The debris left over from previous attempts to extract some of Afghanistan’s colossal mineral wealth can be found just 35km south-east of Kabul. But in five years, the landscape in the Aynak exploration area may be changed into one of the world’s largest opencast mines, thanks to a $3bn (£1.5bn) investment by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC). |
| US: Life Was Lost in Maelstrom of Suspicion by Ginger Thompson and Eric Schmitt, New York Times December 4th, 2007 The suicide of a top Air Force procurement officer casts a cloud of suspicion, threatening to plunge a service still struggling to emerge from one of its worst scandals into another quagmire. |
| US: Intel official: Say goodbye to privacy by Pamela Hess , Associated Press November 11th, 2007 Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information. |
| US: Billions over Baghdad; The Spoils of War by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Vanity Fair October 1st, 2007 Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency--much of it belonging to the Iraqi people--was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. |
| US: State Dept. Tallies 56 Shootings Involving Blackwater on Diplomatic Guard Duty by James Risen, NY Times September 28th, 2007 The State Department said Thursday that Blackwater USA security personnel had been involved in 56 shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq so far this year. |
| US: Head of firm paid to track Iraq spending investigated by Matt Kelley, USA Today September 21st, 2007 The head of a firm hired to audit Iraqi reconstruction spending is under investigation for violation of conflict of interest laws. |
| US: U.S. Contractor Banned by Iraq Over Shootings by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times September 18th, 2007 Blackwater USA, an American contractor that provides security to some of the top American officials in Iraq, has been banned from working in the country by the Iraqi government after a shooting that left eight Iraqis dead and involved an American diplomatic convoy. |
| IRAQ: Will Iraq Kick Out Blackwater? by Adam Zagorin and Brian Bennett, TIME Magazine September 17th, 2007 TIME has obtained an incident report prepared by the U.S. government describing a fire fight Sunday in Baghdad in which at least eight Iraqis were reported killed and 13 wounded. The loss of life has provoked anger in Baghdad, where the Interior Ministry has suspended Blackwater's license to operate around the country. |
| CHINA: An Opportunity for Wall St. in China’s Surveillance Boom by Keith Bradsher, New York Times September 11th, 2007 China Security and Surveillance Technology, a fast-growing company that installs and sometimes operates surveillance systems for Chinese police agencies, jails and banks, has just been approved for a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s listing is just a sign of ever-closer ties among Wall Street, surveillance companies and the Chinese government’s security apparatus. |
| CHILE: Pascua Lama payoff disputed by Chile locals by Trey Pollard, Santiago Times/El Mercurio September 11th, 2007 Huasco Valley property owners who live below the Pascua Lama gold mine and administer US$3 million yearly in “hush” money given them by mine owner Barrick Gold charged this weekend that their predecessors used Barrick’s money for personal gain. |
| US: Iraq convoy was sent out despite threat by T. Christian Miller, LA Times September 3rd, 2007 Senior managers for defense contractor KBR overruled calls to halt supply operations in Iraq in the spring of 2004, ordering unarmored trucks into an active combat zone where six civilian drivers died in an ambush, according to newly available documents. |
| US: Army to examine Iraq contracts by Richard Lardner, Associated Press August 29th, 2007 The Army will examine as many as 18,000 contracts awarded over the past four years to support U.S. forces in Iraq to determine how many are tainted by waste, fraud and abuse. |
| CHINA: China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People by Keith Bradsher, The New York Times August 12th, 2007 At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity. |
| US: Blackwater supports inquiry into fatal shooting by Bill Sizemore, Virginian-Pilot July 25th, 2007 After one of his personal bodyguards was shot to death by a Blackwater USA security contractor last Christmas Eve, Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi assured the U.S. ambassador that he was trying to keep the incident out of the public eye. |
| US: 'America's private army' under fire for Illinois facility by E.A. Torriero, Chicago Tribune July 23rd, 2007 Blackwater North, as the North Carolina-based firm calls its new site, is designed primarily as a tactical training ground for domestic law enforcement and contractors. Using civilians schooled in military warfare, the site offers training in weaponry, hostage dealings and terror reaction. Still, the sudden appearance of Blackwater is attracting criticism and questions from miles around. Anti-war activists and locals are wary about the new training site. |
| US: Cited firm gets big security contract;
Violations won't sour $323 million deal by Allen Powell II, West Bank Bureau July 15th, 2007 A Hammond security company, Inner Parish Security Corp., which admitted to several "serious" state violations, including hiring an underage officer, has been awarded a large federal contract to provide private security officers at FEMA trailer parks in metro New Orleans. |
| UN: Global Compact with Business 'Lacks Teeth' - NGOs by Gustavo Capdevila, Inter Press News Service (IPS) July 6th, 2007 The U.N.'s Global Compact with international big business "at the moment is so voluntary that it really is a happy-go-lucky club," says Ramesh Singh, chief executive of ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation. The controversy has come to a boiling point because of the Global Compact Leaders' Summit being held in Geneva on Thursday and Friday, at which over 1,000 representatives of multinational companies are taking part, in addition to well-known civil society figures like Irene Khan, the secretary general of AI; Mary Robinson, president of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative; Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation; and Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International. |
| IRAQ: A Private Realm Of Intelligence-Gathering; Firm Extends U.S. Government's Reach by Steve Fainaru and Alec Klein, Washington Post Foreign Service July 1st, 2007 On the first floor of a tan building inside Baghdad's Green Zone, the full scope of Iraq's daily carnage is condensed into a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation. The intelligence was compiled not by the U.S. military, but by a British security firm, Aegis Defence Services Ltd. The Reconstruction Operations Center is the most visible example of how intelligence collection is now among the responsibilities handled by a network of private security companies that work in the shadows of the U.S. military. |
| AFRICA: What Does Africa Need Most: Technology or Aid? by Jason Pontin, The New York Times June 17th, 2007 TED Global 2007 is one small skirmish in a larger ideological conflict between those who believe that Africa needs more and better international aid, and those who think entrepreneurialism and technology will lift the continent out of poverty and thus reduce its miseries. |
| US: CIA Plans Cutbacks, Limits on Contractor Staffing by Walter Pincus and Stephen Barr, Washington Post June 11th, 2007 Acting under pressure from Congress, the CIA has decided to trim its contractor staffing by 10 percent. It is the agency's first effort since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to curb what critics have decried as the growing privatization of U.S. intelligence work, a circumstance that has sharply boosted some personnel costs. |
| GERMANY:German Police and Protesters Battle Near Site of G-8 Meeting by Reuters, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/world/europe/03germany.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fG%2fGroup%20of%20Eight&oref=slogin June 3rd, 2007 German police clashed with hundreds of protesters in the port of Rostock on Saturday following a much larger peaceful demonstration against the Group of 8 summit meeting next week in a nearby Baltic resort. |
| US: Whistleblower alleges Lockheed official misled Congress on Deepwater by Alice Lipowicz, Washington Technology May 29th, 2007 A senior official at Lockheed Martin Corp. in charge of the Deepwater contract for the Coast Guard refused a meeting with one of his own division employees in 2004 to discuss shortcomings in the program’s converted patrol boats, charged Deepwater whistleblower Michael DeKort in a just-released letter to two members of Congress. |
| IRAQ: Death Toll for Contractors Reaches New High in Iraq by John M. Broder and James Risen, New York Times May 19th, 2007 Casualties among private contractors in Iraq have soared to record levels this year, setting a pace that seems certain to turn 2007 into the bloodiest year yet for the civilians who work alongside the American military in the war zone, according to new government numbers. |
| MEXICO: Wackenhut Worries: A company with a sketchy record has quietly taken over deportation duties from the Border Patrol
by Adam Borowitz, Tuscon Weekly May 3rd, 2007 Forget about asking questions relating to the transportation of illegal immigrants back to Mexico, because Wackenhut Corporation, which won a government contract to perform this function in the name of the American people, doesn't have to answer them! The daily transportation of thousands of illegal immigrants back into Mexico has been turned over to a private company that was fired last year for botching security at the headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security. |
| US: Committee subpoenas former Walter Reed chief by Kelly Kennedy, Army Times March 3rd, 2007 The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has subpoenaed Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who was fired as head of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, after Army officials refused to allow him to testify before the committee Monday. |
| IRAQ: New Oil Law Seen as Cover for Privatisation by Emad Mekay, Inter Press News Service (IPS) February 27th, 2007 The U.S.-backed Iraqi cabinet approved a new oil law Monday that is set to give foreign companies the long-term contracts and safe legal framework they have been waiting for, but which has rattled labour unions and international campaigners who say oil production should remain in the hands of Iraqis. |
| US: In Washington, Contractors Take On Biggest Role Ever by Scott Shane and Ron Nixon, The New York Times February 4th, 2007 |
| US: Border Policy's Success Strains Resources: Tent City in Texas Among Immigrant Holding Sites Drawing Criticism by Spencer S. Hsu and Sylvia Moreno, The Washington Post February 2nd, 2007 Ringed by barbed wire, a futuristic tent city rises from the Rio Grande Valley in the remote southern tip of Texas, the largest camp in a federal detention system rapidly gearing up to keep pace with Washington's increasing demand for stronger enforcement of immigration laws. |
| US: PUC Not Letting Verizon off Hook by Ann S. Kim, Portland Press Herald (MAINE) January 30th, 2007 The Maine Public Utilities Commission decided Monday to begin contempt proceedings against Verizon Communications for failing to affirm the truthfulness of statements the company made about its possible role in the government's warrantless surveillance program. |
| UK: Iraq poised to end drought for thirsting oil giants by Danny Fortson, The Independent (UK) January 7th, 2007 For more than three decades, foreign oil companies wanting into Iraq have been like children pressed against the sweet shop window - desperately seeking to feast on the goodies but having no way of getting through the door. That could soon change. |
| EL SALVADOR: Multinational Capital on the Offensive by Raúl Gutiérrez, Inter Press Service (IPS) January 5th, 2007 International financial consortia have already squeezed local shareholders out of banks in El Salvador, and now they are expected to sideline the state, all of which will contribute to widening the gap between rich and poor. |
| AFGHANISTAN: The Reach of War; U.S. Report Finds Dismal Training of Afghan Police by James Glantz and David Rohde; Carlotta Gall, The New York Times December 4th, 2006 Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a joint report by the Pentagon and the State Department has found that the American-trained police force in Afghanistan is largely incapable of carrying out routine law enforcement work, and that managers of the $1.1 billion training program cannot say how many officers are actually on duty or where thousands of trucks and other equipment issued to police units have gone. |
| CUBA: Cuba's Military Puts Business On Front Lines by JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA, Wall Street Journal November 15th, 2006 At the height of the Cold War, Cuba's soldiers became a legend on the island when they punched through enemy lines, defeating South Africa's army in Angola. Today Cuban generals are applying capitalist tactics to try to improve bottom lines in businesses that range from growing beans to running hotels and airlines. |
| IRAQ: Bechtel Departure Removes More Illusions by Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service November 9th, 2006 The decision of the giant engineering company Bechtel to withdraw from Iraq has left many Iraqis feeling betrayed. In its departure they see the end of remaining hopes for the reconstruction of Iraq. |
| WORLD: Controlling the Corporate Mercenaries by Nick Dearden, War on Want, Zmag November 7th, 2006 While Iraq represents bloodshed and death on a massive scale to most people, to Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) it has brought a boom time, boosting the revenues of British-based PMSCs alone from £320 million in 2003 to more than £1.8 billion in 2004. In the same year income for the industry worldwide reached $100 billion. |
| IRAQ: Contractor Bechtel leaves disintegrating Iraq short of goal
by David Streitfeld, Baltimore Sun November 4th, 2006 Bechtel Corp. helped build the Bay Area subway system, Hoover Dam and a city for 200,000 in the desert of Saudi Arabia. It likes to boast that it can go anywhere, under any conditions and build anything. |
| IRAQ: Bechtel ends Iraq rebuilding after a rough 3 years by David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle November 1st, 2006 Bechtel Corp. went to Iraq three years ago to help rebuild a nation torn by war. Since then, 52 of its people have been killed and much of its work sabotaged as Iraq dissolved into insurgency and sectarian violence. |
| UK: Blair accused of trying to 'privatise' war in Iraq by Kim Sengupta, The Independent (UK) October 30th, 2006 The Government has been accused of reneging on pledges to control private security companies operating in Iraq because it wants to "privatise the war" as part of its exit strategy. |
| IRAQ: Idle Contractors Add Millions to Iraq Rebuilding by James Glantz, The New York Times October 25th, 2006 Overhead costs have consumed more than half the budget of some reconstruction projects in Iraq, according to a government estimate released yesterday, leaving far less money than expected to provide the oil, water and electricity needed to improve the lives of Iraqis. |
| US: THE C.I.A.’S TRAVEL AGENT by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker October 23rd, 2006 On the official Web site of Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, there is a section devoted to a subsidiary called Jeppesen International Trip Planning, based in San Jose, California. The write-up mentions that the division “offers everything needed for efficient, hassle-free, international flight operations,” spanning the globe “from Aachen to Zhengzhou.” The paragraph concludes, “Jeppesen has done it all.” |
| US: Mailed Diebold Disks Raise Voting Machine Fears Associated Press October 20th, 2006 Disks containing what appears to be software code used in Maryland's touchscreen voting machines in 2004 were delivered anonymously to a former state legislator, raising fresh concerns about the reliability of the voting system. |
| IRAQ: As U.S. effort winds down, can Iraq fill 'reconstruction gap'? by Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press October 16th, 2006 America's big builders invaded Iraq three years ago, hard on the heels of U.S. troops and tanks. Now the reconstruction billions are drying up so they're pulling out, leaving both completed and unfinished projects in the hands of an Iraqi government unprepared to manage either. |
| LIBERIA: Mittal accused of creating a state within a state in Liberia by David Pallister, The Guardian (UK) October 2nd, 2006 A damning report on Mittal Steel's acquisition of an impoverished African country's iron ore reserves is published today, accusing the world's largest steelmaker of offering an inequitable "raw deal" that has created an unaccountable "state within a state". |
| US: New Jersey Ratepayers Stop Big Utility Merger Environment News Service September 18th, 2006 After two years of public hearings, litigation, testimony and negotiations and more than 11,500 letters, phone calls and emails to state decision makers, New Jersey consumers avoided higher electricity rates when Exelon walked away from its takeover bid to buy-out Public Service Enterprise Group, PSEG, a publicly traded energy and energy services company headquartered in New Jersey. |
| WORLD: Private Sector 'Not the Answer to Poverty' by Philip Thornton, Independent (UK) September 1st, 2006 Rich countries must deliver more money directly to poor nations to avert a growing health and sanitation crisis spreading across the southern hemisphere, Oxfam will say today. |
| WORLD: New alliance seeks fight water sector corruption by Alister Doyle, Reuters August 22nd, 2006 Water experts and businesses teamed up on Tuesday to fight corruption feared to be siphoning off billions of dollars from projects to supply drinking water to the Third World. |
| US: IRS to Privatize Debt Collection by David Cay Johnston, The New York Times August 21st, 2006 Privatizing government services is often promoted as a way to cut costs. But the government would probably net $1.1 billion from private debt collectors over 10 years, compared with the $87 billion that could be reaped if the agency hired more revenue officers. |
| US: Foreign Companies Buy U.S. Roads, Bridges by Leslie Miller, Associated Press July 15th, 2006 Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying. |
| INDONESIA: Mud from oil well mucks up Indonesian towns Reuters July 13th, 2006 Thousands of Indonesians driven from their homes by rivers of noxious mud linked to exploratory oil drilling may now be forced to abandon their only means of livelihood: shrimp farming. |
| UK: Watchdog inquiry threat over rolling stock by David Teather, The Guardian (UK) June 28th, 2006 The companies supplying the trains and carriages that run on Britain's railways are facing the threat of a competition inquiry today amid allegations they are ripping off passengers by charging the rail-operating firms too much. |
| CHILE: Hydropower Plans Paddle On Against the Current
by Daniela Estrada , Inter Press News Service June 27th, 2006 The Chilean government has granted Endesa, a Spanish corporation, permission to carry out exploratory studies in the south of the country for the purpose of building four hydroelectric plants, in a move opposed by environmentalists, who are planning several demonstrations. |
| US: Ehrlich Vetoes BGE Rate Deferral Bill by Andrew A. Green, The Baltimore Sun June 22nd, 2006 Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced today that he has vetoed the BGE rate deferral plan the legislature passed last week. |
| ARGENTINA: Another War Over Water by Marcela Valente, Inter Press Service News Agency June 7th, 2006 Fed up with poor water quality, rate hikes and a lack of investment in expanding infrastructure, residents, union members and environmentalists in the Argentine province of Córdoba have forced a multinational corporation to withdraw from the business, and are now demanding that the state play a part in a new public water company. |
| US: Critics Wary of Development Plans for Utah Land by Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times June 6th, 2006 The proposed Washington County Growth and Conservation Act would sell up to 40 square miles of federal land and use the proceeds to finance a multimillion-dollar water pipeline and other local projects. Utah Republican Sen. Robert F. Bennett and Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson are expected to introduce the bill in coming weeks. Waiting in the wings are nearly a dozen similar bills for counties in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico where population pressure is fueling the demand for more developable land. |
| US: The Next Niche: School Bus Ads
by Caroline E. Mayer, The Washington Post June 4th, 2006 BusRadio, a start-up company in Massachusetts, wants to pipe into school buses around the country a private radio network that plays music, public-service announcements, contests and, of course, ads, aimed at kids as they travel to and from school. |
| US: Needy Texans' Application Faxed into a "Black Hole" by Polly Ross Hughes, Houston Chronicle June 2nd, 2006 The snafu is just the latest example of confusion during the state's transition this year from public to private screening of health and welfare applicants under an $899 million contract with outsourcing giant Accenture LLP. |
| US: New Hampshire Town Bans Corporate Water Withdrawals by Kat Bundy, Susquehanna June 1st, 2006 Across the country, corporations are privatizing the commons -- water -- so they can sell it. Now one town is fighting back in a powerful new way: Barnstead, New Hampshire, has become the first municipality in the U.S. to adopt a binding local law that bans certain corporations from withdrawing water within the town. To protect their local law, Barnstead residents have also voted to strip corporations of their claims to constitutional rights and powers. This is not your father's old "regulatory" approach. |
| US: Harlem, a Test Lab, Splits Over Charter Schools by Susan Saulny, The New York Times June 1st, 2006 By the end of next year, Harlem will be home to 17 charter schools, publicly financed but privately run — more than in Staten Island, Queens and Lower Manhattan combined. The Bronx has a high concentration, too, but only Brooklyn is expected to have more charter schools by the end of next year. |
| IRAQ: Rights Group Faults U.S. for 'War Outsourcing' by Alan Cowell, The New York Times May 23rd, 2006 Amnesty International today assailed the United States' use of military contractors in Iraq as "war outsourcing" and said the behavior of some contractors had diminished America's moral standing. |
| GERMANY: Public Housing in Private Hands by Mark Landler, The New York Times May 5th, 2006 |
| BOLIVIA: Bolivia threatens to seize energy assets by Juan Forero, International Herald Tribune May 4th, 2006 Bolivian authorities plan to scour the financial records of foreign energy companies and have threatened explicitly for the first time to seize company assets if new contracts giving the state greater control can not be negotiated. |
| BOLIVIA: Bolivia Nationalizes Natural Gas Industry The Associated Press May 1st, 2006 President Evo Morales ordered soldiers to immediately occupy Bolivia's natural gas fields Monday and threatened to evict foreign companies unless they sign new contracts within six months giving Bolivia majority control over the entire chain of production. |
| US: Private contractor dropping eligible Texas kids from health coverage by Polly Hughes, The Houston Chronicle April 18th, 2006 As of last week, 30,000 children had been dropped from the Childrens Health Insurance Program since Accenture, LLP began running the call center in December. |
| US: Juvenile Detention Center May Be Privatized by Kathleen Chapman, Palm Beach Post April 12th, 2006 Palm Beach County's juvenile detention center could be turned over to a private company under a proposal in the Florida House of Representatives. |
| VENEZUELA: Gov't Takes Back Oil Fields BBC News April 3rd, 2006 Venezuela has taken control of two oil fields operated by French firm Total and Italy's Eni. |
| IRAQ: Cut in Food Rations Hurting Poor Iraqis by Daud Salman, Environmental News Service April 3rd, 2006 A government decision to cut food rations has hurt poor Iraqis who cannot afford high prices on the open market, say economists and Baghdad residents. |
| THAILAND: Court Ruling Hits Privatisation Plans by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service March 27th, 2006 On Thursday, the supreme administrative court ruled that the planned sale of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), to raise an estimated 892.5 million US dollars, was illegal. |
| US: Pentagon Orders Investigation Of Cunningham's MZM Earmark by Walter Pincus , Washington Post March 24th, 2006 Undersecretary of Defense Stephen A. Cambone ordered an internal study of how funding earmarked in a bill by then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) led to contracts for MZM Inc. to do work for the Pentagon's new agency: the Counterintelligence Field Activity. |
| MEXICO: At World Forum, Support Erodes for Private Management of Water by Elisabeth Malkin, The New York Times March 20th, 2006 In the past decade, according to a private water suppliers trade group, private companies have managed to extend water service to just 10 million people, less than 1 percent of those who need it. Some 1.1 billion people still lack access to clean water, the United Nations says. |
| WORLD: Foreign Corporations Backing Off by Diego Cevallos, Inter Press Service News Agency March 16th, 2006 Water rights groups say transnational corporations are increasingly sinking their teeth into Latin America's water services, but studies by the United Nations and other experts point to the contrary: these companies are backing off, and may not come back any time soon. |
| VENEZUELA: Indigenous Demonstrators Protest Coal Mining by Humberto Márquez, Interpress News Service January 27th, 2006 Indigenous protesters from northwestern Venezuela marched Friday through the streets of Caracas, which is hosting the sixth World Social Forum (WSF), to protest plans for mining coal on their land. |
| US: Possible big jump in tolls upsets motorists: Residents of Northern Indiana say plan isn't fair to their communities by Bill Ruthhart, The Indianapolis Star January 25th, 2006 Residents of Northern Indiana feel that a plan to privatize toll roads and raise fares does not benefit the community. |
| BOLIVIA: Bolivia’s Morales rejects US domination by Hal Weitzman, The Financial Times January 22nd, 2006 Evo Morales was sworn in on Sunday as Bolivia’s first indigenous president in a historic and emotional ceremony that set the tone for his new government, promising to move much the profits of Bolivia's natural resources to the people of Bolivia. |
| BOLIVIA: Bechtel Drops $50 Million Claim to Settle Bolivian Water Dispute Environmental News Service January 19th, 2006 Bechtel, a global engineering and construction company based in San Francisco, today reached agreement with the government of Bolivia, dropping a legal demand for $50 million after a revolt over privatizing water services in the city of Cochabamba forced the company out of Bolivia in April 2000. |
| US: Contractor Supplies IRS with Citizens' Political Affiliations by Mary Dalrymple, Associated Press January 5th, 2006 The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday it had told a contractor to stop sending the agency information about political party affiliation in databases used to track down delinquent taxpayers. |
| RUSSIA: In Russia, Pollution Is Good for Business by Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times December 28th, 2005 One of the paradoxes of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is that companies in Russia and other Eastern European countries, which are among the world's largest producers of greenhouse gases, are poised to earn hundreds of millions of dollars through trading their rights to release carbon dioxide into the air. |
| BOLIVIA: Who Will Bring Water to the Bolivian Poor? by Juan Forero, The New York Times December 15th, 2005 Five years after the citizens of Cochabamba won the "water war" against multinational Bechtel, the poorer half of the city still has no reliable access to the now-public water utility. |
| US: In selling Maine's Fresh Waters, Does Maine Get a Cut? by Sara Miller Llana, Christian Science Monitor December 14th, 2005 These days, instead of evoking Maine's tranquil forestland and waterways, the Poland Springs brand symbolizes a battle over who owns and controls the water that seeps into the state's permeable rock. |
| ENRON: Ken Lay's Very Public Appeal by Kate Murphy, BusinessWeek December 14th, 2005 Soon heading to trial, the former Enron CEO implores -- before a wealthy crowd -- company employees to "stand up" for him. |
| US: U.S. Arranges 'Pre-Deployment' Training for Haiti-Bound Private Police by Stephen Peacock, NarcoNews December 13th, 2005 The U.S. State Dept. is reaching out to independent contractors to train other private contractors who will be deployed as “civilian police” -- hired guns for so-called peacekeeping missions taking place in Haiti and other geopolitical hotspots. The senior adviser selected for the task “must oversee pre-deployment training currently being conducted” by Dyncorp International, Civilian Police International and Pacific Architects and Engineers/Homeland Security Corporation, according a recently released procurement document. |
| PHILIPPINES: Placer Dome Suit May Not Damp Philippine Mining, Secretary Says by Ian C. Sayson and Chia-Peck Wong , Bloomberg October 11th, 2005 An environmental lawsuit filed by a Philippine province against Placer Dome Inc., Canada's second- largest gold producer, may not damp overseas investments in Philippines mining industry, a government official said. |
| US: The Prophet of Prison by Sep 1st 2005, The Economist, The Economist September 1st, 2005 Is John Ferguson the saviour of America's prison system or its destroyer? |
| ROMANIA: An oil fortune bound in red tape
by Terence O'Hara, Washington Post August 16th, 2005 G. Philip Stephenson does not cut the figure of an Eastern European oil baron, clashing with formerly communist security officials over the legality of his budding empire. |
| Britain: Army fears loss of top troops to private firms by Richard Norton-Taylor , The Guardian August 8th, 2005 Top army commanders have drawn up a series of extraordinary "countermeasures" to try to stop highly trained soldiers being lured to private military companies. |
| JAPAN: Koizumi's Postal Bomb by Ian Rowley , Business Week August 8th, 2005 The Prime Minister's rejected reform legislation by Japan's Upper House is grave news for him and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party. |
| US: A Company's Troubled Answer for Prisoners With H.I.V. by Paul von Zielbauer, New York Times August 1st, 2005 Even within the troubled Alabama penal system, this state compound near Huntsville was notorious for cruel punishment and medical neglect. In one drafty, rat-infested warehouse once reserved for chain gangs, the state quarantined its male prisoners with H.I.V. and AIDS, until the extraordinary death toll - 36 inmates from 1999 to 2002 - moved inmates to sue and the government to promise change. |
| IRAQ: Contractors and Military in 'Bidding War' by Matt Kelley, USA Today July 31st, 2005 The U.S. military has hired private companies at a cost approaching $1 billion to help dispose of Saddam Hussein's arsenal in Iraq. That spending has created fierce competition for specialized workers that's draining the military's ranks of explosives experts. Experienced military explosives specialists can earn $250,000 a year or more, |
| WORLD: A Responsible Balancing Act Financial Times June 1st, 2005 Public expectations of companies are rising everywhere - but consumers' top concerns vary substantially between countries and regions, according to a new study by GlobeScan, an international opinion research company. |
| US: Edison Awarded Two More Schools by Robert Strauss, The Washington Post May 16th, 2005 Edison Schools Inc., a for-profit company, is at the forefront of the school privatization movement in Philadelphia. |
| US: Memphis '68, Revisited by Si Kahn, AlterNet May 6th, 2005 With help from some unlikely places, Corrections Corporation of America is hoping to build the largest for-profit private prison in the United States. |
| MALAYSIA: Workers to March Against Privatization by Anil Netto, IPS April 29th, 2005 Malaysia's workers will mark International Labor Day on May 1 with a strong protest against globalisation, which they feel is gradually eroding away their rights and making poor Malaysians poorer. |
| SERBIA: Brewery's Privatization Threatened by Dispute by Eric Jansson, Financial Times March 28th, 2005 The sale of the Serbian brewery, Beogradska Industrija Piva, seen by some as a key step in economic reform, is being fought by the family that lost the firm when it was seized by communists. |
| CANADA: Water - Bottles Versus Faucets by Stephen Leahy, IPS March 12th, 2005 Four large corporations control much of the world's booming bottled water industry and pose a threat to public water utilities, according to a report by the Canadian non-governmental Polaris Institute. |
| US: Beyond the God Pod by Silja J.A. Talvi, The Santa Fe Reporter March 9th, 2005 The nation's biggest private prison corporation is forging strong ties with a fundamentalist Christian ministry, blurring the line between church and state and harkening a new turn in corrections toward Christian-based programming. |
| BURKINA FASO: For Workers, Privatisation Has Little Appeal by Tiego Tiemtore, Inter Press Service News Agency March 7th, 2005 More than a decade ago, Burkina Faso embarked on privatisation of the country’s state-owned companies. This process does not appear to have won the confidence of government employees, however – and with another group of public enterprises coming up for sale, their concerns have sharpened. |
| BOLIVIA: Not A Drop To Drink by Kelly Hearn, The American Prospect February 25th, 2005 In parched Latin American countries, the battle over water is ready to explode. |
| MALAYSIA: Nation Tightens Water Concessions
by John Burton, Financial Times December 2nd, 2004 Malaysia's tough new conditions on the privatisation of water utility assets reflects efforts to make more transparent the sale of state assets to reduce alleged cronyism and corruption. |
| US: Corporate Ad Network Monitors Web Habits
by Bob Tedeschi, New York Times November 15th, 2004 At the height of the dot-com boom, DoubleClick made itself the object of scorn among privacy advocates by trying to track Internet users individually and show them ads related to their surfing habits. |
| CHINA: Lucent Execs face bribery charges in China and Saudi Arabia
Wire Services November 10th, 2004 Beijing's anti-graft investigators are expected to launch a probe into the multibillion-dollar deals Lucent Technologies and other foreign telecom equipment makers have secured to supply the country's vast telecom market. |
| USA: Collapse of 60 Charter Schools Leaves Californians Scrambling
by Sam Dillon, The New York Times Company September 20th, 2004 It had been a month since one of the nation's largest charter school operators collapsed, leaving 6,000 students with no school to attend this fall. |
| US: Mayor Announces Privatization of Chicago Schools by Brett Schaeffer, AlterNet August 11th, 2004 The latest - and most dramatic - example of the continued privatization of the nation's urban public school districts came in June from the mouth of Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley. |
| US: FERC Claims Jurisdiction on Gas Plant by Deborah Schoch, Los Angeles Times February 27th, 2004 The federal position on a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Beach sets up a possible conflict with state regulators. |
| US: Education Department Favoring Privatization by Michael Dobbs, San Francisco Chronicle January 3rd, 2004 People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, recently released a report depicting "a network of right-wing foundations" that have received more than $77 million in U.S. Department of Education funds to promote their "school privatization" agenda. |
| US: Profiting from Incarceration by Jenni Gainsborough, AlterNet December 15th, 2003 Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest operator of prisons for profit, is celebrating its 20th anniversary throughout this year "at both the company's corporate Nashville office and at all of the more than 60 prisons, jails and detention centers under CCA ownership and/or management." |
| CHINA: Provinces Press on with Privatisation by James Kynge, Financial Times November 6th, 2003 The provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan are planning to put up roughly 1,000 local state-owned enterprises as candidates for acquisition or merger with foreign or private Chinese companies starting next year, senior provincial officials told the Financial Times. |
| US: The Dangers of Privatization by Julian Borger, The Guardian August 20th, 2003 The electrical forensics are still under way, but the big picture emerging from last week's unprecedented blackout is already clear: it was nature's warning against Washington's worship at the altar of privatisation. |
| US: FCC Rule Fight Continues in Congress by Frank Ahrens, Washington Post Staff Writer June 4th, 2003 Several lawmakers and advocacy groups vowed yesterday to fight in the courts and on Capitol Hill to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's new media ownership rules, saying they give big newspapers and broadcasters too much influence over public opinion and hurt smaller media companies. |
| US: FCC Chairman Refuses to Delay Vote Associated Press May 16th, 2003 Michael K. Powell, the Federal Communications Commission chairman, rejected today a request from two commissioners to delay a decision on overhauling rules governing ownership of newspapers and TV and radio stations. |
| US: FCC Close to Easing Media Caps by Dan Fost, San Francisco Chronicle May 12th, 2003 The Federal Communications Commission is moving closer to easing its media ownership caps, including regulations that now limit how many television stations a network may own, or whether a company can own a newspaper and a television station in the same city. |
| IRAQ: Privatization in Disguise by Naomi Klein, The Nation April 18th, 2003 On April 6, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz spelled it out: There will be no role for the United Nations in setting up an interim government in Iraq. The US-run regime will last at least six months, "probably...longer than that." |
| WORLD: Water Privatization Under Fire Inter Press News Service March 10th, 2003 Privatization of water services has had negative consequences in many countries, says the environmental network Friends of the Earth International, which urges global resistance to the commercialization of this essential resource. |
| JAPAN: 10,000 at Water Forum to Seek Action, Not Talk by Sanjay Suri, Inter Press News Service March 10th, 2003 More than 10,000 delegates who will attend the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto next week will be under pressure to step up water flows, rather than just talk about it. |
| WORLD: The Planet is Running Out of Fresh Water by Maude Barlow, The Guardian February 26th, 2003 The private sector was the first to notice: the planet is running out of fresh water at such a rate that soon it will be the most valuable commodity on earth. |
| BOLIVIA: Citizens, Media Excluded from Bechtel Trial by World Bank Tribunal WTO Info February 25th, 2003 Citizens excluded from $25 million suit against Bolivia for company's failed water privatization scheme Washington, DC- The Bechtel Corporation was handed a powerful victory last week, when a secretive trade court announced that it would not allow the public or media to participate in or even witness proceedings in which Bechtel is suing the people of Bolivia for $25 million. |
| BRAZIL: Vivendi Moves to Keep Water Company by Raymond Colitt, Financial Times February 18th, 2003 Vivendi Environnement will today launch last-ditch negotiations to recover control of a Brazilian water company after a state government said it would take over management from the French utility. |
| US: Water Industry's Cash to Political Campaigns Helps Fuel Effort to Privatize Hoovers February 12th, 2003 Most of that came from a core group of seven of the nation's largest water companies and the industry association that represents them, said the article. |
| US: Privatized Water Deal Collapses in Atlanta by Douglas Jehl, New York Times February 10th, 2003 Privatization has hit the water sector, which has remained mostly the bastion of public utilities. Over the last five years, hundreds of American communities, including Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Gary, Ind., have hired private companies to manage their waterworks, serving about one in 20 Americans. |
| INDONESIA: Protesters Challenge Price Increases BBC News January 15th, 2003 Hundreds of protesters in Palu, Central Sulawesi, threw rocks at the provincial headquarters of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's political party. Police fired off at least two rounds of warning shots. There have been daily protests since the government increased fuel prices by 22% a fortnight ago as part of a package of economic reforms approved by the International Monetary Fund. |
| BOLIVIA: Time to Open Up Secret Trade Courts by Jim Shultz, Pacific News Service November 8th, 2002 Two years ago, rioters protesting increased water rates forced a Bechtel, U.S. company, in Bolivia to pack its bags and leave. Now, in a harbinger of the loss of local control through globalization, the corporation is striking back in secret proceedings. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Thousands Strike Over Privatization Plans by Delia Robertson, VoaNews.com October 1st, 2002 Thousands of South African workers have embarked on a two day strike to protest government plans to privatize state-owned enterprises. |
| Burkina Faso: Thousands March Against Privatisation and for Higher Wages UN Integrated Regional Information Networks July 18th, 2002 Thousands of workers went on strike on Thursday and marched through the main streets of Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, to protest against privatisations and to press demands for salary increases. The procession and strike were organised by the country's trade unions. |
| USA: Trouble for School Inc. by Rebecca Winters, Time.com May 27th, 2002 Wendy Walsh's seventh-graders at Gillespie Middle School in North Philadelphia have something in common with investors in the for-profit education company Edison Schools. Both fear that Edison, the nation's largest private operator of public schools, may be failing them. ''The children ask me what's going on,'' Walsh says, ''and I don't know what to tell them. We're all facing the great unknown.'' |
| US: Prisoners Go to Work for Dell by Drew Cullen, The Register (UK) May 19th, 2002 Dell rose to the top by cutting more corners than its rivals. The PC giant is cutting another corner by employing prisoners to handle its new consumer recycling scheme in the US. |
| Mexico: Legislation Strikes Blow Against Privatization, Secrecy by Dan Jaffee, CommonDreams.org April 28th, 2002 In less than 24 hours this past Wednesday, big advances for three major pieces of legislation indicated that Mexico -- for 20 years the ''model student'' of so-called free market policy reforms, and long noted for high levels of government secrecy and corruption -- may be charting a new, more independent course. At a moment when the Bush administration is chilling domestic dissent, restricting the free flow of information and promoting corporate deregulation, Mexico appears poised to do virtually the opposite. |
| USA: Crumbling Public Sector Makes Country Vulnerable to Bio-Terrorism by Naomi Klein, Toronto Globe & Mail October 24th, 2001 Only hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Republican Representative Curt Weldon went on CNN and announced that he didn't want to hear anyone talking about funding for schools or hospitals. From here on, it was all about spies, bombs and other manly things. |
| USA: Prison Building Spree Creates Glut of Lockups by Bryan Gruley, Wall Street Journal September 6th, 2001 Two hundred miles north, at a Wackenhut-run prison in Holly Springs, Miss., 130 steel bunks stood bare and unused in two cavernous cell blocks. Wackenhut had closed the units because it no longer had inmates to fill them. Every day, the empty space was costing the company money it had expected to be paid by the state. |
| Mexico: Prisons Opening Maquiladoras Associated Press July 30th, 2001 State officials in Tamaulipas say they want U.S. companies to open workshops inside Mexican prisons to help train prisoners for factory jobs. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Financial Institutions Eye Public Services by Gumisai Mutume, Inter Press Service March 6th, 2001 Anti-privatisation protestors are expected to descend on the streets of Johannesburg this month as they demand a reversal of the sale of their municipal water supply to French multinational Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux. |
| INDIA: 325,000 Telecom Workers Strike over Corporatization Plan Agence France Presse September 6th, 2000 Some 325,000 Indian state telecom workers began an indefinite strike Wednesday, to push for guarantees against layoffs and pension losses when their department becomes a corporation next month. |
| USA: Prisoners Who Speak Out Receive Punishment, Suit Says by Peter Blumberg, San Francisco Daily Journal August 23rd, 1999 Two inmates allege in a lawsuit to be filed today that state corrections officials violated their civil rights by punishing them for helping the media expose a prison labor program as an illegal sweatshop, according to their lawyers. |
| Death, Neglect and the Bottom Line by William Allen and Kim Bell, St. Louis Post-Dispatch September 27th, 1998 St. Louis-based Correctional Medical Services leads the expanding field of private companies providing medical care behind bars. The industry tries to keep a low profile, but a five-month investigation by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found a disturbing pattern of deaths and untreated illnesses behind bars. |
| Canada: Business-Education Partnerships a Troubling Trend by Bernie Froese-Germain and Marita Moll, Education Monitor June 1st, 1997 Berne Froese-Germain and Martia Moll, two researchers with the Canadian Teachers Federation, outline the scope of the problem. |
| 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. |
| JAPAN: Koizumi's Postal Bomb The Prime Minister's rejected reform legislation by Japan's Upper House is grave news for him and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party. |