Legalized Bribery

George W. Bush, Corporate Candidate: How Money Grows on the "Shrub"

by Andrew Wheat

After shattering Texas fundraising records with his $25 million 1998 gubernatorial race, George W. Bush has already already broken federal fundraising records in a presidential race that is still eight months from term. By the end of 1999, the Bush campaign had raised $69 million, which exceeds the total amount raised by both Clinton and Dole (not counting Federal matching funds) combined for the entire 1996 presidential race. From whence this outpouring of financial support? MORE>>

The Buying of the President

An interview with Charles Lewis

Charles Lewis is the founder and the executive director of the Center For Public Integrity, a non-profit, nonpartisan watchdog organization that produced The Buying of the President in 1996 and The Buying of the Congress in 1998, as well as the recently-issued The Buying of the President 2000. Lewis was formerly an investigative reporter for ABC News, as well as a producer for the CBS News program 60 Minutes. He recived a MacArthur Fellowship in 1998. MORE>>

Perilous Partnerships: The UN's Corporate Outreach Program

by Kenny Bruno

Not long ago, Unicef made its reputation in the United States by sending children out trick-or-treating at Halloween with collection boxes. Now the UN is increasingly going hat in hand to a new source: the world's largest multinationals. With Secretary General Kofi Annan calling for UN-corporate "partnerships," UN agencies have entered into an array of partnerships with giant corporations, including many that citizen movements have denounced for violations of human and labor rights, environmental destruction and endangering consumers. Among the UN's new partners: McDonald's, Disney, Chevron and Unocal. MORE>>

Financing Disaster: Canada's Export Development Corporation and the Financing Agency Race to the Bottom

by Aaron Freeman

OTTAWA -- Kimy Pernia Domico is worried about his four-month-old granddaughter. Like a rapidly increasing number of the 2,500 Embera Katio indigenous people that live near the Sinu River in Colombia, she has recently fallen sick with malaria. The malaria rate increase followed the construction of a massive hydro-electric dam built on the river by the multinational Urra consortium. As the project halts the flow of the river, the still water attracts mosquitoes, which carry the disease.

For centuries, the Embera Katio relied on the fish from the river and a few basic crops for self-sufficiency. With the construction of the dam, the Embera's traditional food supply has been wiped out, and their lands destroyed. ...

The Urra project was built with an $18.2 million credit from Canada's Export Development Corporation (EDC), a Canadian government-owned financing agency known as an export credit agency. EDC is the main source of publicly supported export financing in Canada. A state-owned corporation, EDC provides Canadian exports with commercial and political risk insurance, and financing products to help their customers. As a public institution, EDC pays no taxes, and it raises funds on international capital markets with the full faith and credit of the Canadian government, which allows it to receive preferential terms from lenders. MORE>>