AMSTERDAM - Transparency activists from 60 nations attending a conference in Amsterdam called on the European Union to pass a strong oil and mining transparency law that will help millions fight corruption, ahead of a key vote by the EU Parliament’s legal affairs committee, Open Society reports on its website. “Our message is clear: only a rule with no loopholes and genuine disclosure for each and every extractive project will put the right information into the hands of those that really need it,” said Publish What You Pay International Director Marinke van Riet.
MONTREAL - The judge in charge of a Quebec corruption inquiry warned that naming witnesses set to testify at public hearings risks putting those peoples’ lives in danger, The Toronto Star reports. “We can’t let the security of the witnesses be in peril,” said Justice France Charbonneau. She was referring to reports that retired FBI agent Joseph Pistone would present evidence at a landmark inquiry into corruption and collusion in the Quebec construction industry.
DETROIT - The city of Detroit is preparing for what could be the highest-profile public corruption trial in its history. Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick faces federal charges that he used city government to operate a widespread criminal enterprise, National Public Radio reports on its website. In 2010 Kilpatrick and three others were indicted on 38 federal counts including racketeering, bribery and tax evasion. U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said that Kilpatrick ran city government like an organized crime family, shaking down city contractors for bribes.
SYDNEY – Australia’s Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, his former deputy and the whistleblower who exposed alleged corruption inside the Reserve's subsidiaries will all be called to testify about the scandal before Federal Parliament, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. In a development that will intensify pressure on Stevens, a joint parliamentary committee intends to grill the governor, his former deputy Ric Battellino and Brian Hood, the former RBA banknote executive turned police witness.
HONG KONG - Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau’s bribery and money-laundering trial in Macau was delayed until January with the presiding judge having fallen ill, Bloomberg News reports. Lau and seven other men were scheduled to go on trial today in relation to a 2006 land purchase by his developer. Lau has denied allegations he or his company may have bribed Macau’s former secretary of transportation and public works Ao Man-long to secure the land purchase.
SEOUL - Prosecutors said Monday they will launch an investigation into allegations two former South Korean lawmakers, including a key member of ruling party presidential candidate Park Geun-hye's primary campaign team, took tens of millions of won in illegal political funds and bribes ahead of April's parliamentary elections, the Korea Times reports. Former Rep. Hong Sa-duk of the ruling Saenuri Party is accused of receiving a total of 60 million won (US$53,690) in illegal political funds from a businessman between last autumn and March of this year, according to the country's election watchdog, which reported the case to the prosecution earlier in the day.
NEW DELHI - His business rivals never fully understood how Manoj Jayaswal got so rich so fast, except that he often seemed joined at the hip with powerful politicians. He hosted them at lavish parties, entertained them at his daughter’s opulent Thai wedding and stood among them at India’s presidential palace, The New York Times reports of the businessman who is now embroiled in a $34 billion coal mining scandal dubbed Coalgate.
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