Financial Transparency Coalition

LONDON – FTSE 100 mining firm Kazakhmys PLC is still refusing to provide full information as to the identity of its beneficial owners, nearly one year after anti-corruption watchdog Global Witness raised concerns over alleged links between the company’s management and Nursultan Nazarbayev, the autocratic president of Kazakhstan.

Consumer demand for expensive rosewood furniture and musical instruments in China and elsewhere is the primary driver of an ecologically devastating trade in illegal timber, according to an October 2010 report published by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Global Witness. The report, launched at the 10th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), shows how this ongoing trade has been facilitated by the complicity of some of Madagascar's state authorities and weak law-enforcement by the country's transitional government.

NAGOYA, JAPAN—Consumer demand for expensive rosewood furniture and musical instruments in China and elsewhere is the primary driver of an ecologically devastating trade in illegal timber, according to a report published today by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Global Witness. The report, launched at the 10th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), shows how this ongoing trade has been facilitated by the complicity of some of Madagascar's state authorities and weak law-enforcement by the country's transitional government.

The watchdog organization Global Witness released a report this week exposing ties between a number of British High Street bankers and corrupt Nigerian officials. The report detailed the reprehensible actions of Barclays, NatWest, RBS, HSBC and UBS, which for years took money from Nigerian officials. As we are all acutely aware, such corruption fuels poverty, entrenches dishonest politicians, and exacerbates obstructions to development for many countries. I want to be surprised. Really, I do. They just make it so hard for me. Each of those banks has been embroiled in scandal at one point or another in the...