Posts Tagged ‘corruption’
October 17, 2012
Over the last 30+ years of doing business around the world the one certain indicator for me that corruption is rife and that a bribe is being solicited is when unforeseen delays occur in a permitting or licencing process and/or when an “approval” is conditional or restricted. Politicians and bureaucrats everywhere use the bidding, procurement and regulatory machinery as their opportunity to line their pockets. And the appearance of sand in bureaucratic machinery is a sure sign that a politician or a bureaucrat is available to remove the sand or to oil the machinery – for a consideration.
The EU is probably the most sophisticated and successful corruptocracy in the world.
Yahoo (Reuters) reports on the latest case of EU corruption to come to light:
The European Union’s top health official resigned on Tuesday after an anti-fraud investigation connected him to an attempt to influence EU tobacco legislation, the European Commission said.
The EU’s anti-fraud office OLAF found that a Maltese businessman had tried to use his contacts withCommissioner John Dalli, who is Maltese, for financial gain by offering to influence future EU legislation on tobacco products.
“The OLAF report did not find any conclusive evidence of the direct participation of Mr Dalli but did consider that he was aware of these events,” the Commission said in a statement, saying that Dalli had resigned with immediate effect.
Dalli has rejected the OLAF’s findings, the statement said.
The statement said it was up to Maltese judicial authorities to decide if they wanted to pursue the case.
The OLAF investigation followed a complaint by snuff-and- cigar-maker Swedish Match in May 2012, saying that the businessman – who was not named – sought financial advantages in return for influencing Commission proposals, particularly on the EU’s current export ban on snus, a Swedish-style moist snuff.
“It’s unpleasant that these things happen. We can only hope that the process going forward to create a new directive is transparent and honest,” Swedish Match spokesman Fredrik Peyron said.
“We don’t know all the details that have emerged in this report. But if he has been involved in this it is reasonable (that Dalli resign).”
Snus, which is Swedish Match’s main cash cow, is banned in the EU for health reasons, except in Sweden which negotiated a permanent exemption in its EU accession talks in the 1990s.
Swedish Match hopes the European Commission will lift its ban on snus, which is put under the lip, mostly in pouches. The Swedish government has been pushing for a lifting of the ban, saying the health risks are not proportionate to the ban.
Tags:corruption, Corruptocracy, European Anti-fraud Office, European Union, John Dalli, OLAF, Snuff
Posted in Business, Corruption, European Union | Comments Off on Snuff case is just the tip of the EU corruption iceberg
March 7, 2012
“Green” is also the colour of slime.
Subsidies are fundamentally corrupting.
Instead of promoting the commercialisation of a nascent technology (whether for later job creation or for pursuing policy goals), they lead more often than not to companies just maximising the subsidies they can get. And very often the vast amounts taken from tax money end up in the pockets of opportunistic individuals. It is no great secret that the “green” label has provided the path for the extraction (or is it extortion) of subsidies by developers and companies who have never had any intention other than maximising what could be extracted.
ABC News (here and here) lists a number of cases in the US where subsidies have been extracted, huge bonuses paid and then bankruptcy filings prevents any possibility of getting any recourse to the beneficiaries. They point out that “the Energy Department explicitly allows for federal funds to be used to pay out executive bonuses.” The “subsidy” industry is of course already well established in Europe with exorbitant “feed in tariffs”, carbon trading certificates and grants to solar and wind developers.
(more…)
Tags:Abound Solar, Beacon Power, bonuses from subsidies, Chapter 11 filing, corruption, Ener1, Green subsidies, Solyndra
Posted in Business, Corruption, Environment, Ethics | Comments Off on “Green” is also the colour of slime – when companies take their subsidies, pay their bonuses and then go bankrupt..
February 11, 2012
zu Guttenberg is back and has friends in high places. Baron Cut and Paste rides again.
This might be considered ironic but being the European commission I put it down to plain stupidity. To have a plagiarist who was brought down by net activism but who then bought his way out of criminal prosecution (by paying €20,000) as a special advisor on net activism illustrates the stupidity and the corruption at the centre of the European Commission.
Stupid is as stupid does.
From TechDirt:
European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes has invited Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a former Federal Minister of Defence, and of Economics and Technology, in Germany, to advise on how to provide ongoing support to Internet users, bloggers and cyber-activists living under authoritarian regimes. This appointment forms a key element of a new “No Disconnect Strategy” to uphold the EU’s commitment to ensure human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected both online and off-line, and that internet and other information and communication technology (ICT) can remain a driver of political freedom, democratic development and economic growth.
Of course, that’s rather rich coming from a region where France already allows disconnections as punishments (HADOPI), and where the UK has legislation in place that will allow it to do the same (Digital Economy Act). But it turns out that the ironies are even deeper.
The reason that Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg — once seen as a likely successor to Germany’s current Chancellor, Angela Merkel — is no longer the Federal Minister of Defence, and of Economics and Technology, is that he resigned when it emerged that he had plagiarized significant parts of his doctorate.
After initial denials, Guttenberg was forced to admit the extent of his plagiarism thanks largely to a crowdsourced wiki called GutenPlag (original German) offering “collaborative documentation of plagiarism”, which went through his thesis searching for passages taken from elsewhere without acknowledgement. In total, it claims to have found “1218 plagiarized fragments from 135 sources, on 371 out of 393 pages (94.4%), in 10421 plagiarized lines (63.8%).” There’s even an interactive, color-coded visualization of what happened where.
A petition against this stupidity can be found here: zu Guttenberg must leave the European Commission
Tags:corruption, European Commission, European Union, Germany, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Neelie Kroes, Plagiarism
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, European Union, Germany | Comments Off on Plagiarist zu Guttenberg invited to join the European Commission
July 13, 2011
For the last 10 days the Rupert Murdoch / Rebekah Brookes/ NoTW scandal (broken by The Guardian and their intrepid reporter Nick Davies) has been raging in the UK. It is now a full grown 3-ring circus.
The story has all the ingredients of a new TV mini-series – a media tycoon, spineless politicians, amoral journalists, a red-headed siren, a multi-billion take-over bid, some corrupt policemen, some Clouseau-like investigators and a bunch of small-time criminals.
Yesterdays hearings of policemen at a House of Commons select committee was fascinating not just for the ineptness of the witnesses (with the exception of Sue Akers) but also for the smugness of the middle-aged, middle-class, self-righteous politicians putting the questions.
Making sense of the torrent of allegations now engulfing News Corp., its subsidiary News International and their newspapers is difficult. But Crikey has a good summary of events so far:
Closing down News of the World may have been James Murdoch’s second attempt at putting this problem “in a box”, but the allegations of phone hacking and criminal activity are now bleeding beyond the besmirched masthead, as British parliament calls for Rupert and James Murdoch and News International CEO Rebekah Brooks to front up to answer questions.
As News International continues to try to staunch the blood, now upgraded to a full blown haemorrhage, here’s a guide to the allegations thus far — where they’ve come from, and the subsequent response …
Read more
The story moves on into the House of Commons today…..
Tags:corruption, ethics, hacking scandal, News of the World, Nick Davies, Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Media | Comments Off on Rebekah in Murdoch’s wonderland: Hackers, blaggers, Clouseaus and dodgy geezers
June 11, 2011
Dirty football
The corruption that is endemic at the highest levels with the FIFA administrators is also evident at lower levels and with players involved in match fixing and the betting industry. The BBC reports:
Finnish football has been rocked by a match-fixing scandal which has implications across the world. Nine former members of one team and a Singapore national accused of organising the scams have been put on trial.
Meanwhile, a criminal investigation has begun into another club suspected of money-laundering. Betting syndicates have been said to make as much as $1.5m (£0.9m) from fixed games. The Finnish League, which began its new season in May, usually commands a low profile in the global game.
But events over the past few months have brought it to the attention of football’s world governing body, and its fight against corruption. Tampere, Finland’s former champions, have been suspended. The club received $435,000 from a Singapore company, but officials could not explain why they had been given such a large sum. Money-laundering is suspected.
Finnish police have said the case is linked to the trial of seven Zambians and two Georgians who used to play for a different club in the north of the country. They are accused of accepting bribes worth more than $750,000 to affect the outcome of matches.
In the same trial Wilson Raj Perumal, a Singaporean, is charged with arranging the payments. Fifa also want to speak to Mr Perumal about international friendly matches involving Asian and African teams that are suspected of being fixed.
Last month, two Zambian brothers who played for another Finnish side were convicted of taking bribes from Mr Perumal. The officer leading the investigation in Finland said there was serious speculation this was only the tip of the iceberg.
Meanwhile further details about the FIFA shenanigans continues. From The Guardian:
Another Caribbean football association has come forward to allege receiving $40,000 (£24,440) in cash at the meeting arranged by Fifa‘s presidential challenger Mohamed bin Hammam and one of its vice-presidents Jack Warner at the heart of the bribery scandal that has rocked the world football governing body.
Blatter: FIFA Corruption supervisor
The president of the Surinam FA has now claimed it received the cash in $100 bills in a brown paper envelope on arrival in Trinidad for the meeting with Bin Hammam on 10 May. ….
The new evidence from Surinam appears to back up the version of events outlined by other CFU members in the evidence file compiled by the US lawyer John Collins at the behest of the Fifa executive committee member and Concacaf general secretary Chuck Blazer.
The civil war within Concacaf further intensified as Fifa imposed a worldwide ban on Lisle Austin, who claimed to be acting president of the federation in the wake of the suspension of Warner and attempted to fire Blazer.
The whistleblowers were led by the Bahamas FA president Anton Sealey and vice-president Fred Lunn, whose claims were backed by statements from the Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands FAs. According to Lunn’s affidavit, he was given $40,000 in cash and after photographing the notes he returned the money and set in train the bribery investigation.
A split has formed in the CFU between those who have backed the claims in the evidence file, which also includes text messages and email traffic, and those who insist no inducements were offered.
Tags:corruption, FIFA, Finland, Singapore
Posted in Corruption, Football, Sport | Comments Off on Dirty Football: Another corruption trail from Singapore to Finland
May 30, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
Sepp Blatter is standing unopposed and the writhing mess of corruption that FIFA has become continues. That World Cups are bought and sold is patently obvious. Apart from masses of money Qatar brings nothing to a World Cup competition and takes away much. The corruption – under Blatter’s watchful and forgiving eye – has of course resulted in stupid decision after stupid decision.
As long as Blatter continues the corruption and stupidity will remain institutionalised and there is no chance of FIFA even beginning to put its house in order.
The BBC
Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke has denied Jack Warner’s claim in an e-mail that Mohamed Bin Hammam “bought” the 2022 World Cup finals for Qatar.
Suspended Fifa vice-president Warner made public the e-mail which also questioned why Asian football boss Bin Hammam was running for Fifa president. Valcke wrote: “[Hammam] thought you can buy Fifa as they bought the World Cup”.
But in Valcke’s denial he insisted he was not referring to any “purchase of votes or similar unethical behaviour.” ….. And last week, Qatar 2022 World Cup officials denied allegations, published in the Sunday Times, that they paid bribes in return for votes.
Meanwhile, independent Australian senator Nick Xenophon has demanded that Fifa refunds the Aus$45.6m (£29.6m) his country spent on their unsuccessful bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Xenophon said: “It appears corrupt and highly questionable behaviour goes to the core of Fifa. Australia spent almost $46m on a bid we were never in the running for. Now we hear that bribes may have been made to fix the result for who will head up Fifa.”
As vice president, China’s Zhang Jilong will take charge of the AFC in the absence of Bin Hammam. However, the decision to suspend Bin Hammam has been met with widespread criticism throughout the Middle East.
AFC vice president Yousuf al-Serkal, from neighbouring United Arab Emirates, said: “I think Bin Hammam has been mistreated. “Bin Hammam is the right person who should have been elected to the presidency of Fifa from the point of view of change.”
The Telegraph
The prospect that Sepp Blatter will tomorrow be returned unopposed as president of Fifa, the game’s governing body, is enough to make any true football fan, of whatever nationality, cringe with embarrassment.
Unopposed? Does that mean people think he is doing a good job? Couldn’t some tramp be brought in from the streets of Zurich to contest the election? Are ballot papers being printed to give this fiasco a veneer of legitimacy? And who is paying for the prerequisite slap-up lunch for the stooges flying thousands of miles to rubber-stamp Blatter’s election?
The sheer absurdity of the process makes Premier League footballers look like paragons of virtue. Unless 75-year-old Blatter does the decent thing and agrees to the deferment of tomorrow’s election – and nothing in his record of ruthless, self-important nest-feathering suggests that he is capable of doing the decent thing – a coronation of look-away-now awfulness, with toadies in blazers applauding the Supreme Leader, is in prospect.
His 13-year-old presidency of Fifa has been marked by faux pas after faux pas. When he has not been mulishly resisting long-overdue reforms, such as goal-line technology, he has been insulting women, by advising female footballers to wear tight shorts and low-cut tops, and homosexuals, by urging gay fans to practise sexual restraint at the 2022
World Cup in Qatar.
But it is the sheer incompetence of Fifa under Blatter that has been truly shocking. Never mind the bribery allegations and counter-allegations swirling around the Qatar bid. No sporting body with any pretensions to seriousness would have agreed to award a World Cup, traditionally held in June/July, to a country where temperatures at that time of year top 40C. …. Half-cocked plans for air-conditioned stadiums, or for the tournament to be held mid-winter, have only underscored the ludicrousness of the bidding process – with the minnows of world football all too easily seduced by large cheques.
Tags:corruption, FIFA, Sepp Blatter, World Cup
Posted in Corruption, Football, Fraud, Sport | Comments Off on Blatter and his stinking mess of FIFA corruption
March 4, 2011
Sir Howard Davies: Image via Wikipedia
Not only did the UK government provide Gaddafi with absolution for all his sins for the sake of weapons deals and oil contracts, they also orchestrated the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
And the LSE was part of the process of providing legitimacy to a bunch of thugs and murderers – of course in return for a suitable remuneration. The LSE Director has now resigned.
BBC:
The director of the London School of Economics has resigned over its links to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi. Sir Howard Davies said he recognised the university’s reputation had “suffered” and he had to quit. He said the decision to accept £300,000 for research from a foundation run by Col Gaddafi’s son, Saif, “backfired”.
The LSE council has commissioned an independent inquiry into the university’s relationship with Libya and Saif Gaddafi. It will seek to clarify the extent of the LSE’s links with Libya and establish guidelines for future donations.
Lord Woolf, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and former chairman of the Council of University College London, has been appointed to carry it out. Sir Howard said he regretted visiting Libya to advise its regime about financial reforms, calling it a “personal error of judgement”. …..
The LSE has already announced it is investigating claims that Saif Gaddafi plagiarised his PhD thesis, which was awarded in 2008. The Libyan leader’s son had studied at the LSE, gaining both an MSc and PhD.
The Guardian:
A leaked US diplomatic cable indicates that the British government was also party to the deal to bring 400 Libyans to Britain for leadership training. The cable, published by WikiLeaks, suggests that other UK universities were involved in similar schemes, though there is no independent confirmation of this.
The university’s reputation has taken a battering over links with the Libyan regime, which include a donation of £1.5m from a charitable foundation run by Saif, who studied at the LSE. On Tuesday, the LSE agreed to put £300,000, equivalent to the cash it has received from the foundation, into a scholarship for north African students. …..
Ashok Kumar, the education officer of the LSE students’ union said : “The recent revelations have shone a light on one part of the relationship between the upper echelons of the LSE and the Gaddafi family, which is deeper and more perverse than we would have ever imagined.
“This issue is damaging the reputation of the school – it should be a place of learning – not at the centre of unscrupulous dealings with Libyan regime.”
Tags:corruption, Libya, London School of Economics, LSE, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Plagiarism, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi plagiarism, Saif al-Islam Muammar Al-Gaddafi
Posted in Corruption, Education, Libya, Politics, UK | Comments Off on LSE head quits over suspect ties to Gaddafi & son
February 27, 2011
Guttenberg has given up his PhD and the University of Bayreuth has now rescinded it after the Googleberg affaire. But it seems that for Guttenberg plagiarism is a long standing and regular habit and not just an opportunistic effort for his PhD and certainly not the unwitting mistake he claims it was.
"zu Googleberg" the Copycat Minister: photo DPA
Der Spiegel carries an article about the moral bankruptcy in Germany and reports on the discovery by the Gutenplag Wiki that he had plagiarised also in 2004.
The GuttenPlag Wiki website also found a 29-page analysis from 2004 that Guttenberg, then a representative in the German parliament, wrote for the Hanns Seidel Foundation. According to the site, the document contains passages that have been taken from other sources with minimal changes and not attributed. A spokesperson from Guttenberg’s legislative office told SPIEGEL ONLINE that the case involved an “editorial text” and not an academic one, and pointed out that the sources were all listed in an attached literature review.
Meanwhile, Bild published a survey Thursday in which 87 percent of the respondents said they believed Guttenberg should stay in office. More than 260,000 people called and faxed in to the toll line. The headline on the newspaper’s front page Thursday was “Yes, we stand behind Guttenberg!” However, on Friday, an ongoing online poll on the newspaper’s website found that 57 percent of the more than 680,000 surveyed wanted Guttenberg to step down.
Jürgen Trittin, floor leader of the Green Party, on Thursday spoke of a “dirty deal” between Guttenberg and Axel Springer AG, which owns Bild. It was announced this week that the newspaper will be a major recipient of new advertising that the government is planning to help with recruitment for the German military, the Bundeswehr, which is soon to become a volunteer army. A spokesman for the media company told SPIEGEL ONLINE this week that the editorial offices only learned of the advertising campaign from the media on Thursday, after the telephone poll.
Critics also pointed out that the tabloid in the past also defended Guttenberg’s controversial trip to Afghanistan in December with his wife Stephanie, which was decried as a publicity stunt by his opponents.
Ther are other writings by Guttenberg that are being criticised. Even Angela Merkel may have to back away from the support she has been giving to her Defence Minister to exploit his popularity before the impending local elections.
Guttenberg’s star with Merkel could more likely be tarnished by what a report said she regarded as an “only very rudimentary and poorly-considered basis for decisions about reform of the Bundeswehr.”
Der Spiegel reported at the weekend that criticism of his work at the Defence Ministry from the Chancellery was much harsher than previously thought.
Tags:Angela Merkel, corruption, ethics, Guttenberg, Plagiarism, Scientific misconduct, zu Googleberg
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Germany, Politics, scientific misconduct | 2 Comments »
February 2, 2011
The mood of the demonstrators in Cairo is captured by the waving shoes in Tahrir Square as Mubarak announces he will not stand again — far too little, much too late.
The political message of shoe throwing or waving is quite unambiguous.
The shoes are out in Tahrir Square: image i.huffpost.com
In the meantime the duplicitous and corrupt Tony Blair praises Mubarak and reveals his view of democracy – “Democracy is Ok provided I like the result” !!!!!
“Blair said that meant there should not be a rush to elections in Egypt.”
It is incomprehensible for me that a corrupt and intellectually bankrupt lightweight such as Tony Blair with all his demonstrated failings could be “rewarded” by being made an envoy to the Middle East.
Tags:corruption, duplicity, Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, revolution, shoe throwing, shoe waving, Tahrir Square, Tony Blair
Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, Egypt | 1 Comment »
February 1, 2011
Tony Blair: Image via Wikipedia
Apparently Tony Blair and his government were more than mere US poodles. That Blair was an accomplished liar regarding his “sexed up” Iraq dossiers has become apparent. But that he had (has) little sense of ethics and could treat with the Devil for the sake of trade deals has always been suspected but is coming out clearly now.
British ministers secretly advised Libya on securing the successful early release of the Lockerbie bomber and demonstrate that Tony Blair’s Government was “playing false” over the issue.
If corruption is taken to be “having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money” it is not difficult to attach a label to Tony Blair and his government.
The Telegraph:
A Foreign Office minister sent Libyan officials detailed legal advice on how to use Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s cancer diagnosis to ensure he was released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds, documents obtained by the Daily Telegraph show.
The Duke of York is also said to have played a behind-the-scenes role in encouraging the terrorist’s release.
The Scottish First Minister said the revelations confirm that while his administration acted according to its public pronouncements on the affair, Tony Blair’s Government was behaving duplicitously.
“The cables … show that the former UK Government were playing false on the issue, with a different public position from their private one,” said a statement released by Mr Salmond’s office.
Downing Street maintained at the time that is was not complicit in the release of al-Megrahi, and that the decision to free the convicted terrorist was taken by the Scottish Executive alone.
The Libyans closely followed the advice which led to the controversial release of Megrahi – who was convicted of the murder of 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103 – within months of the Foreign Office’s secret intervention.
According to American officials, Mr Blair was suspected of securing trade deals after agreeing to include Megrahi in the agreement.
After Megrahi was released in August 2009, another American document records Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s comments – which suggest that Prince Andrew, the UK’s trade envoy, may have played a role. The document records: “He [Gaddafi] went on to thank his ‘friend Brown’, the British Prime Minister, his government, Queen Elizabeth, and Prince Andrew, who ‘against all odds encouraged this brave decision’. [Gaddafi] noted that the UK efforts would positively affect ‘exchange’ between the two countries.
Tags:Blair's governmnt engineered Megrahi release, corruption, First Minister of Scotland, Lockerbie bomber release, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Prince Andrew, Tony Blair
Posted in Behaviour, Business, Corruption, Ethics, International Trade, UK | 2 Comments »
The k2p blog 