By Nadja Kostka

According to Agence France-Presse , the Chinese government says, “almost 7,000 schools were destroyed and more than 11,000 pupils and their teachers were killed” when the earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale struck. The “fragility of schools that crumpled into bloody piles has aroused widespread claims that corruption had fatally compromised building strength,” reports Reuters. On 27 May, a government news agency, Xinhua, reported that two fresh aftershocks caused more than 420,000 houses to collapse.

The Financial Times (FT) reports that “the quality of much of China's infrastructure is open to question amid an unparalleled national building boom; while the nation boasts rich engineering expertise, corruption is widespread and construction standards often loosely applied”.

Susan Tubbesing, head of the California-based Earthquake Engineering Research Institute told AP that: "China has been taking earthquake safety very seriously in the past 10 to 20 years...From what I understand, the codes China has adopted in the past 20 years have been good, solid, seismic codes."

However, the same article quotes Ren Bing, an architectural designer at the Hong Kong-based China Construction International, who believes “anti-earthquake standards are not as strict in places like Sichuan as in Shanghai.” Bing claims that it is because “profit margins are thinner on smaller projects in less prosperous places” that developers have been encouraged to cut corners (AP).

In response to the claims, the government said “it would investigate why so many school buildings had collapsed during the earthquake and would punish anyone found responsible for poor construction standards,” writes the FT.

As for relief efforts: “The calamity has prompted a huge outpouring of public sympathy both at home and abroad, with 13.9 billion yuan [US $2 billion, €1.3 billion] raised to date,” writes Reuters. “But with corruption a big problem in China, officials were keen to stress they would keep a close watch on the money to see none of it is misused.”

By Myroslava Purska

The decision came after US investigators found “evidence of baby trafficking and corruption in Vietnam's adoption system,” reports Reuters. According to US embassy spokeswoman Angela Aggeler: "The [US Embassy’s] survey reflects findings from investigation of hundreds of cases" (Reuters). The survey reportedly details “brokers scouring villages for babies, hospitals selling infants whose mothers cannot pay their bills, and a grandmother giving away her grandchild — without telling the child's mother” (Associated Press, AP).

The US Embassy began the investigation after officials’ “routine investigations turned up widespread inconsistencies in adoption paperwork,” reports the Washington Post.

Vu Duc Long, the director of Vietnam's International Adoption Agency, has denied the accusations and has criticised the US report for including “a lot of distorted information,” quotes BBC. According to Thanhien News, Long has said that “Vietnam’s adoption regulations were strict and transparent and that current supervision mechanisms were enough to prevent the abuse of child adoption.” Although he has conceded that there were cases in which papers had not been done in the right way, notes the Vietnam News Agency.

According to AP, US adoptions have boomed in Vietnam, with Americans “adopting more than 1,200 Vietnamese children over the 18 months ending in March. In 2007, adoptions quadrupled from a year earlier.”

By Holly Nazar

Arthur Brennan, who briefly worked as director of the OAT, and James Mattil, former chief of staff, told the committee that “their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored,” reports the Associated Press (AP). Mattil concluded that “the reasons are either gross incompetence, wilful negligence or political intent on the part of the Bush administration and more specifically, the State Department" ( VOA) . Brennan described efforts by the embassy against corruption including the Office of Accountability and Transparency, as little more than "window dressing," writes National Journal. A retired judge, Brennan, estimated that: “Billions of U.S. and Iraqi dollars have been lost, stolen and wasted, it is likely that some of that money is financing outlaws and insurgents such as the Medhi Army,” according to Agence France-Presse .

No Republicans or State department officials were present at the hearing, but State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey told AP: "Any assertion that we have not taken this issue seriously or given it the attention it deserves is simply untrue," pointing to the recent appointment of Lawrence Benedict as coordinator for anti-corruption initiatives at the US embassy in Baghdad as “another demonstration that we are working at very senior levels to help the Iraqis deal with this issue."

Brennan and Mattil also criticised the State department’s treatment of Judge Radhi al-Radhi, former head of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity. After reportedly initiating more than 3000 corruption cases, al Rahdi sought asylum in the US after assassination attempts and 31 of his employees were murdered. The two claimed that State department employees were ordered not to assist or contact al Radhi, and were critical of how he has been treated since (National Journal).

The hearing took place ahead of expected legislation that would request a further US $170 billion (€107 billion) to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ( AP) .

According to AP, the OAT was established to lend assistance and training to Iraqi anti-corruption agencies. It was closed down in December 2007 after a draft report was leaked, which claimed that investigations of Shiite-controlled agencies had been blocked by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The report was retroactively classified, with State Department officials explaining that it could damage relations with Iraq .