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	Donald Trump isn’t the end of the world, but climate change may be by Naomi Klein Sydney Peace Prize Foundation Canada   At the precise moment that Donald Trump was giving his acceptance speech live, I was in a room packed with a thousand people in Sydney, listening to Maria Tiimon Chi-Fang, a leading activist from the island state of Kiribati.   All day I had been sending emails with the subject line “It’s the end of the world”. I suddenly felt embarrassed by the privilege of this hyperbole.   If Trump does what he says and rolls back the (insufficient) climate progress won under President Barack Obama, inspiring other nations to do the same, Chi-Fang’s nation and culture will almost surely disappear beneath the waves. Literally, the end of her whole world.   Chi-Fang talked about how the Paris climate summit was a rare moment of hope. It’s not a perfect text, but island nations waged, and won, a valiant battle to include language reflecting the need to keep warming below 1.5 degrees.   “We didn’t sleep,” she told the crowd.   That 1.5 degree target gives Kiribati and other low-lying islands a fighting chance at survival. But we know that meeting the target, and even the higher 2 degree one, means we cannot sink a single piece of new fossil fuel infrastructure. We have already blown our carbon budget just with the carbon from fossil fuels now in production.   Donald Trump, in his “100-day plan to Make America Great Again”, unveiled at the end of October, made it clear that he intended to grab carbon as aggressively as he bragged about grabbing women. Here are a few of his immediate plans: allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to move forward; lifting restrictions on fossil fuel production; cancelling “billions” in payments to United Nation climate change programs.   That’s right: warm the planet as quickly as possible and burn the paltry life jackets that are now being thrown to the people who will suffer most. And lest there be any doubt that he means it, he just appointed Myron Ebell, from the climate-denying, scientist-harassing Competitive Enterprise Institute, to transform the Environmental Protection Agency.   This is just some of what is at stake if Trump does what he says he will do. We cannot let him. Outside the US, we need to start demanding economic sanctions in the face of this treaty-shredding lawlessness.   In the North America region, where the carbon that Trump wants to unleash is now buried, we need to get ready to respond; and if you want to know what that looks like, turn your eyes to the Indigenous-led resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock.   * Naomi Klein was awarded the 2016 Sydney Peace Prize, watch her lecture via the link below, see also: http://sydneypeacefoundation.org.au/ Visit the related web page
	In Nigeria, many anti-corruption policies and lots of corruption, too by BBC, Global Witness, Open Society, agencies   August 2017   Nigerian officials collect bribes totalling $1.2 billion each year, reports Government statistics office. (Reuters)   Almost a third of adult Nigerians pay civil servants and other public officials bribes totalling 400 billion naira ($1.27 billion) annually, the country''s statistics office said in a survey on graft.   The poll among households shows the uphill challenge the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is facing in fighting corruption, which has undermined development in the oil exporter for decades.   Nigerians spent 400 billion naira - the equivalent of 39 percent of the combined federal and state education budget in 2016 - to bribe officials between June 2015 and May 2016, according to the office.   The survey, released this week, does not necessarily include high-profile executive corruption cases such as the theft of oil revenues, which have made headlines in the past.   It shows that despite government action to put senior officials accused of graft on trial, Nigerians still have to pay every day for basic services such as dealing with customs or police officers.   Buhari took office in May 2015 vowing to crack down on corruption, but there have been no high-profile graft convictions so far.   "The average sum paid as a cash bribe in Nigeria is approximately naira 5,300", or the equivalent of an eighth of monthly salaries, the report said.   Some 42 percent of those polled had to pay bribes to speed up or finalize administrative work which civil servants would otherwise have delayed or refused to do. Some 18 percent of bribes were paid to avoid a fine and 13 percent to avoid cancelling of state services such as a water supply.   Passports or driving licences often cannot be obtained unless officials are paid a "dash", as a bribe is known in the West African nation.   Police officers were the largest group of bribe takers, though - by value - customs officers topped the list followed by judges, the report said. Officers force motorists to pay bribes or receive fines for minor traffic violations.   Nigeria imports much of what it needs, from basic food to consumer goods, machines and cars. Prices are sometime double what would be paid in producing countries as firms and retailers factor in custom duties and bribes.   The survey, which was supported by a U.N. agency and the European Union, is based on 33,067 interviews with adults across Nigeria. http://tmsnrt.rs/2iltKKh   April 2017 (BBC News/Global Witness)   The BBC has seen evidence that top executives at Shell knew money paid to the Nigerian government for a vast oil field would be passed to a convicted money-launderer.   It also had reason to believe that money would be used to pay political bribes.   The deal was concluded while Shell was operating under a probation order for a separate corruption case in Nigeria. Shell said it did not believe its employees acted illegally.   OPL 245 is an oilfield off the coast of Nigeria whose estimated nine billion barrels of oil are worth nearly half a trillion dollars at today''s prices. Shell has been active in Nigeria for nearly 60 years and was keen to acquire the field.   New evidence shows just how far Shell was prepared to go to get its hands on it.   Standing between Shell and its prize was Dan Etete, whose company acquired the rights to OPL 245 for a tiny sum while he was oil minister of Nigeria. He was later convicted of money laundering in a different case.   Shell and the Italian oil company ENI eventually acquired OPL 245 in 2011 - by paying $1.3bn to the Nigerian government.   The government promptly passed on more than $1bn of the money to a company called Malabu, which was controlled by Dan Etete.   Emails obtained by anti-corruption charities Global Witness and Finance Uncovered, and seen by the BBC, show that Shell representatives were negotiating with Etete for a year before the deal was finalised.   In March 2010, an email from a former MI6 officer employed by Shell shows the company believed Etete stood to benefit from the deal.   "Etete can smell the money. If, at 70 years old, he does turn his nose up at 1.2 bill he is completely certifiable and we should then probably just hold out until nature takes its course with him."   That email was forwarded to the then Shell chief executive Peter Voser - one of the most powerful men in the oil business - showing knowledge of Etete''s involvement went right to the top.   Shell also had good reason to suspect that hundreds of millions would end up in the pockets of Nigerian politicians including the former President Goodluck Jonathan.   In an email from July, the same Shell employee says Etete''s negotiating strategy is "clearly an attempt to deliver significant revenues to GLJ [Goodluck Jonathan] as part of any transaction."   Italian prosecutors allege that $466m were laundered through a network of Nigerian bureaux de change to facilitate payments to President Jonathan and other politicians.   A spokesperson for Goodluck Jonathan told the BBC that no charges or indictments have been brought or secured against the former president relating to this transaction and described the allegations as a "false narrative".   The BBC is still awaiting comment from Dan Etete, but he has previously denied any wrongdoing.   The controversy around this deal has attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies in Italy and the Netherlands.   In February of 2016 Shell''s offices in the Hague were raided and documents removed.   On the day of the raid, the current chief executive, Ben van Beurden, called the now former chief financial officer Simon Henry to discuss the raid. That call was recorded by Dutch law enforcement officials and has been heard by the BBC.   On that call, Mr van Beurden said that Shell''s own investigation had turned up correspondence from the former MI6 officers which he described as "just pub talk in emails which was stupid but nevertheless it''s there" and acknowledged they were "really unhelpful".   The emails the BBC has seen appear to be more than pub talk. They seem to show that a number of Shell executives were aware that a company controlled by Etete would ultimately receive more than $1bn and were advised by their own employees that the money was likely to end up being paid in political kickbacks.   In a statement, Shell said it did not believe that any current or former employees had acted illegally. It also said that if any payments were made by Malabu to government officials then it was done without its knowledge, authorisation or on its behalf.   ENI said an independent investigation had found "no credible evidence of the involvement of Eni staff in corrupt activities with Nigerian government officials, nor any knowledge of the actual existence of such activities by third parties in connection with the transaction".   It should be remembered that this deal was concluded just months after Shell had paid $30m to settle previous allegations of bribery in Nigeria and elsewhere.   As part of a deal to spare the company a damaging criminal conviction in that case, Shell agreed to what was, in effect, a probation order, by giving an undertaking to the US Department of Justice to tighten up its internal controls in order to stay in compliance with America''s anti-corruption laws.   The question for Shell is what on earth were they doing negotiating with a convicted money launderer, who they suspected might pass the money to the president, months after reaching a previous bribery settlement in the same country.   Matthew Page worked for the US State Department in Nigeria for 15 years. He told the BBC: "At a time when Shell should have been cautious having just settled a previous case, rather than walk away from a deal with clear corruption risks, they doubled down."   Barnaby Pace, a campaigner at Global Witness, said: "The $1bn that Shell paid for this massive offshore oil licence in Nigeria is equivalent to more than the 2016 ministry of health budget in Nigeria - a country where one in ten children don''t live to see their fifth birthday. And these companies need to face justice for what they have done."   Italian courts will decide whether to proceed with criminal proceedings against Shell and its partner ENI on 20 April.   Corruption may be a stubbornly regrettable fact of life in Nigeria. And it may be very difficult to drill for oil there without buying access through corrupt payments to politicians. Western companies - and their investors - have to decide if that is a price worth paying. Lawmakers will have to decide whether the weapons they have to stop it are sufficient to deter it. http://bbc.in/2nTa9yt   * Access the Global Witness report: http://www.globalwitness.org/en-gb/campaigns/oil-gas-and-mining/shell-knew/   June 2016   In Nigeria, many anti-corruption policies and lots of corruption, too, by Joseph Amenaghawon & Udo Jude Ilo. (Open Society Initiative for West Africa)   British Prime Minister David Cameron made headlines ahead of the much-hyped anticorruption summit hosted in London last month when a TV crew captured him calling Nigeria and Afghanistan “fantastically corrupt” in a conversation with the Queen and the archbishop of Canterbury.   Less provocative—and therefore receiving less coverage—was the archbishop’s response that, actually, current Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who campaigned on an anticorruption platform, is not corrupt.   In the wake of the Panama Papers leaks, which revealed the role that British banks and tax havens play in sheltering money, the irony of Cameron’s comment was noteworthy. Remarkably, Buhari mostly brushed off questions regarding Cameron’s faux pas, and acknowledged that Nigeria does indeed have a serious problem with corruption. He then used the attention to ask not for an apology, but for the swift return of proven stolen assets believed to be hidden in UK banks. (Nigeria is seeking to recover more than $10 billion in cash and assets lost through graft.)   Like other countries at the summit, Nigeria also made substantial commitments to crack down on corruption, including with stricter beneficial ownership disclosure legislation, improvement in the transparency of public procurement processes, and greater adherence to the principles and processes supported by the Open Government Partnership, through which 69 countries have agreed to make their governments more accountable.   However, given the pervasiveness of corruption in the country, Nigeria needs more than just commitments. Anticorruption efforts by the Buhari administration in its first year have been slow. The success of these efforts depends on getting the requisite public buy-in—the war on corruption cannot be fought by Buhari alone.   Although most Nigerians agree corruption is endemic, in most cases they also participate in small-scale transactional practices that undermine the country. In order for progress to be made, Nigerians must abstain from corruption in every form, not just condemn it.   The country’s value system—which celebrates even wealth obtained by questionable means—is greatly flawed. Strategic and effective public education must be developed to ensure a change of attitude and show people the true and damaging effects of corruption. Young people, in particular, should be brought on board to begin to build a new culture.   For starters, Nigeria’s commitments at the summit need to be incorporated into a national anticorruption strategy that focuses on key areas, such as public procurement, asset recovery, enforcement of existing laws, and revitalization of existing agencies.   In Nigeria, as in many other West African countries, most government funds are spent on public procurement—things like infrastructure, health and educational supplies, and agricultural materials. Cases of ghost workers and padded budgets show how pervasive corruption is in public spending. Buhari should fulfill his campaign promise to approve spending through the National Council on Public Procurement (NCPP), rather than the National Executive Council, which currently approves bids without oversight.   Another factor hampering asset recovery and faith in government actions in Nigeria is that there is no publicly available data on the physical and financial assets that have been recovered inside or outside the country. Without those numbers, it’s impossible to know who stole what, how much of it has been recovered, or where the recovered assets have been used. Buhari must make good on his pledge to implement internationally endorsed guidelines for the accountable management of returned stolen assets.   One existing law can be a big help as Nigeria steps up its fight against corruption. The Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 limits the use of appeals in criminal trials, increases coordination among justice institutions, and creates new pretrial management techniques that allow faster commencement of substantive trials. The law was passed because ineffective coordination and weak criminal procedures have enabled lawyers to undermine processes. Implementation has been slow, however.   Buhari should also coordinate and strengthen agencies whose purview includes corruption. Nigeria has no less than five commissions, bureaus, and tribunals that have the power to investigate and prosecute corrupt practices. But the current administrative set-up—including questions about the role of the attorney general in cases brought by other agencies—makes coordination extremely difficult. It is important to provide clear administrative protocols that make for more effective and cordial relationships among these institutions.   No matter how good Buhari’s strategy is, synergy and partnerships throughout the country are vital to his anticorruption crusade. The president must counter the narrative that the anticorruption war is only being waged in the executive branch.   Buhari has promised to link the public and private sectors in his efforts to ensure information sharing between law enforcement and the financial sector. He needs to do so soon. But first he must enlist the help of his countrymen and women and impress upon them the urgency of the cause. Without their support, a more open and accountable Nigeria will remain out of reach. http://osf.to/294FdX6   * Sarah Chayes discusses her book ''Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security''. Sarah is a senior associate in the Carnegie Foundation''s Democracy and Rule of Law program, see: http://ab.co/2fAXCQB
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