The Worst Corruption Scandals of 2015

A goat and cash exchanged for shortened sentences in Ghanaian prisons. International soccer games that were bought and sold. Rolexes and vacation clubs traded for Chinese business deals.

In 2015, massive corruption scandals embroiled world leaders, high court judges, and the men who run the world’s soccer industry, among many others.

The Billion-Dollar Caliphate

Last month, U.S. fighter jets unleashed airstrikes against oil fields, refineries, and hundreds of tanker trucks near the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. Dubbed Operation Tidal Wave II, the attacks were the latest phase in a campaign to bomb the Islamic State into bankruptcy, striking at the heart of the black-market economy and extortionist tax system that have underwritten the salaries of tens of thousands of extremist fighters.

Climate finance: what was actually agreed in Paris?

The head of the Bank of England Mark Carney said, in his keynote speech during COP21, that climate change was the issue for the future of the financial sector. 

Financial institutions and private investors finally seem to be getting the message; they’ve tumbled over each other to launch new initiatives on climate action in the run up to and during the UN negotiations. 

CAMERON'S EU REFORMS: WILL EUROPE BUY THEM?

There will be no agreement on David Cameron’s reform plans at the European Council summit on December 17th-18th. But Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, will try to help Cameron bridge the gap between the UK and other member-states, possibly setting the stage for a final deal in February.

In a new policy brief, ‘Cameron’s EU reforms: Will Europe buy them?’, CER research fellow Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska asks which of Cameron’s reforms might be acceptable to his European colleagues, and which member-states will be the most and least helpful in achieving them.

Greeks Bearing Gifts: How Europe’s poorest country is doing more than anyone else to help Syrian refugees.

One Friday in late summer, just as the Syrian refugee crisis was beginning to peak, a blue station wagon pulled up to the Kara Tepe refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. The car’s side mirror was held on with masking tape and force of will. Big letters on the side said “Free Food For All” in English and Greek. A half-dozen sunburned, chain-smoking Greek leftists of all ages piled out, followed by two barrel-sized aluminum vats, several gas burners with propane tanks, two folding tables, forty bags of pasta, a box of spices, a dozen car-battery-sized cans of tomato paste and a couple of three-foot-long wooden paddles for stirring soup.

Η "υπολογισμένη" αλληλεγγύη της Γερμανίας

Με αποτέλεσμα 445 ψήφων υπέρ και 145 κατά, στις 4 Δεκεμβρίου η γερμανική Bundestag άνοιξε τον δρόμο για τη συμμετοχή της χώρας στην μάχη κατά του Ισλαμικού Κράτους. Θα αναπτυχθούν μέχρι 1200 στρατιώτες "για να υποστηρίξουν την Γαλλία, το Ιράκ και τη διεθνή σημασία στον αγώνα τους κατά του ISIS", όπως είναι διατυπωμένο στην πρόταση που παρουσιάστηκε από την ομοσπονδιακή κυβέρνηση. Οι γερμανικές ένοπλες δυνάμεις έχουν τώρα μια εξουσιοδότηση να υποστηρίξουν την συμμαχία με υπηρεσίες αναγνώρισης, εναέριου ανεφοδιασμού και ναυτικής προστασίας του γαλλικού αεροπλανοφόρου στη Μεσόγειο, μέχρι το 2016. Επιπλέον, η Γερμανία θα αναβαθμίσει τις τρέχουσες δεσμεύσεις της για να υποστηρίξει την γαλλική αντί-τρομοκρατική αποστολή στο Μάλι, στο πλαίσιο της αλληλεγγύης του Βερολίνου με τη Γαλλία.

Iran Is Part of the Problem, Part of the Solution

Image by European External Action Service

The participation of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad-Zarif in the Vienna talks in October is a reluctant US-Saudi recognition of Iran’s importance in any future roadmap for the Syrian crisis. Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, and especially after the outbreak of popular protests in the Arab world, the two regional powers along the Persian Gulf have been jostling for influence and domination in Bahrain, Yemen and, above all, Syria. The move also signals a belated Saudi-Western recognition of the Iranian role and influence in resolving the four-year old crisis. With over 200,000 deaths the crisis has emerged as the witnessed the largest destruction and human suffering since the Iran-Iraq war.

Is this really our conflict?

There isn’t one war, the West versus Isis. Not even after last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris. There are layers of Middle Eastern conflicts, all linked to international intervention, of which the most intractable are heightened by the Sunni-Shia divide.

The Iranian revolution of 1979 established the world’s first officially Islamic regime, but being exclusively Shia, it resurrected memories of the age-old conflict between Sunni and Shia. On coming to power, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini demanded that the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina be managed collectively. In Saudi Arabia this demand was seen as an intolerable challenge. (A young Sunni jihadist, Khaled Kelkal, involved in bombings in France in 1995, said he thought “Shiism was invented by the Jews to divide Islam” (1).) Violence against Shia by Saudi Wahhabis is nothing new: in 1802 the sack of Karbala (now in Iraq) led to the destruction of Shia shrines and tombs including that of the Prophet’s son-in-law Hussein, and the killing of many of the city’s inhabitants.

Countering terrorism financing through anti-money laundering measures

It is time for re-regulation; Europe is strengthening its AML/CFT measures in order to lower current terrorist financing (TF) risks.

“Money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations,” declared George Bush after the 9/11 attacks.

Empty promises: G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production

This research discovers that G20 country governments’ support to fossil fuel production marries bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change. In effect, governments are propping up the production of oil, gas and coal, much of which cannot be used if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change.

The report Empty promises: G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production documents, for the first time, the scale and structure of fossil fuel production subsidies in the G20 countries. The evidence points to a publicly financed bailout for some of the world’s largest, most carbon-intensive and polluting companies.