Corruption

Time To End Business Rankings Of The World Bank

January 28, 2018 Staff, oaklandinstitute.org Educate! Corruption, World Bank

OAKLAND, CA—The revelations that led to this week’s resignation of World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer point to flawed methodology and political manipulation in the World Bank’s Doing Business report. Romer admitted that the Doing Business rankings may have been manipulated to make Chile’s economic environment look worse under the sitting socialist president Michelle Bachelet. These revelations add to a long list of concerns that have been raised by civil society in recent years. The Our Land Our Business campaign was launched in 2014 to demand the end of the Bank’s Doing Business rankings. Over 280 organizations, including NGOs, unions, farmers, and consumer groups from over 80 countries have joined this call so far.

Act Now In Solidarity With Honduras

January 26, 2018 Staff, Soaw.org Resist! Corruption, Electoral Politics, Honduras, Protests, Strikes

Over 30 people have been murdered, many of whom were killed by the Military Police or other state security forces who fired live bullets at protesters, and hundreds of others have been injured or tortured. According to human rights organization COFADEH (Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras), over one thousand people have been detained and many are facing criminal charges aimed at silencing dissent. Others have been victims of torture or have had to flee for their lives. Security forces have entered neighborhoods, setting off teargas inside homes with children present, and seizing adults for arbitrary arrests. Jesuit priest Father Melo has received death threats and he and other social movement leaders have been the subject of vicious defamation campaigns.

Carillion Catastrophe & Limits Of Privatized Government

January 26, 2018 By Derek Royden, Nationofchange.org Educate! Corruption, Development, Government, Privatization

To say that British Prime Minister Theresa May has been having a rough time since rolling the dice on an early election and losing her party’s parliamentary majority in June, is probably a bit of an understatement. Headaches abound and multiply, from a widely covered speech being interrupted by a prankster, a falling back drop and a coughing fit, to Brexit ‘negotiations’ that seem to go nowhere, to buffoons in her own party, most comically the British version of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, who recently suggested building a bridge over the English Channel to connect France and the U.K., a feat of engineering that could only be matched by the U.S. President’s proposed border wall.

After Scoring Huge Tax Cuts, Charles Koch Floods Ryan With Cash

January 23, 2018 Alex Kotch, International Business Times Educate! Charles Koch, Corruption, Paul Ryan, Tax cuts for the rich

“Republicans never hid the fact that this tax bill was about pleasing their big donors,” Adam Smith, communications director at campaign finance reform nonprofit Every Voice, told International Business Times. “And it looks like House Speaker [Paul] Ryan is quickly being rewarded for passing this legislation that overwhelmingly benefits the Kochs and billionaires like them.” Thirteen days after the U.S. House passed its version of the tax legislation, Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, combined to donate nearly $500,000 to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s joint fundraising committee, according to a new campaign finance report released Thursday. These two donations were by far the largest sums added to Ryan’s coffers in the fourth quarter of 2017, but they were by no means the only major contributions: Marlene Ricketts, the wife of billionaire TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, donated $100,000, as did five other individuals.

Hondurans Hold Mass Protests ‘Until The Corrupt Are Removed’

January 8, 2018 Staff, Telesurtv.net Resist! Corruption, Electoral Politics, Honduras, Protests

"The people won’t stand for this dictatorship," said former Opposition Alliance presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla. Despite heavy rains, an estimated 80,000 Honduran opposition supporters marched in San Pedro Sula on Saturday to protest what they call a "fradulent" presidential election. Surrounded by his supporters, former presidential candidate for the Opposition Alliance Salvador Nasralla told the crowds, "The people want Salvador Nasralla as the President of Honduras." "The people won’t stand for this dictatorship," he said, adding, "we won’t stop until we’ve removed the corrupt from power." Nasralla does not recognize the results of the Nov. 26 Honduran presidential election, which was riddled with accusations of fraud and corruption. He maintains that he won the polls, but would be willing to repeat them.

Congressman Works With Business Group Benefiting From Tax Bill

January 4, 2018 By Alex Kotch, Ibtimes.com Educate! Congress, Corruption, Money in Politics, Tax Reform

Congressional ethics laws appear to require lawmakers to recuse themselves from shaping or voting on laws that would financially benefit themselves, their family or their future employers. But Ohio Rep. Pat Tiberi accepted an offer to run a state trade organization, the Ohio Business Roundtable (BRT), while helping write the Republican tax bill. The trade group’s member companies have donated to Tiberi’s political campaigns, and many of them stand to gain from the bill, which slashed business income taxes and introduced several provisions that will benefit wealthy investors and corporate executives in various industries. He will begin the job by January 31st. International Business Times has identified 17 companies that are both members of BRT and donors to Tiberi’s 2018 campaign committee.

Apple Execs Face Jail In France After Lawsuit Over Slowing Down iPhones

December 30, 2017 Rory Mulholland, Thelocal.fr Resist! Apple, Corruption, France, Lawsuit

A French activist group has launched a criminal lawsuit against Apple over its policy of slowing down older iPhones in a case that could see the tech giant 's executives jailed and cost it five percent of its income if convicted of the crime of "planned obsolescence". The move by Halte à l’Obsolescence Programmée (HOP - Stop Planned Obsolescence), an environmental association, comes after lawsuits were launched this week in the US against Apple for similar reasons. The suit was filed on Wednesday in the Paris prosecutor’s office, HOP said in a statement. “Apple has put in place a global strategy of programmed obsolescence in order to boost its sales” of new iPhones, the group said.

Understanding The Depth Of Impacts Of Corruption

December 19, 2017 By Kanti Pertiwi Educate! Corruption, Indonesia, New Economy

During this time the anti-corruption movement in Indonesia and the world adheres to the rationalist approach. Supporters of this approach believe that the existence of democracy, organizational culture and good governance developed in Western countries can suppress corruption. This approach also sees corruption as a moral problem in society. Multiple corruption is constructed as a " cancer ", " AIDS " or " devil " that damages the morale of society and steals the welfare of the poor. But the construction of the meaning of "corruption" of this kind needs to be scrutinized. As the World Anti-Corruption Day commemorates on December 9, we need to criticize the dominant voice in defining corruption and how anticorruption is then articulated into a movement.

‘I Had To Leave’

November 25, 2017 Mack Burke, normantranscript.com Educate! Corruption, Earthquakes, Environment, Research

By Mack Burke for The Norman Transcript - NORMAN — Oklahoma’s former lead seismologist has testified he was pressured by officials at the University of Oklahoma to suppress findings linking earthquakes with fracking wastewater disposal. In a deposition taken on Oct. 11, Austin Holland alleges he was reprimanded for publishing a peer-reviewed journal article connecting the two and was pressured to alter his findings by Larry Grillot, former dean of OU’s Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, and Randy Keller, the former director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Holland said his decision to leave OU and the Oklahoma Geologic Survey in 2015 was a direct result of pressure from his employers. “I don't know if ‘angry’ is the right word, but just disappointed … that I'd spent my time working towards something, and I thought I was in my dream job, and then I couldn't be a scientist and do what scientists do, and that's publish with colleagues,” he said. “Well, that’s the point at which I realized that for my scientific credibility, I had to leave the position I was in.” In the deposition, Holland claims that Keller and Grillot influenced or altered wording in his findings or presentations. Holland said he met with Grillot and provided an advance copy of a report he co-authored linking seismicity with wastewater disposal. He said Grillot’s response was “this is unacceptable.”

Charges Dropped Against 15 Cases Linked To Corrupt Ex-Cop

November 18, 2017 Megan Crepeau, Jason Meisner and Jeremy Gorner, chicagotribune.com Educate! Chicago, Corruption, Police

By Megan Crepeau, Jason Meisner and Jeremy Gorner for Chicago Tribune - In a sudden about-face Thursday night, Chicago police said seven cops once part of an allegedly corrupt crew will be removed from street duties while their conduct years ago is investigated. The reversal came hours after Cook County prosecutors threw out the convictions of 15 men who were framed by the crew — led by former Sgt. Ronald Watts, who did prison time for shaking down drug dealers. Police spokesman Frank Giancamilli said Thursday night that one sergeant and six officers who worked with Watts have been placed on paid desk duty while an internal investigation is conducted. Asked earlier Thursday why several officers tied to Watts’ corrupt crew were still on the force, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson noted none had been convicted of a crime — unlike Watts. “They have due process and rights just like any citizen in this country,” he told reporters after his speech to the City Club of Chicago. “… But we just can’t arbitrarily take the job away from people.” Asked whether those officers might be taken off the streets while the department looks into the cases, Johnson said, “Once I get enough information, then that may be what happens. But right now ... we are looking at it.”

Goldman Sachs In Government Pushes Profits Of Goldman Sachs

October 16, 2017 Marcus Stanley, www.inequality.org Educate! Banking and Finance, Corruption, Goldman Sachs, Lobbying, Money in Politics, New Economy

By Marcus Stanley for Inequality - Goldman Sachs has been a conspicuous presence at the scene of one disaster after another in the past half century. The bank is a leader in a Wall Street business model that relies on market manipulation and unsustainable financial bubbles to enrich a few insiders, but that produces disastrous consequences for the rest of us. We are witnessing what may be a new Golden Age for Goldman Sachs. After running a campaign in which he lambasted the “corrupt” ties between Wall Street and Washington, President Trump has handed the job of shaping economic policy over to Wall Street insiders generally, and to alumni of Goldman Sachs in particular. These appointments add up to a level of inside influence that is unusual even by Goldman’s historic standards. And future picks could produce even more Goldman influence. In choosing Gary Cohn as National Economic Council Director and Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, along with Jay Clayton at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Trump has turned to Wall Street veterans with deep knowledge of the financial crisis—knowledge gained as champions of the dangerous practices that helped cause it. In areas ranging from financial regulations, to taxes, to infrastructure, to trade, this Goldman-heavy Administration is promoting policies that would boost Goldman Sachs’s profits, in many ways, at the expense of taxpayers and the broader public. Goldman’s stock price has already soared.

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s Conflict Of Interest

October 16, 2017 Panda Monium, www.rebz.tv Educate! Corruption, Police, St. Louis

By Panda Monium for Rebz.Tv - It has finally come to the attention to the majority of St. Louis residents that Sgt. Brian Rossomanno’s national security contracting business, 0311 Tactical Solutions, LLC, is contracted to train the police department. Beyond this being a glaring conflict of interest, it is very telling of the type of training that St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department receives to be used against citizens. We have seen, day after day, heavily armored police attacking peaceful protesters, nearly always without provocation. And of course, leading his army of military-style tactically trained police, is the self-proclaimed #RiotKing Sgt. Rossomanno himself. Rossamanno is the head of SLMPD’s civil disobedience team, and is the one that makes the decisions to brutally attack peaceful protesters with chemical munitions, using illegal maneuvers such as kettling. In STLToday’s article that brought this subject to light, they stated: Rossomanno declined to be interviewed for this story. In an email on Friday, he said that 0311 Tactical did not bid on contracts from the St. Louis police because it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Later that day, his company’s website was edited to delete the St. Louis police department and its SWAT team as clients.

Guatemala Rises Up Against Institutionalized Corruption

September 27, 2017 Jeff Abbott, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Corruption, Guatemala, Uprising

By Jeff Abbott for Waging Nonviolence - On Sept. 20, hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans demonstrated across the country against President Jimmy Morales and Congress. The protesters demanded the resignation of the president and congressional members, following new accusations of corruption and the repeal of anti-corruption laws passed in 2015. “We are demanding that the president and the majority of Congress resign, and that they pass laws that modify the laws that govern political parties,” said Tomás Solaj, the indigenous mayor of Sololá. “We have the advantage right now.” In Guatemala City, student groups and organizations that began during the 2015 corruption crisis marched from different points of the city to the Central Plaza in protest of the president and Congress. “To President Morales and his friends in Congress, we the Guatemalan people have something to tell you: We are here, we see you, and we won’t rest until our government is freed from the powerful criminal groups that have hijacked it,” wrote members of the movement Justicia Ya in a press release on the protest. “We, Guatemalans, will no longer stand in fear. We are ready to build a peaceful, prosperous and transparent Guatemala.”

Government By Goldman

September 24, 2017 Gary Rivlin and Michael Hudson, www.theintercept.com Educate! Corruption, Democracy, Goldman Sachs, New Economy, Plutocracy, Trump, Wall Street

By Gary Rivlin and Michael Hudson for The Intercept. Steve Bannon was in the room the day Donald Trump first fell for Gary Cohn. So were Reince Priebus, Jared Kushner, and Trump’s pick for secretary of Treasury, Steve Mnuchin. It was the end of November, three weeks after Trump’s improbable victory, and Cohn, then still the president of Goldman Sachs, was at Trump Tower presumably at the invitation of Kushner, with whom he was friendly. Cohn was there to offer his views about jobs and the economy. But, like the man he was there to meet, he was at heart a salesman.

An American Oligarch‘s Dirty Tale Of Corruption

September 21, 2017 F. William Engdahl, www.journal-neo.org Educate! Corruption, oligarchy

By F. William Engdahl for NEO - What the three hacked documents reveal is a degree of behind-the-scene manipulation of the most minute details of the Kiev regime by the New York billionaire. In the longest memo, dated March 15, 2015 and marked “Confidential” Soros outlines a detailed map of actions for the Ukraine regime. Titled, “A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine,” the memo from Soros calls for steps to “restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement.” To do the restoring, Soros blithely notes that “General Wesley Clark, Polish General Skrzypczak and a few specialists under the auspices of the Atlantic Council[emphasis added—f.w.e.] will advise President Poroshenko how to restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement.” Soros also calls for supplying lethal arms to Ukraine and secretly training Ukrainian army personnel in Romania to avoid direct NATO presence in Ukraine. The Atlantic Council is a leading Washington pro-NATO think tank. Notably, Wesley Clark is also a business associate of Soros in BNK Petroleum which does business in Poland. Clark, some might recall, was the mentally-unstable NATO General in charge of the 1999 bombing of Serbia who ordered NATO soldiers to fire on Russian soldiers guarding the Pristina International Airport.

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