Guatemala’s parliament voted to sack President Otto Pérez Molina Thursday, forcing his resignation and immediate arrest for his suspected participation in an extensive corruption ring. Like an ordinary felon, he will have to “answer to justice,” the daily Publinews wrote on its front page. Publinews Guatemala and other Guatemalan dailies also showed the former president […]
Tag: corruption
Good times and bad times seep across Latin American borders, as Brazil’s economic crisis begins to slows exports and manufacturing in neighbors like Argentina.
Concepcion is the first place in Colombia where the vast majority of transactions involve electronic banking via mobile phones, staying well ahead of even northern Europe.
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games start next Aug. 5 in Rio de Janeiro with too many projects behind schedule. One particular environmental hurdle looks insurmountable.
The world’s second-largest economy is now Brazil’s top customer for oil, but also its most important buyer of soybeans, iron ore and cellulose.
TEL AVIV — A whole lot of money is involved in the current Palestinian political struggles, with some suggesting that the ability to bring in the bucks is a non-official competition for the title to be the next president of the Palestinian authority. And no better way to judge that than to measure how notable […]
-OpEd- JERUSALEM — The government regularly shares its fears about the politically motivated economic boycott of Israel, worried about the long-term damage to the country’s economy and the specter of foreign investors running away. Unfortunately, we don’t see the same energy in battling the international boycott also put into fighting the rampant corruption in Israel, […]
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Extra! Panama Corruption Crisis Spreads
La Estrella de Panamá, June 16, 2015 A corruption scandal involving high-level politicians in Panama is spreading, now implicating members of the administration of current President Juan Carlos Varela. Luis Cucalón, former finance minister under previous President Ricardo Martinelli, had already been charged with misusing state funds intended for a private tax collection agency. But […]
Those who believe that the FIFA scandal is an exceptional case among international organizations should think again. The poison is called “global governance.”
Blatter resigns: watch the world react by Worldcrunch
The widening corruption probe into FIFA looks like a devastating earthquake for the “beautiful game,” with the epicenter in Zurich, where police arrested seven senior officials of the world soccer body just two days before the controversial FIFA chief was set to be chosen for a record fifth term. But the reverberations of the U.S. […]
After Swiss banking scandals shook global finance, arrests at the Zurich-based world soccer body shine a light on what’s wrong with business as usual in Switzerland.
MINKEBE — Seen from the helicopter, the canopy of Minkébé National Park, in northern Gabon, looks like a green carpet that stretches to the horizon. The immobile uniformity is only broken up here and there by the veins of muddy rivers or a flock of birds flying. There’s no road or village here near the […]
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Extra! Chile’s Bachelet Axes Entire Cabinet
La Tercera, May 7, 2015 Hoping to hit the reset button on her slumping presidency, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet has decided to dump not just one or two ministers, but her entire cabinet. Bachelet made the stunning announcement during a Wednesday evening television interview, saying she “requested the resignation of all the ministers” and will take […]
Though graft is reduced, there are new negative side-effects to the way public officials approach their work in what is billed as the *new normal*.
Details emerge of poisonous links between local politicians and organized crime networks in Sicily working together to siphon public funds and exploit migrants arriving via Lampedusa.
Lula da Silva spent liberally when the Brazilian economy was booming, leaving Dilma Rousseff to face the deferred impact of the global recession. His personal popularity aside, the country’s current woes are largely his fault.
Ambitious and unafraid to anger foe or friend, the 38-year-old Speaker of Parliament may be Greece’s most powerful woman. And fighting corruption is at the top of her agenda.
Juan Pablo Escobar has dug up many memories about his notorious father, the late Colombian gangster Pablo Escobar. He is conscious of the crimes, but also that his was a loving father.
Local planners in Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are clearing out homes and businesses that encroached over the years along the city’s main avenues.
The fallout from the Petrobras scandal continues to consume Brazil. A former head of the energy giant has alleged that the governing Workers’ Party had received between $150 and $200 million in kickbacks from 90 of the biggest contracts Petrobras signed with major companies from 2003 until 2013, O Globo reports Friday. According to the […]
Political drama may have once served Argentine President Kirchner, but now national debt, corruption and the suspicious death of a prosecutor are turning the people against her.
The anti-corruption activist, under house arrest in Moscow, says that Putin is pursuing war in Ukraine to consolidate his power and fulfill his ambition to be Russia’s “president for life.”
Revelations of massive corruption at Petrobras come with more than economic consequences. The credibility of the entire state is at stake. All eyes are on President Dilma Rousseff.
Argentina’s electoral routine fosters inequality and injustice, enabling opportunists to cash in. It’s time for a new approach.
-OpEd- SÃO PAULO — The ongoing corruption and money laundering scandals at Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras have badly tarnished the image of the company. Once considered as a sort of national treasure, the public firm faces almost daily revelations about kickbacks paid to politicians from oil sales as part of a scheme to buy […]
SAO PAULO — During my time in the early 1980s as a correspondent for Folha de S. Paulo in Buenos Aires, I covered more demonstrations of the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” — and then of the “Grandmothers” — than I could count. Brave women, their faces furrowed by time and pain, their heads […]
Though China remains the world leader in use of capital punishment, for the second time in three years, the list of capital crimes may be reduced. But authorities may face popular backlash.
The once sleepy coastal city is now buzzing with activity, and foreign investors.
Grave doubts about the health and capacity of longtime President Bouteflika are pulling Algeria apart at the seams. Who’s in charge? What happens next in this pivotal North African country?
In its bid to root out financial corruption, China’s government is hunting down fugitive suspects from Canada to Colombia, U.S. and Australia.
Omar Abdel Maqsoud and his brothers were arrested for no apparent reason five months ago. Though a court ordered their release, they’ve simply vanished. Their case is hardly unique.
CHABAS — Residents in the small town of Chabás, northwest of Buenos Aires, recently put Internet chatting to good use, effectively using the free mobile texting application WhatsApp to police their neighborhood. The “real time” neigborhood watch scheme achieved what more traditional methods — such as waiting for the Argentine police to arrive, for example […]
-OpEd- It’s anything but a surprise, given the weakness of the opposition and an election played out in advance: Recep Tayyip Erdogan won after the first round of voting in Sunday’s presidential election — the first ever in Turkey by direct universal suffrage. Erdogan thus perfects a political career marked, for 20 years, by one […]
Justice is twisted in a country where a man is jailed for stealing candy from a store, while gangsters and corrupt politicians are always able to negotiate prison reductions.
BEIJING — Since Chinese President Xi Jinping took office at the end of 2012, at least 23 high-ranking local officials have been fired because of corruption. What is most striking — though not surprising — is the stark contrast of these officials’ images depicted in the media before and after their fall. Last month, for […]
BEIJING — Wang Huning is on time, standing alone. The lean man, who looks as if he might be a university professor, doesn’t stand out in the lobby of the luxury hotel. He is waiting for the sign that it’s time for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s delegation to leave. The protocol officers who’ve come to […]
PALAWAN — For 25 years, Filipino lawyer Gerthie Mayo-Anda has tirelessly campaigned for better legal protection of the environment. Often called a forest hero, in the 1990s she established the Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC) to halt environmental destruction through court. “I thought it was important to establish a public interest environmental law group where my knowledge and skills as a lawyer can be utilized to help the poor and marginalized communities,” she says. Her group has filed dozens of cases against illegal logging, fishing and mining. “For now, the most difficult field is mining and coal because the parties […]
PARIS — There is no doubt among the people at the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), Europe’s soccer governing body, that allegations of corruption against UEFA President Michel Platini is a case of paranoia gone wrong. Some there believe that the controversy suggesting Platini was bribed to support Qatar’s 2022 bid may be the […]