Trump Delivers for His Wall Street Pals
President Trump is firing prosecutors, getting his Goldman, Sachs appointees to his Administration to rewrite regulatory rules - and ethics goes right out the window.
Read MoreAnti-Corruption • Ethics & Integrity
Frank has been engaged with global economics, banking, governance and anti-corruption for more than 40 years, as a journalist, as a World Bank senior official, as an anti-corruption civil society leader, and as a top level advisor to financial institutions. Frank is President of Vogl Communications, Inc., which has provided advice to leaders of international finance for more than two decades.
President Trump is firing prosecutors, getting his Goldman, Sachs appointees to his Administration to rewrite regulatory rules - and ethics goes right out the window.
Read MoreIn Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Badakhshan, two rival warlords – both allegedly with ties to the Taliban – are competing to control the illegal mining and smuggling of the valuable lapis lazuli mineral.
Read MoreBrazil and South Africa have a great deal in common – flagging economies, falling exchange rates and public bonds nearing junk status – all fueled by mounting allegations of corruption. As if that weren’t bad enough, the ruling parties have also engaged in major confrontations with the rule of law, in a desperate and entirely self-serving effort to preserve the impunity of their national leaders.
Read MoreThe United States, for example, imports about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day from countries whose governments are repressive and corrupt - governments where, to use a phrase that author Leif Wenar favors "might is right." Wenar, a professor of law and philosophy at Kings College, London, argues that the U.S. and other Western countries have the power to stop importing the "blood oil" that flows from these authoritarian states.
Read MoreU.S. citizens who have been victims of foreign state-organized terrorism will receive substantial compensation now with the funds coming from a surprising source, BNP Paribas, one of the largest banks in France and Europe. It is the bank that paid a record $9 billion in fines in 2014 for violating U.S. foreign sanctions laws.
Read MoreThe need for honest politicians serving the public's interests is at the core of the American system of democracy. Nevertheless, in the US, as in every country, politics and corruption too often go hand-in-hand. Now a New York jury has brought in a historic set of verdicts. Will it change the New York game?
Read MoreOn 25 September 2015, the world’s leaders assembled at the UN in New York and made a historic statement in approving the 17 “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” as the drivers of policies, programs and projects for national governments and multilateral institutions. The SDGs are to come into effect on January 1, 2016 and run to 2030.
Read MoreRepresentatives from more than 110 countries met in Malaysia at the Transparency International annual meeting and then joined hundreds of other activists from across the world at the 2015 International Anti-Corruption Conference at the start of September. The timing was perfect, because later this month a landmark decision will be taken in the fight against impunity and corruption at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Read MoreThe more you dig into the details of the prosecutions that have been announced into world football (what is called soccer in the U.S.), so the more one understands the staggering scale of the conspiracies. “Let me be clear: this indictment is not the final chapter in our investigation,” stated Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly T. Currie of the Eastern District of New York. Indeed, there are likely to be many more cases, not just in the U.S. and Switzerland, but in other countries as well.
Read MoreFrom the comparatively modest malfeasance in the New York State legislature (both the State assembly Speaker as well as the Senate majority leader have been indicted for corruption) to the mega-million dollar graft engulfing Brazilian businessmen and politicians today, on to the all-consuming kleptocracy in the Kremlin, the abuse of public office for private gain is rampant.
Read MoreMultiple major corruption crises are splashing across the front pages of newspapers across the globe. Taken together, these crises are contributing to global insecurity and to financial and economic instability, while they are challenging freedom and democracy in many countries.
The individual cases of grand corruption involving political leaders are reported case by case. The dangerous mega-impact, however, is only really evident by looking at the crises in combination.
Read MoreSome of the best of the recent books are attracting extraordinary attention in the United States. Sarah Chayes’s brand new Thieves of State – Why Corruption Threatens Global Security has been the topic of an hour-long national radio program, the focus of a lengthy The New Yorker article and centre stage in Washington’s think tank seminar listings.
Read More“An Albany Powerhouse on the Edge of a Volcano” ran the front page New York Times headline. Sheldon Silver, the long-serving Speaker of the New York State assembly, has been charged with a host of counts of corruption charges. Silver, who has occupied his post since 1994, is the third most powerful politician in New York (after the Governor of the state and the Mayor of New York City). He says he is innocent. Preet Bharara (photo), the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, supported by extensive evidence uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) takes a different view.
Read More"With impunity there cannot be peace," says Carlos Hernández, Director in Honduras of the Asociación para una Sociedad Mas Justa (the Honduran national chapter of Transparency International). Carlos calmly talks about the endless waves of murders in his country, the rising numbers of contract killers and the intense efforts that he and his colleagues are making to find constructive ways to work with the police, the judiciary and, more broadly, with the general public to curb corruption and find a path to justice and stability.
Read MoreImportant trading powers, such as Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea and Brazil, are failing to enforce national laws that call for criminal prosecution of companies from their countries that bribe foreign government officials and politicians.
Read MoreWorld Bank president Jim Yong Kim says,"Each dollar lost to corruption is a dollar stolen from a pregnant woman who needs health care; or from a girl or boy who deserves an education; or from communities that need roads and clean water."
Read MoreThe American Petroleum Institute (API), the powerhouse lobbying group for the oil industry, is pushing hard for actions that are not only explicitly against the interests of investors, but that bolster corrupt regimes in many foreign countries, such as in Nigeria and Angola and Venezuela.
Read MoreAcross the globe the call -- "End Corruption" -- is ringing loud. In the bitter cold of Ukraine's capital, Kiev, tens of thousands of citizens are demonstrating against the government of president Viktor Yanukovych. The protesters declared: "Out with the bandits!"
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