For many years there have been anti-corruption protests worldwide and they have been led by the youth.

Over the years we have seen an increase in cross-border corruption due to the interconnectivity of governments, as well as projects such as the Pan-European Motorway Corridor, which connects Hungary and eastern Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Adriatic Sea.

Unfortunately, this is a continuing theme, but it continues to be important to highlight state corruption, as the citizens of the United States are entitled to believe that their tax dollars are being used appropriately, not being diverted to autocrats.  This article, from MSNBC, from Rachel Maddow, may be less objective, but there are many valid points.

Every few weeks we see simple corruption, which in this case included kickbacks as well as hiding the money using family members. What is frustrating is not that it exists but that simple systems, which I and other colleagues worldwide advocate for, do not exist in many US county governments to catch these activities before they get to the point where we have to use enforcement after the fact.

The National Law Review  has highlighted some important issues regarding Denmark’s approach to anti-corruption enforcement, as underscored by the OECD’s most recent report. This article reminds us that even with being perceived as having the best corruption systems internationally, as per Transparency International, Denmark must and should do better in its enforcement regime.

This article, in the Financial Times, reminds us of the very pragmatic way to try to address fraud in government. As has been mentioned previously, whistleblowing is very important in trying to find out about fraud, bribery and other bad behaviors in government.

One area that is important in the fight against corruption is positive engagement of the private sector in corruption prevention. The National Law Review, highlights France’s use of audits and internal compliance in businesses.

This article, in The New York Times, provides a good overview of the issues that Ukraine must seriously address, which might provide some optimism in the approach to weapons procurement.

This article, from the  Foundation for Defense of Democracies, reminds us that illicit and shadowy money funds not only are bad for our economies but are dangerous to our rule of law systems.

This article, from Novinite, highlights what the EU can do if they find that there is a delay in agreed upon anti-corruption reforms by a government. In this instance the government of Bulgaria received a formal letter specifying the amount that will not be paid unless the required condition concerning the Anti-Corruption Commission is met.

This article, in The Conversation, highlights the problems that we do see when trying to apply conventional approaches to anti-corruption.

This article from The Hill, highlights the importance of finances in addressing corruption. In the past, when Nelson Mandela first came into power, it was a symbol of hope and freedom South Africa but now it has become a permissive environment for an entire host of corrupt actions.

Slovakia seems to be the next country with corruption problems tied to the national Agricultural Payment Agency (PPA), an official body under the Ministry of Agriculture responsible for distributing payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which accounts for a third of the European Union budget.

Whistleblowing has been consistently encouraged by most governments worldwide, but in many instances, whistleblowers have found themselves in dreadful circumstances, where they find themselves ostracized, unemployed and in some instances, imprisoned.

It’s always reassuring to see bribery being punished, but cases such as these remind us that there are many forms of bribetaking that can occur, and though we mustn’t judge one form of bribery as worse that another, but this one is on its face appalling.

This week reminds us that corruption trials and enforcement of their rulings, of the most senior government officials in countries can occur, without too much fuss and bother, when there is a strong rule of law.

For the past two weeks there have been ongoing protests in Manila by citizens regarding flood control projects. What this corruption shows that yet again there is a point where people have had enough.

Albania now swears that its procurements will be corruption free because of its new AI minister. If only! Yet, what the Albanian government is doing today is taking AI in a new direction, in the important area of public procurement.

Again, anti-corruption norms are being blown apart.  The New York Times has reported on the case which had been dismissed by the US Department of Justice relating to potential bribery and other crimes by Tom Homan, the US border czar.

It’s only been 9 months since the Trump Administration came into power and  in that time it has normalized corruption.