All posts tagged: Corruption

Huawei bribery scandal rocks EU Parliament – POLITICO

Huawei bribery scandal rocks EU Parliament – POLITICO

Published by Sam

The Belgian public prosecutor’s office said in a statement the alleged misconduct took place “regularly and very discreetly from 2021 to the present day, under the guise of commercial lobbying.” Incidents that are being investigated include “remuneration for taking political positions, excessive gifts like food and travel expenses and regular invitations to football matches … with a view to promoting purely private commercial interests in the context of political decisions,” the statement said. Investigators have around 15 former and current MEPs “on the radar,” Follow The Money, Le Soir and Knack wrote. The prosecutor’s office on Thursday afternoon announced it had “requested that seals be affixed to the premises of the European Parliament, more specifically to the offices allocated to two parliamentary assistants allegedly involved.” A spokesperson from the European Parliament said Thursday afternoon: “We have received a request for cooperation from the Belgian authorities to assist the investigation which the Parliament will swiftly honor.” Victor Negrescu, Parliament’s vice president for transparency and anti-corruption, said the allegations “are deeply concerning,” adding “we cannot accept that …

Mapped: The strange link between obesity and corruption

Mapped: The strange link between obesity and corruption

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Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. Country-level corruption is a tough KPI to quantify. So how do organizations like Transparency International and the World Bank do it? Not by comparing the fiscal, economic, and financial data of each country — they’d only end up comparing (rotten) apples to (spoiled) oranges. Instead, to arrive at their Corruption Perceptions Index and Control of Corruption Indicator (respectively), they aggregate the opinions of experts in governance and corruption. The 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index in map form. Darker means a higher perception of corruption, and vice versa. (Credit: Transparency International) In 2020, Pavlo R. Blavatskyy, a professor of economics at Montpelier Business School in France, suggested a yardstick for country-level corruption that’s possibly more straightforward, but certainly more unexpected and more fun: the median body mass index (BMI) of a country’s government ministers. Blavatskyy postulated that there is a positive relationship between the median BMI and a country’s level of government …

Romanian hard-right chief pitches himself as Europe’s next Meloni – POLITICO

Romanian hard-right chief pitches himself as Europe’s next Meloni – POLITICO

Published by Sam

“Even if we are conservative, which is not to the liking of the establishment in Brussels, even if we believe in many of the values President Trump believes in,” Simion said, “we also believe that we need a strong, united Europe.” The politician insisted he would “work together” with the EU’s mainstream parties if elected, with Romania’s full accession to the visa-free Schengen zone, pushing for a directly elected EU executive and boosting industrial production in the bloc at the top of his list of priorities. But unlike Meloni, Simion has openly vowed he would push back against Brussels even if that means breaking EU rules in a move more reminiscent of the populist leaders of Hungary and Slovakia, Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico. “I would be a liar to say we would respect EU law,” he said. “If tomorrow [there is] a new law that we didn’t vote for … or laws that are not good for Romania,” he said, “I will try to use all my powers to stop what is doing harm …

The Return of Trump—II | Rozina Ali, Christopher Benfey, Quinn Slobodian, Walter M. Shaub Jr., Bridget Read, Jon Allsop

The Return of Trump—II | Rozina Ali, Christopher Benfey, Quinn Slobodian, Walter M. Shaub Jr., Bridget Read, Jon Allsop

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Rozina Ali •  Christopher Benfey •  Quinn Slobodian •  Walter M. Shaub Jr. •  Bridget Read •  Jon Allsop Rozina Ali “Why would you place your faith in somebody who instituted a so-called Muslim Ban?” President Barack Obama asked at a campaign rally in Wisconsin earlier this month. In the weeks running up to the elections, that question was repeatedly posed to Muslim and Arab American leaders who had publicly stated they would not endorse Kamala Harris for president. It was meant to highlight the seeming contradiction at the heart of their protest: even by voting for Jill Stein, as several said they would, they were paving the road to the White House for a president whose interests were explicitly opposed to theirs.  Yet it was the Democratic Party’s electoral campaign that was rife with contradictions. In attempts to draw a contrast with Donald Trump, Harris reminded voters that “democracy is on the line”—an argument that fell flat to significant numbers of Muslims and Arabs. As Democratic leaders claimed that only their party could preserve the …

Ukrainian prosecutor general resigns amid corruption scandals

Ukrainian prosecutor general resigns amid corruption scandals

Published by Sam

Ukrainian Attorney General Andriy Kostin on Capitol Hill, Washington, April 18, 2023. ANNA MONEYMAKER / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP Scandal on a subject as sensitive as the equality of citizens in the face of mobilization could not go unpunished. The prosecutor general of Ukraine, Andriy Kostin, was swept up in the revelation of corruption cases involving dozens of prosecutors from the central Khmelnytskyi region, accused of acquiring false disability certificates enabling them to obtain pensions in addition to their salaries and, potentially, avoid conscription. This energetic man, who enjoyed a good reputation as a professional and is not personally involved, announced his resignation on Tuesday, October 22, at the end of a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, chaired by Volodymyr Zelensky. The case first came to light in the Ukrainian media at the beginning of October, when investigators in the Khmelnytskyi region revealed that the head of the local medical and social expertise commission, Tetiana Kroupa, who is also an elected member of the regional council, and her son, who heads the …

Voting for Their Jobs | Tim Judah

Voting for Their Jobs | Tim Judah

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As we sped down Georgia’s main highway, the spine of the country linking east and west, Vato Bzhalava, who had helped set up this trip, showed me a video. He had made it as plainclothes policemen bundled him into a van during last spring’s anti-government demonstrations in the capital, Tbilisi. By chance, journalists who were livestreaming the protest also filmed the moment, and his friends saw the footage. This was lucky. Georgia is a small place; one way or another everyone knows everyone. Messages got through to the police: “Don’t beat up Vato!” They did not. Others were not so lucky. Vato is a moustachioed thirty-four-year-old researcher at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS). We were on our way to Akhaltsikhe, a small town eleven miles from the Turkish border. Signs giving the distances to Tehran and Ankara flashed by. Close to the turnoff for Stalin’s birthplace at Gori, we passed within a third of a mile of the southernmost tip of South Ossetia, the de facto Russian-controlled territory that broke away …

Ruling ANC on course to lose majority in South Africa’s election

Ruling ANC on course to lose majority in South Africa’s election

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South Africa’s ruling ANC was on course to lose its 30-year-old parliamentary majority on Thursday, opening the prospect that the party that defeated apartheid will have to share power for the first time.  Issued on: 30/05/2024 – 04:06Modified: 30/05/2024 – 20:44 3 min With a third of votes in Wednesday’s election tallied, the ANC was leading but with a score of only 42 percent — well below the 57 percent it won in 2019. Followed by the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) on 25 percent. The leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and former South African president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) were neck and neck on around nine percent each.  The final results are expected in the next three days. Read moreSouth Africa votes in most crucial election since end of apartheid “The broad church of the ANC has taken a substantial knock. This is a shock to the system for the ANC and ultimately will also be a shock to the system for the average South African, who has only known ANC rule since 1994,” …

Is your door causing corruption, environmental destruction in Africa?

Is your door causing corruption, environmental destruction in Africa?

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I have not returned to my home country of Equatorial Guinea for twenty years, for fear of violent reprisal. I live in the U.S now and I do not dare go back, particularly after that country’s president called me a traitor during a public speech, all because I advocated for human rights and against the rampant corruption that plagues the country. The Environmental Investigation Agency, a global environmental organization, recently issued a report alleging that Home Depot has sold products made with illegally sourced okoume wood from Equatorial Guinea. Home Depot is an American corporation worth more than $363 billion, with stores throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and China. It is considered a do-it-yourselfer’s paradise. But for the people in my community, Home Depot represents not paradise but rather the last link in a chain of unsustainable business practices and grand corruption that has afflicted my home country and impoverished our people. For decades, log trucks have crisscrossed Equatorial Guinea to load timber onto ships in port cities like Cogo, in the southwest of the …

Trump Media investor convicted of insider trading ahead of merger

Trump Media investor convicted of insider trading ahead of merger

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Bruce Garelick walks following a hearing at the Manhattan Federal Court, in New York City, July 20, 2023. Amr Alfiky | Reuters A federal jury in New York on Thursday convicted an investor of insider trading in the stock of a shell company ahead of its announcement in October 2021 that it would merge with Trump Media. The investor, Bruce Garelick, had been on the board of directors of the publicly traded company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., at the time he was accused of sharing and exploiting non–public information with others about its plans to merge with then-privately held Trump Media, the owner of the Truth Social app. Trump Media’s majority shareholder is former President Donald Trump, who was not accused of any wrongdoing in the case against Garelick in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. But Garelick’s trial, which began on April 30, took place just blocks away from where Trump is on trial in Manhattan Supreme Court on criminal charges related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Two co-defendants of …

Nigeria detains journalist Daniel Ojukwu who reported on corruption

Nigeria detains journalist Daniel Ojukwu who reported on corruption

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Daniel Ojukwu is an investigative journalist in Nigeria. Foundation for Investigative Journalism hide caption toggle caption Foundation for Investigative Journalism Daniel Ojukwu is an investigative journalist in Nigeria. Foundation for Investigative Journalism LAGOS, Nigeria — An investigative journalist in Nigeria has been arrested by police and held without charge for over a week, leading to growing fears for his safety. His case has also ignited criticism from media and advocacy groups on the worsening climate for independent journalism in Africa’s most populous country. Police arrested 26-year-old Daniel Ojukwu on May 1 in Lagos. He was reported missing the following day by his colleagues at Nigeria’s Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), after friends and family were unable to reach him by phone. FIJ hired private investigators who found his last location before he was arrested, leading journalists to demand answers from Nigerian police. Police only confirmed his detention on Sunday, days after moving him to the capital, Abuja, where he has been accused of violating the Cybercrime Act, a controversial law that gives the Nigerian government …