President Bush Launches Campaign To Halt International Corruption
As President George Walker Bush launched a campaign to fight international
kleptocracy i.e. ``high-level corruption by foreign officials`` - Mr. Bush dubbed kleptocracy as `a grave and corrosive abuse of power` that `threatens our national interest and violates our values.` Peter Baker of the Washington Post writes that President Bush will entertain the alleged autocrat President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, a former republic of the now defunct Soviet Union. Many individuals consider Kazakhstan as a kleptocracy. Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch said in this regard- `When the United States is transparently soft on
friendly dictators like Nazarbayev, it undermines the effort to be tough on not-so-friendly dictators.` As a demonstration of the purported dishonesty of the Kazakhstan leader-Transparency International, a group chartered as an anti-corruption body, listed Kazakhstan at 2.6 out of 10, it stood as the 107th nation out of 159 countries scored in terms of good governance. In 2000, this country graded a 3 and stood in 65th place. To define the Nazarbayev journey to the United States as Peter Baker views it- ``Nazarbayev`s upcoming visit,
according to analysts and officials, offers a case study in the competing priorities of the Bush Administration at a time when the president has vowed to fight for democracy and against corruption around the globe. Nazarbayev has banned opposition parties, intimidated the press, and profited from his post, according to the U.S. Government.``
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