CHINA: U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged cooperation between the two countries on a range of issues including the climate change and nuclear safety in the Korean peninsula and in Iran. However, both leaders have not refrained from pointing out remaining differences between the two nations.

SOUTH KOREA: South Korea has promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below expected levels in 2020. The announcement is expected to put pressure on other developed nations to fight global warming more aggressively.

GUINEA: Recruits for Guinea’s military junta are being trained by South African and Israeli military officials according to the news agency AFP. Witnesses claim to have seen the training exercises in a town south of the capital Conkary.

Man using a vuvuzela at a soccer game

SOMALIA: Somalia is once again the world’s most corrupt country. In Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index which measures perceived levels of public sector corruption, Somalia took the lowest spot with a score of 1.1 out of 10.

SOUTH AFRICA: The noisy South African vuvuzela trumpet is under attack again, this time by Japan. The Japanese Football Association President has requested the trumpet be banned from next years World Cup saying its loud noise limits communication with players, coaches, broadcasters, etc. The vuvuzela is a common instrument used by South African soccer fans.

GERMANY: A 90-year-old former Nazi SS member was charged Tuesday with 58 counts of murder in the deaths of forced Jewish laborers in Austria.

SPAIN: Pirates have released a Spanish vessel with 36 crew members which they had held for 6 weeks, according to Spain’s prime minister.

FRANCE: A Frenchwoman who was kept in Iranian prison after allegedly “provoking rioters” during Iran’s post-election protests appeared in Iranian court on Tuesday, and then returned to the French Embassy, where she has been permitted to remain since August.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Czechs mark the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution today, which lend to the end of Communist rule in the former Czechoskovakia. Thousands of people in the capital Prague are celebrating with with reenactment of a student protest.

RUSSIA AND CIS:

A British security software firm says Russian criminals are making millions off the H1N1 flu epidemic by selling fake flu drugs over the Internet. The firm, Sophos, intercepted web sites and hundreds of millions of fake pharmaceutical span adverts, many of which are based in Russia.

A Russian human rights campaigner has been killed with a bullet shot to his head, as he entered his apartment building. The 26-year-old, Ivan Khutorsky, reportedly campaigned actively against neo-Nazi groups.

Vladimir Nabokov’s last unfinished novel “The Original of Laura” goes on sale today in London and New York. Nabokov had made his wife promise to burn the manuscript after his death, but she refrained from doing so, leaving it to their son Dmitri to decide its fate.

The Russian Orthodox Church is considering severing ties with the Evangelic Church in Germany, after the latter elected its first female leader last month. The Orthodox Archbishop reportedly said the church could not maintain a dialogue with a church headed by a woman.

The Wall Street Journal reports on the death in a Russian prison of a lawyer for the investment fund Hermitage Capital. The lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was jailed a year ago on tax evasion charges. At a court hearing this past September, he complained of inhumane conditions at the prison and of being denied medical treatment.

EL SALVADOR: The Yaqui indigenous group in Mexico has finally won the battle to get back the remains of some of their lost heroes, held in the storage of New York’s American Museum of Natural History for more than a century.

ARGENTINA: Argentina has granted its first marriage license to a gay couple, both men HIV positive.

GUATEMALA: Forty percent of Guatemala’s elderly are living in a state of poverty.

PALESTINE: The European Union said that it is “premature” for the Palestinians to try to have the UN recognize an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.

ISRAEL/SYRIA: French president Nicolas Sarkozy says his country is ready to mediate between Syria and Israel and warns that extremists could benefit from a continued deadlock in the Mideast peace process.

SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia’s government has said that all military activities have ceased on its southern borders with Yemen.

EGYPT: Amnesty International warned in a report out today that Egypt must take immediate steps to ensure there is no repeat of a 2008 rockslide that killed more than 100 residents of a Cairo shantytown.

IRAN: Iran’s nuclear envoy denied that the IAEA tour of its recently revealed uranium enrichment site has turned up any evidence that the Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.

ISRAEL: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned today that Iran’s nuclear program posed a threat not just to Israel, but to the entire world.

Valijagate threatens to embroil at least one South American leader. Photo: Flickr user quecomunismo

There’s a story in Argentina that has become widely known under a simple title: La Valija (the suitcase). It should be destined to become that country’s version of Watergate. “Valijagate” refers to the discovery in August 2007 that Guido Antonini, a Venezuelan-born American, was carrying a suitcase containing $800,000 in U.S. currency when he arrived on a private plane at the Buenos Aires city airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newberry.

A new book, Los Secretos de la Valija (The Secrets of the Suitcase), is just out in Argentina, written by an Argentine colleague, Hugo Alconada, a journalist with La Nacion and the newspaper’s former Washington correspondent. (Full disclosure: Hugo is a friend, and he mentions me in the acknowledgments of the book, but I didn’t work on the investigation itself).

Alconada’s story percolates with intrigue and new revelations about the suitcase and Antonini, who ultimately said in a Miami trial that he was carrying the loot on behalf of a top Argentine official and that the money was from the Venezuelan oil monopoly, PDVSA.

But that came only after he wore a wire and became a cooperating witness with the U.S. Government. In resulting tapes, Venezuelan handlers promised him protection for claiming the suitcase was his, and not revealing that the suitcase was sent to the presidential campaign of the now-president of Argentina, Christina Kirchner.

Argentinian officials have denied involvement and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has charged Antonini was employed by the Bush administration in a campaign to malign his government.

Alconada’s book, so far only in Spanish, deserves publication in English in the United States. His extensive investigation reveals:

• The plane carrying Antonini and the suitcase that was transporting much more than the $800,000 — a total of $5 million.

• Despite government denials, Antonini went to the Argentina presidential palace, the Casa Rosada, after the money was seized at the airport. Moreover, the book details a plan in which Argentine and Venezuelan officials coordinated a cover-up of the case.

• It also notes that Antonini had a history of working for Chavez. He helped organize trips to 24 countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and Pacific islands in a 2006 vanity campaign by the Chavez government to promote Venezuela’s appointment to a temporary slot on the UN Security Council.

There’s an interesting sidelight to the cloak and dagger story. A funny thing happened earlier this month as Alconada answered questions at a bookstore to promote his story. At some point, possibly when a questioner approached him as a distraction, his briefcase, which contained notes about three of his current investigations, disappeared.

A similar black briefcase was left in its place.

Alconada doesn’t get it and jumps to no conclusions. “My newspaper wrote a small piece about it, and it became a big deal. I don’t know how to explain what happened.”

- Peter Eisner

African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma.

Last week, South Africa went to the polls in the country’s fourth national elections since the end of apartheid. According to final results announced Saturday, the ruling African National Congress won, though it fell short of a two-thirds majority. 

The ANC has faced increased criticism in recent months, often centering on party president Jacob Zuma, who had faced charges of fraud and corruption, though they were dropped. 

Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner measures South Africa’s progess, however imperfect the country and its leaders may still be. 

South Africa’s president-elect, Jacob Zuma, capped off his remarkable political resurgence last week in another solid victory for the African National Congress. His election victory can be viewed in more than one way.

In one sense, it was an endorsement of his charismatic style and a confirmation of the ANC’s prominence in the 15 years since the ascension of Nelson Mandela and the collapse of apartheid. Zuma will take office in May as a result of nationwide balloting that took place peacefully and without incident.

The unfortunate way of viewing the South African election would be to overemphasize unfair complaints that South Africa has not progressed much since the end of apartheid.

South Africa is a vastly different country from what it was under white minority racist rule. Despite persistent poverty and unemployment, South Africa today is a truly democratic state, and the African National Congress has accomplished much. If it is not enough to say that the country’s 80+ percent black population lives now freely and with dignity, the ANC’s other successes are significant. Even the poorest of South Africans have benefits their families could not dreamed of a generation ago.

There is much work to be done, especially in the areas of health care and education, but the ANC has established social programs, provided housing and some basic needs such as electricity to millions of South Africa’s 49 million people.

The ANC came just short of winning a two-thirds absolute majority in the South African parliament, meaning Zuma will have to negotiate and work hard to win over skeptics. Meanwhile, he comes to office at a tough time for any world leader –- South Africa is deeply affected by the world recession and financial issues will be key. He’ll he hard-pressed to follow through on his basic promise: “an equitable, sustainable and inclusive growth path.”

Among the skeptics are some members of his own party, where former leader Thabo Mbeki once stripped him of the role of deputy president because of corruption charges. The corruption charges have since been withdrawn and Zuma has also faced and been acquitted of rape charges.

Phillip Van Niekirk, a prominent South African journalist, notes that even South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority, responsible for the apartheid system, largely prefers Zuma to Mbeki.

“When talking to the business community, foreign dignitaries or journalists, Zuma can be equally impressive. He has great personal warmth and is lucid on the challenges ahead. He wants a crackdown on crime and corruption, greater accountability from politicians and office bearers and a concerted effort to deal with the country’s neglected education and health systems.”

- Peter Eisner

Electricity is still a problem in Iraq.

Despite a reduction in violence and democratic elections in Iraq, the U.S. Department of State’s recently-released report on conditions in Iraq throughout 2008 stated that there is “widespread, severe corruption at all levels of government.”

Officials in the Iraqi government have embezzled an estimated $18 billion in American aid. On Monday, a dozen policemen were arrested in connection with a series of killings and kidnappings.

Nearly six years after the war began, Iraq still has many infrastructure problems, dealing with little electricity. Bloggers across Iraq describe the legacies of war in Iraq and discuss the state of its fledgling democracy.

Mohammed, an Iraqi dentist who has decided to take his pregnant wife to Jordan for delivery, describes the country’s decayed health sector:

I wish there is a person to blame or specific side to throw the blame on but unfortunately there are countless sides and people to throw the blame on…it’s all about corruption, decades of falling behind the medical developments, physicians and doctors with little medical ethics who will have high ethics when they leave Iraq, doctors who are really bad in their job but holds important positions because they are from a specific political party or they know “people”, sectarian violence, gangs working under the mask of religion, people with agenda of brain-killing Iraq…and the list goes on.

[...]About two months ago we applied for a visa to Jordan. Thank god we got it, we got the visa and we were approved for entering Jordan, I still can’t believe that this is possible; us getting to Jordan so that my wife could have a natural delivery with good medical care and overcome the medical disasters here.

Another blogger, IraqPundit, agrees that continued squabbling and corruption has deprived Iraqis of basic services:

Much like the rest of Iraq, the people of Basra want electricity, water, and they want the garbage to be collected. It’s clear the religious parties failed the people. Perhaps Iraqis will vote for new politicians who will actually provide basic services.

[...]My own family in Baghdad are indeed frustrated with the lack of services. But they don’t blame democracy, they blame the religious parties and corrupt politicians, and the terrorists who bombed electrical facilities promptly after they were repaired. Sure there was more water and electricity during Saddam Hussein’s era, but not that much more. If it was so great, why did we have all those generators?

The “Life is a Scrapbook” blog says that small-scale corruption and bribery is a part of daily life in Iraq:

It’s not called corruption, it’s called the cost of doing business. Recently a new regular style gas station opened near our brigade headquarters and not long after it did, the brigade commander’s personal security detachment roughed up a lot of the black market gasoline vendors and dumped their gas on the street. This action was within their legal right since the stands are illeal but was it a coincidence? New gas station opens; the local authority, the Army General, then roughs up the illegal vendors that had been ignored previously, add in that a week later the illegal vendors where back in full force. Do you think that there might have been some kick backs from both sets of gasoline vendors? I’m not saying there was, I just find it interesting [...] there might have been some money changing hands.

A journalist with NBC’s “World Blog” describes Iraqi war widows:

I recently visited the Iraqi Tourism Board to see some old friends and contacts. I went in smiling because I hadn’t been there for while and was excited to see my old friends, but the place had an eerie feel to it. It looked darker – and it was. In every room, when I popped in my head to say hello, there were women dressed in black from head to toe.

As a cup of coffee was placed in front of me, my curiosity finally got the better of me. I asked if a colleague had died or something? A woman covered in black responded, “They killed my husband and burned my home. So we moved to a Sunni neighborhood; stress and grief killed my mother a week later.”

I turned my head to the woman next to her and she said, “They killed my brother in front of his wife and children…just because he is Shiite living in a Sunni neighborhood.”

The smile I had on my face when I arrived was long gone. I actually felt ashamed that I had a smile on my face to start with. So, I chugged down my coffee and quickly left.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user michaelramallah under a Creative Commons license.

Shannon O’Neil, a specialist on Latin America at the Council on Foreign Relations, speaks with Martin Savidge about the politicized and corrupt nature of the justice system in Mexico, the possibility of a mole within the country’s U.S. embassy and the challenge of combating this corruption.

King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein of Jordan speaks at the World Economic Forum.

Thomas Fouad Lund-Sørensen is the Danish ambassador to Jordan, keeps a blog and contributes to 7iber, a Jordanian citizen journalism portal.

Fighting Corruption In Jordan: Learning From The Danish Experience

Transparency International (TI) publicized its anti-corruption index for 2008 this week. The eight most non-corrupt countries have something in common. They are small-sized economies with no natural resources. They are all heavily dependent on their ability to trade and engage with foreign countries. And they are all well established Rule-of-Law societies. Why do I say that? Because this is where Jordan should be and not further down the rankings.

Let’s have a look at my own country, Denmark that once again topped the ranking of non-corrupt countries. There are a number of reasons for that. First, and foremost, the Danish society has through the years developed a widespread culture against corruption. Starting in the 17th century, corruption was made a criminal offense and enforced rather strictly. The next major achievement came during the 1920’s where a code on public servants that guaranteed a reasonable salary, job security and pension in particular for the lower echelons was adopted, and corruption laws came under review. Today, it is morally and utterly unacceptable to provide or receive anything that could resemble corruption. An example - trying to bribe your way out of a speeding ticket or into a construction permit will certainly get you an extra criminal charge on your neck.

To read more, visit the original post.

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Photos courtesy of Flickr users World Economic Forum and chrispknight under a Creative Commons license.