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Private security guards now outnumber police officers in South Australia by almost two to one.

While the industry was growing rapidly in the southeast Europe, there are problems with private security companies being affiliated with political parties as well as criminal, paramilitary and ethnic groups reports the Britain-based Saferworld think-tank.

There are estimated to be more than 20,000 armed expatriates working for private security companies in Iraq, more than all the non-US troops combined and contrary their numbers do not appear to have fallen appreciably. The Baghdad bubble, as it has been dubbed, has yet to burst.

The task order is a cost reimbursement, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity construction capabilities contract for post-Katrina recovery efforts in support of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for "unwatering activities" in Plaquemines, East and West basins, New Orleans.

As Katrina's flood waters recede, government contractors are flowing into the Gulf Coast and reaping billions of dollars in pre-bid, limited bid, and sometimes no-bid contracts. Many of these contractors and the men who award them are the same players who bungled the reconstruction of Iraq. Deja vu all over again.

CACI International Inc., the Arlington-based defense contractor that attracted controversy when an employee was accused of participating in the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, is getting out of the interrogation business.

Seven corporations, including some of the world's largest multinational companies, have joined with an environmental group in seeking ways to trade emission permits to reduce their production of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.

Blackwater USA, the North Carolina-based security firm best known for supplementing U.S. troops in Iraq, is now attracting international attention patrolling the flooded streets of New Orleans.

European defense companies deposited millions of dollars into bank accounts for front companies of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, a source close to a Chilean court probe into the accounts told Reuters.

A labor union is reporting significant security problems at seven Army bases where federal contractors are guarding the gates, freeing up soldiers to serve in Iraq.

The role of Yahoo in helping Chinese security officials to finger a journalist sentenced to 10 years for e-mailing "state secrets" is filtering into mainland China. The revelation reinforces a conviction among Chinese "netizens" that there is no place security forces can't find them.

White House uses practices criticized in Iraq rebuilding for hurricane-related jobs.

Boeing is in talks with the Justice Department to pay a fine and avoid criminal charges related to the scandals through a "deferred prosecution." The fine may be as high as $500 million.

Private contractors, guided by two former directors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other well-connected lobbyists and consultants, are rushing to cash in on the unprecedented sums to be spent on Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction.

Private security companies say they have seen an upswing in demand for services in the ravaged Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina blew through the region 12 days ago.

A slowing of reconstruction work in Iraq has freed up people for Fluor Corp. to begin rebuilding in the U.S. Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina.

Blackwater is one of the leading private "security" firms servicing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

As with the hurricane, there were warnings that FEMA was turning into a disaster. The union representing its career employees wrote to members of Congress last year that politically connected contractors and novices without disaster-relief experience had taken over and trashed FEMA's professionalism.

Concerns in the US are mounting that Katrina could prompt a round of 'pork barrel' contracts.