Nationwide protests bring thousands to Russia's streets

Russia's opposition, often written off by critics as a small and irrelevant coterie of privileged urbanites, put on an impressive nationwide show of strength Sunday with dozens of protest across the vast country. Hundreds were arrested, including Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic.

It was the biggest show of defiance since a 2011-2012 wave of demonstrations rattled the Kremlin and led to harsh new laws aimed at suppressing dissent. Almost all of Sunday's rallies were unsanctioned, but thousands braved the prospect of arrest to gather in cities from the Far East port of Vladivostok to the "window on the West" of St. Petersburg.

Ex-Hong Kong leader gets 20 months in jail for misconduct

A former leader of Hong Kong was sentenced Wednesday to 20 months in prison for misconduct after failing to disclose plans to rent a luxury apartment for his retirement from a businessman applying for a broadcasting license.

It was a stunning downfall for Donald Tsang, 72, who served as Hong Kong's leader, or chief executive, from 2005 to 2012.

Romania leader: govt won't resign in face of mass protests

The leader of Romania's ruling center-left coalition says the government won't resign following the biggest demonstrations since the end of communism against a measure that would ease up on corruption.

Social Democratic chairman Liviu Dragnea emerged from a meeting with governing partners Monday saying that "we unreservedly expressed our support for the government ... and the prime minister."

CBI arrests former IAF chief S.P. Tyagi

The CBI on Friday arrested former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief S.P. Tyagi on charges of corruption in its ongoing probe into the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal.

S.P. Tyagi was taken into custody from Delhi along with his cousin Sanjeev Tyagi alias Julie Tyagi and a Delhi-based lawyer, Gautam Khaitan.

India struggles as millions throng banks to swap currency

India's government said Tuesday it will use indelible ink to mark the fingers of people swapping scrapped currency notes at banks as authorities struggle to deal with the bedlam caused by the sudden demonetizing of the country's highest-denomination bills.

India scraps high currency notes overnight to fight graft

India scrapped its highest-denomination currency notes overnight, delivering a blow to black-market money launderers but plunging hundreds of millions of common citizens holding cash savings into fear and uncertainty.

Within hours of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing the surprise move in a televised address, people thronged to ATMs, standing in long lines in hopes of grabbing bills that might still be in circulation on Wednesday.

Brazil's Senate impeaches president Rousseff; trial ahead

Brazil's Senate voted Thursday to impeach President Dilma Rousseff after a months-long fight that laid bare the country's fury over corruption and economic decay, hurling Latin America's largest country into political turmoil just months before it hosts the Summer Olympics.

Rousseff's enraged backers called the move a coup d'etat and threatened wide-scale protests and strikes. Her foes, meanwhile, insisted that she had broken the law, and that the country's deep political, social and economic woes could only be tackled without her.

China's anti-graft body investigates statistics bureau chief

The head of the bureau that gathers China's economic data is under investigation by the anti-graft agency in a possible expansion of an anticorruption campaign that has shaken state companies and securities firms.

Wang Bao'an, chairman of the National Bureau of Statistics and a former deputy finance minister, is suspected of "severe disciplinary violations," the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement Tuesday. It gave no details.