Round-up of news reports on corruption from the world's media
PARIS - Nicolas Sarkozy finds himself plunged into yet another corruption scandal following allegations that he tried to interfere in an arms sales enquiry while president of France, The Daily Mail reports. The 57-year-old is said to have violated a confidentiality law when dealing with the so-called Karachi Affair, the newspaper said.
BELGRADE - Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa’s party has dismissed calls from coalition partners for him to resign over corruption allegations and has refused to take part in any “technical government", Bloomberg reports. Jansa allegedly failed to declare more than 200,000 euros ($265,260) worth of private assets, according to a Jan. 8 statement by Goran Klemencic, the head of Slovenia’s anti-corruption authority. As a result, two coalition partners called on Jansa to quit.
JAKARTA – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Partai Demokrat, which has carried the flag of reform politics in Indonesia for a decade, is foundering under the weight of unresolved and worsening corruption issues, The Australian reports. Following the jailing on Thursday of glamourous MP Angelina Sondakh, the party is now braced for the arrest of Andi Mallarangeng, who until a month ago was youth and sports minister and a presidential confidant.
ZURICH – FIFA anti-corruption prosecutor Michael Garcia has been kept busier than he expected trying to clean up world soccer — and his workload will probably increase after a whistleblower hotline opens this month, the Associated Press reports. "I'm a busy man,” Garcia says in an interview. “It's five months in and I think where we are is a very good place."
WASHINGTON – A recent report on corruption at Customs and Border Protection, the largest uniformed law enforcement agency in the United States, found very few dirty officers, the Washington Post reports. Corruption-related activities since 2005 accounted for less than 1 percent of workforce each fiscal year,” the General Accounting Office says. Yet, the report paints a scary picture about those who are corrupt and a somewhat less than flattering view of agency actions to prevent and uproot rotten eggs. Examples include the CBP officer who was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being arrested at her El Paso duty station in 2007 and charged with conspiracy to import marijuana.
JAKARTA - Former beauty queen and politician Angelina Sondakh awaited her sentencing fate in Jakarta's corruption court this week, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Angelina's crime has become depressingly familiar — she helped rig a multi-billion dollar bid for the accommodation block for a sports stadium, receiving about $4.5 million in bribes to help make sure the right people (other scions of the Democratic Party) were given the contract.
MONROVIA - The Special Independent Body set up by Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to investigate the issuance of Private Use Permits (PUPs) in the forest sector has uncovered how Atlantic Resources 'looted' the forest land granted for research purposes to the University of Liberia in Sinoe County, Liberia's The News reports. The committee's report also revealed shocking accounts, including violation of the Forestry Reform Law of Liberia.
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