Ghanaians outraged by MPs request for extra security
GhanaWeb News  |  30 October 2013
> Calls by Members of Parliament (MP) for armed police protection have provoked outrage among Ghanaians.

G4S to bid for Glasgow Games
The Guardian  |  29 October 2013
> Company criticised for handling of London Olympics hopes to secure contract for safety stewarding – but not guarding.

ECLAC - Economic Commission for Latin America and: ECLAC Promotes Social Covenants for Equality as Tools for Regional Security
4-traders News  |  29 October 2013
> The Executive Secretary advocated "a stop to the privatization of security" and called for the "promotion of security as a public good". She emphasized that "the privatization of security paradoxically leads to greater overall levels of insecurity. Security for the few always means insecurity for those excluded".

Chouest crew kidnappings are part of worrying trend
Marine Log  |  28 October 2013
> The Nigerian Armed forces have recently undergone anti-piracy training by the U.S. and U.K. Special Forces, however only a small number of individuals have received such training. "There is a need for knowledge transfer from the private sector in order to develop the confidence in the shipping industry to utilize both Nigerian Armed Forces and local companies," says Mr. Snowball. "Much more work is required."

Indian Officials Say Outlawed Militant Group Is Behind Patna Blasts
The New York Times  |  28 October 2013
> Bharatiya Janata Party officials said there were serious lapses in security before the rally despite the presence of 1,700 private security guards.

Britain's G4S denies South Africa prisoner abuse allegations
Reuters  |  28 October 2013
> British security group G4S denied that its workers had electrocuted and drugged prisoners at South Africa's Mangaung prison, the maximum security facility it ran before the government stepped in to restore order earlier this month.

South Africa G4S prison staff accused of abuse
BBC News  |  28 October 2013
> Staff at one of South Africa's most dangerous prisons, run by British firm G4S, have been accused of "shocking" abuses and of losing control.

Investigation: Who Killed Michael Hastings?
MintPress News  |  28 October 2013
> The alarming amount of money—some $3.3 trillion—has been spent on private military contractors since 9/11. But what rarely gets discussed, beyond the dollars wasted and the crimes committed by private war-profiteering corporations, is the pervasive, growing sense of domination of these mega-firms in the past decade that have solidified their rule over U.S. military and foreign policy decisions.

New Zealand: Joint Statement on Bilateral Relations and Cooperation
Invest in NZ  |  25 October 2013
> During their meeting Mr McCully advised Mr Burkhalter of New Zealand support for an important Swiss and ICRC initiative, the Montreux Document on Pertinent International Legal Obligations and Good Practices for States related to Operations of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) during Armed Conflict.

US military awards major African contracts
Defence Web  |  23 October 2013
> The United States Africa Command (Africom) has awarded five major contracts for the supply and delivery of military equipment to Africa, including vehicles, tunnel detection systems and base infrastructure. Africom has awarded Bukkehave Inc of Fort Lauderdale a contract for the supply of 10 Mercedes-Benz Atego 4x4 and 4x2 military trucks each to Burkina Faso, Burundi, Uganda, Niger, Libya and Chad and a sixth partner nation.

Trouble On India’s High Seas
Asia Sentinel  |  21 October 2013
> The intrusion into Indian waters of the anti-pirate vessel MV Seaman Guard Ohio has angered Indian authorities who are already steaming over the February, 2012 shooting by Italians guarding an oil tanker of two apparently innocent fishermen.

Dismantling the Empire
Sudan Vision  |  21 October 2013
> "We need to restore discipline and accountability in our armed forces by radically scaling back our reliance on civilian contractors, private military companies, and agents working for the military outside the chain of command and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

India boards and searches private counter piracy ship
Voltaire Network  |  20 October 2013
> The Indian government suspects AdvanFort of attempting to deliver weapons to a guerilla group.

Justice at last? Private US security guards who killed 17 Iraqi civilians in aftermath of Baghdad bombing face new charges
The Independent  |  19 October 2013
> Almost four years after the case was dramatically thrown out, four former Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of unlawfully killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad have now been charged in connection with the incident following a new indictment handed down by a US grand jury.

Privatising security in Iraq was always a recipe for disaster
The Independent  |  18 October 2013
> In Afghanistan military supply convoys from Pakistan have to pay off the Taliban to avoid attack, so foreign forces are in effect subsidising the insurgents they are trying to defeat. As in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, the decision to privatise war means profitability is pursued at the expense of military effectiveness and the door opened for disasters such as Nisour Square.

Wave of High-Profile Crimes Has Put Malaysians on the Defensive
The New York Times  |  18 October 2013
> Residents in middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods have begun to gate their communities, often without local government permission. And the demand for personal guards has soared, with the number of certified security companies nationwide more than tripling over the past decade to 712 from 200, according to the Security Services Association of Malaysia, which trains guards.

Blackwater guards again charged by US over Iraqi civilian deaths
RT  |  18 October 2013
> Four former guards of the notorious private security firm Blackwater face new manslaughter charges from the US DoJ over a 2007 shooting in Baghdad. The original charges were dropped in 2009, a month before a scheduled trial.

Piracy spawns a boom, armed flotilla business worth $6bn
The Times of India  |  18 October 2013
> Business is booming on the high seas. Piracy attacks on ships have spawned a new industry, maritime security services, which is reportedly worth $6 billion. Almost every ship passing through high-risk or piracyinfested sea lanes like the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean and more recently the Gulf of Guinea near Nigeria in West Africa, are arming themselves with trained guards and arms and ammunition. And, these security features don't come cheap.

Back to Afghanistan as America ends its longest war
Global Post  |  18 October 2013
> Correspondent Ben Brody lands at Bagram Airfield, the largest US base in Afghanistan, to begin reporting on the US drawdown of troops.

EU Tightens Its Grip on the Mediterranean
theTrumpet.com  |  16 October 2013
> Roughly 400 immigrants have died in shipwrecks over the last two weeks. The EU is using this as an excuse to beef up surveillance of the Mediterranean Sea and open up an intelligence base in Libya. The EU has requested a private security company to man the headquarters.

Private Security Contractors: Fanning The Flames In Afghanistan?
MintPress News  |  16 October 2013
> The presence of U.S.-backed private security groups in Afghanistan seems only to contribute to the ongoing violence.

Somalia: Getting U.S.-Somali Relations On the Right Track
AllAfrica Global Media  |  16 October 2013
> Currently, almost every aspect of Somali security is (directly or indirectly) outsourced by the international community between the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and private military contractors (PMCs).

India Seizes U.S. Maritime Security Ship
The Wall Street Journal  |  14 October 2013
> Indian police seized the Seaman Guard Ohio, a Sierra Leone-registered ship operated by Virginia anti-piracy company AdvanFort, and filed a complaint Monday against the ship's 35 crewmembers and security guards for failing to produce papers authorizing them to carry arms in Indian waters.

Police set to regulate private security firms
IPPmedia  |  14 October 2013
> Police in Tanzania is seeking enactment of legislation to empower the force with regulation of private security firms saying the mushrooming companies pose major security threats for they are not competent and also allegedly take part in crime.

Blackwater on the High Seas: The Real Legacy of Captain Phillips
New York Magazine  |  14 October 2013
> Since Phillips’s capture, there’s been a sea change in how ships defend themselves against piratical assaults. Instead of relying solely on water cannons and evasive maneuvers, companies have taken to hiring private armed escorts of former Marines and Navy SEALs.

Immigration: EU ratchets up border security
Presseurop  |  14 October 2013
> The large team of private security personnel who will protect EU staff in the unstable country will transform Eubam’s Tripoli HQ into “an EU intelligence asset”, adds the website. It should provide "high quality security situation analysis" and file "security reports daily, weekly, monthly and six monthly" to EU structures, reports EUobserver, quoting the call for tender document.

Neoliberalism, Constructivism, and the Rise and Prominence of Private Military and Security Companies in Global Security
Atlantic-Community.org  |  14 October 2013
> The development of new technologies, the way we receive, process, and use information, and the advances in communication have changed the nature of warfare. Organized crime, civil war, terrorism and violence are adapting to the trends of modernization and globalization, and are not contained by state borders. National and international security issues frequently overlap, and new threats and challenges require the re-evaluation of state security capacity and the security needs of its population.

U.S. Government Shutdown, Debt Default a Dress Rehearsal for Privatization of Federal State System?
The Market Oracle  |  13 October 2013
> The post 2008 fiscal structure has had a fundamental impact on the process of debt formation. Tax and other federal government revenues had been assigned in 2008-2009 to bailing out the banks while relentlessly funding the war economy including the financing through black budgets of a growing number of Private military and security companies (PMSC).

What will Afghanistan's future look like?
The Voice of Russia  |  13 October 2013
> NATO's withdrawal will not be a total pullout as private military companies are coming in its stead. But then, radical Islamism still poses a threat and there are still many terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

Code of conduct urgently needed to ensure maritime security in Asia
The Japan News  |  12 October 2013
> China’s forcible way of expanding its maritime activity was again the target of much criticism at this year’s East Asia Summit meeting. It is necessary to establish a maritime order under which ships can navigate freely and peacefully. The EAS was held Thursday in Brunei with leaders in attendance from 18 countries, including Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States, plus the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

BSIA's James Kelly Calls For Support Of New Regulatory Regime For Private Security Industry
SourceSecurity.com  |  11 October 2013
> In a letter to Government Ministers, the Security Regulation Alliance has called for unanimous support of the proposed new regulatory regime for the private security industry, and urged them to consider the benefits of security regulation against the backdrop of the Government’s wider deregulatory agenda.

Check unfettered growth of security agencies
The New Indian Express  |  10 October 2013
> The proliferation of private security agencies is correlated with lack of adequate police personnel in the country. Today, there are over 15,000 agencies providing services of six to seven million security guards. They are double the number of policemen, estimated at 3.2 million.

Secrets of clandestine and elite groups
Manila Standard Today  |  10 October 2013
> Discovery Channel’s new series Secrets Of… zooms in what goes inside on specialized units including America’s Delta Force, Sea, Air, Land (SEAL) Team 6, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Black Ops, Marine Force Recon, Diplomatic Affairs and private military contractors as well as the British Special Air Service (SAS), Israeli Special Forces and Russian Spetsnaz.

Cash-ferrying companies flout rules on weapons
The Times of India  |  9 October 2013
> "Most cash-transporting companies use the services of persons who have arms in their private capacity. Licenses of such arms have been issued by states other than Karnataka and have not even been registered with local police stations and this is clearly a violation of rules," Bhaskar Rao, former IGP, ISD, currently posted as IGP, Belgaum, told TOI.

Private Security Firms urged to improve conditions of guards
Sierra Express Media  |  8 October 2013
> “Private security companies owe it as an obligation to themselves and society to improve remuneration and conditions of service for their Security Guards,” that is the belief of the President of the Sierra Leone Labour Congress, Mr. Mohamed A. Deen.

Saudi Arabia Hires Israeli-Friendly Company for Hajj Security: Report
Global Research  |  7 October 2013
> This is not the first time that the Saudi government has hired the private security firm, which has recruited a staggering 700,000 to provide hajj-related services this year, according to exclusive information obtained by Al-Akhbar.

South Africa: Cosatu Statement On the Privatization of Prisons
AllAfrica Global Media  |  7 October 2013
> It is worrying that G4S, a British-Danish private security company that provides services and equipment to Israeli prisons, checkpoints, the Apartheid Wall and the Israeli police has now been courted by our government to milk tax payer's money in order to finance its controversial operations in the apartheid state of Israel.

Somaliland: British Security Team to Submit Assessment Report
Somalilandsun  |  7 October 2013
> Somaliland's government hired private security experts to help improve safety after Genel Energy Plc (GENL) suspended operations in the country citing growing instability, Foreign Minister Mohamed Bihi Yonis said.

Solace Global Appoints New Commercial Director as Business Expands
The Maritime Executive  |  3 October 2013
> Solace Global, the world's most trusted provider of security in maritime, offshore and land-based environments, today announces the appointments of three new, key members of staff. The role of Commercial Director has been filled by David Eaton-Jones, Head of Intelligence by Stuart Barnett and Training Consultant by Mark Knowles.

US Cyber Command’s Plan X: Pentagon Launching Covert Cyber Attacks
Global Research  |  3 October 2013
> Predating current research under “Plan X” to build “an end-to-end system that enables the military to understand, plan, and manage cyberwarfare in real-time,” the earlier notification solicited bids from private military contractors to build cyberweapons.

Private cameras, public money: A disturbing arrangement in Brooklyn
New York Daily News  |  2 October 2013
> Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) and state Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) announced the Leiby Kletzky Security Initiative — with a $1 million state grant to Agudath Israel, a nonprofit group that hired the private firm SecureWatch24 to operate the network.

Security industry is shaping EU legislation
EUobserver  |  1 October 2013
> The global security and defence industry market has increased tenfold over the past decade, says the European Commission.

Lithuanian Mercenaries Dispatched to Syria by Private Security Companies on Contract to NATO
Global Research  |  1 October 2013
> At the present time, Americans are currently organising the recruitment of mercenaries in Lithuania for dispatch to Syria. Private security companies (PSC) in Lithuania are directly involved in the recruitment drive.