A prominent and outspoken Russian human rights activist has been arrested, with prosecutors indicting him on charges of discrediting the country’s armed forces, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Monday.

Four miners of a gold mine in Yanomami Indigenous land in Brazil died in a clash with officials from the country's environmental agency, Ibama, and the Federal Highway Police (PRF), who came to inspect the illegal mine.

Auditors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have uncovered a massive public payroll fraud, involving tens of thousands of ghost workers across government ministries, costing the public purse over US$800 million annually, according to a statement from the General Inspectorate of Finance.

 The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a global press freedom watchdog, urged Turkey to halt the persecution of journalists and media workers and to release those detained for carrying out their work.

U.K. water treatment company, Anglian Water, pleaded guilty on Friday to allowing untreated sewage to overflow into the North Sea and was fined 2.65 million pounds (US$3.31 million).

Iranian officials and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei enriched themselves through international aid intended to support Iran's COVID-19 response, according to a report by anti-corruption research service UNISHKA.

A former Colombian military intelligence official has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for his involvement in a transnational drug trafficking ring that managed shipments as large as 10,000 kilograms.

After Mexico seized nearly nine tonnes of liquid methamphetamine hidden in tequila bottles this week, Brazil has now caught a French national smuggling eight kilograms of cocaine hidden in chocolate candies at Rio de Janeiro International Airport.

A court in the United Kingdom has found four additional members of an organized crime network guilty of transporting large amounts of cash in suitcases from the U.K. to Dubai. The group laundered over 104 million pounds (US$130.65 million) in just a year.

Russia’s lawmakers further tightened the country’s Criminal Code, introducing even harsher punishments for the remaining Kremlin critics who have either not managed or not wanted to leave the country after it slid further into an autocracy following the invasion of Ukraine in February last year.