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Nalaka Gunawardene at Groundviews writes on the empowering rise of mobile phone usage among Sri Lanka’s poor — and the regulators who seem determined to stop it. Just as the controversial adoption of pants 40 years ago blurred class lines, elites are fighting the spread of mobiles among the tech-saavy poor. Sadly, regulators seem all-too-willing…

Our colleagues at Transparency International in Bosnia-Herzegovina (TI BiH) have been forced to temporarily suspend operations and evacuate their office following accusations leveled by Prime Minister Milorad Dodik that they are involved in organized crime. At Global Integrity, we’ve had the pleasure of working with TI-BiH directly and find the accusations outrageous. Professionalism and impartiality…

Still curious about Cameroon’s PR initiative in last week’s Washington Post (see our previous post, “Cameroon’s War on Corruption: Reality or Good PR?“), we decided to do some additional digging into the ad. Thanks to the pre-World War II-era Foreign Agents Registration Act, all foreign governments lobbying the U.S. government or seeking to influence U.S.…

There’s really not much more to say here then to quote the lead from this story: “Last week, the Romanian Senate unanimously voted a law proposal forcing media to distribute 50% of positive news. According to its instigators [sic], the law will help to fight against ‘the extraordinary harms of negative news and their irreversible…

Yesterday’s Washington Post featured a half page advertisement summarizing Cameroon’s renewed effort towards “Vigorous, Committed Reform.” The ad, sponsored by Cameroonian President Paul Biya, detailed numerous measures recently implemented to “consolidate the rule of law and to fight corruption” following Transparency International’s 1998 and 1999 reports naming Cameroon as the most corrupt nation in the…

While the Zimbabwe crisis seems like a country-specific debacle, it highlights governance weaknesses across Africa. Western leaders as well as at least one African head of state are calling for African regional actors to pursue a hard line approach towards Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, who was sworn in Sunday to another five year term amidst…