BRIBERY & CORRUPTION

Convicted hedge fund swindler Bernard Madoff gave an interview to New York Magazine, in which he discussed a number of subjects, including government regulatory reform, prison life and his family. Here are some choice quotes from the interview:

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, mired in a prostitution scandal, faces a tax fraud trial on Monday, the first of four court cases that will bring his legal woes back into the spotlight over coming months.

Mark Ciavarella, the former Pennsylvania judge who was convicted of racketeering and tax fraud last Friday, has been called a 'scumbag' by a grieving mother whose son committed suicide last year.

New York's elected judges will be barred from presiding over a case if the lawyer, plaintiff or defendant in that case has made any contribution of $2,500 or more in the judge's judicial election campaign during the two years prior to the trial, the state's top judge said.

The trial of Mark Ciavarella, a former Pennsylvania judge who has been charged with racketeering, fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery and federal tax violations, drew to a close on Friday with the jury returning a guilty verdict.

The jury deliberations in the trial of Mark Ciavarella, a former Pennsylvania judge who has been charged with racketeering, fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery and federal tax violations, will resume on Friday.

An Egyptian prosecutor has ordered the arrest of three former government ministers and a prominent businessman on suspicion they wasted public funds, in a bid to appease the outrage of ordinary Egyptians over corruption in Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

Iraqi authorities have arrested a high-ranking police official in connection with the purchase of a bomb detector that the British government says does not work, officials said on Thursday.

The fate of Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., a former Pennsylvania judge who has been charged with racketeering, fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery and federal tax violations, lies in the hands of the 12-member jury, who began their deliberations Wednesday.

The Kids for Cash trial resumed this week with former Pennsylvania Judge mark Ciavarella's attorneys trying to undermine the credibility of the prosecution witnesses and the accused vehemently claiming that though he has committed tax fraud, he never extorted money from others or took bribe in return for sending juveniles to a private detention center.

U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp. said it will challenge the ruling of an Ecuadorean judge who has ordered it to pay a record $9.5 billion fine after holding it responsible for polluting a wide swath of Amazon rainforest in Ecuador from 1972 to 1992 while it operated in a consortium with state-run Petroecuador.

They had to know, said the jailed former fund manager Bernie Madoff, referring to bankers and investors who should have been able to uncover his Ponzi scheme.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday questioned a top executive of Unitech Ltd as part of a probe into a telecoms corruption scandal that has roiled politics and spooked investors in Asia's third-largest economy.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is under severe pressure, his administration derailed from its legislative agenda by a series of corruption scandals that have come to dominate politics.

The trial of Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., a former Pennsylvania judge who has been charged with honest services fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion in connection with receiving $2.6 million in kickbacks from a private juvenile jail facility, resumes today and is grabbing national attention as the case highlights the dangerous gap in the juvenile justice systems of many states - children appearing in court without lawyers.

Liu Zhijun, China's Minister of Railways, has been placed under investigation for serious disciplinary violations, according to the state-controlled Xinhua news agency

Hong Kong's securities regulator said it has started court proceedings against the chief executive of China Forestry Holdings Co Ltd, which is backed by the Carlyle Group.

Hong Kong's securities regulator is seeking to freeze the assets of the chief executive officer of China Forestry Holdings Co Ltd , which is being investigated for accounting irregularities, a court document showed.

India is probing two new cases involving the allocation of telecoms spectrum, increasing the pressure on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government already hit by a telecoms graft scandal, local media reported on Tuesday.

India's former Telecom Minister Andimuthu Raja, his personal secretary RK Chandolia and former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura have been arrested by India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over his alleged manipulation while allocating the second-generation telecom (2G) spectrum licenses in 2007 and 2008.

Top executives at JP Morgan Chase & Co. knew about the massive Ponzi scam of the bank's client Bernard Madoff much before it became public but turned a blind eye to it, hoping to protect the bank's interests, according to a $6.4 billion lawsuit filed by a court-appointed trustee seeking to recover money for former Madoff clients.