Category Archives: Corruption

Corruption, Iran

Iran: Thin-Skinned Corrupt Islamic Officials……….

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“Hazrati retaliated by apparently using a pseudonym to publish a response in the same publication, branding Imami’s review “insulting” and “partial”. Alipour came to Imami’s defence, questioning the official’s photography credentials and exposing the identity behind the pseudonym. Hazrati then filed a suit against the two men. A Qazvin court found them guilty of insulting the official and sentenced them to be lashed, local media reported……. There have been similar cases in Iran. In 2012, cartoonist Mahmoud Shokraye was found guilty of insulting an MP, for which he was given a sentence of 25 lashes. The MP eventually withdrew his complaint after the case prompted widespread outrage………..”

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Corruption, Cuba, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Senate

Bob Menendez Revisits Cuba and Woodrow Wilson, Sort Of………

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Which reminds me: did everyone see the absurd charges by Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) blaming his whoring and corruption scandals on Cuba? I have heard of the excuse: “the devil made me do it”, but a Castroite devil? Does he mean the Cuban comrades supplied the paid women? That they paid for the services to the questionable Central Americans in Miami? Some might consider this allegation ridiculous nowadays since Cuba has not been a major brothel for American politicians and tourists since 1959.

Or was he saying that Marxism made him do it? I am surprised he did not blame the usual suspects: Hezbollah or Hamas or Al-Qaeda or IRGC, names that resonate back there as well as with the media.  

Not that the voters of New Jersey are particular these days; in fact they haven’t been too particular for decades, maybe since Woodrow Wilson left the statehouse.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Corruption, GCC, Gulf states, Israel, Kuwait, Sectarian, Tribes

Part 1: The Kuwait Opposition in a Velvet Society: a New Life or a New Nail in the Coffin of the Old Leadership?……..

      

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The Kuwait opposition has long managed to avoid and evade its main problem: it is only a partial opposition. It has failed to convince large identifiable segments of society to join it. I will list some of its failures in the next posting (Part 2). 

The (partial) opposition had seemed to be basically fading away for a few months now, until last night. They had a big public protest, a contained gathering, with chairs provided for the VIPs while everybody else had to sit on the ground or stand up (considered by some undignified and too plebeian back home, especially for the elites, be they regime elites or opposition elites). 

The organizers initially estimated more than 20 thousand would attend, which probably means they had about 8 thousand. But that’s okay: it was a hot night in June and many of the politically-inclined on both sides had decamped for European vacations. (Some used to call these elite types of both sides members of the velvet society, based on their lifestyles and, er, financial resources and how much access they had to nepotism).


One of the leaders of the opposition at the gathering, former MP Mr. Musallam Al Barrak, presented a bunch of heavily redacted documents he claimed show huge amounts of money of public funds transferred by the “elites” of the regime to their own and their children’s foreign bank accounts. Oddly, and shockingly, he claimed that some of the money was transferred into an Israeli bank in Israel with close ties to the Likud, and that these officials also donated funds to the Likud Party of Benyamin Netanyahu. He did not name names, presumably for “legal” reasons, but some names were published on another website. All this needs to be verified of course: I could not accept them at face value so I will reserve my judgment for now. He did show some slides that he claimed prove the alleged financial transactions, but these were partial and heavily redacted documents and need to be verified by experts. Their sources also need to be verified, a thorny point. And there had been much redaction and photocopying: only the committed would jump at them accept them at face value.


Now this is not new: no doubt corruption is widespread. Corruption and petroleum go together. In the 1980s and early 1990s, even while Kuwait was under Iraqi occupation, there were cases of huge embezzlement of public money by very high officials and their minions. Some escaped abroad to spend the fruits of their treachery, a couple went to prison. The alleged big man of the scandal was not touched. Oddly a couple of the leading figures of the opposition worked for years for a media empire presumably built from the embezzled public money, all allegedly of course. Go figure……….


The Kuwaiti opposition needs to clean house to become a truly broad representative national movement. I will cover some self-inflected issues that the opposition faces in Part 2 in my next post. 
Corruption, FIFA, GCC, Qatar, Sports, World Cup

FIFA, Bribing Qataris, Bribable Sports Officials, Conspiring Arab Regimes………

      

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“Senior Fifa figures are for the first time seriously considering the ramifications of ordering a rerun of the vote for the right to stage the 2022 World Cup, in the aftermath of new corruption allegations against the hosts, Qatar.
While awaiting the results of a semi-independent inquiry into the 2018 and 2022 bidding races, senior football figures heading for the 2014 tournament in Brazil are understood to be considering their response if the report recommends a new vote in light of new claims based on hundreds of millions of leaked emails and documents. In Britain, there was a renewed outpouring of concern from politicians and former football executives after the Sunday Times alleged that Mohamed bin Hammam, a Qatari former Fifa executive committee member, paid $5m (£3m) in cash, gifts and legal fees to senior football officials ……………”

“The Qatari construction magnate Mohamed bin Hammam was in 2011 cast out from his gilded position at the commanding heights of world football’s governing body. His fall closely traces the arc of Fifa’s shattered reputation, and the melting credibility of his country’s 2022 World Cup project. Now the subject of the Sunday Times’s remarkably detailed allegations that he paid lavish bungs to Fifa officials while lobbying them to favour Qatar………………”


No doubt in my mind that millions in bribe money changed hands before the FIFA vote. But is that all new: from FIFA to the IOC to Formula One, among others? International sports bodies are rife with corruption and bribery, and they have been so long before Qatar became a household word in Paris. But as I always say: it takes at least two to tango.

There seems to be a trilateral alliance of interests seeking to wrest the FIFA World Cup games away from Qatar. In Britain, media and officials are reviving their old justifiable complaint about how the 2022 venue was chosen. The officials are still sore because London lost to Qatar (well, probably because of the bribes). Besides, British officials of the Cameron cabinet bend backward and forward to please the Saudi princes who are gloating over all this. Saudi media like Alarabiya are covering the controversy with relish, enjoying the embarrassment of their upstart Qatari rivals in the GCC. So is some Egyptian media, mindful of Qatari support of the 2011 revolt against Hosni Mubarak and its close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Other regional countries like Syria (where Qatari potentates support the rebel Jihadists) are also gloating. 
So much for brotherly, or is it sisterly, Arab and GCC relations. The Qataris don’t seem to have many regional allies nowadays. The Saudis and their Bahrain stooges are hostile because Doha thwarts Saudi attempts at hegemony over GCC foreign policy (it is also partly brotherly and sisterly jealousy among the ruling potentates). They have lost the biggest prize, Egypt, to the Saudi princes and Abu Dhabi shaikhs who now have their man Al Sisi in power and call the shots in Cairo. They may lose whatever influence they have in Libya and Tunisia. They have also antagonized Iraq and Syria and Iran.


Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Corruption, Japan, Korea

Honor, Dishonor, Seppuku, and Roadkill: from South Korea to Arabia and Beyond……….

      

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“The vice-principal of a South Korean high school who accompanied hundreds of pupils on a ferry that capsized has committed suicide, police said on Friday, as hopes faded of finding any of the 274 missing alive. The Sewol, carrying 476 passengers and crew, capsized on Wednesday on a journey from the port of Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Kang Min-gyu, 52, had been missing since Thursday. He appeared to have hanged himself with his belt from a tree outside a gym in the port city of Jindo where relatives of the people missing on the ship, mostly children from the school………………”

This South Korean school principal thought he was responsible for the deaths of some 300 students and others in the capsized ferry, and decided to pay the price in his own way. He took his own life. Of course not all Koreans are like that: most are not like that. Someone like Kim Jong Un of the DPRK only gets fatter, he and his family, on the death and suffering he visits on his people.

Let’s look to our region, and responsibility. We might find a humane way for ‘regime change’, well, a relatively humane way, at least from the point of view of the masses: 

  • Arab leaders lose wars (they always lose wars against everybody else except their own peoples and maybe against the local swine as happened in Egypt under Hosni Mubarak). 
  • They cause death and suffering to their citizens: look at the huge numbers of political prisoners in most Arab countries from the Persian Gulf through Egypt and Libya and Sudan. Look at how many innocent people have died or been maimed in the past three years only.
  • They brazenly embezzle public property: the princes and potentates believe they were born owning it all; the dictators and generals believe they have earned it all by taking the serious risk of plotting to usurp power. Sort of like loot or war booty.
  • They often disappoint everyone, including each other; otherwise there would be no Borgia-style inter-family plots and coups in the royal palaces and the military barracks.
  • So, their performance is dismal, I am sure you agree with me (not that I care if you don’t). 
  • Yet they never think of hanging or shooting or burning or overdosing themselves into oblivion. True, there are not many mountains or tall bridges from which they could happily jump (a few do have access to very tall buildings and towers). 
  • They are not Japanese so a disappointing Arab despot or potentate could not get some trusted minister to swing the sword as he commits Seppuku by disemboweling himself (some foreigners might call it Hara-Kiri). Well, one can at least dream……
  • Nobody gets thrown out of helicopters anymore, and none seem to crash accidentally on purpose of late. Not since Saddam Hussein of Iraq vanished.

Speaking of leadership, their best chance of an honorable death might be something as pedestrian as a traffic accident (no pun was intended here, even I was pleasantly surprised). There are many opportunities for an honorable death on a fast local road, many innocent young citizens take advantage of them, unfortunately. It is disappointing that not any of the Arab potentates take advantage of them. Nobody in the region as as  deserving.
Maybe they don’t do it because it would be considered a sin, and there is always one sin these worthies avoid assiduously.
Cheers
mhg

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Corruption, GCC, Qatar, Sports

From the Gulf through Asia: More on FIFA World Cup Corruption and GCC Rifts……

      

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“The account of a 10-year-old daughter of a FIFA executive was pumped with $3.4 million, according to a report by The Telegraph on Friday, raising more questions over the finances of the officials who awarded Russia and Qatar the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. Antonia Wigand Teixeira, the daughter of the Brazilian representative of the FIFA executive committee, had reportedly received the money in 2011. Her father Ricardo, part of the committee which helped select the World Cup host nation………… A statement issued by lawyers acting for the Qatar bid said the payment from Mr. Rosell to Mr. Teixeira had nothing to do with the country’s bid for the 2022 World Cup…………”

Saudi semi-official Alarabiya network is headlining this one, which tells me Saudi-Qatari relations have not improved as much as recent reports claimed. GCC media yesterday headlined reports about healing the rift between the ruling potentates of the two countrie: these were apparently just wishful thinking by Saudi allies. Which tells me something else: even if they manage to patch the holes temporarily with chewing gum, the dam will leak and burst again.

Apparently corruption and international sports go closely together. From the Salt Lake City (Utah) Winter Olympics to the Formula One Grand Prix in Bahrain to the FIFA World Cup games in Qatar (and maybe Russia and beyond). Then there were the selection of the leaders of Asian Sports Federations. The president of the Asian Football (Soccer) Confederation used to be a Qatari and is now a Bahraini shaikh named Salman Al Khalifa, of course. Now I wonder how many millions was paid by each country to corrupt Asian Confederation officials in order to secure the position to their potentate. 

Silly me, I had thought these countries won such exalted positions on merit, even if they had never won championships. I suspect this has been going on for decades, but the scale has grown too heavy to be kept a secret. Before the era of petroleum oligarchs and petroleum potentates in the Middle East and other places maybe the amounts of money were small, too small to be decisive. Now, many millions can be spent on buying international sports decisions.

Cheers
mhg

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Corruption, Interpol, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia

Of Interpol, Shady Princes, and a Humorless Jordanian Fugitive……..

      

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“An Interpol red notice, seeking the arrest in London of a Jordanian businessman at the centre of a high profile legal dispute involving two senior Saudi princes, has finally been withdrawn after more than two years. Faisal Almhairat claims that the notice authorising his extradition was issued in pursuit of a business vendetta. The international police agency, based in Lyons, France, has admitted belatedly that it was not “in compliance with Interpol’s rules”. Almhairat, 45, has been living a fugitive’s life in London, moving from hotel to hotel, because he says he fears that if extradited back to Saudi Arabia he would not receive a fair trial…………..”


In recent years Interpol has occasionally acted as a private security agency or a private outsourcing concern for some governments, but not all governments. The Saudi government is one of those lucky ones: can you imagine Interpol being so accommodating to Venezuela or Vietnam for example? 

If this Jordanian man was a Saudi national, it is almost certain that Interpol would have kept trying and would have succeeded in getting him sent packing to the tender mercies of the princes. As it is, they kept trying for two years to send him back. In fact it is also likely that even with him being a humorless Jordanian, he would have been sent back quickly if he were not enjoying the protection of the British legal system. Now I don’t know if this man is innocent of the accusations or just another crook: he can be either. As far as I know being humorless is not a punishable crime, especially not in Riyadh and certainly not in Jordan. (Why doesn’t he go home to Jordan? Is he worried that King Abdul will pack him back to the princes?).

Remember the young Saudi journalist who two years ago tweeted something the princes and their Wahhabi clerics had thought was blasphemy? Kashghari escaped to Malaysia, where Interpol quickly cooperated with the pro-Saudi authorities of that country in having him sent back to a possible death sentence. He was in fact imprisoned for over two years without a trial. (And no, they have never heard of Miranda or his rights in the Kingdom without Magic where rights for the average Mutlaq are sparse and far between).

Cheers
mhg

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Corruption, Europe, Russia

Sanctions and Corruption: From Ukrainian Oligarchs to Pure Princes………

      

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Speaking of Russia and Ukraine and imposing selective sanctions on select individuals. The Western power (the U.S. and maybe the EU) will basically do the following: they will sanction and freeze the assets of former (corrupt) Ukraine officials in order to support current (corrupt) Ukraine leaders who used to be former (corrupt) Ukraine officials. Cute, no? So what about the assets of certain Middle East princes and potentates who have accumulated ill-gotten fortunes that dwarf anything some Ukrainian or even Russian oligarchs could boast about? How come they don’t get sanctioned for selective corruption as well?

Cheers
mhg

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Asia, China, Corruption, Finance

From the People’s Republic that Mao Built to an Oligarchy………

      

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“More than a dozen family members of China’s top political and military leaders are making use of offshore companies based in the British Virgin Islands, leaked financial documents reveal. The brother-in-law of China’s current president, Xi Jinping, as well as the son and son-in-law of former premier Wen Jiabao are among the political relations making use of the offshore havens, financial records show………. The Hong Kong office of Credit Suisse, for example, established the BVI company Trend Gold Consultants for Wen Yunsong, the son of Wen Jiabao, during his father’s premiership — while PwC and UBS performed similar services for hundreds of other wealthy Chinese individuals. The disclosure of China’s use of secretive financial structures is the latest revelation from “Offshore Secrets”…………China’s rapid economic growth is leading to a degree of internal tension within the nation, as the proceeds of the country’s newfound prosperity are not evenly divided: the country’s 100 richest men are collectively worth over $300bn, while an estimated 300m people in the country still live on less than $2 a day……………”

Cheers
mhg

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Corruption, Saudi Arabia

Corruption Index: from King Kim to King Oil and King Kong………….

      

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“The Corruption Perceptions Index 2013 serves as a reminder that the abuse of power, secret dealings and bribery continue to ravage societies around the world. The Index scores 177 countries and territories on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). No country has a perfect score, and two-thirds of countries score below 50. This indicates a serious, worldwide corruption problem. Hover on the map above to see how your country fares…………….”

According to the index, Saudi Arabia is less corrupt than Italy, Greece, Brazil, Argentina and a good chunk of the rest of Europe. All countries with popularly elected governments, beaten by a medieval absolute tribal monarchy owned by one family. Listed as the least corrupt in the Middle East and North Africa (except for Tunisia and Israel), the least corrupt between Japan and the Atlantic Ocean. I must have been underestimating the honesty of all these few thousand of Saudi princes. All these other countries must have more corrupt potentates. These princes and their retainers OWN the whole country, it is even named after their family. How much more corrupt can one get? North Korea is listed as near the bottom, among the most corrupt: it is, but they haven’t yet named the country after the ruling family. Not yet: King Kim would sound comic, more so than King Kong.
It is true: corruption on a small average-person level as well as money laundering is seriously frowned-upon in places like Saudi Arabia. Small bribery is punished, but spectacular bribery is welcomed for those who can afford to pay it. Corruption on a truly large scale, in terms of millions and billions (so where is Bandar these days?), is halal and kosher if one can swing it. Unfortunately not everybody can. Dommage.

Cheers
mhg

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