The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scores 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, according to experts and business people. The CPI 2019 reveals a staggering number of countries are showing little to no improvement in tackling corruption. Their analysis also suggests that reducing big money in politics and promoting inclusive political decision-making are essential to curb corruption. The index uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. More than two-thirds of countries score below 50 on this year’s CPI, with an average score of just 43. The report is available in English, Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish.
Source: Transparency International
Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos said on Monday she was launching legal action against the ICIJ and its media partners over the publication of thousands of documents about her business empire. Dos Santos, whose father Jose Eduardo dos Santos was Angola’s president for 38 years until 2017, said the documents released last week by the ICIJ and its media partners were part of a “concerted and intense campaign” against her. Angola has named dos Santos as a suspect over alleged mismanagement and misappropriation of funds while she was chairwoman of state oil firm Sonangol in 2016-2017. She has denied the allegations.
Source: Reuters
More than 40 press freedom and human rights groups worldwide have sent a letter to Brazilian authorities condemning cybercrime charges brought against American Glenn Greenwald this week, branding them a blatant attempt to intimidate Greenwald and other journalists by President Jair Bolsonaro's government. "The government has essentially criminalized engaging in legitimate journalistic practices, which threatens to have a chilling effect on journalists and sources alike," the statement warned.
Source: RSF
A sophisticated investigation that used machine learning to track hidden evidence connected to the opioid epidemic is the first-place winner in the 2019 Philip Meyer Journalism Awards, which will be presented on March 7 in New Orleans during the 2020 NICAR Conference. Other top awards go to investigations that uncovered substantial fire risks to communities in the West and tracked the causes of a refugee crisis in South Sudan. The Meyer Award recognizes the best uses of empirical methods in journalism, and honors Philip Meyer, professor emeritus and former Knight Chair of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Source: IRE
Federal prosecutors in Brazil charged American journalist Glenn Greenwald with cybercrimes for his role in bringing to light cellphone messages that have embarrassed prosecutors and tarnished the image of an anti-corruption task force. In a criminal complaint made public on Tuesday, prosecutors in the capital, Brasília, accused Greenwald of being part of a “criminal organization” that hacked into the cellphones of several prosecutors and other public officials last year. Greenwald, an ardent critic of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, is a deeply polarizing figure in Brazil, where his work is lionized by leftists and condemned as partisan and heavy handed by officials in the Bolsonaro administration. The news organization Greenwald co-founded, The Intercept Brasil, published articles last year based on the leaked cellphone messages that raised questions about the integrity and the motives of key members of Brazil’s justice system.
Source: New York Times
The Luanda Leaks investigation shows how Isabel dos Santos became Africa’s richest woman. A leaked trove of financial and business records reveals how she moved hundreds of millions of dollars in public money out of one of the poorest countries on the planet and into a labyrinth of companies and subsidiaries, many of them in offshore secrecy jurisdictions around the world. The records also show how Western financial firms, lawyers, accountants and government officials — from Lisbon to London and Luanda, from Malta to Dubai — were only too happy to help. The investigation is largely based on more than 715,000 documents obtained by the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa. Over more than eight months, more than 120 journalists from ICIJ and 36 media organizations in 20 countries pursued leads in the documents and plumbed their significance.
Source: ICIJ