Russia threatens retaliation after Britain expels 23 diplomats

Britain is braced for retaliation from Moscow after Theresa May blamed the Russian state for the Salisbury poisoning, and announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats and a crackdown on “corrupt elites”.

The prime minister told the House of Commons the Kremlin had responded with “sarcasm, contempt and defiance” to the 24-hour deadline the government set on Monday for explaining the attack on former spy Sergei Skripal.

Company Retaliation Against Whistleblowers Rises To All-Time High, Survey Finds

Even though more workers are witnessing violations of company rules, they're feeling pressure not to say anything.

Nearly half of workers witnessed a violation of the law or their company's ethics policy, according to the 2011 National Business Ethics Survey. Though 65 percent of workers who saw a violation reported it -- an all-time high -- retaliation against whistle blowers rose to a high as well: More than a fifth of employees who reported a violation said they experienced some kind of retaliation.

The survey's findings indicate that even in the aftermath of the financial meltdown, which many blame at least in part on a crisis of ethics, corporations are still fostering an environment conducive to rule-breaking. That could be because firms aren't getting punished for ethical violations; prosecution for certain financial crimes is at a 20-year low, according to a November report from a watchdog group.

Ethical violations may also be up because workers fear the consequences of reporting them. Michael Woodford, the ex-CEO of Olympus was fired after he called attention to excessive spending that turned out to be part the camera giant's accounting cover-up. Two auditors at Boeing were sacked after they told a Seattle newspaper about worries over internal controls at the company -- a concern they allegedly brought up 27 times before going public.