Financial Transparency Coalition

The United Nations' three-day Head-of-State Summit on the global financial crisis had promise. The goal was to convene a summit of world leaders at U.N. Headquarters in New York to assess the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression. Over 100 million people per year, the summiteers noted, will fall into extreme poverty.

ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- A former Nigerian telecommunications executive testified Wednesday that his former business partners delivered $100,000 to then-Rep. William Jefferson after the Democratic congressman requested a percentage of profits and revenue in a joint venture with a Kentucky technology company he was promoting.

Have you ever had the feeling you're being chased? That's probably how it seems right now if you're a tax cheat.

A week after the new government took oath, a senior official of a large Wall Street bank, which survived the meltdown, made a call to a few bankers in India. She had a specific question: were local markets expecting money to flow back from Swiss banks and tax havens? It could well have been an academic question by a treasury economist preparing an internal note. Indeed, bringing back money parked by rich Indians in secret offshore bank accounts was a promise in the BJP manifesto that few voters chose to buy. The issue, arcane to many, was supposed to...