Category: government corruption

The U.S. on Wednesday announced what officials say could be the final package of military aid to Ukraine unless Congress approves supplemental funding legislation that is stalled on Capitol Hill. The weapons, worth up to $250 million, include an array of air munitions and other missiles, artillery, anti-armor systems, ammunition, demolition and medical equipment and parts. The aid, provided through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, will be pulled from Pentagon stockpiles. In a statement, Marine Lt. Col. Garron Garn, a Pentagon spokesman said there is…

Latvia’s former central bank governor was sentenced to six years in prison for bribery on Wednesday after a trial over the most prominent of a series of recent financial scandals to hit the Baltic country. Ilmārs Rimšēvičs, head of the Latvian central bank from 2001 until 2019, was found guilty by the Riga district court of accepting bribes and a fishing trip to Russia from shareholders of a now defunct bank. He was sentenced to six years in jail and…

Canada Issues Travel Advisory on U.S. Trips Over Abortion, LGBTQ Rights Concerns In a notable move, Canada has issued a travel advisory for its citizens, bringing attention to concerns over state-level policies affecting abortion and LGBTQ rights in the United States. This advisory emerged after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a ruling that has been regarded as a cornerstone of women’s rights in the country for decades. Behind the Advisory The advisory took 71…

Obama-appointed DC district judge Beryl Howell sidestepped the First Amendment by finding Rudy Giuliani guilty of defaming two Georgia election workers before trial for allegedly “not complying with his discovery obligations” and now she’s ordering him to pay $148 million in damages immediately because he’s “unlikely” to have the jury verdict overturned on appeal. Just as we saw with the Colorado Supreme Court unilaterally disqualifying Trump from the 2024 election ballot, every basic tenet of our justice system is being…

Negotiators are convening this week in Nairobi for the latest round of talks aimed at creating a new scientific panel to advise the world’s governments on how to tackle chemical waste. But as the talks get underway, concerns have been voiced about potential conflicts of interest that could undermine the panel. The warning comes as efforts to agree a global treaty on plastic pollution appear to have been delayed by vested interests. The UN wants its new panel on chemical…

TALLINN: Russian police have put prominent Russian-American journalist and author Masha Gessen on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against them on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army. It is the latest step in an unrelenting crackdown against dissent in Russiathat has intensified since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine more than 21 months ago, on Feb.24, 2022. The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona was the first to report Friday that Gessen’s profile has appeared on the…

A U.S. senator revealed today that government agencies worldwide demand mobile push notification records from Apple and Google users to spy on their customers. These revelations come after U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to the Department of Justice warning that various governments around the world have been requesting push notification data from two major tech companies. The goal of these requests is likely to gain access to data required to link…

There are continued warnings that the US has been without a chemical security programme since late July, leaving more than 3000 high-risk chemical facilities in the country vulnerable to terrorist, cyber- and physical attacks. The Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) programme, which was authorised 17 years ago and is managed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is charged with regulating high-risk chemical facilities to ensure these sites are not weaponised by terrorists. It expired on 27 July and…

Beijing has defended its prosecution of two Canadians for espionage, after The Globe and Mail reported that Michael Spavor blames intelligence work done by Michael Kovrig for their nearly three-year-long detention. Mr. Spavor is seeking a multimillion-dollar settlement from Ottawa, two sources told The Globe, alleging he was arrested in China in late 2018 because he unwittingly provided intelligence on North Korea to Mr. Kovrig, which was later shared with Canada and allied spy services. In a statement Sunday, China’s…

PARIS: France has issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accused of complicity in crimes against humanity over chemical attacks in 2013, a judicial source and plaintiffs in the case said Wednesday. The judicial source told AFP Assad was also suspected of complicity in war crimes for the attacks, blamed by the opposition on the regime, that killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus in August 2013. International warrants were also issued for the arrests of Assad’s…

A senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to the country’s intelligence services played a central role in the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines last year, according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation. The officer’s role provides the most direct evidence to date tying Ukraine’s military and security leadership to a controversial act of sabotage that has spawned multiple criminal investigations and…

Portugal’s central bank governor Mário Centeno is facing an ethics review by an independent watchdog after he was proposed as the next prime minister by Socialist premier António Costa, who quit last week over a corruption scandal. Costa’s proposal has triggered a public spat between Centeno and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the president who has the power to appoint prime ministers. Costa, who resigned over allegations of corruption among public officials, had urged Rebelo de Sousa to appoint Centeno as…

Backgrounder. Imran Khan is a former Pakistani cricket player, politician, philanthropist, and prime minister of Pakistan (2018–22). He became a national hero by leading Pakistan’s national team to a Cricket World Cup victory in 1992 and later entered politics as a critic of government corruption in Pakistan. Khan’s calls for investigations into government corruption, along with supporting evidence released in the Panama Papers, led to the resignation of Nawaz Sharif, Pakistani businessman and politician who served as prime minister in…

Consider the source (and the timing)… No lesser deep-state mouthpiece than The Washington Post just dropped a bombshell with the revelation that Ukrainian Colonel Roman Chervinsky “was integral to the brazen sabotage operation” on the Nord Stream pipeline, “according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.” The bombing, dubbed a “dangerous assault on Europe’s energy infrastructure” by US and Western officials at the time, marked a critical juncture in the ongoing…

With data showing Mexico as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists outside a war zone, and with the country’s long record of impunity for perpetrators, the country’s media look to one another for safety. VOA’s Jessica Jerreat has the story. VOA footage by Vicente Calderon, Nelson Vignolles. Cristina Caicedo Smit contributed.

Telecom Italia SpA has agreed to sell its land-line network to KKR & Co. in a government-backed deal valued at around €22 billion ($23.6 billion), according to people familiar with the matter. The phone carrier’s board of directors, after a marathon meeting that started on Friday, approved the grid sale to the US private equity giant on Sunday without making it conditional on a vote by shareholders, the people said, asking not to be identified as the decision isn’t yet public. The approval…