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Stanford University Professor Martin Carnoy, explains that while Chile's voucher experiment did little for poor schoolchildren, it was part of a broad trend towards privatizing social services. Originally published in Selling Out our Schools by Rethinking Schools.

A contract to monitor the Amazon rainforest in Brazil will include a shadowy company once described as ''virtually indistinguishable'' from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The 1.4-billion-dollar contract for satellite monitoring of drug trafficking and deforestation in the 3.2-million-square-kilometre forests in the Brazilian Amazon was awarded last summer to Raytheon, a 12-billion-dollar, Massachusetts-based company, Raytheon, that makes Patriot and Sidewinder missiles.

Methyl bromide affects human health both directly and indirectly. It is a complete biocide that kills most living organisms in soil, agricultural products and in buildings where it is applied. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies methyl bromide as a Category I acute toxin -- EPA's most deadly category of substances.

Anti-tobacco campaigners argue that profitable alternatives to tobacco exist but have received little attention. Through their development aid programmes, industrialised countries have helped developing countries to increase their output of tobacco, rather than help them switch to suitable alternatives. Through the imposition of structural adjustment programmes, the World Bank has encouraged governments to support farmers who grow crops for export. While the Bank no longer lends directly to tobacco production projects, its adjustment policies have encouraged additional output.

Underfunded schools, desperate for resources, are increasingly receptive to corporate-sponsored educational materials and programs, and are ever more accepting of the associated commercialism and product promotion. ''We are paying for educational deficits by selling kids to advertisers,'' says Peggy Charren, president of the advocacy group Action for Children's Television