The Ethical Corporation Institute released its report, “Anti-corruption, ethics and compliance in
Medvedev himself told Russian television’s Channel One last week that fighting corruption would be difficult. For the first time in its recent history, he said,
"Here, we are going to face various difficulties, including those that have to do with our not being ready to use the authority these laws give us, our not being ready to unveil certain things we have been concealing traditionally," he said noting some progress.
Medvedev said last year 40,000 criminal cases were launched against civil servants against 12 thousand such cases in 2007.
"Corruption starts at the bottom level and goes all the way to the top. We need to get to the root. Otherwise, when people see such things happening everywhere around them, they are discouraged," Medvedev observed.
Two Arrested for Kosovo Espionage
Two men were arrested in
The Associated Press reported: Anton Robert K., a 42-year-old German, allegedly passed along information while working at the German diplomatic mission in the Kosovo capital Pristina to Murat A., a 28-year-old Macedonian with ties to organized crime and "foreign intelligence," prosecutors said in a statement.
Both men, whose full names were not given, were arrested earlier this month in the
Murat A., the Macedonian Albanian, had worked for Anton Robert K. as a translator at the mission from 2007 to 2008. So far there’s no word on which organized crime groups or foreign intelligence services are alleged to have been involved, or whether money changed hands. German federal police are still investigating.
Wildlife Smuggling Run by OC
The illegal trade in wildlife and animal parts nets the organized crime groups that run the trade tens of billions of dollars annually, reported the New York-based web paper The Epoch Times last week.
Ivory, songbirds, turtles, tortoises, stingrays and piranha were just a few of the rare or endangered animals or animal parts mentioned in the piece, which cited Interpol as listing this type of smuggling coming in second only to the drug trade as a cash cow for organized crime.
The animals are stolen from their natural habitat by poachers and spirited out, mostly to developed countries where collectors or those who simply want an unusual gift for their kid’s birthday can afford the exorbitant prices charged.
“Some of these rare parrots or deer falcons can fetch up to $100,000,” says Michael O’Sullivan, chairman and CEO of The Humane Society of
What can be done? O’Sullivan told the Epoch that laws designed to bring down organized crime – racketeering laws and asset seizure – could be powerful tools for ending the trade.
O’Sullivan says a “useful tool” in existence in many countries for fighting the illegal wildlife trade is conspiracy laws and organized crime laws that can be used to seize assets.“The only way to attack these organized crime networks is to go after their money, throw them in jail, confiscate their homes and the aircraft they use, and smash these networks. Because they are in fact organized crime, I think it’s in everyone’s interest to shut these people down.”
In one of the largest annual anti-mafia marches in Naples in recent years, more than 100,000 people marched in the city Saturday, commemorating victims of organized crime and advocating for an end to mob prominence in that part of Italy. Reuters reported:
Relatives of victims, some wearing white gloves and holding pictures of their loved ones, led the demonstration as the names of some 900 people killed by the mafia were read out through loudspeakers. One banner said: "You didn't kill them. They are walking with us." Another read: "Don't turn the other way."
Judges, prosecutors, police, priests, union leaders, journalists and businesspeople have been among those murdered over the years by mob groups in southern
In other Naples-related news, police last week arrested 28 men suspected of links to the Naples-area Camorra mafia. Pre-dawn raids on the
Italian police last year arrested more than 2,500 people in 200 separate anti-mafia operations. These police raids, and
''Psychiatric problems are steadily rising among the families, a sign that the monolithic culture of Mafia society is crumbling,'' said the author of the study,
The study, which examined 81 patients affiliated with
''These people are victims of terrible identity crises because they aren't used to seeing their world view challenged,'' Lo Verso says in the study, set for publication in Sicilian magazine S on March 21. ''They're like fundamentalists, but as soon as something happens that brings the security wall down, they have crises.”
