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By using contract employees for intelligence work, government agencies lose control over those doing this sensitive work and an element of profit is inserted into what is being done. Also, as investigations have revealed, politics and corruption may be introduced into the process.

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.

The pain and suffering of victims of toxic agrochemicals invaded the international negotiations on biosafety in Curitiba, Brazil this week with the accounts of a Paraguayan mother whose son died from herbicide poisoning and local residents of a neighbourhood in Córdoba, Argentina facing a severe health crisis caused by the fumigation of surrounding fields.

Police and rock throwing demonstrators clashed during a protest against the American mining company, Freeport-McMoRan, today leaving three policemen and one Air Force officer dead in the remote province of Papua, witnesses and officials said.

Facing increasing congressional scrutiny, Google Inc. has hired a lobbying firm that includes the son of U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Voice for Humanity recently sold tens of thousands of pink and silver audio players to the United States government to teach Afghan villagers about democracy. Critics say that the project was a waste of taxpayer dollars. Others say it is a perfect example of the covert "information war" conducted in the "war on terrorism."

Trace amounts of a little-researched toxic metal have been found in bottled water brands in PET bottles across Europe and Canada, says new research from Germany.

A burst pipeline in Alaska's North Slope has caused the Arctic region's worst oil spill, spreading more than 250,000 gallons of crude oil over an area used by caribou herds and prompting environmentalists again to question the Bush administration's drive for more oil exploration there.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Jakarta follows the Bush Administration's controversial decision to reestablish full relations with the Indonesian Military (TNI). That move opens the door to renewed U.S. assistance, but pumping aid to an unreformed Indonesian military would serve only to encourage further rights abuses and undermine civilian governance.

The oil executives were sworn in. This formality created the very kind of picture - six of the most powerful American executives lined up with their right hands up in the air - that they had sought to avoid. Otherwise, much of the theatrics were the same, and so were the arguments from the oil executives.