Be serious now. If you woke up to Good Morning America and heard Vladimir Putin personally shot JFK with a Makarov pistol from the grassy knoll, would you be surprised? After all, Russia’s president surely rules the world already. And, he’s superhuman, too. He’s survived cancers, brain disorders, Russian uprisings and revolutions. Okay, the uprisings and revolutions were just figments of Washington’s imagination, but the other stuff is real, aren’t they? So, Putin being the cause of European corruption is no surprise…

Rob Menendez, a prominent US senator, and his wife Nadine Menendez were charged with corruption around the end of September this year. Menendez chaired the Foreign Relations committee. The indictment claims that Menendez and his wife were given gifts, cash, gold, fancy cars, and other bribes. A lengthy story about how Menendez was recruited by intelligence from a Middle Eastern nation and received gifts and cash through his wife, mostly in the form of gold bars, was published in the New York Times. Federal prosecutors in New York issued an indictment against…

On August 31, 2023 Lee Jae-myung, the head of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea, (or Deobureo Minjoo Party), pitched a tent in front of the National Assembly building and began an indefinite hunger strike to protest against the policies of the current government, which caused him to be hospitalized. The reason for it is President Yoon Seok-yeol’s approval of prosecutors’ request for his arrest on September 20, and the request has now been submitted to the National Assembly for further consideration. The prosecutor’s office has accused Lee of numerous offences, and, so as not to repeat them in future articles, we shall list them here for future reference…

Since taking office as Iraq’s president in October 2022, Mohammed Shia’ Sabbar Al-Sudani has made, or at least formally announced, a battle against corruption the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. Its progress has been, to put it mildly, underwhelming despite this long-overdue attempt to address the most difficult and crippling issue that is literally eating away at every aspect of society. An entrenched sectarian and tribal system of power sharing does not reduce systemic corruption. Iraq still struggles with inefficiency, bureaucracy, widespread kleptocracy, and a robust patronage system despite its massive oil resources…

The Seoul Central District Attorney’s Office continues to investigate the high-profile corruption scandal in the ranks of the Toburo Democratic Party, known as the “cash envelopes” case, in which its former chairman Song Young-gil is the main culprit, as we have already described. Briefly, Song Young-gil was elected leader of the Democratic Party on May 2, 2021, but 2 years later, on April 12, 2023, it was revealed that the election had been rigged. On the eve of the voting at the Democratic Party congress, a number of politicians close to Song Young-gil handed out money in envelopes worth 60 million won…

In a speech to the RoK Parliament on June 19, 2023, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, stated that he intended to renounce his parliamentary immunity in order to dispute the prosecutor’s allegations against him. Let us take a moment to reflect on what came before this really significant action. The former mayor of Seongnam, governor of Gyeonggi Province and main rival of Yoon Suk-yeol in the 2022 presidential election, Lee is a person of interest in several criminal cases: Corruption in the development of the Daejean-dong residential area, the main content of Seongnam Gate. Lee Jae-myung is suspected of causing 489.5 billion won ($375.4 million) in damage to the city by approving projects for the benefit of private developers who made 1000+% profit…

The scandal concerning the US Congress investigation into President Joe Biden and his family’s “influence peddling” has reached new heights. Just a few months ago, at the beginning of February 2023, in his State of the Union Address, Joe Biden described China as his country’s main opponent, adding that if Beijing threatened US sovereignty then the administration would act to defend America. And now, on May 10, James Comer, Republican Representative from Kentucky and Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has revealed sensational details of the investigation into…

Readers of previous articles by the present writer will know that the present author has a special interest in defectors from North Korea. As a result of their efforts a number of extravagant myths have been spread for propaganda purposes, largely because they tend to be from an upper middle-class background in North Korea, and in order to be able to afford an equivalent standard of living in the South they need to earn money by selling alarming stories. One of the few exceptions to this rule was Thae Yong-ho, who has been able to attain a status and influence no less than those which had before…

The recent protests in Mongolia very quickly attracted international attention, provoking lively discussions in the media and among commentators. During the large-scale demonstrations participants called for reform of the land rent system, greater transparency in economics statistics, and stricter measures against...

American research company Wealth-X, which provides access to a unique perspective on the world’s wealth, has published its ninth annual report World Super Wealth 2021. It is devoted to studying the wealthiest individuals, as the authors put it, those whose fortune exceeds 30 million dollars. The authors estimate that despite...