Tell Us What You’ve Done Initiative Global study finds minimal transparency on anti-corruption efforts 25 October 2011: The first global study to test access to information about the implementation of anti-corruption treaties has found that half of the questions put to governments (50%) met with administrative silence. The research, carried out by Access Info Europe and Transparency International and partners around the world, also found that only around one quarter of questions (just 26%) submitted in twenty countries plus the European Union resulted in information – either complete or incomplete information – being provided to the civil society requesters.

4 October 2011, Ottawa – The largest global monitoring of the right of access to information in practice, the Ask Your Government! 6 Question Campaign has found widespread violations of the right to information with only 1 in 4 requests resulting in provision of full information. 480 requests for budget information were submitted in 80 countries by a global network of civil society organisations. No information at all was provided in response to over half of the requests and 38% of the requests elicited no response from the government body to which the request was sent (mute refusals). The poor

Update: Tokyo Two given one year suspended sentence Tokyo, 6 September 2010 – Japan’s Aomori Court has found the Tokyo Two guilty of theft and trespass and has sentenced them to one year in prision, suspended for three years. Greenpeace has announced that it will appeal the judgement. Japan: Environmentalists denied information should be acquitted Madrid, 3 September 2010 – Access Info Europe today criticised the Japanese government for using censorship in response to access to information requests, and called for the acquittal of two environmental activists who exposed government corruption linked to the black market in whale meat.