Privatization & Procurement

Indigenous protesters from northwestern Venezuela marched Friday through the streets of Caracas, which is hosting the sixth World Social Forum (WSF), to protest plans for mining coal on their land. Read More

Residents of Northern Indiana feel that a plan to privatize toll roads and raise fares does not benefit the community. Read More

Evo Morales was sworn in on Sunday as Bolivia's first indigenous president in a historic and emotional ceremony that set the tone for his new government, promising to move much the profits of Bolivia's natural resources to the people of Bolivia. Read More

Bechtel, a global engineering and construction company based in San Francisco, today reached agreement with the government of Bolivia, dropping a legal demand for $50 million after a revolt over privatizing water services in the city of Cochabamba forced the company out of Bolivia in April 2000. Read More

One of the paradoxes of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is that companies in Russia and other Eastern European countries, which are among the world's largest producers of greenhouse gases, are poised to earn hundreds of millions of dollars through trading their rights to release carbon dioxide into the air. Read More

Five years after the citizens of Cochabamba won the "water war" against multinational Bechtel, the poorer half of the city still has no reliable access to the now-public water utility. Read More

Soon heading to trial, the former Enron CEO implores -- before a wealthy crowd -- company employees to "stand up" for him. Read More

These days, instead of evoking Maine's tranquil forestland and waterways, the Poland Springs brand symbolizes a battle over who owns and controls the water that seeps into the state's permeable rock. Read More

The U.S. State Dept. is reaching out to independent contractors to train other private contractors who will be deployed as "civilian police" -- hired guns for so-called peacekeeping missions taking place in Haiti and other geopolitical hotspots. The senior adviser selected for the task "must oversee pre-deployment training currently being conducted" by Dyncorp International, Civilian Police International and Pacific Architects and Engineers/Homeland Security Corporation, according a recently released procurement document. Read More

Sytex, a subsidiary of Lockheed , the world's largest military contractor, has emerged as one of the biggest recruiters of private interrogators deployed to the United States-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read More