Advertise On EU-Digest

Annual Advertising Rates
Showing posts with label graft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graft. Show all posts

4/26/18

USA: Trump’s Washington: Drowning In Conflicts of Interest? - by Frank Vogl

Not a single day passes without new tales of the ganefs in the Trump Administration. “Ganef” in Yiddish means swindler. These are mostly small-time crooks, but not always.

The New York Times just highlighted the activities of Elliott Broidy, the deputy finance chairman of the Republican Party National Committee and a wealthy old friend of Donald Trump.

Broidy seems to have taken some lucrative payments for helping friends associated with the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to see that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is fired (he was), to influence U.S. foreign policy against Qatar, and to strengthen personal ties for the Saudi and UAE rulers with Trump.

When it comes to lobbying and the expense accounts of government officials, not to mention conflicts of interest, U.S. law — which is generally described as very tough in many other domains — is often as flexible as a rubber band.

At a minimum, the Trump team is unified by questionable ethics – small, big and sometimes ridiculous.

The Veterans Affairs Administration runs U.S.-based hospitals. Nevertheless, its chief, David Shulkin, needed to go on business to London and Copenhagen last summer with his wife. One of the highlights was a day watching tennis at Wimbledon.

The entire trip was billed to the Veterans Administration at a cost of over $100,000. When the details leaked, Shulkin first claimed that there were misunderstandings. Then he agreed to make a reimbursement.

Efforts at excuses or repayments are not, however, the style of his Trump cabinet colleagues, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Environmental Protection Agency chief Administrator Scott Pruitt. They just feel entitled.

Note EU-Digest:  Sad - Corruption in Government circles now not only seems limited to Dictatorships, Third World Counties, or Banana Republics

Read more: Trump’s Washington: Drowning In Conflicts of Interest? - The Globalist

8/1/17

Pakistan faces political turmoil as PM Nawaz Sharif ousted in wealth probe - A. Shahzad and S. Raza Hassan

Pakistan’s Supreme Court disqualified Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office on Friday over undeclared assets, plunging the nuclear-armed South Asian nation into political turmoil after a period of relative stability.

Sharif swiftly resigned, but a member of his outgoing cabinet implied that elements of the powerful military had a hand in his ouster.

Pakistan was left with no government leader after Friday’s verdict, which also ordered a criminal probe into the Sharif family over allegations stemming from the “Panama Papers” leaks of international offshore companies.

Sharif’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, which holds a solid majority in parliament, is expected to name a new prime minister to hold office until elections due next year.

Read more: Pakistan faces political turmoil as PM Nawaz Sharif ousted in wealth probe - The Globe and Mail

12/30/13

Turkey: Erdogan vows his graft scandal in Turkey won’t topple him - Seda Sezer and Dan Williams,

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Sunday that he would survive a corruption crisis surrounding his cabinet, saying those seeking his overthrow would fail just as mass anti-government protests did last summer.

Erdogan accused his opponents of trying to sap the country’s power and of being in the service of an international plot cloaked as criminal proceedings.

This past Friday, thousands of Turks demanding that Erdogan step down clashed with riot police in central Istanbul. The trouble recalled protests this year that began over development plans for the city’s Gezi Park but that broadened into complaints of authoritarianism under Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, also known as the AK Party.

“They said ‘Gezi’ and smashed windows. Now they say ‘corruption’ and smash windows. These conspiracies will not succeed,” Erdogan told a cheering crowd in western Manisa province. “Their concern is not corruption, law or justice. Their only concern is damaging this nation’s power.”

Erdogan’s allegations of a foreign hand in the affair have put the focus on Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who preaches from self-imposed exile in the United States and whose Gulen movement claims at least 1 million followers in Turkey, including senior police officials and judges.
Erdogan has hinted strongly that Gulen deserves blame in the scandal.

Read more: Erdogan vows graft scandal in Turkey won’t topple him - The Washington Post