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War & Disaster Profiteering

Agility Attempts to Vault Fraud Charges
Pratap Chatterjee
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.

Photo by Pratap Chatterjee

War & Disaster Profiteering

US: DynCorp Fires Executive Counsel
August Cole
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.

Globalization

CorpWatch Announces Version 2.0 of the CrocTail Corporate Subsidiaries Database and Open API
November 24th, 2009

Developed with support from the Sunlight Foundation, CrocTail provides an interface for browsing information about several hundred thousand corporations publicly traded in the U.S. and their domestic and foreign subsidiaries. In this new version, users can click on different years and see how subsidiary relationships for a company have changed over time.

War & Disaster Profiteering

IRAQ: The Pentagon Garrisons the Gulf: As Washington Talks Iraq Withdrawal, the Pentagon Builds Up Bases in the Region
Nick Turse
November 22nd, 2009

Despite recent large-scale insurgent suicide bombings that have killed scores of civilians and the fact that well over 100,000 U.S. troops are still deployed in that country, coverage of the U.S. war in Iraq has been largely replaced in the mainstream press by the (previously) "forgotten war" in Afghanistan. Getting out of Iraq, however, doesn't mean getting out of the Middle East.

War & Disaster Profiteering

Black & Veatch's Tarakhil Power Plant: White Elephant in Kabul
Pratap Chatterjee
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.

Children in West Kabul. Photo by Stuart Webb (Channel Four News)
War & Disaster Profiteering

Spies for Hire: New Online Database of U.S. Intelligence Contractors
Tim Shorrock
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.

Natural Resources

Uranium Corporation of India Limited: Wasting Away Tribal Lands
Moushumi Basu
October 7th, 2009

In Eastern India's Jharkand State, tensions are mounting between Indigenous tribal communities and the Uranium Corporation of India Limited, or UCIL. Heavy security at a May public hearing in Jadugoda prevented many local activists and villagers from entering. But outside the hearing, activists from the Jharkhandi Organization Against Radiation (JOAR) argued their case for protecting their health and the environment from horrific impacts of radioactive contaminated waste resulting from uranium mining.

Creative Commons Licensed: Adapted by Ionia Kershaw for Truthout.org (via Flickr)
War & Disaster Profiteering

Mission Essential, Translators Expendable
Pratap Chatterjee
August 11th, 2009

Ohio-based Mission Essential Personnel supplies over 2,000
translators to the Pentagon in Afghanistan, who play a critical role in protecting local and military lives. These interpreters are a key communications link. But if they are wounded or killed, they are often left to fend for themselves. This special features video of CorpWatch interviews with three Afghan whistleblowers, recorded in country in April. Click through to hear their story.


Photo by Ron Nobu Sakamoto
Energy

Damming Magdalena: Emgesa Threatens Colombian Communities
Jonathan Luna
July 21st, 2009

Near the town of La Jagua, overlooking the Magdalena River, the landscape is dotted with concrete markers declaring the land, river, and everything else a “public utility” that Colombia has given to the energy company Emgesa as part of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project. A construction permit was granted in May, with the dam scheduled for full operation by 2014.

Photo by Jonathan Luna