 |
News Articles
| 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: Idea of company-as-person originated in late 19th century
by Martha C. White, Washington Post
January 31st, 2010
The Supreme Court's 5 to 4 decision in Citizens United v FEC rolled back long-standing restrictions on corporate campaign finance donations. At the crux of the decision was a determination that corporations have a right to free speech. The court ruled that limiting the amount that companies can spend promoting their favored candidates is tantamount to denying First Amendment rights. |
| 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. |
| UK: U.K. to Crack Down on Tax Evasion in Developing Countries
by Laurence Norman, Wall Street Journal
January 26th, 2010
The U.K. government will on Wednesday set out proposals to broaden the crackdown on tax evasion to benefit developing countries, setting a year-end deadline for a U.K.-led multilateral tax-information-sharing accord with emerging nations. That could eventually open the way for multination tax-information accords, which would include former tax havens, developed and developing nations. |
| US: Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit
by Adam Liptak, New York Times
January 21st, 2010
Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. |
CorpWatch Blog
CorpWatch Exclusives
 | Agility Attempts to Vault Fraud Charges
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
February 1st, 2010
Agility, a Kuwait-based multi-billion dollar logistics company spawned by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is facing criminal charges for over-billing the U.S. taxpayer on more than $8.5 billion worth of food supply contracts in the Iraq war zone. If the lawsuit, scheduled for February 8, is successful, the company could owe the U.S. government as much as $1 billion. |
 | Shed a Tear for Our Democracy
by Robert Weissman, Public Cititzen
January 22nd, 2010
Yesterday, in the case Citizens United v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election outcomes.
Money from Exxon, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer and the rest of the Fortune 500 is already corroding the policy making process. Now, the Supreme Court tells these corporate giants that they have a constitutional right to trample our democracy. |
 | Bhopal: Generations of Poison
by Nityanand Jayaraman, Special to CorpWatch
December 2nd, 2009
On the night of December 2-3, 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India leaked poisonous methyl iso cyanate into its densely populated neighborhood, killing 8,000 people in the immediate aftermath. 25 years later, Dow Chemical (which purchased Union Carbide in 2001) still refuses to clean up the site. But a new generation of Bhopal survivors is taking on the fight. |
 | Black & Veatch's Tarakhil Power Plant: White Elephant in Kabul
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
November 19th, 2009
In a secluded valley a few miles from Kabul's international airport, $285 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars have flowed into a Black & Veatch-built power plant outside Tarakhil village. But, far from the public relations coup the project was intended to supply, the plant has run into problems with planning, cost over-runs and alleged corruption. |
 | Spies for Hire: New Online Database of U.S. Intelligence Contractors
by Tim Shorrock, Special to CorpWatch
November 16th, 2009
CorpWatch joins with Tim Shorrock today, the first journalist to blow the whistle on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, in releasing Spies for Hire.org, a groundbreaking database focusing on the dozens of corporations that provide classified intelligence services to the United States government. |
Commentary & Analysis
| US: The Top 10 Corporate Democrats-For-Hire
by Russ Baker, Alternet
August 24th, 2006
How big a problem is the growing influence of the bipartisan Beltway Party? Details on this can be found in a report from the Real News Project. RealNews examined the track records of prominent Washington Democrats, consultants, advertising and public relations executives, lobbyists, attorneys and the like who have close connections to the top circles of their party. Many of them served in the Clinton-Gore White House, and many of them will likely be tapped should a Democrat be elected in 2008 and have considerable influence in a future Democratic-controlled Congress. |
| US: Billionaire’s behemoth firm no stranger to controversy
by Brett Arends, The Boston Herald
July 14th, 2006
Two days after the fatal collapse of a Big Dig tunnel, investigators and an angry public are turning their sights on the project manager, Bechtel Group of San Francisco.
And for the secretive, politically-wired, family-controlled company, it won’t be the first time in an uncomfortable spotlight. |
|
|
