Singapore is among the world's least corrupt nations, sharing first place with Denmark and New Zealand with scores of 9.3 out of 10, according to Transparency International's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), a measure of domestic, public sector corruption.
Hong Kong (scoring 8.4) and Japan (7.8) are the only two other Asian countries that made it to the top 20, ranking 13 and 17, respectively.
Unstable governments, often with a legacy of conflict, continue to dominate the bottom rungs of the CPI. Afghanistan and Myanmar share second-to-last place with a score of 1.4, with Somalia coming in last with a score of 1.1.
The 2010 CPI shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five, on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (perceived to have low levels of corruption), indicating a serious corruption problem.
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