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Egypt: A new diagnosis for an old illness

This blog post is part of a series drawing on articles from the forthcoming project It Belongs to You: Public Information in the Middle East and North Africa. Behind the imposing edifice of the shiny Egyptian World Trade Centre on the corniche in Cairo lies the decrepit hospital of Boulaq Abu Ela. A rubbish heap […]

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Surveillance under scrutiny in Georgia

Fourteen thousand wire taps have been approved in the courts of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi since 2011. Last month Transparency International Georgia held a  conference aimed at pushing for more transparency about the way Georgian law enforcers carry out surveillance, and who watches the watchers. Georgian authorities, like other governments in the Caucasus, keep ‘black boxes’ […]

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Time to wake up Trinidad & Tobago: the Jack Warner affair

Jack Warner is a big name in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) and in world football. He has been in politics and government for the past five years, most recently as Minister of National Security, and served on the executive committee of FIFA (world football’s governing body) and as head of the Americas football federation (known as […]

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(Anti-) Corruption in the police: progress made and pending issues

Corruption in the Peruvian police has hit the headlines for two reasons: The Peruvian authorities have decided to start a rotating system of 80% of their policemen in order for these to be more difficult to get involved in organised crime activities; between 2011 and 2012 there were 6.000 policemen being investigated for corruption. Samuel […]

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From international award winner to a man on the run: the courage of an investigative journalist

One month ago as Mauri König accepted the 2012 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Press Freedom Award at a gala dinner in New York, he said he was thankful to be free and alive and expressed his concern for his co-recipients from China and Kyrgyzstan who remained in prison. Today König is in hiding with […]

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What the Corruption Perceptions Index means in different languages

We will publish the 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index next Wednesday 5 December. Behind the scores are many different kinds of public sector corruption, all with their own impact on daily life. Our evidence is language. Every language has its own particular expression for abuse of power. Here are a few. In English, we refer to […]

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Nigeria: Government must defend rule of law and prosecute officials who commit fraud

The recent conviction of a rich and powerful Nigerian politician in a UK court for laundering stolen assets and news that Nigerian lawmakers are studying the elimination of its two main corruption-fighting commissions has left many members in the mighty West African country’s civil society with mixed feelings. On one hand it’s good to see […]

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