The World Health Organization (WHO) has rejected accusations that it covered up a report critical of Italy’s COVID-19 response, despite warnings from one of the authors that burying it could cause a “scandal of huge proportion” that would damage the agency’s credibility.
Switzerland’s federal government has extended sanctions on Friday against Belarus by freezing assets and imposing a travel ban against its leader, Alexander Lukashenko, over his government’s oppressive crackdown following contested presidential elections.
An Interpol-led operation conducted throughout 32 countries and across four continents resulted in arrests of more than 200 people belonging to criminal networks involved in the smuggling of more than 3,500 people, most of whom were migrants.
Authorities in Malta seized on Sunday more than 600 kilograms of cocaine concealed among cooking oil containers in a shipment bound for nearby Libya, the largest such bust in Maltese history.
The United Kingdom’s most senior court has greenlit a £14 billion (US$18.5 billion) group legal action against credit provider Mastercard for allegedly overcharging more than 46 million people over a 15-year period.
Claimants from more than 125 countries will receive a further half a billion dollars from the United States government under an initiative to compensate victims of the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
The U.K. Labor party called for “urgent clarity” over the £470 million (US$624.35 million) it found to have been doled out by the government for ten COVID-19 contracts to companies that are either listed, or have a parent company, in a tax haven, it said in a Thursday press release.
Prosecutors in Lebanon have charged the country’s transitional leader and three former ministers with negligently causing the death of hundreds of people, as well as injury to thousands more, after a massive explosion rocked the capital of Beirut in August.
The United States on Wednesday sanctioned a number of corrupt actors and their networks across several countries in Africa and Asia, among them a key figure from a number of OCCRP’s investigations.
A journalist was killed on Thursday in the Afghan city of Jalalabad when two gunmen opened fire on her car as she made her morning commute.