U.S. Falls in Annual Corruption Survey

PARIS — Perceptions of corruption in the United States have worsened over the past year, knocking it out of the top 20 in global rankings released Tuesday by the watchdog group Transparency International in Berlin.

The three countries among the top and the bottom of the list remain unchanged from 2009: New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore are seen as having the world’s cleanest governments.

Somalia, Afghanistan and Myanmar are seen to have the most corrupt. Finland, Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and Norway rounded out the top 10.

The United States, which ranked 19th in 2009, fell to 22, putting it behind Canada, Barbados and Chile in the Americas, but still comfortably among the top fifth of the 178 countries in the study.

Also falling in the rankings were the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Madagascar, Niger and Russia, 154.

Germany ranked 15, Britain 20, and France 25. Japan ranked 17 and China ranked 78.

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And: Israel ranks among Western world's most corrupt countries

Receiving a score of 6.1 out of 10 Israel is in 22nd place out of 33 OECD members..
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