Category: Corruption

BEIJING – China is considering transferring government ownership in the nation’s biggest bad debt managers to a unit of its sovereign wealth fund as part of a financial regulatory regime overhaul, according to people familiar with the matter. Under the current proposal, the Ministry of Finance will move its stakes in China Cinda Asset Management, China Great Wall Asset Management and China Orient Asset Management to Central Huijin Investment, said the people, asking not to be identified. China Investment Corp…

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Five TikTok users filed a lawsuit to overturn a planned ban on the video sharing app in Montana. They argued in a legal complaint filed late Wednesday in federal court in Missoula that the law is an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights. They also say the state doesn’t have authority over matters of national security. Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law Wednesday and said it would protect Montana residents’ private data and personal…

Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the U.S., has sued a Florida county school board over its decisions to ban and restrict access to books. Joining the lawsuit are five authors, two parents of students and the advocacy group PEN America. A new federal lawsuit alleges that recent decisions by officials in a Florida county to ban and restrict access to books in school libraries violates constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection under the law. Over the…

LONDON (AP) — Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that the German lender should have seen evidence of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein when he was a client, according to lawyers for women who say they were abused by the late financier. A woman only identified as Jane Doe sued the bank in federal district court in New York and sought class-action status to represent other victims of Epstein. The lawsuit asserted that…

LONDON – Governments are increasingly focusing on health risks fuelled by global warming, with most nations now considering concerns from malaria to heart disease in their climate plans, according to data shared exclusively by the World Health Organisation (WHO). More than 90 per cent of countries have included health hazards in their commitments to tackle climate change, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), up from 70 per cent in 2020, according to new WHO data set to be released in…

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has been kicked off a major Australian payments service and banned by big four bank Westpac, with customers suddenly unable to deposit or withdraw funds from the platform. Binance Australia – the local arm of the $6.7 billion crypto exchange Binance – told customers on Thursday afternoon they would no longer be able to deposit funds onto the exchange via PayID, a popular instant payment method. Withdrawal of Australian dollars to bank accounts has also…

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu accused the US of using the western media to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkiye. “The plan by the US intensifies actively. The reason of [the] Western media’s interference is the realization of the US’s plan,” Soylu told reporters. In the months leading up to the14 May elections, several US and European media outlets published stories describing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a “dictator and tyrant.” On 3 May,…

BENGALURU – Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay US$75 million (S$100.6 million) to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging the lender facilitated the late Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, The Wall Street Journal reported late on Wednesday, citing lawyers who sued the bank on behalf of alleged victims.

The suit was filed in 2022 in New York by an anonymous woman on behalf of herself and other accusers, alleging Deutsche Bank did business with Epstein for five years knowing he was engaged in sex-trafficking activity, the report said.

Deutsche Bank did not immediately reply to a Reuters’ request for comment. REUTERS

PARIS – A French appeals court on Wed nesday upheld a prison sentence of three years, including two suspended, against former president Nicolas Sarkozy for corruption and influence peddling. The court ruled he should serve one year in detention at home with an electronic bracelet and banned him from public office for three years. He had been found guilty over his attempts to secure favours from a judge in return for the promise of a plum retirement job in a case…

WASHINGTON —Indian authorities have arrested Vivek Raghuvanshi, a defense journalist and longtime correspondent for Defense News, and accused him of espionage, according to reports in the Indian press. Raghuvanshi’s arrest drew a condemnation from Sightline Media Group, the publisher of Defense News and Military Times. “We call for the immediate release of freelance reporter Vivek Raghuvanshi following his arrest in India,” said Mike Gruss, Sightline’s editor-in-chief. “Vivek has written about the Indian defense industry for Sightline publications for more than…

SAN FRANCISCO – Fallen US biotech star Elizabeth Holmes must begin serving prison time after a judge denied her latest request to remain free while appealing her fraud conviction. Holmes was sentenced to just over 11 years in prison for defrauding investors with her Silicon Valley start-up Theranos. She was scheduled to begin serving prison time on April 27, but her lawyers lodged a last-minute appeal on procedural issues after an earlier attempt was denied. US Judge Edward Davila on…

Iran Press TV Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has slammed French prosecutors for issuing an arrest warrant against him, saying he would appeal against the decision. Salameh made the remarks in a statement on Tuesday, after an international arrest warrant was issued earlier in the day following his failure to appear before French prosecutors to be questioned on corruption charges. Salameh denounced as “a violation of law” the arrest warrant, vowing to challenge it by filing an appeal. He…

President Joe Biden canceled his trips to Papua New Guinea and Australia next week to continue debt ceiling talks with congressional leaders that he held Tuesday at the White House. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the president would to return to Washington on Sunday, following the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, “in order to be back for meetings with congressional leaders to ensure that Congress takes action by the deadline to avert…

Natalia Arno, the U.S.-based chief of the Free Russia Foundation, says there are suspicions she may have been poisoned, “possibly by some nerve agent,” after falling ill during a recent trip to Europe, amid a report that at least two other Kremlin critics have experienced similar episodes since 2020. Arno, who previously kept silent about what she experienced during a trip to Prague in early May, wrote about the ordeal on Facebook on May 16 after the website Agentsvo published…

Canada must become the “best of friends” with South Korea, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told lawmakers in Seoul on Wednesday, as the two countries seek to counter China’s growing regional influence. Trudeau is on his first official visit to South Korea, where he will meet President Yoon Suk Yeol. “I’m here to tell you that it’s no longer enough to be friends. We need to be the best of friends,” Trudeau said during a speech to Seoul’s National Assembly. He…