War & Disaster Profiteering

Is the US War on Terrorism in Afghanistan really a war for a natural gas pipeline? Fossil fuel corporations and the World Bank are expressing cautious interest. Activists are concerned. Read More

June 24, 2002 -- "The failure of governments from seven of the Group of Eight (G8) largest economies -- the USA, the Russian Federation, France, the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, Italy and Canada -- to regulate arms transfers is contributing to grave human rights abuses in developing countries and the destruction of millions of lives, particularly in Africa," Amnesty International said today. Read More

In one highland city in the Andes, it's hard to walk a single block without coming across graffiti denouncing the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia: ''Stop spraying,'' ''Yankees go home,'' ''No military buildup.'' Read More

May 6, 2002 -- According to a new report released today, many of the U.S. government's largest contractors have repeatedly broken the law or engaged in unethical conduct. However, they are never even temporarily suspended, let alone debarred, from gaining additional government contracts. Smaller contractors are not so lucky. The report, profiled in U.S. News and World Report today, was published by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). Read More

Scientists and planners for the U.S. Army are designing the one-size-fits-all base-in-a-box in an effort to make military operations more efficient. Another advantage of this off-the-shelf package is that it comes with instructions that can be assembled by anybody, anywhere, eliminating the need for quartermaster battalions and paving the way for private contractors to set the bases up. The Army has been contracting support services out to Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Read More

Vice-president Dick Cheney has brought new meaning to the term ''revolving door'' says Bill Hartung, senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York. His easy transition from the army to private industry and then to the White House has earned him millions, Dallas-based Halliburton billions. Read More

Texas-based multinational Halliburton (parent company of Brown amd Root) have made millions out of the U.S. wars in the last decade by providing support services to the military. Here is a timeline of the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. Read More

President George W Bush's administration, already on the back foot over its connections with the collapsed energy giant Enron, faces questions over a massive defence contract which aided an investment firm with Bush family links. Read More

Government spy agencies seek new ways to monitor the Internet. Civil libertarians worry about privacy while software companies stand to make billions. Read More

The Uzbek government hopes to parlay its close working relationship with the United States during the ''war on terrorism'' into closer economic ties, garnering much-needed direct investment for its underdeveloped petrochemical sector and increased bilateral trade, according to Sadyq Safayev, former Uzbek ambassador to the U.S. and first deputy foreign minister since May. Read More