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McDonnell walks. Reforms needed

The Justice Department on September 8 announced that it is dropping its corruption case against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen. Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court decided to throw out McDonnell’s conviction on the grounds that jurors had been provided an erroneous definition of “official act.” The Court’s unanimous decision […]

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Why open data can stop corruption

There has been a big push in recent years to make government data open so citizens know where their tax money is spent– from snow collection in Chicago and broken street lights in Tbilisi, to what public officials declare about their assets in Mexico and their lobbying meetings with companies in the EU. While data […]

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Give us our daily scandal

When Transparency International announces the results of the Corruption Perceptions Index in December and Italy performs badly again, there will always be at least one commentator who feigns surprise. How could it happen? Italy has the same score as Bulgaria and Senegal again? The index must be wrong.’ The writer unquestionably accepts the scores for […]

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Europe, Central Asia and the state of corruption in 2014: the gold standard?

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that out of 175 countries in the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index, the once great economic hope of many – Turkey – suffered one of the biggest drops in score (down five points to 45 out of 100 on a scale where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 very […]

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Corruption and banking: forex heralds an important change in rhetoric

This week’s announcement about the rigging of the foreign exchange markets marks one significant change: at last, the media and the Chancellor are using the word corruption to describe this behaviour. Today we take tough action to clean up corruption.” – UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne Since the financial crisis started in 2008, banks have been fined […]

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Vicious cycle of money, power and influence leaves the rest of us behind

We live in a world where 1 billion people live in extreme poverty, with less than US$1.25/day. This is the same world where the market for super yachts is booming. The 85 richest people in the world have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion. The gulf between the haves and the have nots […]

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Slovenia: ‘Women’s voices must be louder’

Saturday 8 March is International Women’s Day, and to mark the occasion we’re celebrating women corruption fighters across the world! All this week we’ll be interviewing some of the many remarkable women who fight corruption in our movement, and on Friday we’ll be profiling the women who spur YOU on to stand up against injustice. […]

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Truthful asset declaration a vital corruption-fighting tool

Many Zimbabweans feel that the lack of political will to enforce asset disclosure laws is aiding impunity by top level public officials in the fight against corruption, says a recent mini survey conducted by Transparency International Zimbabwe. This mini survey was prompted by the ongoing discussion and growing demand for public officials to declare their […]

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Parliamentarians at the IACC? What are you doing here?

This text was originally published in the 15th IACC blog and is authored by Vicki Baxter Amade,  GOPAC’s Global Task Force Advisor for the Participation of Society.   In November 2012, the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC) led its first formal delegation to the IACC, with a panel workshop about the role of parliamentarians and GOPAC speakers […]

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Rio+20: Hope for the anti-corruption community

Money laundering, bribery, embezzlement, cronyism; corruption has many guises and is endlessly creative. Its main fuel is a failure to acknowledge or act upon its existence. Last month’s Rio+20 conference on sustainable development dodged that fate. Sustainable development is about ensuring that economic growth can happen globally, but evenly and not at the expense of […]

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