Another prize for Scoop-supported investigation on election fraud

Transparency International Moldova chose to award the two repporters Lilia Gurez and Igor Volnitchi for their investigation on the fraud in the election campaign in Moldova. The investigation was recently awarded by the Eurasia Foundation Moldova as the best investigation of the election as well.

Tough Pressure against freedom of expression in the Balkans

Life as a reporter, and an investigative reporter especially, is dangerous in the Balkans. Read about the most recent examples here.

In Azerbaijan Democratic ideas are forbidden and bloggers punished

An Azeri court sentenced two bloggers to prison on November 11 in a politically motivated decision aimed at censoring young activists critical of the government, reports the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety.

Unfortunately, differences in managing medical waste in the region are slight when it comes to large urban centres and the interior. The condition is disastrous in both cases. It all amounts to raising the awareness of the employees in all medical institutions, especially large ones, regarding the necessity to separate dangerous medical waste.

A number of international oil firms are exploring the Caspian off shore fields, but working conditions and wages for local oil workers are often poor. In this article Azeri journalist Zaur Rasulzadeh takes a look at the situation regarding employment at several international oil companies, notably the British BP.

Children from 14 years, who commit serious crimes in Azerbaijan, are kept in special institutions under the country’s Justice Ministry. Upon reaching adulthood at 18 they are transferred to ordinary prisons. Journalist Lia Bayramova investigated this practice and looked at attempts to reform the system.

Busses are few and far between in parts of Baku, the Azeri capital. Those that can be found are often expensive, imported ones that do not necessarily fit the requirements of this bustling city. Baku-based radio journalist Farah Sabirgizi set out to investigate how much public money has been spent on these imports.

For tens of years thousands of Ukrainians lived in dormitories belonging to factories or municipal institutions, but now their homes have been ‘privatized’ and they lost their residential status. The reporter Azad Safarov did a tv-documentation about the situation in a dorm, which belonged to the factory ‘Bavovnyanka’ in Kyiv. The building is now owned by the company ‘Stabil-Group’ and it’s bosses didn’t get nervous, when he called it: ‘I can’t talk right now’.

An investigation af fake caviar was done for regional tv in Ukraine. This is the introduction: "Everything you see on my table is an imitation of caviar, but is being sold as different products, and producer indicated on the label does not always coincide with the company that manufactured this product. We got the idea for this investigation from our Belorussian colleagues, who were traveling to Simferopol and were offered fake caviar on the train".

Patients in Georgia spend half of their health expenses on medicaments rather than on doctor’s care, almost twice as much as patients in other countries. As a result Georgian Insurance companies avoid covering cost of medicaments and patients have to spend money out of their pockets. This investigation shows that the reason to high medicament prices is the oligopoly on the pharmacy market, procured from the upper echelons of the government.

Norwegian shipping sailed into unknown waters, as the company FMV ordered supply ships at Ukrainian shipyards. The quality of the ships was dubious, delays many and Ukrainian businessmen seemed only interested in getting hard Norwegian currency and created many other problems. The reporter Tatyana Rikhtun from Sevastoplskaya Gazeta tried to map all the dirty tricks. Read her reports published in April and May 2009.

The Macedonian market is overcrowded with forged goods of almost all famous wide known brands, which, at first sight look just like the original. Most of the forged goods are imported illegally from China, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, but part of them are also produced in Macedonia.

During elections in Macedonia up to 300.000 of the persons behind the names on the voting lists were not able to vote. E.g. because the had passed away or because they were living abroad.

In Macedonia doctors employed by state health institutions continue their work in private institutions after official working hours. Wanting to earn more money, they force the patients indirectly to come to their second working place in the private clinics or polyclinics, where the patients cannot use their blue cards (which they get for health insurence from the state) but they must pay with own money. The usual excuse of the doctors is that they are too busy with other arrangments.

"Black suitcases" and "blue envelopes" is the easiest way for political parties to get their election campaigns financed. Payment from suspicious sources goes in the hands of politicians who hide the true names of the donors, protecting them from the public. Experts conclude that there is no control in the process of financing the parties in order to know what the true sources of their "election budget" are. The question that's raising is whether those are funds of the economic oligarhy or...

In Moldova Vladimir Voronin 2001 entered the Presidential Office as a ‘proletarian’, but will go out as a millionaire when his term in office ends. During the last eight years, Vladimir Voronin, his wife and their children Oleg and Valentina became fabulously rich, gathering an impressive collection of houses, appartments and plots of land.

Moldova - a small republic between Romania and Ukraine - is now a testing ground for 'dirty' electric techniques. Despite bad ratings in opinion polls the Communist Party won the parliamentary elections on April 5th this year, but - as the investigation done by the two journalists Lilia Gurez and Igor Volnitchi shows - only due to new methods of election fraud.

In some Armenian regions the drinking water lack iodine despite this beeing a welldocumented problem and despite efforts by the government and UN to solve it. If there is no iodine in the water people - first and foremost women - are exposed to IDD - Iodine Deficiency Diseases. Armenians are still having health problems due to the lack of iodine.

In Armenia poor parents sell or hire the children out as workers. Boys and girls at the age of 14, 15 or 16 wash cars, sweep the streets and take similar jobs. Mostly illegal. With financial support from Scoop Caucasus, the Armenian journalist Armen Davtyan investigated this issue and found that nobody cares. The employers “don’t know” about labour rights of the young workers and the authorities don’t care.

This is a story about the societal intolerance towards free thinking in Georgia, about clichés that the national Orthodox Church is trying to establish as national moral values and inability of the law-enforcing bodies to defend the right of free expression.

The usage of the different devices for following politicians’ communication is a long time standard activity in Macedonia - even a public secret. In 2007, The Ministry of Internal affairs supplied it self with devices for such purposes. With the funds from The European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR), the Ministry bought almost 4.000 radio-devices from the British company "Sepura" which are compatible with the global system for communication tracking, Echelon, one of the key NATO's means.

Officials from Ukrainian Kremenchuk have privatized land plots (more than 3 hectares) in contravention of legal land succession. This investigation shows the scheme of elligal privatization and describes the chain of events and the figures that provided “the ruling elite” with nice building lots.

In Ukrainian Dnepropetrovsk illegal gaming machines are everywhere - even in public places such as transportation routes, markets, public eating establishments, etc. According to executive authorities and several public organizations. In the places where one-armed bandits were removed, new slot machines appear shortly afterward.

The Kosovo Liberation Army maintained a network of prisons in their bases in Albania and Kosovo during and after the conflict of 1999, eyewitnesses allege. Only now are the details of what occurred there emerging: dozens of civilians, mainly Kosovo Albanians suspected of collaboration, but also Serbs and Roma captive there, beaten and tortured. Some were killed, their remains never recovered.

In search of jobs, citizens of Georgia often go abroad illegally. Many employment agencies and tourist firms in Georgia offer such services to them. The many cases of illegal border crossings rarely come to light. Read about the methods that citizens of Georgia use to travel illegally to the states of European Union, especially Greece.

In order to live in the West, Macedonians try to either seduce Westerns or pay them in order to get married. According to experts “fictive marriage” it is most successful for getting resident papers beside the “illegal classic roads” to get into Western countries.

The closing of the Kosovo status seems to have brought an end to the periods of wars in the Balkans. But is there a hidden risk from the remaining former paramilitary formations frequently controlled by political oligarchies and what is their role in destabilization of sensitive regions in the Balkans like Kosovo, Macedonia and Sandzak.

Ferrous scrap is becoming one of the most required products in the Balkan region, and only during the latest years in Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo are opened more than thousand purchase centers. Mostly, ferrous scrap is gathered from the regions exposed almost for two decades to military actions and influence of the radioactive material from the bombs with depleted uranium.

After the Rose Revolution Financial Police of Georgia revealed numerous irregularities and criminal deals that were practiced in the Railway of Georgia. However in the process of inquiry the investigators who uncovered those irregularities were replaced and their acts were classified.

The prosecutor’s office in Armenia has started an investigation into the construction of a house at the famous lake Sevan. This follows an investigation funded by Scoop and published by hetq online in Yerevan. The house in question is just one of several built too close at the lake and thus violating the ban against construction below the 1,905 meter above sea level, but it’s of specific interests for both the Armenian public and the prosecutor because it’s owned by the minister of nature...

The sunny climate in the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine is not just good for your health and but also for your money, especially if you know how to outfox the law and the authorities. The programme 'Question of National Security' of the television company 'Chornomorskaya' (Black Sea) gave a glimpse of the jungle, where politicians, state authorities and fake charitities are working to get hold of the jewels of the Ukrainian Paradise.

Illegal viagra trade in Macedonia is one of the most profitable businesses, which is organized through the border crossings and very often with help from the employees in the customs. Illegaly, viagra comes from Kosovo, Bulgaria and Greece and it can be bought almost everywhere. Illegal traders offer viagra to the pharmacies, which are also selling the medicine illegaly, making enormous profit from a sold package of viagra.

Thousands of Ukrainian parents go to court to claim the state allowances for their children, because they will usually get only 20 pct of the official rate. Almost all of them have won their cases but never seen the money. It's lost in a kafkan scheme of laws, institutions, budgets, competing courts and neglectance. The Rivne Agency for Investigative Journalism followed the money in a system, where children are cheated systematically.

Training manuals for police officers do not contain the word mafia. Alternatively, it might also be referred to as a organized criminal group. In some more serious cases the police use organized criminal network. So what does mafia have to do with it? Is this Italian word applicable to the Ukrainian situation at all? Seemingly, it is. Very much so. The main difference between a mafia and an ordinary criminal group is that a mafia is closely connected with the local police and government....

The drinking water in the Ukrainian city Chernivtsi (257.000 inhabitants) is not of finest quality. In the center of the city the water is pumped from the heavily polluted river Dnister and despite several purification stations it’s wise to boil it before drinking. The reporter Liudmyla Osadchuk from the newspaper Molodyi Bukovynets researched the quality of the water both in the waterworks and in the kitchens.

The majority of the victims of human organs trafficking are the Romans (gipsies), who due to their difficult economical conditions agree to sell their organs for a certain sum of money. One of the most wanted organs in the market is the kidney. The sale is done via mediators, whereas the buyers are the foreign citizens of the developed countries.

Thousands of people are looking for protection from monopolies in Macedonia. Because of their legal, solid position at the market, they have the right to dictate their prices. The most common problems are the high bills that the companies charge for the services in a country where the market has not yet been completely liberalized everywhere. The existance of these companies can hardly be endangered by the state.

Ukrainian amber from Rivne region is very unique and … exhaustible. Since1994 mining became illegal and amber hunters started being chased by police. In spite of success reports the police are fighting windmills: after arrest they go right back to their daily business. Recently, about 20-30 tons of amber has been illegally smuggled out of Ukraine. Criminal news program Patrol at Rivne-1 TV channel unraveled the issue.

At the account of state subsidies for professional re-training of the unemployed, a private bakery “Tabiti” used labor of 20 ‘inexperienced’ interns for the maximum allowable period of 3 months. In fact, most of them were qualified bakers with 5-15 years of experience fired one by one from the state plant which also gave away most of its property to Tabiti. Pavlo Zlenko from the town of Trostyanets, Ukraine, investigated inefficient use of social security funds in his region.

The piracy has conquered each pore of Macedonia. In all the intellectual production fields the points of counterfeiting remain present. There is no city, town or village in Macedonia where you cannot find any pirate materials in sale. The protection of the intellectual property is authorized by law, but so far so very few persons – counterfeiters or abusers - have faced the law. According to specialists of the field the country looses about 45 million euros each year.

The gold mining companies become more and more interested in the East European countries. Underdeveloped legislation, corruption and governments’ negligence of the interests of the people create the best natural environment for gold hunters. The Balkan gold trail crosses Romania, Ukraine, Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia – everywhere it leaves behind devastated environment and sick people. And everywhere we tracked the same persons, who represent the companies, registered in Canada and closely...

Maryna Makarova bought her flat in downtown Kremenchuk in 1997. In summer 2007 she could suddenly read in a local newspaper, that “Tumbledown Buildings Will Be Bulldozed” – one of them the apartment building she lived in. She was aware that a construction project was on its way. The state, the city council and all official institutions lined up to pull the project through. And Maryna Makarova will probably have to move and to invest 15.000 USD to finish her new apartment “fully paid for” by the...

The famous liner SS United States won the “blue ribbon” on her maiden voyage in July 1953. In just 82 hours and 40 minutes she crossed the Atlantic. In the 90’ies United States ended up in Crimea because no other European shipyard was ready to run the risk. In 2006 it was revealed that 40 tonnes of asbestos were still stored in an open warehouse at the shipyard. The investigation takes a look at the scandal from the beginning to the present.

The Feodosians are very unhappy about the drinking water coming out of the tap – it smells badly, has an awful taste and is very often more brown than clean. Reporter Elena Cherdak from the newspaper Kafa in Feodosia (Crimea, 75.000 inhabitants) took samples and asked three different laboratories to analyse them. The citizens of the old city founded by the Greeks are right: The water does not comply with the Ukrainian State Standard 2874-85 for drinking water. But the waterworks will do...

Agricultural pesticides so dangerous that they today are forbidden, are still stored in large amounts in the village of Chernivtsi. So far it has not been possible to remove them.