Ethics Newsline®

Corruption Issues Prominent in World Press Reports

Apr 14th, 2008 • Posted in: News

Arrests and investigations highlight the impact of graft

VARIOUS DATELINES
Investigations on three continents made ethics news last week. Among the stories:

• One more notch was added last week to the belt of Chinese anticorruption prosecutors: Chen Liangyu, a former top Communist Part official, was convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The Jurist reports that Chen is the highest-ranking official convicted in China’s public crackdown on corruption — a campaign designed to demonstrate the nation’s commitment to cleaning up graft.
• Indonesian authorities have arrested the county’s central bank governor on graft charges. The nation’s watchdog agency has been investigating Burhanuddin Abdullah since February over the alleged misappropriation of $11 million in bank funds, the Agence France-Presse reports. Abdullah denies any wrongdoing.
• Almost one million Cambodians have signed a petition calling for the government to clamp down on corruption. The Australian quotes the head of the People’s Center for Development and Peace, which organized the petition, as saying: “The people want Cambodia to be rid of corruption, they want a law to fight corrupt people.” Yong Kim Eng said the petition, which has been circulating since 2006, will be given to the government once it receives its millionth signature. According to the Australian’s report, corruption is one factor keeping Cambodia mired near the bottom of the list of the world’s poorest counties, with 30 percent of its 14 million people living on less than 50 cents a day.
• Britain’s High Court last week ruled that the government’s Serious Fraud Office broke the law in 2006 when it aborted a graft investigation into an arms deals between Saudi Arabia and BAE Systems, Britain’s largest defense contractor, according to reports from TIME magazine and the London-based Guardian. In a scathing rebuke to the former Blair government, which halted the probe, the High Court judges wrote, “No one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice.”
• Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee again was called in for questioning last week in a probe of alleged corruption by the country’s biggest conglomerate. The Seoul-based Yonhap news agency says investigators are probing charges raised by a whistle-blower who charges that Samsung, under Lee’s direction, created a $200-million slush fund and illegally transferred control of the firm to Lee’s son. The case has riveted attention in Korea, where Samsung and other large corporations — along with their leaders — often are revered by the public.
• Bulgaria, a new member of the European Union, has earned the wrath of the organization after a spate of gangland-style murders, reports the Sofia, Bulgaria, Echo. EU officials, who extracted promises of a corruption cleanup as part of the agreement to let the nation enter the group, say contract killings, as well as police and judicial corruption, still plague the nation. The two killings that attracted attention this week were of an energy-company CEO and a journalist who wrote about Bulgarian organized crime.
• Brazilian authorities have arrested 16 mayors and a judge for their alleged participation in a major corruption scheme. The BBC reports that the federal police force claims that $100 million has been diverted in a plot to embezzle Brazil’s social security funds.

Sources: TIME, Apr. 12 — Guardian, Apr. 12 — Jurist, Apr. 12 — AFP, Apr. 11 — Australian, Apr. 12 — Yonhap News Agency, Apr. 12 — Sofia Echo, Apr. 11 — BBC, Apr. 10.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 7 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 31 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 24 — Related Newsline story, May 14, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 18, 2006.

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2 Responses »

1. Ethics Newsline » News » Food-Safety Issues Keep Ethics Spotlight Trained on China on April 21st, 2008 at 10:23 pm:

   [...] more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 7 [...]

2. Ethics Newsline » News » BAE Report Recommends Writing Comprehensive Code of Ethics on May 13th, 2008 at 12:49 am:

   [...] more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 14 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22 — Related Newsline story, July 30, [...]

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