Financial Transparency Coalition

Task Force member Global Witness's Rosie Sharp wrote the following op-ed in The Guardian on Monday. She expanded on the argument that she wrote about on this blog earlier this week, about the implications of the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the BBC's Panorama programme investigations into the nominee shareholders that make anonymous shell companies possible.

Today, Global Financial Integrity released our newest report, Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries Over the Decade Ending 2009. In the report, we found that despite the global financial crisis and subsequent drop in international trade and foreign direct investment, illicit financial flows still approached US$1 trillion out of the developing world. This represents a decline from the US$1.55 trillion we estimated flowed out of the developing world in 2008, but still represents a horrible tragedy for developing countries.

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Monday for Congo's young people to lead nationwide protests against corruption and rampant sexual violence in the country's violence-torn east.

Global Witness's new report, 'Faced with a gun, what can you do?', details how many mining areas in eastern DRC are controlled by rebels and the national army, who violently exploit civilians to retain access to valuable minerals…