Graft

In a new anti-corruption action that started with arrests on Wednesday, Croatian police and anti-corruption investigators have launched an investigation into associates of former Zagreb mayor Milan Bandic, including the director of Croatian Radiotelevision, HTV, Kazimir Bacic.

"There's been a considerable amount of graft and corruption in Greece, which is incredibly challenging to root out once it infects the culture.

A council of appeals court judges has indicted 15 employees of the KAT hospital in northern Athens, including surgeons and managerial staff, for the alleged systematic overpricing of bone grafts in the period from 2009 to 2011.

The suspects face charges of breach of duty that resulted in 150,000 euros' worth of losses to the state.

Scientists have grown a replacement, genetically modified skin to cover almost the entire body of a seven-year-old Syrian boy who was suffering from a devastating genetic disorder.

Romania's parliament is to discuss the proposed legislative changes before the end of April, amid claims that members of the ruling Social Democratic Party are still pushing for the pardoning of people convicted of graft despite huge public opposition.

Prosecutors from Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate on Tuesday arrested the head of the Permanent Electoral Authority, AEP, Ana Maria Patru, and charged her with influence peddling and money laundering.

Patru, 40, faces three accounts of influence peddling and two accounts of money laundering committed between 2007 and 2015.

Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors on Sunday morning detained Oprescu on suspicion that he took bribes of around 25,000 euro from several companies in exchange for getting them public contracts with the city hall.

They charged him as part of an organised group within the public administration that asked firms to kick back to 70 per cent of their profits from their work.

China's top graft-busting agency has lambasted the country's powerful state-owned industries as being riddled with corruption and nepotism, saying the origins of the problem could partly be traced back to the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. 

"I have submitted my resignation to protect my honour. Otherwise, I know I am not guilty of anything, and in the end this has to be proved," Dragnea said on Saturday.

He added he would also step down as the executive chairman of the ruling Social Democratic Party, PSD.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Wednesday announced plans to launch new legislation to make the confiscation of assets obtained through corruption easier - part of Romania's ongoing efforts to tackle high-level graft.