Nepal Government considers snooping bribery allegations

Nepal government is mulling investigating the bribery allegations with a possible Maoist-China link, after demands for a probe were raised by political parties and citizens groups alike.
The case involving UCPN-Maoist leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara surfaced after an audio tape was leaked to the media in which he was reportedly heard asking a Chinese official Rs50 crore, apparently for weaning away Madhesi lawmakers ahead of the seventh prime ministerial run off, and has led to an chaos in the country.

A demonstration was held in front of the Chinese deputation by youth organisation, Independent Youth Group Nepal.
The members of the group demonstrated against the reported intrusion by China in the political affairs of Nepal, and handed over a protest note to an embassy official.
Taking serious note of the allegations, the Nepalese cabinet said it is considering establishing a probe committee to look into the event."The government will ask the Constituent Assembly chairman Nemwang and the Attorney General on the issue of forming a probe pane to look into on the audio tape scandal," said government orator Shanker Pokharel.
In advance, Nepali Congress (NC) members and leaders of civil society submitted letters of complaint to the chairman of the constituent assembly (CA) Subash Chandra Nemwang.
A delegation comprising NC leaders, including chief beat in the Paliament, Laxman Ghimire, and general secretary Bimalendra Nidhi submitted a memorandum to Nemwang and expressed concern over the shame.

Maoist leader Mahara was allegedly heard demanding Rs500 million from a Chinese official allegedly to buy 50 lawmakers to ensure Prachanda's victory in the prime ministerial run-off.
Ahead of the seventh round of voting in the parliament, a delegation of civil society leaders also submitted a memorandum to Nemwang demanding that the voting be postponed and the allegations be thoroughly probed.

Chinese officials involved in Daimler bribery case

Daimler was charged by the US government of offering bribes worth tens of millions of dollars to foreign government officials in at least 22 countries, for contracts between 1998 and 2008.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), China's largest oil refiner, is also involved in the case.
The kickbacks of cash and gifts of luxury armored cars, golf clubs and vacations helped secure government contracts from countries including China, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Cote d'Ivoire, Latvia, Nigeria, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
According to the file released by the court, during 2001 to 2005, Daimler Chrysler paid at least 4.1 million euros (37.31 million yuan) in "commissions," "gifts" and lavish vacation to Chinese government officials and in return the car company received contracts worth 112 million euros from Chinese firms.
Many of these payments were made through "third-party accounts" that were supervised by the most senior management of Daimler's sales operations. The file showed that Daimler and Daimler Chrysler China had a bank account named "special commission" with an account number that ended with "819". The money in this account was used to bribe Chinese officials.
The file also showed that during 2001 to 2004, Daimler and Daimler Chrysler China employees offered graft of at least 188,800 euros through the "third-party account" to obtain contracts worth 5.53 million euros.
On February 28, 2002, Daimler offered 18,000 euros in bribes through Texas-based firm Shores International to the wife of a Chinese government official as commission. The money was used in a transaction involving a car worth 1.01 million euros to Sinopec.
Almost a year later on February 21, 2003, Texas-based company Lily Energy Service gave 15,000 euros to Changqing Petroleum Exploration Bureau to sell six trucks worth 492,000 euros each.
Also, the file claimed that Daimler gave about 2.6 million euros to Chinese government officials to ensure receiving contracts worth 71.56 million euros from Sinopec and BGP. The money was given to senior managers of Sinopec and BGP as well as their families.
Daimler admitted previously that it made hundreds of improper payments, but said that the company would cooperate with the investigation.
Sources disclosed that Daimler has reached an agreement with the US government to pay $185 million in fines to end the long-running investigatio

Who to Bribe in China and How Much

Kickback. Carrot. Sweetener. Inducement. Backhander. They’re all synonyms for “bribe.”
Whatever you call it, bribery’s just a normal part of doing business in certain corners of the world. China, for example. For all its pre-Olympics tightening-up, business in China is still fueled by bribery. At least that’s what TRACE International has found. TRACE – a U.S.-based, non-profit association that counsels international companies on bribery – says that 148 reports detailing bribery demands in China were filed through its anonymous reporting system between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008.

How did it break down? Who requested the bribes, what did they request, and how much did they want?

* Major requestors included government officials (38 percent), government employees (14 percent), police, judiciary, and communist party officials (33 percent), with NGO reps, private companies and others taking up the remainder.

* What were they asking for? Cash or its equivalent made up the bulk of the bribery requests (77 percent). Nine percent requested hospitality and/or entertainment. The rest wanted things like “gifts,” “travel,” and “sexual favors.”

* The amount of bribes ranged from $20 to more than $500,000, with most requests coming in between $101 and $10,000.

Bribery

Bribery Act 2010

The Bribery Act reforms the illegal law to offer a new, modern and complete scheme of bribery offences that will enable courts and prosecutors to respond more effectively to bribery at home or abroad.

The Act will:

* provide a more effective legal framework to battle bribery in the public or private sectors

* replace the fragmented and complex offences at common law and in the Prevention of Corruption Acts 1889-1916

* create two general offences covering the offering, promising or giving of an advantage, and requesting, agreeing to receive or accepting of an advantage

* create a discrete offence of bribery of a foreign public official

* create a new offence of failure by a commercial organisation to prevent a bribe being paid for or on its behalf (it will be a defence if the organisation has adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery)

* require the Secretary of State to publish guidance about procedures that relevant commercial organisations can put in place to prevent bribery on their behalf

* help tackle the threat that bribery poses to economic progress and development around the world.

Creative skills flow for World Water Day

Gold Coast prep, primary and secondary students are tapping into their creative skills in the lead up to World Water Day (March 22).

Council’s Water Management Committee Chair, Councillor Daphne McDonald said the city’s students had been asked to paint, draw and collage ‘the value of a sustainable water future’.

“This inaugural art competition coincides with World Water Day and will raise awareness of our precious water resources and how we should use them wisely,” she said.

“Gold Coast Water is asking students to put their creative skills to the test by entering the World Water Day School Art Competition.

“The exciting competition forms part of the 'Make your water mark!' Watersaver Education Program, which aims to engage students and the school community on water sustainability issues and conservation practices.

“Water conservation continues to be a priority in our daily lives and I encourage students to make their water mark and encourage others to do the same.”

Gear

A gear is a wheel with teeth around its circumference, the purpose of the teeth being to mesh with similar teeth on another mechanical device possibly another gear wheel so that force can be transmitted between the two strategies in a direction tangential to their surfaces. A non-toothed wheel can transmit some tangential force but will slip if the force is large; teeth put off slippage and permit the transmission of large forces.

A gear can mesh with any device having teeth friendly with the gear's teeth. Such devices include racks and other non-rotating policy; however, the most common condition is for a gear to be in mesh with another gear. In this case revolution of one of the gears necessarily causes the other gear to rotate. In this way, rotational motion can be transferred from one position to another. While gears are sometimes used simply for this reason to transmit rotation to another shaft perhaps their most significant feature is that, if the gears are of asymmetrical sizes, a mechanical advantage is also achieved, so that the rotational speed, and torque, of the second gear are dissimilar from that of the first. In this way, gears provide a means of increasing or decreasing a turning speed, or a torque.

Wilderness

Wilderness is generally defined as a natural environment on Earth that has not been directly modified by human activity. Ecologists consider wilderness areas to be an integral part of the planet's self-sustaining natural ecosystem.

The word, wilderness, derives from the notion of wildness; in other words that which is not controllable by humans. The word's etymology is from the Old English wilderness, which in turn derives from wilder meaning wild beast (wild + deor = beast, deer). From this point of view, it is the wildness of a place that makes it a wilderness. The mere presence or activity of people does not disqualify an area from being wilderness. Many ecosystems that are, or have been, inhabited or influenced by activities of people may still be considered wild. This way of looking at wilderness includes areas within which natural processes operate without very noticeable human interference.

Looked at through the lens of the visual arts, nature and wildness have been important subjects in various epochs of world history. An early tradition of landscape art occurred in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The tradition of representing nature as it is became one of the aims of Chinese painting and was a significant influence in Asian art. Artists learned to depict mountains and rivers from the perspective of nature as a whole and on the basis of their understanding of the laws of nature … as if seen through the eyes of a bird. In the 13th century, Shih Erh Chi listed scenes lacking any places made inaccessible by nature, as one of the 12 things to avoid in painting.