Panama not alone in corruption probes

AS PANAMA  prosecutors continue their struggle to cope with a seemingly endless stream of corruption probes linked to the previous administration, Odebrecht, The Panama Papers  and  ex- president Ricardo Martinelli and his sons,  Transparency International (TI) reports shows the country is  not alone, although with its small population it is a front runner in the malfeasance stakes.

This week saw cases of grand corruption from the trial in France of Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang to the widening corruption probe into the French assets of the ruling families of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, to Colombia’s top anti-corruption official being arrested over a bribery scheme, to the first-ever corruption charge against a sitting head of state in Brazil says  TI.

Brazilian President Michel Temer has been formally charged with corruption, accused of accepting bribes. Now Brazil’s lower congressional house must decide whether to refer the case to the supreme court. If they do so, it would result in Temer being suspended from office before facing trial.

Temer has been on thin ice since secret recordings emerged in May that seemed to indicate he tried to obstruct the long-running Operation Car Wash

Soccer scandals
FIFA: reported June 28,  that Prince William and former British prime minister David Cameron attended a meeting in which a vote-trading deal for the right to host the 2018 football World Cup was discussed. according to an official FIFA report.

The Sydney Morning Herald  revealed June 29  that Swiss prosecutors have examined multimillion-dollar Australian taxpayer-funded payments to controversial lobbyists hired at the behest of billionaire Frank Lowy to help Australia win the right to host the 2022 World Cup.