A New York Times investigation into Wal-Mart has revealed that top Wal-Mart executives may be focusing more on damage control when they should be rooting out wrongdoing.

"In 2005, after a senior Wal-Mart lawyer learned that the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico, had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance, Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery." A lead investigator wrote of the findings: “There is reasonable suspicion to believe that Mexican and USA laws have been violated.” However, Wal-Mart's leaders shut-down the investigation. And only ...

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In a special report from Reuters it has been found that at least two countries offer what is known as citizenship by investment, burgeoning programs that bestow on foreigners the benefits of being a citizen - namely, a passport - for a price. The main appeal for the wealthy, escaping taxes.

"A flurry of freedom of information laws adopted over the past decade has given more than 5.3 billion people worldwide the right, on paper, to know what their governments are doing behind closed doors.

However, The Associated Press found in the first worldwide test of this promised freedom of information, that more than half the countries with right-to-know laws do not follow them."

“The Sept. 11 attacks prompted almost every nation to adopt or toughen anti-terror laws. Until now, no one followed up to see who was impacted. In an unprecedented 9-month investigation, journalists in more than 100 countries found that at least 35,000 people have been convicted on terror charges since 2001, from bombers to bloggers.AP National Writer Martha Mendoza, aided by colleagues on six continents, reported the story beyond the numbers, how the war against terror is shifting to courts, and how some countries misuse their laws to curb dissent.“

Seventeen students from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University traveled “to the Dominican Republic to investigate how immigration and border policies are affecting the country’s large Haitian population.” The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting recently published several reports on what the students found:

“Whitney Phillips examined how the Dominican Republic “has re-written its Constitution, re-interpreted old laws and passed new ones” to deny Haitians birthright citizenship (en Español), Lauren Gilger told the story of pregnant Haitian women crossing over the border to give birth, and Serena Del Mundo described how the ...

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"Thousands of Iranians took to the streets in 2009 as part of the Green Movement to protest a disputed presidential election. The government crackdown that followed included some women being imprisoned, tortured and raped. This report shares some of their stories." Jeffrey Brown with The Center for Investigative Reporting and PBS NewsHour reports on the aftermath of the Iranian protests, with startling accounts from the women on the front line.

After PRI's Ike Sriskandarajah found lion meat on the shelf at his neighborhood butcher and followed the trail to a dark corner of the exotic meat trade. Follow his investigation from his local butcher shop, to the harsh realities of "exotic mean with transcripts and the use of Document Cloud. Find out how "no federal agency regulates raising or killing lions for food; that the exotic animal trade is murky and somewhat illegal; and how we can eat almost anything."

Haiti Grassroots Watch - a collaborative journalism watchdog organization - is reporting on the recovery in Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake. "The effort focuses on 'watchdogging' the aid and reconstruction from the point of view of Haiti's majority, at the same time as it also provides historical and political context, examines structural causes and challenges, and seeks out Haitian academics, technicians and specialists who will add their voices to the voices of the Haitian people and their associations and organizations."

A six-month Associated Press investigation uncovered massive problems with a popular State Department program designed to foster cultural understanding. Reporters Bert Mohr, Mitch Weiss and Mike Baker found that foreign students pay recruiters thousands to help find employment, then don't get work or wind up making little or no money at menial jobs. Labor recruiters charge students exorbitant rent for packing them into filthy, sparsely furnished apartments. Other students are forced to work in strip clubs. The reporters discovered that the State Department has known about the problems for years but had done little to help. The investigation was ... Read more ...