Profit and security at the London Olympics

G4S - the Anglo-Danish conglomerate - has put the security of the London Olympics at risk. Or so it would seem according to recent headlines.

The largest private security company in the world, G4S employs over 650,000 people in 125 countries. But the news broke last week that it could not provide the 13,000 security guards it had promised for the Olympics.

Britain's muckraking journalists responded with aplomb. The papers abounded with stories of inept trainees asleep in classes or lacking in English. Other would-be security guards failed to spot pistols, bombs and grenades.

Certainly, G4S' shenanigans have laid the ground for a scandal of Olympic proportions if terrorist attacks do occur.

The British armed forces now have to provide at short notice an additional 3,500 personnel on top of 13,500 already committed to the Olympics. Troops returning from Afghanistan and others who were training for deployment will make up for G4S' apparent inability to recruit enough rent-a-cops. Real police are also being taken off their beats to fill the gaps.

Read on...