Beyond Harvey Weinstein: Sextortion Around the Globe
Harassment is now top US news - thanks to Weinstein - but millions of victims in poor countries are ignored - time to change this and act.
Read More"Blood Oil" - Launching a Campaign to end the curse.
The 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 MoreRemembering the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen - 70th anniversary
Zuzana Ruzickova was one of the few to survive Bergen-Belsen. Her years of Nazi concentration camps and following decades of Czechoslovak Communist Party oppression did not crush her determination to become one of the world's foremost performers of J.S. Bach - her life and her triumph is the subject now of a major documentary movie to be competed in late 2016. So this article looks at Bergen-Belsen's liberation.
Read MoreSpeaking Truth to African Power
Infant mortality in oil rich Nigeria is three times as great as in one of the world’s very poorest countries, Bangladesh.
Indeed, social indicators in many of the sub-Sahara African countries endowed with oil, gas and mining wealth are appalling.
Read MoreGuest post: No End To Poverty In Africa Unless Corruption Is Tackled First.
The article highlights theimportant new African Progress Report 2013, produced by the African Progress Panel of distinguished persons chaired by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The report, due its detailed research and compelling logic of argument, should have a major influence on public debate about reducing poverty in Africa. Frank Vogl provides some answers and insights in this blog.
Read MoreBankers Need To Radically Rethink Reputation Management
A Matter That Goes to the Top," that the chairmen and CEOs of major financial services firms need to recognize the power of the 24/7 global news cycle, the widespread public suspicion of banks and bankers, the cultural changes that are being demanded by the public and regulators alike.
Read MoreAfghan Corruption Imperils Future Success
Dramatic changes lie ahead for Afghanistan — none of them encouraging. President Obama has confirmed that U.S. military presence in the country will wind down over the next 18 months. Responsibility for the country's governance, security and economy will rest on Afghan shoulders. The tragedy is that the government of Hamid Karzai is a cesspool of corruption, and much of the looting has been of the tens of billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers.
Read MoreTransparency International Celebrates 20th Anniversary in 2013 - Looking back makes the outlook for corruption fighting bright
It was late 1992 and Peter Eigen was putting the finishing touches to plans that would see the launch of Transparency International in 1993. For several years Eigen, then a veteran World Bank senior official, had been waging a campaign inside the Bank and across the development aid community to build understanding of how corruption – the abuse of power for personal gain – was wrecking anti-poverty projects in many of the world’s poorest countries.
Read MoreMoney Launderers and Corporate Bribers Must Be Brought to Justice -- For example, HSBC, Wal-Mart
The punishment needs to fit the crime, but are some giant multinational corporations now so large that they no longer can be punished effectively?
Our free enterprise system depends upon all competitors playing by the rules and when one seeks special advantage by paying bribes, then the system is subverted. When that one is a giant company, for example, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, then the victims are manifold, starting with its direct business competitors.
Read MoreThe Urgency of World Bank Reform on the Good Governance Stage
Over the last decade the World Bank has taken a bold lead among international development institutions in championing the anti-corruption cause. The rhetoric of World Bank leaders, starting with President James Wolfensohn in the late 1990s, in support of good governance has been at a high level – in tone, in consistency and in substance.
Read MoreBuilding a World of Greater Freedom and Less Violence - Mr. Romney
Speaking to the Republican Party Convention, Mitt Romney said, “a free world is a more peaceful world.” He provided no explanation. In fact, there is a lot of evidence to support his assertion.
Where there is scant freedom, there is also abundant violence and rampant governmental corruption. Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, consistently trail in the global rankings of freedom by Freedom House, of perceived corruption by Transparency International, and in the Global Peace Index published by the Vision of Humanity organization.
Read MoreJeremy Pope (1938-2012), New Zealand Human Rights Commissioner and Anti-Corruption Campaigner Dies
Jeremy Pope was the Sancho Panza to Peter Eigen’s Don Quixote. Together, they were widely seen in 1994 as tilting at windmills, full of enthusiasm for a cause that many viewed as utterly hopeless. The skeptics were wrong.
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