Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Corruption roundup
Corruption roundup
Apr 8, 2026 3:14 PM

1) According to the BBC, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, “The bulk of the money that Saddam [Hussein] made came out of smuggling outside the oil-for-food programme, and it was on the American and British watch”. This assertion is based on the contention that the $4 billion that Hussein was alleged to have received in the oil-for-food program is “dwarfed” by the $14 billion is said to e from “sanctions-busting,” illegally smuggling oil to neighboring states such as Jordan and Turkey.

Also, Bloomberg has the latest on US indictments in the case.

2) The Canadian government’s Adscam scandal has been called by an opposition leader “a criminal conspiracy of the like never seen in this country before.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Government and the Good Life
In preparing for an Acton University lecture last week on Christianity and Government (you can listen to it here)[audio: I was reflecting on some of the core differences between a Christian vision of government parison to modern, secular visions. While there is no single Christian vision of government and good Christians can disagree on a host of topics, one of the things that sets apart the Christian vision is a robust vision of the good life and integrated human flourishing...
Culture and Economic Decline
At MercatorNet, Sheila Liaugminas looks at the bank regulation push — enshrined in another 2,000 page document that few of the legislators behind this effort will actually read. In “Social Order on the Surface” she recalls an Acton conference where she heard this from Rev. Robert A. Sirico: Politicians are not our leaders in a rightly ordered society, they are our followers … Not all views of culture are equal. but we can’t engage socially on our disagreements because everything...
Acton University Lectures Available Online
We’ve posted a dozen or so AU 2010 lectures in our online store and expect to be putting up many more in the days ahead. They’re priced at $1.99 and transactions are through a secure server at the Acton Institute Digital Downloads page. Check back often. Here’s what available now: — Thoughts on Human Dignity – Rev. Robert A. Sirico – June 15, 2010 — Centralization and Civil Society – Dr. Daniel Mahoney – June 16, 2010 — The Federalist...
Geneva, the WCRC, and the Ecumenical-Industrial Complex
A delegate at last week’s Uniting General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches held at Calvin College urged the newly formed group to consider moving its headquarters out of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva. Citing the costs associated with travel to and from the Swiss city, as well as those incurred during visits to the headquarters, Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, asked the WCRC to move its offices to the global south....
A Question of English Usage?
Christianity Today looks at the way the State Department has recently begun using the phrase “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion.” The Obama Administration sees these phrases as more or less equivalent. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed the shift in language. In a December speech at Georgetown University, she used “freedom of worship” three times but “freedom of religion” not at all. While addressing senators in January, she referred to “freedom of worship” four times and “freedom...
Fatal Attraction: Democracy and the Welfare State
At Public Discourse, Acton’s Research Director Samuel Gregg examines why many European governments are so hesitant to engage in much needed but painful economic reforms – especially reforms that involve diminishing the size of expansive welfare states. The causes are many, but in “Fatal Attraction: Democracy and the Welfare State,” Gregg zeroes in on a potentially damaging linkage between democratic systems of government and the growth of large welfare states that seek to provide economic security to ever increasing numbers...
Evangelicals and Global Warming
This week’s Acton Commentary. Benjamin B. Phillips is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Houston Campus. This commentary was based on an article in the Journal of Markets & Morality (Vol. 12, No. 2). +++++++++ Evangelicals and Global Warming By Benjamin Phillips Since 2005, evangelicals have divided into two roughly opposing camps over the question of anthropogenic global warming. Official statements of the Southern Baptist Convention through its resolution process, its Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission,...
Adam Smith versus John Maynard Keynes
In the most recent edition of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Acton’s Research Director Samuel Gregg has an article in which he argues that the ongoing financial and economic crisis has raised serious questions about the credibility and usefulness of much mainstream contemporary economics. Drawing partly on his recent book, Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy (2010), Gregg suggests that much mainstream economics after Keynes became gradually dominated by a fixation upon econometrics that has threatened at times to...
On Cops and Cameras
Gizmodo has an intriguing post about attempts to regulate and even criminalize photography. As Wendy McIlroy reports, “In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.” She goes on to detail some of the exceptions and caveats, noting, The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must...
Confessing the Wrong Side
Last week’s Acton Commentary, “Unity or Unanimity at Reformed Council?” was picked up by a number of news outlets, including the Detroit News and the Holland Sentinel. The latter paper published a response to the piece by Jeffrey Japinga, “Intersection of economics and faith is valid subject for church council.” I think Japinga misreads me, and in doing so (perhaps unintentionally) ends up agreeing with me. He thinks that I oppose the Accra Confession because “what it says disagrees with...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved