Denmark: the world's least corrupt country

Denmark has beeen crowned the world's least corrupt country for the second year in a row.

The latest annual Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks perceptions of public sector corruption in 168 countries, ranked North Korea and Somalia as the worst performers.

The top performers shared key characteristics: high levels of press freedom; access to budget information so the public knows where money comes from and how it is spent; high levels of integrity among people in power; and judiciaries that don’t differentiate between rich and poor, and that are truly independent from other parts of government.

The big decliners in the past four years include Libya, Australia, Brazil, Spain and Turkey. The big improvers include Greece, Senegal and the UK.