Latest Articles

Iraq's insurgents are conducting increasingly sophisticated and lethal attacks on the private security companies that are crucial to the nation's reconstruction and the eventual departure of U.S. troops, contractors and U.S. officials say.

In the '70s and '80s, the banana companies Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita used a carcinogenic pesticide, Nemagon, to protect their crops in Nicaragua. Today, the men and women who worked on those plantations suffer from incurable illnesses. Their children are deformed. The companies feign innocence.

A federal court decision that the False Claims Act applies, together with the Justice Department's supporting stance, will be widely seen as a green light to whistle-blowers.

Called "spineless," the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has held no hearings on whether civilian contractors in Iraq - particularly Halliburton, the company Vice President Cheney used to head - have mismanaged and overcharged the government by billions of dollars, much to the consternation of Senate Democrats.

The International Advisory and Monitoring Board has repeatedly criticized the American government for its loose spending controls during the period it controlled Iraqi assets, from the invasion in early 2003 to the transfer of sovereignty last June.

The information revolution has spawned a global industry of private intelligence services. Some members of the U.S. Congress have recently asked whether their activities should be regulated.

A report form the Center for American Progress details how Corporate CEOs have enjoyed record levels of compensation and corporations have seen record profits, as more and more middle-class Americans are experiencing stagnant wages and vanishing benefits.

A new shopping complex in Ohio will try to combine the convenience of online stores with the hands-on experience of browsing at a mall.

The Jordanian businessman at the centre of claims that George Galloway secretly bought oil from Saddam Hussein has a major contract to sell US military technology in Iraq, The Independent reveals.

For years, Target has cultivated an image of itself as the "anti-Wal-Mart," a retailer that refuses to sacrifice workplace standards in the pursuit of higher sales and stock prices. But now, after a decade of meteoric growth at both Target and Wal-Mart, labor groups say the two retailers are no longer very different in the way they treat their workers.