Order here

By Jeff Bliss - Bloomberg - October 16, 2008Blackwater Worldwide, whose security guards came under scrutiny after a 2007 fatal shootout in Iraq, is looking to the high seas to expand business, marketing its security services to shippers plagued by pirates.
Blackwater is in talks with several companies about protecting ships traveling through the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia, where piracy is increasing, said officials of the Moyock, North Carolina-based company.

"We have the capability to assist" shipping companies, said Bill Mathews, Blackwater executive vice president. He and other company leaders are former Navy SEALs. Ship security "is kind of what we did for a living" before joining Blackwater, he said.

Oct. 16th 2008

Remember when Sarah Palin said that "the surge principles that have worked in Iraq need to be implemented in Afghanistan." Well...as Ms. Palin would say, many Afghans working for the Afghan security forces are now switching sides and are now defecting to the Taliban.

Guess who trained many of them? Blackwater!

By Robert Brodsky - October 14, 2008

A government watchdog group and a Democratic senator allege that the State Department broke federal acquisition rules when it hired a Falls Church, Va., company to investigate possible crimes by American private security contractors in Iraq.

The allegations center on the May hiring of U.S. Investigations Services to supplement the staff of the State Department's Force Investigation Unit, created in the wake of the deadly September 2007 shooting by Blackwater Worldwide guards in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. The unit is charged with pursuing accusations of misuse of force by other war zone contractors.

08/18/2008

International Affairs Review

Emerging at the end of the 20th century amid significant global controversy, private military firms (PMFs) represent a new facet of armed conflict. Although PMFs are relatively new, the concept of for-hire soldiers is certainly not unique; mercenaries have existed since ancient times. As a modern manifestation of the mercenary organization, the public has been extremely critical of these organizations because of their lack of accountability and the ambiguous legality of their work. Recently, the media has been particularly critical of PMFs operating in Iraq and have focused on their immunity from prosecution. The uproar surrounding the recent Blackwater shootings exemplifies the ongoing controversy.

Mon 13 Oct 2008 - By David Sheppard

LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Militant and pirate activity in Nigeria's oil producing south has led Canada's Addax Petroleum <AXC.TO> <AXC.L> to hire ex-U.S. military speed boats staffed by Nigerian navy personnel, the company's CEO said.

Jean Claude Gandur, chief executive officer of the oil exploration and production firm, told Reuters in an interview that an attack on an Addax supply vessel in June, which left one of its contractors dead, had forced the company to act.