Word: firmness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Helvenston has problems that military mothers do not have. Her son Scott, who was killed in 2004 at the age of 38, was neither a soldier nor, really, a civilian. He was an ex--Navy seal who worked for a private security firm called Blackwater. Instead of a headstone at Arlington, he has his name etched in a rock at Blackwater's corporate campus in North Carolina. And Helvenston says that three years later, she still has no real answers from the company about what led to her son's death--a death that she believes was due in part...
...there are also early signs that Blackwater's argument may not win the day. In a pretrial hearing, the North Carolina judge scolded Blackwater for saying that it speaks as part of the total military force. "Blackwater has wrapped itself in the American flag," Judge Donald Stephens told the firm's lawyers. "Blackwater Security Consulting LLC is not the United States government...
...Elizabeth Rasmussen, Director of Edu Exchange Service, the agency that recruited the Bolivian Decatur workers, defends the hotel firm, arguing that Decatur was overstaffed, and therefore had to slash hours, because they "miscalculated the number of workers they would need, not out of malicious intent...
...problems start before workers arrive," says Southern Poverty Law Center's Mary Bauer, one of the lead attorneys on the Decatur case. "Middleman recruiters profit from trafficking as many workers as possible because they get paid per worker-employer match." By her calculations, The Accent Group, the U.S. firm Decatur subcontracted to find on-the-ground recruiters such as Edu Exchange's Rasmussen, made $350,000 on the Decatur contracts alone...
...bungalow. If we get hit by a hurricane, it's bye-bye Port Gentil." He has relayed his concerns to the petroliers, "and they know full well that some of the blame for global warming, disturbed weather patterns and rising sea levels is theirs." But except for a single firm funding a study of Gabon's environment, they confine themselves to hearing out Hot Brains, then politely showing him the door. "This town is being eaten by the sea," says Gorayeb. "Just saying 'Hello, bye-bye' is not enough any more...