Poll: Israeli gov't most corrupt in world

Poll: Israeli gov't most corrupt in world
A poll conducted by an anti-Corruption organization has revealed that the majority of Israeli's believe their government is not seriously fighting against Corruption.

The annual Global Corruption Barometer report released by Transparency International shows that 86 percent of Israelis --the highest level in the world--say the government's efforts to fight Corruption are ineffective.

Only 13 percent of Israelis believed that the government is taking the necessary measures to fight Corruption, Haaretz reported.

In 2006, 66 percent of those questioned did not believe in their government's anti-Corruption efforts.

The global public opinion survey represents the views of citizens from 69 countries around the world, including 500 in Israel.

The survey asks people about their attitudes toward local Corruption and their own personal involvement in such corrupt acts as bribery.

Senior Israeli officials including Israel's incumbent Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are charged with being engaged in several cases of financial Corruption.

Many other Israeli former officials including former president Moshe Katsav, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, former Israeli finance minister Avraham Hirshson and Knesset (Parliament) member Shlomo Benizri have been involved in corruption cases.

Doron Navot of the University of Haifa and the Israel Democracy Institute says in Israel "not only do the government and elected officials not fight political Corruption, but in recent years they see politicians and elected officials fighting the guardians - those battling against Corruption - and trying to weaken them and advance reforms that harm the fight against Corruption."

Iran's Medical Equipment Exports Double

Iran's Medical Equipment Exports
Iran doubled export of medical equipment to foreign countries during the last Iranian year (March 21, 2008 to March 20, 2009), a senior health official said on Saturday.
"The country's export of medical equipment totaled $8.5 million in 1387 (2008-2009) which has been almost two times more than the volume of exports in its previous year," Director General of the Iranian Health Ministry's Medical Equipment Reza Massaeli said.

He further explained that in addition to the massive efforts made by manufacturers of medical equipment, his department's supervising role and the guidelines presented to the manufacturers for promoting the quality of their products have been the main cause of the aforementioned growth.

The official further announced that 120 out of 550 types of Iran's medical tools and equipment succeeded in obtaining EU standards during the said period.

Sadr: Obama has subtle plans to control world

Iraq's senior cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says Barack Obama's speech indicates that the US wants to take a different avenue to bring the world under its control.

"The honeyed political speech expressed only one aim -- America wants to take a different avenue to bring the world under its control" compared to the former US president George W. Bush's strategies, Sadr said in a statement released to journalists in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday.

"Obama cannot change the American policies... which were and are still hostile to Islam, and that will continue," he added.

The Iraqi cleric further pointed out that he would trust the US president "only after their (the US) withdrawal from our beloved Iraq and Muslim Afghanistan and their withdrawal of support for the Israeli enemy, and I hope for this from him."

"Let him know that the resistance and the opposition will continue. We don't believe his words," he noted.

The US president pledged to forge a "new beginning" for Islam and America in his speech in Cairo, vowing to purge years of "suspicion and discord."

The American leader vowed to end mistrust, forge a state for Palestinians and defuse a nuclear showdown with the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Thursday that US President Barack Obama's Cairo speech had signaled no real shift in US policy in the Arab world.