Have you ever heard of the Stevedoring Services of America (SSA)? No, well chances are that you’ve heard of their activities indirectly because one way or another they’re a major world player.

Cast your mind back to last year and you may remember vague reports in the ‘oh so not interested’ news media about a little dispute between the port operators, (with eventually, George Bush) and California’s longshoremen in the west coast port lockout saga. Then, after the other, somewhat better reported, dispute between George Bush and Iraq, there was the little affair of Umm Qasr. Where, despite the greedy protestations of Britain’s P&O company, SSA won a $4.8m contract to rebuild Umm Qasr’s port, for humanitarian reasons… of course!

Well, SSA seem to be hell bent on world domination, (at least in ter