Amid all the venality, there were some good works: missions, orphanages and clinics set up in Africa.

ECONOMIST: Obituary: Billy James Hargis | The

The jail in Los Angeles County, America's largest, is under federal investigation for brutality and venality by deputies and guards.

ECONOMIST: Imprisonment in California

On the second, the report does not say whether Mr Annan should go for having presided over such chaos and venality.

ECONOMIST: The United Nations

With a blandly dismissive anti-romanticism, the director sees through the pretenses of civility to the mediocrity, disappointment, venality, gullibility, duplicity, and boredom that pass for daily life.

NEWYORKER: The Prowler

Small wonder that his supporters see him as the knight-errant of American politics, bravely aiming his lonely lance at special interests and political establishments of every conceivable venality.

ECONOMIST: The contender

Some applaud this as a clever way to get round congressional venality (much as a similar commission managed to close military bases in the past), but sceptics are unconvinced.

ECONOMIST: The Senate starts to debate health reform, at long last

Hundreds of secretly shot videos seized from the home of Vladimiro Montesinos, Peru's fugitive spy chief, have revealed the duplicity and venality of many of the country's politicians, army officers, judges and businessmen.

ECONOMIST: Peru