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News Articles
| 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. |
| US/ECUADOR: New nonprofit uses Web to pressure Chevron
by David A. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
November 16th, 2009
Retired retail executive Richard Goldman was astonished when he heard about the $27 billion pollution lawsuit against Chevron Corp. in Ecuador. SO he has created a nonprofit group, Ethos Alliance, that will use social-networking tools to spread word of the case and put pressure on Chevron. |
| BRAZIL: Giants in Cattle Industry Agree to Help Fight Deforestation
by Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times
October 7th, 2009
Environmental groups hailed a decision this week by four of the world’s largest meat producers to ban the purchase of cattle from newly deforested areas of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. Brazil has the world’s largest cattle herd and is the world’s largest beef exporter. It is also the fourth largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. |
| US: The Rights of Corporations (Op-Ed)
New York Times
September 22nd, 2009
The question at the heart of one of the biggest Supreme Court cases this year is simple: What constitutional rights should corporations have? The legal doctrine underlying this debate is known as “corporate personhood.” |
CorpWatch Blog
CorpWatch Exclusives
 | 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. |
 | Obama's Tax Haven Reform: Chump Change
by Charlie Cray, Special to CorpWatch
June 15th, 2009
In early May, the Obama administration announced plans to eliminate the advantages that multinationals have over domestic corporations as to the tax treatment of reinvested profits. K Street corporate lobbyists haven’t squealed so loudly since they lost their three martini lunches. The uproar draws attention away from the fact that U.S. multinationals enjoy an effective tax rate of just 2.4 percent on billions of dollars in foreign active earnings. |
 | CorpWatch announces release of the CrocTail application and open CorpWatch API
June 8th, 2009
CorpWatch, with support from the Sunlight Foundation, announces release of the CrocTail application and open CorpWatch API. CrocTail provides an interface for browsing information about U.S. publicly traded corporations and their many foreign and domestic subsidiaries. CrocTail also serves as a demonstration of the features and data available through the CorpWatch API. |
 | Is Halliburton Forgiven and Forgotten? Or How to Stay Out of Sight While Profiting From the War in Iraq
by Pratap Chatterjee, TomDispatch.com
June 3rd, 2009
At Halliburton's recent annual shareholders meeting in Houston, all was remarkably staid as the company celebrated its $4 billion in 2008 operating profits, a striking 22% return at a time when many companies are announcing record losses.
Just three months ago, however, Halliburton didn't hesitate to pay $382 million in fines to the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the settlement of a controversial KBR gas project in Nigeria in which the company admitted to paying a $180 million bribe to government officials. |
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. |
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