Bulletin

In this issueTwo powerful institutions, the World Bank and United Nations took advantage of the International Anti-Corruption Day – December 9 – to send rather strong messages for strengthening the fight against corruption.The World Bank urged for launching an  International Corruption Hunters Alliance to facilitate monitoring of more serious cases of corruption, in particular the ones notified by this institution.

In this issueFormer minister of defense and deputy of the ruling party in Croatia and ex-US vice president are being investigated in corruption-related cases – the first one for alleged illegal public procurement and the latter for bribing a Nigerian national in business matters linked to natural gas.

In this issue The corruption has deeply entered the sport arena. Even the top sports are affected. The World Football Federation had to suspend two of its members from the top management after it was revealed that they sold their votes during the process of selecting the location for the next football world championship.

Corruption in the private sector and its combating is an increasingly debated topic worldwide, a topic that was tackled in one of the prior issues of the monthly newsletter. Faced with a corruption scandal in the United States following a revelation that bribes worth millions of dollars were paid to governments all over the world in order to get public procurement agreements, renowned car company Daimler will now open a special executive post focusing on the company’s observance of laws and business ethic in its operations.

In this issueAlmost hundred defendants, including former mayors, former city officials, entrepreneurs, lawyers and art dealers face possible jail terms amounting to a total of up to 500 years and fines totaling about one billion euros in Spain's biggest ever corruption trial.

In this issueSeveral non-governmental in Serbia have decided to ‘whistle’ against corruption. They have launched a special web portal that offers opportunity to citizens to report corruption, namely to blow the whistle, while journalists engaged in this project will further investigate these reports and alarm the public.

IN THIS ISSUEJust two months since you have read on these very same pages an exclusive interview with the leading regional anti-corruptioner, the head of Slovene Commission for Preventing Corruption and Chairperson of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), Drago Kos, we present yet another exclusive interview in this issue.

In this issue:You have the latest issue of the Anti-Corruption newsletter (MAK). First of all we wish to thank to all of those who responded to our poll by which we wish to hear how satisfied you are with our newsletter and collect your proposals, suggestions for its further development.

The Center for Civil Communications was established in April 2005 as a nongovernmental, nonparty, and nonprofit association of citizens. In the past five years we have been working every day on narrowing the room for corruption in Macedonia and promoting the principles of “good governance”, both on central and local level.

IN THIS ISSUEStarting from March 1 this year, every citizen of the European Union will be able to anonymously report any suspicion on fraud and corruption on Internet, through the new electronic system of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

Corruption is a problem in the countries in our immediate surroundings. This issue provides a deeper insight in the situation in Kosovo. The anti-corruption agency in Kosovo has filed charges against 159 officers on suspicion of corruption.

Corruption is widespread everywhere in the world, especially in the Balkans region. The citizens of Monte Negro believe that it is present in the health care the most, in Serbia, as of this year, the Agency for Fighting against Corruption started working, while the newly elected president of Croatia won as an anticorruption candidate.