Ending corruption in Nigeria: Every help is needed

Abuja, the capital of the oil rich nation Nigeria, a “planned city” built in the 1980s, is one of the wealthiest and most expensive capitals in Africa. Very few Nigerians can afford living there. Shanty towns with mass poverty, high unemployment, and poor sanitation is a much more common environment for the vast majority of […]

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Maldives: Vote Buying Challenges Elections in a Troubled Muslim Democracy

As the Maldives heads for presidential elections in September this year, vote buying, a culture of misuse of state resources, concerns about transparency and integrity of judicial and electoral processes, and unprecedented levels of political polarisation pose immense challenges to this troubled democracy, a pre-election assessment  by Transparency Maldives has found. Vote buying One of […]

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L’affaire Cahuzac: a stain on Hollande’s integrity agenda or a wake-up call?

After four months of denial, Jérôme Cahuzac, former Minister of Budget, finally admitted he had a Swiss bank account in his name, transferred to Singapore in 2009, containing close to €600,000. He has now been placed under investigation over alleged laundering of tax-fraud money. This scandal – which is shaking the French political class and […]

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How to set up an offshore company in 10 minutes

Last week the massive “Offshore Leaks” investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported the uncovering of the beneficial owners of thousands of offshore companies. Among the owners of offshore shell companies disclosed so far are several senior politicians and their close families in various countries. Just how difficult and costly is it to […]

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Money laundering – are BVI leaks a game changer?

Reposted from Transparency International UK The recent leaks of information about who actually owns the companies registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) offer a first glimpse for many people into this very murky world. For years, small amounts of information have trickled out – often through court cases – that indicate these so-called secrecy […]

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Armenia: Fighting back at the ballot box

On March 15th the Supreme Court in Armenia annulled the election results from Precinct No. 17/5 in Artashat, where I spent an unforgettable day in mid-February watching ballots being stuffed while I was physically pinned to a wall by a group of thugs. I never thought such overt cheating like ballot stuffing would happen. After […]

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Can you teach how to fight corruption?

Just last week, around 3,000 high school students protested outside Cypriot Parliament  after Cyprus agreed the 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout with the European Union. Break out of demonstrations around the world makes me wonder- what is it that young protesters really do? Express their anger? Why anger? I can‘t help perceiving angry faces […]

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#offshoreleaks: 21st Century Journalism at its best

Around 260 Gigabytes of data from ten tax havens, 2.5 million documents, 130.000 persons from 170 countries concerned – a mega coup. But some questions are still to be answered. Today’s releases regarding #offshoreleaks include everything one can expect from good journalism in the 21st century: Collaboration: 84 journalists worked on the story, coordinated by […]

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Transparency International on the road of technology

US transparency activists taking part in a meeting of staff from Transparency International’s legal advice centres have written about the use of technology to fight corruption. This post was originally published in the Sunlight Foundation‘s blog and is authored by Júlia Keseru. Great news for the open government movement: Transparency International, one of the key international […]

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Iraq’s corruption legacy

$800 million. That’s the staggering amount of money said to be unlawfully transferred out of Iraq every week. Last month marked the ten year anniversary of the start of the occupation of Iraq by coalition forces. The aftermath of war and occupation has been ravaging well after the withdrawal of foreign troops. The US Special […]

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