Switzerland needs to do more to protect whistleblowers, prosecute companies and apply tougher sanctions, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has said, following the publication of an anti-bribery report in the Alpine nation.

Increases in private military and security companies have contributed to corruption and human rights violations in Latin America, according to new research by Inter-American Dialogue. The report indicates that for the region’s wealthy, security can be bought and these units can go unchecked.

A Slovak Justice Secretary and judge allegedly accepted a bribe from an organized crime group to extort the owners of a bar establishment in Western Slovakia, the Slovak Spectator reported Tuesday.

The son of Angola’s ex-president has been accused of attempting to defraud US $500 million from the oil-rich nation’s sovereign wealth fund.

The more than a half a century-old popular Miss Venezuela contest may not be held this year – or ever again – pending an investigation into clams that some previous contestants had sponsors who paid for their plastic surgeries, clothes and beauty treatments, sometimes in return for sexual favors.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was indicted in Milan on Monday of allegedly paying witnesses to lie in front of judges during his sex-for-hire trial, according to the Associated Press.

A Brazilian appeals court on Monday rejected the objections of lawyers for former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on his corruption conviction, increasing his chances of going to prison, Reuters reports.

By Haroon Janjua

Pakistani authorities banned on Monday the country’s newly appointed ambassador to the US from traveling abroad after investigators accused him of having embezzled millions of dollars in public funds.

The United Kingdom will recover US$ 6.2 million lost in a corruption case stemming from a Canadian energy company bribing Chadian officials in both the United States and Canada, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced on Thursday.

Zimbabwe is investigating its extravagant former first lady’s alleged ties to an ivory poaching and smuggling syndicate after a wildlife photographer discovered links to Grace Mugabe’s friends, Al Jazeera reported Saturday.