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Environment

Green Deserts: The Palm Oil Conflict
Melody Kemp
February 16th, 2012

Wilmar of Singapore, the world’s biggest global processor and merchandiser of palm oil, has come in for harsh criticism for the environmental and social impact of its Indonesian plantations. The allegations also raise serious questions about the role of WWF and the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil.



Spies for Hire

Pharmaceuticals

Grey Market Drugs: Profiting from Poorly Managed U.S. Health Care
Terry J. Allen
January 22nd, 2012

Scalpers are doing a booming business in key medical drugs by taking advantage of U.S. patients and hospitals when they are desperate for supplies from the poorly regulated $46 billion global contract-manufacturing industry.
Photo: Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives

War & Disaster Profiteering

State of Surveillance
Pratap Chatterjee
December 1st, 2011

A new cache of Wikileaks documents on the secretive surveillance industry uncovers 160 companies in 25 countries that make $5 billion a year selling sophisticated surveillance technology to security authorities around the world to secretly carry out mass surveillance of people via their phones and computers.
Image courtesy: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Human Rights

Nightmare on Christmas Island: Serco's Australian Detention Center
Patrick O'Keeffe
October 25th, 2011

Serco, a UK company, has a contract to manage the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre some 1,600 miles off the West Coast of Australia, which houses thousands of asylum seekers. The detainees at the overcrowded facility are experiencing serious mental health problems that union organizers say are a result of poor training and understaffing.
Isolation cage, Christmas Island Detention Centre. Photo: Pamela Curr

Natural Resources

Keystone Pipeline Faces Indigenous Trans-Border Opposition
Geoff Dembicki
October 4th, 2011

TransCanada is seeking permission to build a 1,661-mile-long oil pipeline to carry crude from Alberta's oil sands to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. Tribal leaders from both sides of the border have joined environmental activists to oppose the project.
Chief John Spotted Tail of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Photo: Geoff Dembicki

Manufacturing

Indian Betel Farmers Battle South Korean Steel Giant
Moushumi Basu with Pratap Chatterjee
August 30th, 2011

Farmers in Odisha are challenging POSCO, a South Korean steel giant. The confrontation is yet another David versus Goliath battle pitting “progress” against traditional agriculturists in a struggle to define development in India.
Sukhdev Sahoo mourns the loss of his betel farm. Photo: Basant Sahoo

Natural Resources

Burmese Crossroads: Oil & Gas Rush Stokes Civil War
Matthew F Smith
July 26th, 2011

Chinese and South Korean companies are leading an investor rush to Burma to build lucrative cross-country pipelines to deliver Saudi oil and Burmese natural gas to China. Poor communities have been displaced and allegations of human rights abuses are rife in the pipeline's route.
Photo: Earth Rights International. Collage: CorpWatch

Environment

Toxic Pop: How Tar Sands Fuel Disposable Cans
Geoff Dembicki
July 11th, 2011

One in six of the 100 billion soda, beer, and juice cans cracked open by North Americans each year owe their existence to an industrial product manufactured from Alberta’s tar sands. The result is an environmental disaster for Canada as well as a major contributor to global warming.
Photo by Dustin Hicks

War & Disaster Profiteering

Subcontracting Substandard Services
David Isenberg
June 27th, 2011

Najlaa International Catering Services of Kuwait faces numerous complaints and court actions for non-payment of bills and alleged fraud for work conducted on U.S. military bases in Iraq. The allegations show that the Pentagon is still unable to manage subcontractors eight years after the invasion.