In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Corruption Watch, South Africa’s Transparency International’s chapter, issued its 2019 annual report on Tuesday, warning that many lives will be lost in the country now, “as a direct consequence of corruption.”

US President Donald Trump signed a $US 2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill last week, but not without also issuing a “Signing Statement”, an official proclamation, asserting that he would not,  as the bill stipulates, let an independent inspector general oversee who his administration funds.

A musician in jail on flawed evidence. A journalist arrested for reporting on poor conditions in a local medical center. Hundreds of ordinary citizens charged for breaking arbitrarily enforced isolation measures.

President Ilir Meta has sent an anti-corruption law back to the Albanian parliament for reconsideration, saying the proposed version violates human rights and goes beyond the constitutional powers of the government, Tirana Times reported on Monday.

An information operations group charged the US more than US$120 million to produce pro-US TV and radio ads in Afghanistan and then never broadcasted any, claims a recently unsealed lawsuit.

Czech authorities have confiscated hundreds of thousands of masks and respirators that were supposed to be sold to the Czech Republic at more than double their market price, according to the online daily Aktuálně.

Ukrainian authorities are investigating an Ukranian lawmaker who posted videos that appear to be showing the brother of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff discussing bribes in return for appointments at various government positions, the Kyiv Post reported on Tuesday. 

The Hungarian parliament approved on Monday a law expanding the power of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and allowing him to take extraordinary measures on the grounds of combatting the coronavirus pandemic.

Authorities in Mexico have reportedly arrested a former public official accused of embezzling more than US$1 million from the country’s corruption-riddled state-owned oil company.

The United States Department of Justice issued injunctions on Friday barring two telecom carriers from facilitating robocalls that led to people paying millions to fraudsters for solving made-up legal predicaments.