KUALA LUMPUR Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) on Sunday denied reports that it had provided funds to finance the 2013 Hollywood film The Wolf of Wall Street. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that global investigators believe m... More »
NEW YORK A consultant to Iran’s mission to the United Nations has been criminally charged with violating a U.S. law against dealing with that country, according to an indictment made public on Wednesday. Ahmad Sheikhzadeh, 60, faces seven charges including con... More »
SÃO PAULO If any symbol captures the anger of rich and upper-middle class Brazilians who have taken to the streets to protest against President Dilma Rousseff, it might be a giant, inflatable yellow duck. The 40-foot (12-meter) high duck presides over Sao Paul... More »
SAO PAULO/BRASILIA Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians flooded the streets on Sunday in the biggest ever protests calling for President Dilma Rousseff’s removal, reflecting rising popular anger that could encourage Congress to impeach the leftist leader. The d... More »
NAIROBI The Kenyan athletes’ representative, Noah Ngeny, has quit his post, saying that the country’s sporting authorities were not doing enough to tackle a doping crisis. Kenya is a global leader in endurance running, both on the track and in city marathons b... More »
ZURICH Authorities searched the offices of France’s soccer federation and seized documents in support of a Swiss investigation into former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said on Wednesday. The operation, carried... More »
ZURICH Gianni Infantino opened FIFA’s new museum in his first official act as president of soccer’s governing body on Sunday and said that implementing the wide-ranging reforms passed on Friday would be his immediate priority. The 45-year-old Swiss, previously... More »
ZURICH Gianni Infantino will mark his first working day as president of soccer’s governing body on Monday by playing in a soccer match with Swiss-based FIFA employees battered for months by an unfolding corruption scandal. The match symbolizes a return to the ... More »
BANGKOK Sitting in her busy Bangkok noodle shop, Bunruen Klinnak professes “love” for Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 military coup and later fled abroad. But Klinnak, 55, also fears Thaksin’s return to politics c... More »
ZURICH British Member of Parliament Damian Collins used parliamentary privilege on Tuesday to accuse FIFA presidential candidate Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of taking development project funds to finance an election bid. The claims, made in a speech i... More »
LA PAZ Bolivian President Evo Morales has lost a referendum on whether he could change the constitution to remain in power for a fourth term, the electoral commission confirmed late Tuesday. Morales, who is currently on his third term and became Bolivia’s firs... More »
GUATEMALA CITY An audit by a committee appointed by FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, has concluded that broadcasting contracts between Guatemala’s soccer federation and Mexican media magnate Angel Gonzalez were awarded below market value, say sources with... More »
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina Athletics’ crisis-hit governing body needs to be completely restructured, but IAAF president Sebastian Coe should be given the chance to lead the reforms, former world hurdles champion David Oliver has told Reuters. “It (the IAAF)... More »
MELBOURNE Tennis officials on Wednesday launched an independent review into their anti-corruption practices after allegations the sport’s watchdog had not done enough to stamp out possible corruption in the game. The announcement at the Australian Open came in... More »
MELBOURNE Former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic has demanded proof of the match-fixing allegations that have rocked the Australian Open, saying tennis players were being hounded as if “serial killers”. Tennis officials have been forced onto the back foot ... More »
LONDON Ukraine must show resolve in tackling “brutal” corruption by prosecuting high-level officials or face widespread disappointment at home and among foreign institutions, the head of its internationally-funded anti-graft ombudsman said. Former Lithuanian f... More »
MELBOURNE Young tennis players need to be educated about the implications of match-fixing and the sport needs to be more proactive in talking about the issue, world number two Andy Murray said on Tuesday. The start of the Australian Open has been overshadowed ... More »
FORT LAUDERDALE/NEW YORK/SEATTLE/VANCOUVERU.S. and Canadian officials have pledged to work with China to track down and repatriate Chinese fugitives living abroad. But that cooperation is proving to have clear limits. So far, only one person on China’s Operati... More »
BRASILIA Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s key ally in Congress is certain it can head off an impeachment threat, but in return the party demands a radical change of policy course to pull the economy out of its deepest downturn in 25 years. Senator Eunicio ... More »
BANGKOK Thai police on Monday said they will charge 11 activists who tried to stage a protest over suspected corruption in an army-built park with illegal assembly as allegations of irregularities in the park’s funding persist. Dozens of students activists wer... More »
Two men including an oil equipment supply firm executive have been arrested on charges related to an alleged scheme to corruptly secure energy contracts from Venezuela’s state-owned energy company, the U.S. Justice Department said Sunday. Roberto Rincon, the p... More »
ZURICH The Swiss Justice Ministry said it had frozen millions of Swiss francs related to world soccer body FIFA, a spokesman said on Thursday, confirming a media report. “U.S. authorities asked for documents related to 50 accounts at different banks, through w... More »
SAN SALVADOR El Salvador’s former soccer federation president, Reynaldo Vasquez, who is wanted in the United States in connection with a probe targeting alleged corruption in the sport, has been detained, police said on Wednesday. Earlier this month El Salvado... More »
CARACAS Venezuela’s opposition trounced the ruling Socialists on Sunday to win the legislature for the first time in 16 years and gain a long-sought platform to challenge President Nicolas Maduro’s rule of the OPEC nation. The opposition Democratic Unity coali... More »
BANGKOK Thailand’s army detained two leaders of an opposition group on Monday who were planning to visit a public park dedicated to the monarchy that has been at the center of a corruption scandal involving the military government. The allegations relating to ... More »
BERLIN Hamburg’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics collapsed on Sunday after the majority of the city’s residents voted against the multi-billion euro project in a referendum, killing off the candidacy and leaving officials in shock. Hamburg’s withdrawal reshuffle... More »
SAO PAULO The reliance of Brazil’s Grupo BTG Pactual SA on market funding may pose an immediate challenge for new boss Persio Arida, who sought to calm clients on Friday after its shares fell for a third straight day. The São Paulo-based investment bank tapped... More »
SAO PAULO Clients stepped up withdrawals from Grupo BTG Pactual SA’s money management unit on Thursday, according to a source with knowledge of the bank’s strategy, as Latin America’s largest independent investment bank tries to contain fallout from the arrest... More »
DAR ES SALAAM Tanzanian officials will not be allowed to send out the usual government printed Christmas and New Year cards this year as part of belt-tightening measures by the new president. John Magufuli has implemented a series of austerity steps since bein... More »
YANGON Hopes faded on Monday that any of 100 people still missing would be found alive two days after a landslide near a jade mine in northern Myanmar smashed into a makeshift settlement, burying mine workers as they slept. Rescue workers had recovered 104 bod... More »
LONDON Britain’s “woefully inadequate” anti-money laundering system has left the country wide open to corrupt money and terrorism funds and needs radical overhaul, a leading anti-corruption group said on Monday. Each year billions of pounds of dirty money flow... More »
NEW ORLEANS Democrat John Bel Edwards won election on Saturday as the next governor of Louisiana, staking a rare victory for his party in the conservative U.S. South, daily newspaper The Advocate and WWL-TV projected. Edwards, a 49-year-old state legislator, d... More »
SINGAPORE The co-founder of a Singapore church and five other leaders were sentenced to jail terms of up to eight years on Friday, for fraudulently diverting millions of dollars to support his wife’s pop singing career. The mix of faith and fraud has fascinate... More »
SYDNEY The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) could face recommendations that include suspension from the Olympics when the second part of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) report is released, according to one of the doping body’s in... More »
NEW DELHIIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet leaders of his party on Monday to discuss whether to overhaul policies and priorities in the wake of a humiliating defeat in elections in the eastern state of Bihar. Modi was due to huddle with a dozen sen... More »
BANGKOKA Thai fortune teller arrested as part of a high-profile royal insult investigation has died, the government said on Monday, the second suspect in as many weeks to die in police custody. Suriyan Sucharitpolwong, a well-known soothsayer and former aide t... More »
LONDONA report by the World Anti-Doping Agency on Monday is set to deepen an athletics scandal that, according to one of the document’s authors, eclipses even the alleged corruption at soccer’s governing body FIFA. According to leaks to a French investigative ... More »
NEW YORK The former leaders of New York’s two legislative chambers face simultaneous public corruption trials this month in a Manhattan federal courthouse, shining a spotlight on the sordid side of state politics. Former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon... More »
GUATEMALA CITY Jimmy Morales, a former TV comedian who has never held office, swept to power in Guatemala’s presidential election on Sunday after milking public anger over a corruption scandal that deepened distrust of the country’s political establishment. Th... More »
MILWAUKEE Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker on Friday signed a bill into law that prohibits prosecutors from using the state’s secret investigation law to probe political crimes – a measure used to convict four of his aides and investigate his campaig... More »
A federal probe into allegations of corruption at Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s (WMT.N) operations in Mexico have found very little, and is likely to result in a much smaller case than investors expected, The Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with th... More »
KUALA LUMPUR Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and some leaders of the ruling party jointly demanded resolution of the 1MDB state fund scandal on Monday and condemned a crackdown on dissent, signaling a divide within the coalition. Mahathir has ... More »
HONG KONG Hong Kong’s former leader, Donald Tsang, was charged on Monday with two counts of misconduct in public office, the latest in a string of scandals that have ensnared senior business and former political figures in the financial hub. Tsang, 70, retired... More »
ATHENS Greek Prime Minister-elect Alexis Tsipras has reaffirmed his dominance on the political landscape, but now faces the daunting task of building consensus in a fractious society traumatized by years of austerity, local media said on Monday. On the morning... More »
GUATEMALA CITY Guatemala looked bound for a presidential election run-off as results showed the three leading candidates splitting the vote on Sunday, prolonging political uncertainty just days after a graft scandal toppled the president. Otto Perez resigned a... More »
GUATEMALA CITY Guatemalan Finance Minister Dorval Carias resigned on Monday amid a deepening corruption scandal that has also featured calls for the impeachment of President Otto Perez. A statement released by Carias’ office did not give a reason for his decis... More »
NORRISTOWN, Pa. Pennsylvania’s attorney general, accused of illegally leaking grand jury information to embarrass a political foe and then lying about it, was ordered on Monday to stand trial on perjury, obstruction of justice and other corruption charges. Cap... More »
WASHINGTON Lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department on Monday filed a stinging rebuke to U.S. Senator Robert Menendez’s bid to have political corruption charges against him dismissed. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Rel... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday temporarily allowed former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell to remain out of prison as he fights his corruption conviction. In a brief order, Roberts said an appeals court ruling rejecting McDonnell’s bid ... More »
SEOUL His father was afraid to fly, but North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has taken to the skies, building a series of small runways long enough to land light, private aircraft next to some of his palaces, satellite imagery shows. Construction on Kim’s personal ... More »
KUALA LUMPUR A Malaysian opposition party on Wednesday filed a civil suit against Prime Minister Najib Razak and indebted state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), saying they had violated electoral rules and a new election should be held. 1MDB, whose ad... More »
SEOUL South Korea’s Chung Mong-joon will formally launch his bid to become president of world soccer’s scandal-hit governing body FIFA on Aug. 17 in France, the home of rival Michel Platini. Chung, a former FIFA vice president and fierce critic of outgoing pre... More »
KUALA LUMPUR FIFA President Sepp Blatter was relieved of his International Olympic Committee ex officio membership on Monday, seven months before he will be replaced as the head of soccer’s governing body, IOC President Thomas Bach said on Monday. Blatter woul... More »
KUALA LUMPUR As the candidates hoping to succeed FIFA’s outgoing president Sepp Blatter continue to lobby for support, the political kingmaker who could have a big influence on who gets the job says world soccer has more to worry about than picking its next bo... More »
SEOUL South Korean tycoon Chung Mong-joon, one of the most influential figures in Asian soccer, said on Tuesday that leaving Sepp Blatter at the helm of FIFA until a new president is elected shows those in power at the scandal-hit governing body “have yet to c... More »
SALT LAKE CITY Former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of public corruption, his lawyer said, in a scandal that embroiled him and his successor in a wide-ranging criminal investigation. Shurtleff could face up to 30 ... More »
