Journalistic Investigations Center

A child from the north of the country was to be adopted by an Italian couple under the excuse that he allegedly was infected with HIV/AIDS. Although it was based only on a suspicion, this diagnosis was used as cover to facilitate his adoption abroad. This case, in which a number of violations were committed, was supported by Tamara Plămădeală, Child’s Ombudsperson.  
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Grigore Zubati, 59, judge at the Chisinau Court of Appeals, was fired last week by the Supreme Council of Magistracy (SCM) for having helped his colleague Mihail Ciugureanu to get some property. The judge required the Chisinau City Hall to sell him some public land. Even if this decision resulted in Zubati’s dismissal, Mihai Ciugureanu escaped unpunished.  
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The deputy chief judge of Râşcani District Court of Chisinau Oleg Melniciuc in November 2012 examined a case in which a relative of his was involved. The day after that was denounced to the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM), the judge said he had not ‘noticed’ that the papers contained the name of the daughter of the godparents of his sister and filed a request for recusal from the case. The case came into the attention of the SCM but Melniciuc was not sanctioned, rather promoted – proposed for the position of chief judge of Râşcani District Court. Whether Melniciuc becomes chief judge of Râşcani Court it now depends on Nicolae Timofti. His counselor Ion Păduraru has told us that the President is now waiting for the results of the verifications made by the Intelligence Centre and ‘other bodies’, and will then make a decision.  
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The ex-Deputy Minister of Environment Alexandru Jolondcovschi, as chief of three structures, received over 3 million lei from the National Environmental Fund (NEF) while being in an obvious conflict of interests. The money was allocated in the period when Jolondcovschi was member of the Board of Directors of the Fund. The structures that received money from the Fund are the Office for Combatting the Consequences of Global Climate Changes (from the Ministry of Agriculture), the Association for Capitalization of Wastes and the Union for Capitalization of Wastes “For a Clean Moldova.” Minister Gheorghe Şalaru says he did not know who the head of those organizations was.  
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Human trafficking victims continue to live their tragedy many years after being released from the toils of the traffickers. Rejected by the society, most them do not manage to find meaning in life and come to be trafficked again. The situation is even more serious for the women who return home with babies born from the rapists.  
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Dozens of girls get raped by the adult men from their own families. Many of these crimes do not get to be discovered, while cases that are brought to justice "roam" in courts for years. The vast majority of incest cases in Moldova are closed with symbolic sanctions with the abusers walking free.  
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The chief judge of Râşcani District Court of Chişinău lives in a villa with three levels and a mansard. It was declared for the first time only in 2010 as his wife’s property, who had received it as a present from their son to which he had formally donated the house one year before that.  
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How honest are judges when declaring their properties and to what extent can those who lie be punished, which seemingly is impossible in the case of judges? This question has become topical especially after the journalists of the Center for Investigative Journalism disclosed that Judge Sergiu Arnăut from the Court of Appeal allegedly lived in a three-storey house, appraised together with its land to over two million lei, which the Judge failed to include in his property declaration. The Arnăut case puts in difficulty the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office and the Anticorruption Center, which started the investigations but admit they do not have too many possibilities to prove the judge’s guilt.  
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Failure to observe religious rights remains a problem in Moldova. Religion representatives still face tens of cases of discrimination. People complain they are chased away from villages, insulted in public and even aggressed. Although they admit that their relation with the central authorities has significantly improved in the past three years, at local level religions still face difficulties.  
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Chişinău Court of Appeal Judge Sergiu Arnăut who lives in a three-storey house in the district of Poşta Veche, came into a conflict with his neighbors after on 3 September 2012 he fenced a land plot of 270 square meters, which was the last piece of public space that served as playground and access road for the residents of that zone. The Mayor’s Office had sold the land plot to the judge’s wife who has registered in her name all the real estate located at 18 Cucorilor Street. Bălţi Court of Appeal is also involved in this business as it had required Chişinău Mayor’s Office to sell the land to Judge’s wife. The deputy mayor Nistor Grozavu signed the sale and purchase agreement.  
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Hundreds of children in Moldova are isolated in special institutions and spend their childhood away from home only because someone in their families is ill with tuberculosis (TB) and the state does not find another way than to separate them from the rest. Although they are neither contagious not ill, the children are taken out of their families and held months in a row in special schools, while the ill adults remain at home and refuse to get treatment. Thus, upon returning home the children are exposed to the same risk of getting the infection while the isolation they had to go through proved to be useless twice.  
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They cannot eat, cannot walk and cannot manage it by themselves, and the state does not ensure to them the care and recovery they need. These are 259 children and youth – prisoners to their beds who live in the boarding school for children with mental deficiencies from Orhei. This facility is located several kilometers away from the city, in a forest where rarely a soul reaches. This is so because since the Soviet period the children with mental disabilities were hidden away from the people’s eyes from the first years of life without giving them a chance to integrate in the society. Following these pseudohuman traditions, they continue to be hospitalized in specialized institutions. Life in such an institution is rather a conviction, especially when their stay here is due to a wrong diagnosis or simply to abandonment.  
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Ion Pleşca, Chief Judge of Chişinău Court of Appeal, in two years borrowed several millions of lei setting the same apartment as collateral. The judge does not see any problem in this, although other lawyers claim such loans granted could be considered as favors.  
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Stalin would not have been amused. A man named Vladimir, apparently the Soviet dictator’s great-grandson, stands at the threshold of acquiring a Romanian passport and with it, the right to work within the EU. When he crosses that threshold, Vladimir will reverse one of Stalin’s achievements. His grandparents were citizens of Romania in the first half of the twentieth century, long before it joined the EU. They lost their nationality at the end of the Second World War, when Romania ceded the territory of Moldova to Stalin’s Soviet Union.  
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Each second Moldovan suffering from kidney insufficiency remains outside the medical system due to the limited and unequal access to hemodialysis services. People die at home without having their situation supervised by somebody. Those who manage to get a place in the dialysis wards say that many times they are ‘treated’ depending on how much they pay. The patients who cannot pay are discriminated, marginalized and openly neglected by some doctors and nurses.  
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An officer of the Anticorruption Center has proved that Judge Liuba Brânză, from the Centru District Court, had allegedly got her degree by using false papers. Nonetheless, the prosecutors decided not to prosecute the case and the major suddenly fell sick.  
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Only 170 kilometres away from the European Union’s eastern border there is a strip of land which for two decades has played chess with countries on three continents. Pridnestrovskaya Moldavskaya Respublika - or Transnistria - is a breakaway state of Republic of Moldova with no international recognition. A self-declared independent country, Transnistria is a nucleus of smuggling for weapons, cigarettes and alcohol in unknown volume to undetermined locations. The European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – OSCE are pumping tens of millions of euros to monitor the region with no success.  
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For most prisoners arriving in Prison no. 13 of Chisinau, a criminal sanction means not only years in prison but also inhuman living conditions. The misery of the institution recently dubbed by the Minister of Justice as a "challenging prison", brought us at least 13 ECHR judgments so far, which found violations of prisoners' rights, and the Government has paid more than 180 000 euros in damages. Overcrowded cells and deplorable hygienic conditions caused also by the last century design of the prison cannot disappear in one day, its administration suggests, preferring to speak about the necessity of building a new prison.  
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The integrity and honesty of Nina Cernat, judge of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ), attracted attention of law enforcement bodies due to a journalistic investigation. On 1 August 2012, journalists from Adevărul published a comprehensive material showing that Nina Cernat lives in a luxurious housing estate known as “Oraşul Poveştilor” ("The Fairy Tale City”) in Chisinau. The house is listed as belonging to the mother-in-law of the judge, Ana Rusu, aged 80, who won the case in the first instance after having sued a company for the late completion of the house. The company was ordered to pay 25 million lei damages to the retired person. In August 2012, the execution of the court decision was suspended because of the existence of a dispute in court.  
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Tens of Moldovan citizens are kidnapped each year from their homes by the militia and security of the unrecognized regime from Tiraspol, jailed, humiliated, kept in inhuman conditions and tried for crimes they have not committed. Unfortunately, the cases of kidnapping and torture, although have intensified in the past years, do not surprise and do not move anyone anymore. Only the victims’ relatives, destroyed by fear and pain, make efforts, many times superhuman ones, and sacrifices to get their dears ones out of the Transnistrian gulags.  
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Life could start having colors for many children with disabilities in rural communities if they went to school together with their peers and had access to the village social facilities. For the time being, most of the children with special needs and their parents live left alone with their problems that often exceed their powers of coping with them.   
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Every year the national budget of Moldova is prejudiced of billions of lei due to the convoluted schemes used by the criminal networks that use delinquent companies as camouflage, the so-called phantom companies. The budget defrauding schemes are most of the times with the value added tax (VAT) which is either not paid to the state from the incomes of businesses or is refunded from the public budget based on fake invoices. Experts say that VAT-related frauds each year exceed the amount of a national budget of Moldova.  
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In the capital’s center, right in the eyes of the police, a real network of beggars is prospering. It uses children from the very first years of their life to induce the mercy and respectively, generosity, of the passersby. They spend their childhood on the street without the authorities becoming concerned of why they are not in school or at the kindergarten. Although they could impose fines and even open criminal cases against those adults who use children for beginning, the police prefer not to get involved.  
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Shunned by society, ignored by the Moldovan health system, transsexuals end up isolating themselves from the rest of the people. Representatives of sexual minority groups require equal treatment to the rest of people when they seek various services, when they want to get employed or when they walk down the street, while lawyers state that the Moldovan system does not yet provide the required safety, protection and support.  
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For nearly two years, a young man with disabilities from Bălţi, first group invalid, has been trying to privatize the apartment in which he had lived since his childhood together with his mother. After his mother’s death in 2010, he was taken to the Psychiatry Hospital because no placement was found for him elsewhere. However, the young man did not have to be there because he was not psychologically ill. And as if that was not enough, the mayor’s office workers refused to accept his documents for privatizing his apartment. His papers were accepted only after the insistence of the social assistant from Bălţi and the intervention of the ombudswoman.  
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According to official data, at present over 1000 persons with disabilities are waiting for their turn to get a wheelchair while the real number of those who need one is allegedly much higher. Since the demand remains high from year to year, the authorities do not yet care to ensure good quality for the giveaway wheelchairs. As a result, most disabled use wheelchairs that are inadequate for their weight and condition, due to which they risk falling down from them or having their bones deformed in an unrecoverable manner. Even if receiving those wheelchairs, few of them are taught how to use them.  
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In March of this year, the Police and the Prosecutor’s Office announced that they had liquidated a network of child traffickers and pedophiles, the heads of the grouping having been arrested. Under the excuse of organizing tourist trips through Moldova, including the Transnistrian region, and also to Ukraine in Odessa, the network in fact offered juvenile boys for sexual relations to foreign clients. In less than a month from the arrests, we found out that the network continued operating. The “business” had been taken over by one of the former victims who, in order to reestablish the connections with the clients, lowered the prices on the services provided. Divided into two, the network freely operates in Chişinău and Tiraspol.  
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For nearly a decade, the General Prosecutor’s Office (GPO) and the Center for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings (CCTHB) have said that they have been tracing the Israeli doctor Michael Zis for trafficking in organs. He once worked in Edineţ and then emigrated and operated on tens of people in Turkey, Ukraine and Israel, extracting organs for transplants. At present the surgeon is in freedom in Israel and the Moldovan authorities are not even trying to have him extradited. On the other hand, the officers hunt for the Zis’ victims in Moldova and, for the most part, incriminate them as traffickers  
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A child who has been victim of abuse or negligence most of the times goes again through nightmares when told to talk about the scenes of abuse before the people of the law. Moldovan courts do not have either rooms arranged for hearing children or specialists trained in interviewing juveniles. And this is even though Moldova has signed international documents and thus committed to ensure non-traumatizing conditions of hearing children who have been victims or witnesses of abuse.  
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Thoughtful and with sad eyes but dressed in brand clothes. This is how children of migrants look like most of the times. For several years, the authorities have been presenting a single figure showing how many Moldovan children have one or both of their parents gone abroad –100 thousand. Although estimative, this figure does not present the reality. Human rights specialists say that the real number of such children is much higher.  
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In 2010, Moldova ranked in the top 10 countries with the largest number of claims submitted to the European Court of Human Rights. Most cases lost to the ECHR were related to the breach of the right to a fair trial  
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One of the most resonant files on trafficking in human beings, opened in 2009, is still being considered by the trial court, without a sign that a court hearing might happen soon. This is the case about several Moldovans taken to work in Russia, from where they had to shortly come back home, on foot, without money and documents, as they were seized from them, in an attempt to run away from their employer, also Moldovan, like from a bad dream.  
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Although nearly two years have passed since April 2009, no policemen, not even of those who maltreated juveniles, have been held liable. Instead, the juveniles accused of theft, hooliganism and participation in mass disorders have answered before the law.  
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Most of the victims of traffic accidents wait for years to receive damages from insurance companies. The imperfect legislation and legal actions that can last years in a row seem to play the insurance companies’ game and to work against the ordinary people. According to the data of the National House of Financial Market (NHFM), in 2010, the amounts of the damages paid by insurance companies decreased by 20 percent as compared to 2009, while the income from insurances constantly grew.  
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The financial reports of the political parties that ran for the elections of 28 November, the size of the donations as well as the declarations of property filed with the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) by the candidates registered on political parties lists shows that unemployed and young people without a penny as well as pensioners and millionaires got involved in the run for those 101 seats in the Parliament.  
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They cannot have friends and are not accepted at kindergarten or school. Several thousand children in Moldova cannot enjoy their childhood because they have been diagnosed HIV positive or come from families where one or both parents have this infection. Day by day, children of this category bear the wickedness and hostility of the environment where they try to survive.  
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For nearly twenty years, Moldova has been dishonest in relation to those who had unjustly been convicted and deported by the Soviet power. Or, there is still no institution in Chişinău today that would say for sure how many people had to suffer because of the totalitarian communist regime and how many have been rehabilitated. Moreover, experts draw attention to the fact that, in the past years, the files in the archives kept at the Information and Security Service (ISS) of the Ministry of Interior (MI), based on which thousands of Bessarabians were ‘tried’, have been disappearing or becoming thinner.  
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While the Ministry of Education applies sophisticated educational software in some schools, there are villages where neither the children nor the adults have any idea what an ABC Book is. Such a village is Vulcăneşti in the district of Nisporeni where illiteracy is passed on from generation to generation, and those who can put their signature on papers are considered literate.  
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If many of those who are reading now this article believe that most of the people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are drug users, prostitutes or simply irresponsible persons, the following story, of a woman who wanted nothing but to have a normal family, will convince you of the contrary.  
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One in eleven women trafficked returns home either pregnant or with a child born from one of her ‘clients’. The fate of these children is most often tragic: mothers are not able to offer them their love and sometimes they even detest them. Psychologists symbolically called this phenomenon the ‘dead mother syndrome’.  
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A vaccine turned her little girl into a disabled child. In struggling with life but also with the system, a teacher became housewife, nurse and NGO leader. She is Natalia Cechir who has been fighting for years to get a decent life for her child and for hundreds of other disabled.  
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In the Transnistrian region, tens of young people are arrested, kept in detention and convicted of…terrorism, treason and espionage. While in detention, they are tortured, their execution by shooting is set up, and they are left to get ill with tuberculosis or other serious diseases.  
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Seven children have been killed in beatings by their parents since the beginning of this year, while other eight got to hospital with serious body injuries; some of the latter remained disabled for the rest of their lives. In 2008, 15 children were killed in domestic violence, while other dozens were crippled up in beating.  
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The Ministry of Information Technologies (MIT) has recently provided information on the registered transport units of the Moldovan officials to the Investigative Journalism Center, after the court had obliged it to make such information public. The list of transport units registered in the Registry of Transports at MIT allowed us to check on how sincere the elected representatives of the people are, whether or not they indicated all transport means owned in their 2009 declarations of income or in their declarations filed with the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) before the parliamentary elections.  
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* At least 60 children aged between 13 and 18 were maltreated by the “people of the law” after the April 2009 events, according to our investigations.
* Although more than a year has passed, none of the policemen has been held accountable and only one case of a juvenile–victim of the policemen has been filed with the court.  
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In peace time, in those 18 years from the Nistru River War, over 3,500 veterans have passed away, which is ten times more than the number of those who died during the military conflict in 1992. Most of the times, the reasons for their deaths are their weakened health, aggravated by the war wounds and mental affections generated by the post-war syndrome that were not treated and became more acute as time passed by, as well as the sorrows of life and social isolation. The forgotten heroes pass away in loneliness or beside the closest to them people.  
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They killed their husbands after having been beaten and humiliated years in a row. Convicted to many years of imprisonment they are now serving their terms behind the bars. This is the sad story of several women who, from victims of domestic violence, became their abusers’ murderers. They found no other solution but to murder them in order to get rid of violence. Experts say that if the Anti-Violence Law functioned properly such cases could have been avoided.  
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In nearly one year from the tragic April events, none of the over 300 individuals tortured and abusively detained has been rehabilitated. None of the police officers who maltreated the young people who had come to protest in the Great National Assembly Square has been convicted. The Prosecutor’s Office that took action very late does not have completed investigations and none of the prosecutors who administered the cases of the young people, who were barely standing during trials, and did not take a stand, has been held accountable or at least suspended from office.  
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Engineer Anatol Oprea from Edineţ has been monitored by a psychiatric clinic for nearly 24 years. For as long he has been trying to prove that he is a victim repressive psychiatry. “I have never been mentally ill. Insane was the system that put me in a mental house only because I didn’t fit in their standards of ‘homo sovieticus,’ A. Oprea said.  
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In the suburb of Stăuceni, which is right under Chişinău, where land has the price of gold, privately owned land as well as big land plots owned by the state has been sold in the past years. Some plots that had been sold for several tens of thousands of Lei by the local mayor’s office were resold over night for millions. People complain to the law-enforcement bodies and courts but without a result.  
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The criminal sins of ex-minister Gheorghe Papuc derive from older times, when he was working in the Special Destination Squad “Fulger” (Lightning). A financial control at this squad established that Papuc was monthly collecting two salaries, signing in two different payrolls and at least 10 individuals who did not work in “Fulger” regularly received salaries from it. The criminal case instituted based on those wrongdoings was ‘walked’ through courts, then dismissed, then resumed, and then again dismissed with a lightning speed.  
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The press has years in a row signaled numerous cases started upon order by the law-enforcement bodies against opposition politicians, individuals inconvenient to the state authorities, and businessmen who did not comply with the requirements of certain high officials. The mechanism that was improved along the years was functioning without deviations. Indications received in writing or by telephone from the President’s Office, Parliament or Government were promptly executed.  
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Copiimulţi is known to the Moldovan public opinion for the financial support provided, alongside Anatol Stati, to Bishop Dorimedont when the latter was between life and death. For the rest, Copiimulţi seems to be unknown because he hid for years from the fury of the communist government for the simple reason that he wanted to recover a legal debt owed to him by a state-protected company that had caused him huge financial damages.  
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Washington, D.C. – In celebration of its 20th anniversary year, the International Women’s Media Foundation is seeking nominations for the 2010 Courage in Journalism and Lifetime Achievement awards.  
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In July of 2009 we published an investigation, providing evidence and testimonies proving that the parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova held on July 5, 2009 were accompanied by acts of fraud, which influenced the results of the elections by 10-15%. After the April elections, the opposition parties and a number of domestic and international organizations caused a wide scandal regarding the results of the elections and accused the Party of Communists of committing those frauds.  
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Thousands of Moldovan children do not have ID cards. They do not appear in the statistics, do not get protection, healthcare, and social benefits.  
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Moldova, a small, poor, ex-Soviet country, with a young democracy, which many times is not functional, is a perfect polygon for testing „dirty” electoral techniques. There has always been a suspicion that such techniques have been used for all 18 years of country’s independence, but in 2009 it has become stronger then ever.  
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Civic Initiative for a Clean Parliament made public the list of candidates for the position of MP in the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova on July 29, 2009 that do not meet the moral integrity criteria of the civil society.  
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The Supreme Court of Justice has ruled in favor of the Investigative Journalism Center (CIN) in a case related to journalist access to public interest information against the Customs Service of Moldova.  
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In the last 15 years, the State University of Moldova (SUM) has enrolled dozens of children of judges, prosecutors and police officers upon recommendations from law enforcement bodies where their parents were employed, outside the general student contest and free of tuition fee. These children were enrolled free of tuition at the Law Faculty only due to the positions held by their parents. This form of protectionism has been legally covered by a cooperation contract between SUM and the majority of law enforcement bodies – the Superior Council of Magistracy, General Prosecutor’s Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Customs Service (CS).  
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A number of militaries from the Ministry of Defense think they were wronged in the distribution of state dwellings and question how the Ministry distributed the flats. They say the distribution was not transparent and it was based on nepotism principles. The Minister of Defense says he observed the law but refuses to make public the names of the militaries that have received state dwellings or purchased them on public money this year.

 
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Electric power “business affairs” extending

Meanwhile, the electric power affairs are extending. This is not only about the import from Ukraine, but also the energy export to Romania. On 2-3 July inst., the First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Dodon had a visit to Moscow during which he met with the management of “Gazprom” and “Inter RAO EES”.  
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After the publication, on 27 June, in the newspaper Timpul , of our investigation on the schemes of import of electric power from Ukraine, both Prime Minister Zinaida Grechanyi and First Deputy Minister Igor Dodon denied the existence of intermediaries in the import of energy from Ukraine. Grechanyi stated that the electric power is imported only through one operator and she does not know of any Hungarian company that would intermediate the transportation of electric power from the neighboring country, and that the CIN investigation “is artificial”.  
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As from 1 June 2008, Moldova has been buying electric power from Ukraine at 4.4 US cents per kWh, by 10% higher than in May. The First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Dodon announced the new price as a “remarkable success”, arguing that the Ukrainian side had initially asked for a 50% increase. However, they are talking on Chisinau’s corridors that the increase in price was done in favor of a company registered in Hungary, which may be backed up by individuals from the Moldovan and Ukrainian leadership.  
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Every year, tens of healthy children are placed in auxiliary schools destined for mentally retarded. The indifference or negligence manifested by authorities sentences them to an intellectually degrading environment and seals their future once and for all.  
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A policeman from the Special Destination Police Squad “Fulger” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) was killed on the night of 31 March. Ghenadie Scripcaru was one of the bodyguards of Oleg Voronin, President’s son. Although almost two weeks have passed, the crime has not yet been made public by the law-enforcement bodies. The official version alleges this was an armed robbery. Other off-the-record versions show that Ghenadie Scripcaru may have been the victim of some settlements of accounts, related to “his special missions”.  
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The seeds were to be distributed to the beneficiaries in October, exactly when the electoral campaign for the election of the District Council was at its height. We find out from the minutes No.2 of the Special District Commission (established by an order of district chairman of 14 August 2007) that the Commission met to decide the distribution of seeds to 15 agricultural farms.  
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The company that will build the new Republican Stadium in a historical area in the center of Chisinau will invest 35 million euros, but due to “gifts” made by the Government, it will redeem its investment in four years and will end up with a total profit of over 300 million Euros!  
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The history of this case started back in 2002, but is not finished yet. In 2002, the MPs of the Social-Democratic Alliance (hereafter SDA) filed a legislative initiative with the Permanent Bureau that provided for the reorganization of the existing Moldovan investment funds from non-mutual into mutual.  
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In our last issue, we published several cases in an attempt to prove how the communist parliamentary majority had stolen draft laws proposed by the opposition MPs. The following scheme had been used – initially the communists had rejected the opposition initiatives, then had taken them over, had amended them a little and had passed them as their own draft laws.  
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After the rise to power of the Communist Party in 2001, a new phenomenon less frequent in the international practice has started to grow in scope in Moldova, and namely the legislative plagiarism  
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Hundred of thousands Moldovans work for employers illegally or by the day without an employment contract or workbooks, without health insurance and without benefiting from the social incentives offered by the state. For some of them, working on the side means simply a supplementary income for which they don’t have to pay taxes, but for other, it is the only chance to earn their living. In the first case, as well as in the second, the state budget loses billions of lei…  
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On January 16, a reddish substance “snowed” over the entire village of Solonceni, Rezina district. The dust that settled on houses, the ground and trees frightened and appalled the inhabitants: people began having troubles in breathing, started coughing, experienced dizziness and even nausea.  
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The issue of children schooling is in the competence of several agencies – Ministry of Education, District Education Departments, mayor´s offices, social workers, school administrations, commissions for minors.  
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It is already customary practice for Chisinau authorities that every single word containing the root “moldova” to serve the policy of the voronist moldovenism. Or, the monopoly instated by Voronin’s fellows on this word rules out any possibility of using it for other purposes. Journalist Vlad Pascaru came across this very challenge, when he, as director of the “Moldoveanca” magazine, was forced to close down his publication because of his refusal to propagate the primitive moldovenism policy…  
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End of January, Moscow, Russian Federation: one of the most wanted international mobsters was arrested by Russian law-enforcement bodies. Semion Mogilevich, nicknamed “the Brainy Don” because of his business genius, is the man controlling for years the largest Russian crime union in the world. His businesses count a wide range of operations, from drug and arms trafficking to prostitution and money laundering. The crime networks protected by Mogilevich didn’t pass up Moldova either, especially the Transnistrian region.  
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“Work & Travel in USA” companies have become very attractive to the Moldovan youth. Every year, thousands of students go to America during the summer through such companies. However, for some of them, the American dream became drama or even full tragedy. In 2007, three young Moldovans working in the US lost their lives.  
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Recently, Moldovan representatives have met (again!) with the Ukrainian officials in order to discuss the future of Moldovan properties in the neighbour country. As a matter of fact, this kind of negotiations has been conducted ever since the dissolution of the USSR, although with little success for us.  
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This article continues the series of investigations on the activity of the director of the Municipal Company “Department for Production and Servicing of Housing Resources” (DPSFR), ex deputy-mayor, Iuri Pahomenco. It was new evidence of this public servant’s abuses that determined us to continue the journalistic investigations.  
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A few months before the winter holidays, Minister Papuc’s employees started a war against fireworks import and trade, attacking the companies specialized therein. Police descended several times upon such companies in Chisinau, sealing up their warehouses and stores, so that some of them were forced to suspend their activity. Moreover, five of them had their fireworks trade licenses suspended, even though those were valid until 2010.  
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At the start of the 90s of last century, the Republic of Moldova became an independent state, but the transition from centralized economy to market economy, from totalitarianism to democracy was accompanied by serious political, economic and social problems. In a relatively short space of time, Moldova became known in the entire Europe, but not as a prosperous state that follows steadfastly the path of democratic reforms, but as the poorest country on the continent where all kind of trafficking, including in human organs, is flourishing.  
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Andrei Petrov, a biology teacher in Farladeni village, Causeni district, has invented something the world pharmacy science hasn’t yet managed to discover. The medicine PIMI-stimulin, made by Petrov from three herbs – crowfoot, milfoil and nettle – is the only medicine in the world to increase the number of trombocytes in blood. Although it has passed clinical tests in Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Moldova, and although it is highly praised by notorious names of the domestic and foreign medical community, the author having received an inventor’s patent, the drug was produced in as many as 110 thousand vials, after which its production was suspended.  
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NATO could suspend the funding of the project for the destruction of unusable and forbidden pesticides, implemented by the Moldovan government. This could happen because a part of those 364 thousand Euros, allocated so far by this Euro-Atlantic organization, have been managed unreasonably. The theft of pesticide packaging means, setting warehouses on fire, involving soldiers with health-related problems in the work with hazardous substances are only a few of such disorders committed under the project.  
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In Romania they are called “smart boys”, in Russia – energy oligarchs. In our country, they do not have a general name, but this does not mean that they do not exist.  
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Another case currently investigated by AECCC is that of Sergiu Edu, suspected of having misappropriated many millions of Lei as a result of fraudulent affairs with the shares of some investment funds.  
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In Romania they are called “smart boys”, in Russia – energy oligarchs. In our country, they do not have a general name, but this does not mean that they do not exist. This is about a ‘select’ group of businessmen who have come to direct the most part of the flows of electric energy imported in Moldova and, more recently, of that exported from the Moldovan Regional Power Station (MRPS), better known as the Kuchurgan Power Station.  
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One of the cases of illegal privatization, currently investigated by AECCC, is that of “Chişinău” Hotel. Over 6.5 thousand shareholders invested their patrimonial bonds in the joint stock company with the same name. They had high hopes about that transaction, but came to be fleeced by a group of racketeers…  
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The privatization against patrimonial bonds will become history by the end of the year. The state “draws the curtain” although most shareholders have not yet received at least a penny of the promised dividends, and the mysteries of the fraudulent privatization of a number of enterprises have not yet been solved.  
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Moldovan authorities have been implementing an ambitious gasification program for already five years. Launched in 2002, the National Gasification Program provides that, by the end of 2009, all those 1528 localities on the right bank of Nistru River should have access to natural gas. If taking into account that, at the beginning of 2000, 208 localities were connected to the gas pipe, that is, less than 14 percent, and at the beginning of 2007, their number reached 727, or about 47.6%, then the progress is obvious.  
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According to Article 28 of the Law on Gas, the costs of extension of distribution networks are covered by the “distribution unit”. In Moldova we have only one unit empowered to distribute gas – “Moldova-Gaz” SA. However, according to “Moldova-Gaz” officials, only one-third of the total of 13,886 km of gas distribution networks, used by this structure, were owned thereby as at 1 January 2007.  
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The formula of reorganization and privatization of the gas complex, accepted in 1998 by the Government and Parliament, was estimated by a number of experts and decision-making factors in the field as incorrect and defective both for Moldova and for the shareholders of the respective companies.  
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The Russian concern «Gazprom» has brought Moldova to its knees years in a row by claiming huge payments for the delivered gas. The appetite of the monopolistic giant has increased year by year, not without being fed by important officers that have succeeded each other at the helm of the Moldovan state.  
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Several weeks ago, the First Lady Taisia Voronin visited the orphanage “Childhood Town” in Parata, Dubasari district, which she patronizes. All those 107 children did not go to classes that day in order to greet her. However, neither this time did she find out that a number of children had been missing school for some time already, and that nothing was known about some of them.  
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Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) is seeking nominations for the 2007 CJFE International Press Freedom Awards  
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Raymond Louw, a South African "media warhorse" who has fought a battle against insult laws in the region, has won the 2006 Mondi Shanduka Lifetime Achievement Award  
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The International Journalism Exchange is inviting 10 experienced newspaper editors from developing countries to come to the United States for a five-week programs  
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Trevor Ncube, chief executive of the "only private and critical newspapers still published in Zimbabwe," and journalists Hrant Dink and Anna Politkovskaya, who were killed as a result of their work, are this year's winners of the International Publishers Association (IPA) Freedom Prize  
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Do you know of a southern African journalist or media organisation whoupholds the ethics of the profession at all costs, relentlessly pursues the truth behind the bare facts, and whose work promotes media freedom in the region?  
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The UK-based International Policy Network is accepting articles nominations for its 2007 FrГ©dГ©ric Bastiat Prize for Journalism  
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For nearly seven months from the publication of the investigation “Rezina-Style Governance” (www.investigatii.md), in which we revealed serious abuses committed by officers of Rezina Mayor’s Office, none of those institutions which had to take a stand, responded. Instead, Rezina Mayor Mihail Cut and other two officers sued the authors of the investigation and the publications “Cuvantul” and “Ziarul de Garda”.  
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"I can assure you that the State and its President were always in good standing with Dorimedont! He was a genuine patriot of this nation. What TIMPUL writes is all nonsense," President Vladimir Voronin stated during a meeting with the undersigned, which I requested, as empowered representative of Rev. Dorimedont´s father, Tudor Cecan.  
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The neurosurgeon Eduard Eftodiev says the post-surgery radiography of Bishop Dorimedont was done in Chisinau and that his big mistake was sending the film to Vienna without making a copy thereof. ?If I had a copy I could now prove to anyone that I did the surgery well", stated Eftodiev for TIMPUL.  
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"I forbid you categorically to tell anyone or cover in the newspaper the fact that you visited me, asking about Dorimedont. Our meeting was a private one. Be careful, I am asking you nicely ? no one should know that you came to me and we talked about Dorimedont!" This is what Ozea Rusu, the general director of the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery (INN) answered when I asked him several questions about the case of Rev. Dorimedont, who was hospitalized there during December 6-8, 2006  
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About five months from the car accident which Rev. Dorimedont had while entering the village of Mosana on the Donduseni-Otaci roadway, rumor has it among the policemen in that region that the Bishop´s death was planned ahead. Sources from another state institution told us that a device may have been mounted in the gearbox, which led to the car running off the road.  
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The undersigned is a Christian Orthodox and attends the churches subject to the Metropolitan Church of Chisinau and of Entire Moldova (MCCEM) ? I am not pro-Russian, but I do not like to change the church in which I was born. In this article, I do not aim to show that the Orthodox Church is not the real one, or to cause discord in the Metropolitan Church, but only to draw attention to the frightful decline in which it has been drowning lately.  
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In September, the Government approved the mandatory medical assistance insurance funds for 2007. As a result, the mandatory medical assistance insurance polices will grow more expensive by circa 48 percent next year and will cost 1,209 Lei, as compared to 816 Lei this year. This rise in the price will hit cruelly, especially on the poor people, the jobless ones, and those who do not have the possibility to buy policies. It has also been established that the mandatory social insurance, calculated as a percentage from the salaries and other rewards, will constitute 2.5% for the employer and 2.5% for the employee.  
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After a long lawsuit that lasted over two years,Supreme Court of Justice obliged General Prosecutor's Office to make public names of prosecutors having appropriated public money  
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The National Scientific-Practical Center for Preventive Medicine (NSPCPM) obstinately refuses to issue an operation authorization to a business company from Chisinau. And this after “Technolaser” SRL won the contest announced by the Moldovan Government and benefited from a grant offered by the Japanese Government. Based on this, we conclude that the Government “helps” companies do business in Moldova, but the institutions belonging thereto put spokes in their wheels.  
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All opinion surveys conducted in Moldova in the past years place doctors each time in front of the most corrupt ones. And not by accident. Corruption blooms feely in the country’s healthcare system. The law-enforcement bodies catch red-handed only those who oblige the patients or their relatives to give them a few hundred Lei. The big sharks in this field, who would let you die in pain if you do not put hundreds or even thousands of euros into their pockets, are left in peace.  
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The document entitled “Indication NK003/47” with the mention “Top secret” and with the code KAA/CC113, enforced on 2 June 1947 by the Soviet NKVD in Central and East European countries, which accepted the socialist way of development, was stipulating, among other things, that: “State bureaucracy must be extended to the largest degree in all areas. Criticism during meetings and even in the media of the bureaucratic bodies shall be admitted for the public opinion, but neither a numerical decrease of the staff nor a good operation of the bureaucratic apparatus shall be admitted” (art.32).  
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On the average, the maintenance of a diplomatic mission costs the country’s budget about USD 300 thousand yearly. The most costly are the embassies in Vienna, New York and Washington D.C., their annual budget approximating to USD 500 thousand. Other missions, such as the ones from Minsk or Kiev, reach to about USD 100 thousand. In 2005, nearly USD 15 million were transferred from the country’s budget for the activity of Moldovan diplomatic missions.  
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Only six out of all those 23 Moldovan ambassadors accredited abroad have passed the school of the Ministry of External Affairs and know from inside what diplomatic work means. These are: Natalia Gherman (Stockholm), Eugen Karpov (Brussels), Nicolae Dudau (Rome), Igor Corman (Berlin), Eugen Revenco (Geneva) and Mihai Barbulat (Ankara).  
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Although they receive salaries of over 2,000 euros, our ambassadors abroad are almost as invisible. They do not organize press conferences, do not participate in many public events and, beyond everything, many of them do not speak English and neither the language of their country of residence. As a result, the Republic of Moldova further remains an inexistent country for ordinary foreigners as well as for the dignitaries from the countries to which our ambassadors are accredited.  
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An increasing number of Moldovan citizens have lately been claiming serious mistakes committed by doctors, as a result of which people remain invalid, with serious health problems, or which even lead to the patients’ death. Even though those who had to suffer because of doctors go to court, the lawsuits last for years and the case is seldom decided in the victims’ favor. Medical expert examinations are conducted also by doctors and, as it is known – “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”.  
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We tried to find out from the leaders of territorial organizations of Nistru war veterans how many war fighters benefited from the preferential loans destined, according to the Government Decree no.1146, for the procurement or construction of dwellings. In the district of Ungheni, for instance, only two, out of 42, veteran applications have been satisfied.  
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One of the important incentives granted by the state to the participants in the 1992 military conflict is the possibility to benefit from preferential home loans, which is extremely necessary for most veterans of the Nistru war. How many of those circa 30 thousand veterans of the Nistru war have benefited from the preferential loans? How many of those who received loans have actually been able to buy a dwelling?  
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Anatol Cobâlaş from Floreşti fought two wars: the Afghan war and the Nistru war. He was seriously wounded in the Coşniţa battles and both his legs were paralyzed. He was only 31. His daughter was 12, and his son – only two. He read one day in the governmental newspaper “Nezavisimaya Moldova” (Independent Moldova) that the Union of Participants in the Military Conflict of 1991-1992, headed by Ştefan Trofim, gave him a wheelchair, which he actually needed very much. He waited many months, but the promised wheelchair did not come.  
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The real number of those who died fighting for the independence and integrity of Moldova, of those who died in peace time because of their wounds, of the war widows, or even of the war veterans, is not known even now, in 14 years from the bloody conflict on the Nistru River. Along the years, the state whose integrity was defended with the price of the lives of its sons, has almost not honored the heroes.  
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The governors’ concern for the agricultural producer remains only at the level of declarations. In reality, those who try to do business without having “back-up” somewhere in the state structures encounter a lot of problems: unfounded controls, pressure, persecutions from law-enforcement and control bodies, administrative and criminal actions.  
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On 6 April 2006, the Parliament approved in the first reading, with the votes of the communist majority, a number of amendments and additions to the Law of 12 April 1994 on the Operative Investigation Activity (Art. 6, 8, 151) and to the Law on Telecommunications of 7 July 1995 (Art. 2 and others), which aimed at simplifying the process of tapping telephone conversations by the competent bodies.  
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Who are the targets of tapping in the Republic of Moldova? Officially – criminals and terrorists. Unofficially, however, this contingent is much higher and includes individuals that become interesting due to their preoccupations in the political, economic or political life.  
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Mobile phones have ears. Businessmen, newspapermen, politicians and influential persons from the underworld avoid discussing important subjects over mobile phones or, in very urgent cases, speak in codes, so that the message is understood only by them, in spite of those who prick up their ears near the tapping device.  
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The General Prosecutor’s Office has announced about having discovered hundreds of cases in which the employees of the Department for the Medical Examination of Vitality (DMEV) have groundlessly granted invalidity degrees in the past years. At the same time, the Head of DMEV, Leonid Zaharia, who has led the institution in the past five years, and, consequently, tolerated this situation, has been got off scot-free.  
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The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) welcomes applications to its Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program for the 2007-2008 fellowship  
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Access to information and the authorities’ attitude toward the journalists’ investigations are two specific aspects of the journalistic activity. Likewise, there are two categories of lawsuits in which Moldovan investigation journalists are involved (just like most mass media organizations): protection of honor and professional reputation and, respectively, access to information.  
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The amount of 4.5 mlln Lei from the taxpayers’ money went as illegal pensions and indemnities to prosecutors. The Court of Appeal obliged the General Prosecutor’s Office for the second time to provide to the Journalistic Investigation Center the names of the prosecutors that illegally collected pensions and indemnities in the period 2002-2003.  
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On the recommendation of Deputy Minister Vladimir Botnari, a person with a doubtful past received treatment at the MIA Hospital  
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Two passports, because we are well-off!

In the next five years, over 1.5 million Moldovan citizens, current passport holders, will have to apply for new passports. From 1 January 2006, the passports whose validity (5 years) expires will not be extended for another term. The citizens will instead be able to apply for new passports, with ten-year validity.

 
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Ex-Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Vladimir Botnari, abusively obtained an apartment in Chisinau  
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Government sued for keeping secret public interest information

The Journalistic Investigation Center has summoned the Government of the Republic of Moldova, for refusing, by its Interdepartmental Commission for Protection of the State Secret, to make public several unpublished paragraphs from the Decision of the Court of Accounts of the Republic of Moldova, on the results of the thematic examination on the retirement system efficiency, and on the method of establishment of pensions for different categories of retired persons in the period 2003-2004 (“Official Monitor”, No. 92-94, dated 8 July 2005), as well as the documents implicitly containing the secret information.  
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Again raining general ranks

At the end of January, President Voronin awarded the rank of general to the General Prosecutor Valeriu Balaban. The second person in the Prosecutor’s Office, Valeriu Gurbulea, was awarded the “Civic merit” distinction. According to the law, the rank of general, as well as state distinctions, are awarded to the citizens that have particularly excelled in serving the country.  
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At first, they were finding dead pigeons on the roof of their apartment block. Then, the people living on the last floor started to complain more often about headaches, insomnia and physical exhaustion. Children became apathetical and began to complain about dizziness. Finally, they realized that all their troubles might be caused by the GSM antennas mounted on the roof of their block.  
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After the verdict was pronounced in the case of Valeriu Pasat, ex-Minister of Defense and ex-Director of the Information and Security Service (ISS), accused of fraudulent commercialization of military airplanes from the endowment of the National Army, on the background of some international reactions, a part of Chisinau media put forward the idea that Valeriu Pasat would be criminally investigated upon in a case for betrayal of country.  
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A few citizens picked up from their homes by the police were arrested and terrorized for no reason  
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Motto: The institutional causes for the appearance of corruption include… promotion to responsible positions of incompetent and corrupt persons; lack of transparency in the activity of central and local public administration and in law-enforcement bodies; excessive freedom granted to decision-making factors; reduced possibility of unmasking the corrupt persons…  
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or how corruption cases are hushed up  
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The massive support which several political and cultural persons, as well as parties, have offered to Vasile Ursu, candidate for capital’s mayor position, arouses confusion. Where does this consensus come from, and what lies behind this scenario? Do democratic forces think that by giving their support to Ursu, they will manage to keep Chisinau away from the communists’ hands?  
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The guarding of rusty cartridges – a shield for modern military technologies

If until recently Russia was invoking the necessity to secure the old ammunitions depots as a reason to maintain its military establishment in the Transnistrian region, we see now that Russia has wormed well its way into the left side of the Dniester River.  
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On the Lawyer’s Day, the General Prosecutor greased the prosecutors from the entire country with a very nice feast: barbecue, turkey soup and many Bacchus’ fine drinks on the bank of Costesti pond.  
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The stammering of the General Prosecutor, Valeriu Balaban, during the parliamentary meeting held last Friday, in which he requested deprivation of immunity of three MPs from the faction “Moldova Noastră” put in difficulty and even held up to ridicule the majority faction. The uncertainty and the evasive manner in which the General Prosecutor answered the questions, most of which logical and specific, addressed by the opposition, revealed his lack of professionalism and, what is more serious, that is the mouthpiece of somebody else’s will (whose will? – we ask ourselves). This aspect is really alarming, if we take into account that in the Republic of Moldova the powers are separated. Being sure that the communist MPs will vote automatically, without having to be convinced with conclusive arguments, Balaban did not even tire to understand himself what was incriminated against the MPs. He even proved to be behind in his knowledge of the Criminal Procedure Code and other legal acts, which is obligatory to know for a beginning prosecutor. As a result, even those suspected by the opposition of having ordered the scandalous cases, doubted the soundness of the existing evidence and preferred to postpone the voting in order to “document themselves additionally”.  
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Last week, during the meeting of the Collegium of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, President Voronin shook his finger at the policemen lest they take the place of criminal groupings, which, as the Ministry’s leadership says, have been liquidated lately. “The President stressed the need to establish a closer cooperation among the internal bodies, the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Information and Security Service in view of counteracting criminality, including the wrongdoings committed by the employees of police bodies”, reads a press release of the Press Service of the President’s Office. It seems that the head of the state knows something, if he took care to make those warnings. The team of the Journalistic Investigations Center has written many times about Papuc’s buddies who, after having received green light from the head of the state himself to liquidate the criminal groupings, directly took over the entire range of violations that is characteristic to the underworld: from racketing, banditry to cooperation with the criminal networks and ordered murders.  
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The Ministry of Defense gave its consent to the putting into operation of the airplane “Vilga-35”, without it being subject to the necessary repair works in accordance with the technical requirements. In July of this year, two months from the occurrence of the most tragic accident in the history of the Moldovan aviation, the governmental commission set up to elucidate the reasons for the Marculesti catastrophe announced suspension of its activity, arguing its decision by the fact that “all the necessary measures, in its competence, for the examination of the reasons for the production of the accident, have been undertaken”. The reason for the plane crash, according to the conclusion drawn by the commission, was “spontaneous fall of the motor’s power”. At the end of August, the criminal investigations in connection with the Marculesti accident ended, and the criminal case was dismissed “for the lack of the constitutive elements of the offence”. And so, a veil of silence fell on the tragic accident. Only the families of the four pilots and their friends will bear for a long time in their souls the pain of loss of the dear ones, without knowing the reasons for that stupid accident.  
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Economic agents, suffocated by so many groundless controls, have asked many times the head of the state to interfere in order to put an end to the abuses committed by law-enforcement and control bodies. As a result, a legislative guillotine initiative was launched, which was highly appreciated by businessmen and which aimed at freeing the business from the illegal controls burden. In one year, however, things have not changed. The bureaucratic racket practiced by law-enforcement and control bodies cannot be impeded just by one law, even though the initiative thereof comes from the head of the state. As proof of this is the multitude of cases in which economic agents feel forced if not to give, as it is spread, large amounts of money, then to provide various services free of charge to individuals holding high positions, such as repair and furnishing of offices, IT equipping, car repair and other ‘sweet nothings’, which the state, although obliged, is not able to provide.  
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The Russian law-enforcement bodies have recently arrested, according to some MIA operative sources, Alexandru Sinegur, the leader of a criminal grouping suspected of committing many murders on Moldova’s and Ukraine’s territory. Sinegur, announced in international search, was arrested, in summer 2001, by the Russian law-enforcement bodies and extradited to the Republic of Moldova, and, in September of the same year, he was set free by the Moldovan judges. The judge was reprimanded, while the accused, being set free, allegedly committed other two murders and kidnapped one person. He is suspected of having planned the murder of the businessman Piotr Sarâ and of being an accomplice in the kidnapping of the official from the Informational Technologies Department (ITD), Piotr Dimitrov.  
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4.5 million Lei from the taxpayers’ money went to illegal pensions and indemnities for prosecutors  
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On the eve of the parliamentary elections held this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs drew the public opinion’s attention to the fact that, allegedly, attempts to the security of the state and of the President were being planned. In order to scare definitely the people, there were spread out, in various locales throughout the city, bottles with ‘Molotov cocktail’-type inflammable substances. While the ordinary policemen were taking pains in tracing out the conspirers, expelling from the country many foreign citizens suspected of presenting real danger, the top of the Ministry of Internal Affairs put the cherry on the cake – putting up for sale, at ridiculous prices, an imposing lot of arms, among which automatic pistols Kalashnikov. Although the procedure of taking possession of an arm is pretty difficult, the arms were sold like fresh bread  
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For moral damages resulting from the cases manufactured upon order, the state paid, in 2004, over 5 million Lei from the public funds.  
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In the evening of 22 March 2005, the Director of “Cvartef” SRL, Valeriu Efremov, was arrested by CCCEC (Anti-Economic Crime and Corruption Center) representatives for taking bribes in large amounts. In just a few hours, the representatives of law-enforcement bodies had to set him free, at the intervention of some dignitaries, and, it’s unbelievable, apologize to him. Although the case was shut up, the Journalistic Investigations Center managed to find out who had interfered for Efremov’s release.  
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Motto: “In the times of universal deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” (George Orwell)

Freedom of press is a broad and complex subject. In order not to limit itself to some general findings, the Journalistic Investigations Center’s team will make reference to two specific aspects of the journalistic activity: access to information and the authorities’ attitude towards the materials (investigations) of the press.  
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In 2001, the communist, as soon as they came to power, founded the Anti-Economic Crime and Corruption Center (CCCEC). Being sure that the number of corrupted dignitaries is very big, they even created a special sector, at the Lipcani Penitentiary, for “white collars”. After four years, the communist governance, naturally, had to present a report in order to show the results of their work to the electors.  
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Two events related to the activity of law-enforcement bodies upset the public opinion last week. The first one is about giving special general ranks to some dignitaries from law-enforcement bodies and the second one is a tragedy, which could have been avoided, if the institutions ruled by the fresh generals had done their duty conscientiously. It is about the operation of arrest of the young men who had stolen two guns from the Army’s Sports Club, within which one police officer was killed, two persons were hurt and two lives were destroyed.  
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A number of economic agents import unabashedly oil products without having any license for such business. In 2004, about 241,800 tons of gasoline, 298,600 tons of diesel oil and only 52,600 tons of liquefied gases were imported in Republic of Moldova, according to the data provided by the National Energy Regulation Agency (NERA). From NERA’s words, the bulk of gasoline import increased by 19.3% in comparison with the year 2003, the bulk of diesel oil import increased by only 5.6%, but in the case of liquefied gases, imports have practically stopped.  
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The Prime Deputy Minister of Economy, Vasile Mămăligă, „helped” the state in losing the majority block of shares of “Doina Restaurant” SA
From a process supposed to bring money to the state budget and make the economy work on healthy grounds of real competition and competence, privatization turned into a gold mine for the alternating governments.
Even certain communist governors didn’t remain aloof to the possibility of easily appropriating some property. Blaming the privatization process, they came into possession of either hundreds of hectares of land or their own firms, or even shares in different commercial entities by means of financial stratagems and engineerings. Begun ten years ago, the robbery from the state fortune has also been carried on within the last four years in the condition when the state power belonged to a single political party, having all the means to clear up the state structures from corrupted officers and return the property stolen over the years back to the state treasury.  
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After the events that took place in America on September 11, 2001, the world’s biggest powers declared open war to terrorism. Charges were imposed upon certain states, suspected of financing terrorist networks and, namely, of money laundering.
At the end of the year 2003, the USA, Great Britain, Germany and Canada recommended to those 29 countries that are members of the International Organization for Fighting Money Laundering (FATF) to undertake additional measures for investigating the suspicious financial operations of certain banks and natural persons from a number of East-European states. Nevertheless, the world’s biggest powers left the Transnistrian region in the shadow, region which, without control, has become a veritable financial paradise over the last years.  
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The Members of Parliament that the Republic of Moldova has had after gaining its independence have always been concerned about how to get a dwelling.
Nor the Members of the Parliament that is about to be gone have remained indifferent to such a possibility. Those, who during the 2001 elections were stating that they had houses and were not coming to the Parliament to grow richer on the people’s account, did not miss the chance to get one more house.  
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Marc Tkaciuk, Marian Lupu, Vasile Iovv, Oleg Reidman, Mihail Sidorov, Adriana Chiriac, Vlad Cubreacov, Ion Guţu, Vasile Colţa, Eduard Smirnov, Valeri Klimenco, Gheorghe Sima, Mihai Petrache, Nicolae Andronic, Nicolae Alexei  
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It seems that the wish to obtain fabulous earnings on someone else’s account has got deep in the blood of the members of the Voronin family, especially after the head of the family has taken over the leadership of the country. In the last years, under the protection of the father-president, Oleg Voronin has become one of the most prosperous businessmen in Moldova, monopolizing field after field, under the kind look of his father, who proclaimed himself an ardent fighter against corruption. Less known to the public opinion are the affairs of the daughter of the head of state – Valentina Rusu – who in the last years has set going a business worth millions. Nothing wrong with this, we would say, only if the little firm did not parasitize one of the most important medical institutions, and the money that must go to the state budget did not flow into the pockets of the members of the presidential family.  
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Victor Stepaniuc, Maria Postoico, Valerian Cristea, Vadim Mişin, Vladimir Filat, Valeriu Guma, Ghenadie Tătaru, Eduard Muşuc, Vitalie Cazanir, Veronica Abramciuc, Victor Morev, Piotr Şornicov  
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The Moldovan Metallurgic Factory (MMF) from Râbniţa started to function in 1985. The enterprise was built in a record period of time, with the contribution of most of Moldovan districts, which, according to the dispositions of then top leadership, were participating in the construction works with human, material and financial resources, so that later they could benefit from the services and production of the factory. At the beginning, MMF was expected to process scrap metal from Moldova and partially from Ukraine, both countries being supplied with rolled iron, a very solicited product, especially in constructions and the agro-industrial complex. Subsequently, the enterprise was modernized, becoming one of the most attractive in the branch, its productivity reaching 1 million tons of steel and 900 thousand tons of rolled iron yearly.  
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The Center of Journalistic Investigations and the Association of Independent Press have set to make a foray into the past of the candidates for parliamentary mandates through some criteria of moral integrity and to point out some details of their biography, which the parties that promote them overlook. A few criteria were taken as basis, such as political opportunism, involvement in doubtful affairs and public scandals, use of one’s public position for the personal benefit or for the protection of some interests, whether they made the object of any investigations of the law-enforcement bodies etc.  
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The Center for Journalistic Investigations has set to prove, through a number of investigations, who got the factories, formerly profitable, from the Transnistrian region, who and how takes advantages of the Moldovan patrimony, where and with what purpose the stocked Russian armament and the one produced in the region is used and, last but not least, what is the real situation of the citizens, “defended” with such an ardor by Russia, Ukraine and Moldova, but which, in reality are strangled by the tentacles of the criminal regime that exists not without these states’ contribution.  
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The Power has been shamelessly lying to us for two years about fighting against corruption. For two years we have been hearing the head of the state say that fight against corruption is a priority for the current governance. During this period, however, none of the corruption cases have been taken through the end. There have been many scandals about the involvement of some officers in corruption cases, but sooner or later, a veil of silence fell on all of them. During many investigations that we have conducted we have reached the conclusion that the power is in many cases the accomplice of the corrupt ones and that many doubtful activities are conducted with the agreement of highly placed officers. Otherwise, there would not be overlooked so many data on the involvement of officers of the current governance in fund misappropriation, protectionism, attempts to take advantage of the position of highly placed individuals, bribery. In order not to be held responsible for the committed wrongdoings, the officers of the current governance are simply “gone” at “their own request”.  
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After the publication, on 19 September of this year, of the article Radioactive bomb at Râbniţa, we got different kinds of feedback from the readers; some of them were skeptical about what is happening at the metallurgical plant, others seemed concerned about it, while some local mass media hurried to raise in the heights the Râbniţa metallurgical plant. But there has been no feedback from the country’s administration. Below are more details on this case.  
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During the first days of his mandate, President Voronin stated, in a meeting with the leaders of the Trade Union “Solidarity” that he would appoint corrupt individuals in leading positions to fight against corruption.
We have seen whom he has appointed in leading positions in ministries and structures empowered to fight against corruption and protectionism, we have also seen how they cope with their work. For three years it has been concluded that we have corruption at all levels but we cannot find the corrupt ones. The reporters have tried in vain to reveal corruption actions of many state officers, because the head of the state remains unshakable. Maybe before the mandate of the current governance expires will we find the answers to the corruption related questions. We will continue our investigations on the officers of the current governance  
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Boris Lupaşco was appointed prosecutor of Chişinău municipality in October 2002 by the current governance. He succeeded Petru Bobu, who was dismissed as a result of a service control conducted by the General Prosecutor’s Office in connection with the kidnapping of the Deputy Director of the Department for Informational Technologies.  
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A new incident with radioactive materials took place last week at Rîbniţa metallurgical plant. According to a release signed by the plant’s General Director, A. Costin, quoted by the local independent weekly “Dobriy deni” (Good Day), on 28 October, at 8.20 a.m., a device containing cesium-137 (Cs-137) was thrown by accident into the metal melting oven. This is the third such accident registered in the past three years at this plant. The substantial increase in the radioactive level at the plant was established by an employee who immediately informed the management. After a thorough control, the management, A. Costin says, informed the Tiraspol Hygiene and Epidemiology Center about what the incident. When making an analysis of the dust, the plant’s laboratory found in it an increased content of cesium-137 isotopes.  
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On Friday, on St. Michael and Gabriel Day, Başcalia, the home village of Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev, and other Moldovan villages, celebrated the hram.
It is a tradition that Başcalia inhabitants have observed since their ancestors. This year, however, the hram was postponed for one day because Tarlev could not come to the hram on Friday. On Saturday, the Prime Minister was expected to participate in the sanctification of a spring at the village outskirts, which had been arranged and built, according to the commemorative plate, on his initiative.  
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Andrei Ciubov from Nimoreni, Ialoveni (former Chişinău judet) is fond of motorcycles. However, for one month now motorcycles have transformed his life into a nightmare.
At the beginning of November, at Andrei Ciubov’s home came four police officers from the Special Destination Battalion “Fulger” (Lightening), whose commander used to be the current Minister of Internal Affairs, Gheorghe Papuc, and who was succeeded by the current Deputy Prime Minister, Botnari. Only Andrei’s wife was at home. The policemen introduced themselves and began searching around the household as if looking for something. They found the two motorcycles - Honda Trumber and Suzuki Bike – and a Benele scooter, and assailed the woman with questions: where were they purchased, where are the documents etc. After all, they told her that the motorcycles had been stolen and smuggled into the country, and that her husband risks getting behind the bars. After they frightened the woman altogether, they took her word that, in order to get out of trouble, her husband had give them USD 5,000 – one thousand to each of them and one to the one who put them on the “right track”, i.e. showed them where to come.  
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After a few years of working in Italy, Pavel Malic from Zubreşti, Străşeni (former judet Chişinău) returned in July of this year with his wife home, to work some more on their household. Their joy of seeing again their motherland and relatives turned in a few days into a real nightmare.  
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43 peasants from Chircăeşti do not have any more where to look for justice, after Vladimir Voronin appointed as chairman of Căuşeni court the one who left the families of the poor people without bread, on the eve of winter. In Căuşeni, they speak openly that a lot of money was paid for the position of Raion Court Chairman. Peasants from many villages say that, for obtaining this position, there had allegedly been used the wheat they were supposed to receive from Petru Grumeza, the new chairman of Căuşeni Court, who, as they say, has been leasing in their land shares for many years.  
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Gheorghe Papuc, whose days in front of MIA are counted, seems to be, at least by his attitude, protector of corrupt policemen.
For several years now, the Police have been boasting that they have annihilated criminal groupings that have terrorized the business environment in our country. On the other hand, there have intensified the cases in which policemen blackmail as racketeers and collect protection taxes worse than the members of the underworld. This thing denotes that the place of criminal groupings has been taken by the clans from state structures, which, it looks like, have unleashed a hard fight for the occupation of the influence spheres.  
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Four officers from Drochia Police Station that, being in collusion with Moscow underworld, made fortunes of tens of thousands of dollars by sequestering and blackmailing two young Moldovans returned from working abroad with a sack of money, have been condemned by the Moldovan justice to the payment of a fine of only 2 thousand Lei.  
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The Director of State Chancery Pantelei Tâltu signs contracts of thousands of dollars to polish the image of the communist governance.  
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Scared of antiterrorist foreign services and that the press has found out the truth, governors started hiding all the traces that could prove all this.
Shortly after we published the investigation “Moldova finances Ben Laden”, in which we revealed that a company controlled by the Saudi clan Ben Laden intermediates the exports of electric power from the Russian Federation to the Republic of Moldova, several state structures and from the energy sector began to fret.  
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The Recreational Center “Moscova” located in the center of the city and created based on the former cinema theater with the same name by several businessmen in 2000 shortly became a profitable business. However, since a business in our country is not a business if nobody “covers for it”, potential protectors showed up immediately.  
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The most looked for information – almost impossible to obtain – is the one related with the dignitaries’ property. Transparency International Moldova (TIM), in cooperation with the Journalistic Investigations Center (CIN) and the Association of Independent Press (API), has recently launched the study “Monitoring the access to information in the Republic of Moldova”. The investigation aimed at evaluating the capacity of central and local public authorities of providing public information according to the procedures provided by the legislation and of ensuring the real involvement of citizens, of non-governmental organizations and of the business environment in the decision making process.  
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The Recreational Center “Moscova” located in the center of the city and created based on the former cinema theater with the same name by several businessmen in 2000 shortly became a profitable business. However, since a business in our country is not a business if nobody “covers for it”, potential protectors showed up immediately. From the very beginning, some people that introduced themselves as responsible officers from the Anti-Economic Crime and Corruption Center proposed to “Moscova” owners to protect their business in exchange for USD 100 thousand “to avoid eventual problems”. They made it clear to them that some highly placed people would like to put a hand on this business. Then pressures began from other parts, too. As we found out, some ‘young and restless’ councilors of the head of the state also ‘became fond’ of the “Moscova” show-business. The businessmen had invested a lot of money in the renovation of “Moscova” and had not returned their money yet, therefore, they were not delighted at all about the protectors’ invasion. Not long thereafter, the problems began to make themselves felt.  
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Before reaching the Republic of Moldova, Russian electric power passes through at least four intermediary companies, one of which belongs to the family of Ossama Bin Laden  
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A citizen denounced a corrupt policeman at CCCEC, and this institution’s officers, instead of undertaking measures, informed the policeman about it  
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A flying coffin above Europe Although the machine is administered by AIR Moldova, lots of money have been paid to a private firm for renovation works  
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While many prosecutors can barely do anything with their very small monthly salaries, being unable to support their families, the ‘banished’ ones can afford vacations of thousands of Euros. On whose money?  
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On 24 October 2003 the newspaper “Cuvântul” informed its readers that Rezina District Council had put the point on “i” in the issue of storing forbidden and unusable pesticides. According to Moldovan Government resolution no. 1543 of 29 November 2002, 1800 of forbidden and unusable pesticides were to be collected from the entire country and stored in the explosives warehouse near the village of Păpăuţi, in order to be later incinerated in the furnace of Rezina cement plant. Local councils of Rezina, Păpăuţi, Mateuţi, Ţareuca and Lipceni had previously pronounced themselves categorically against the Government’s intention, especially that the above resolution was adopted with the violation of a series of national laws and international conventions ratified by the Republic of Moldova. For instance, according to the law on environmental protection, the adoption of such a document had to be preceded by preliminary consultation of local governments and the population, and ecological examination of the respective object. The survey conducted in January-February 2003 by the weekly “Cuvântul” along with the mayoralties of Rezina, Păpăuţi, Mateuţi showed that the population of those villages shares exactly the councilors’ opinion.  
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Over MDL 70 thousand misappropriated by prosecutors will be returned to the state budget at the insistence of API’s Investigations Department  
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The freedom of expression and the access to information are two fundamental rights which our society has obtained since its independence. The access to information, as every citizen’s right, is almost neglected. State institutions either do not know the law, or knowingly ignore it. This tendency has been more obvious in the past two-three years. Officers are afraid to speak with reporters. And not because they do not have the requested information, but because a drastic control has been installed in the state structures over the circulation of official information, especially of documents. The individuals suspected of having provided to the press information in a legal manner, but which reveal less legal actions of dignitaries, are dismissed with no reason. The press is provided only the information that is convenient to the power.  
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The chase after fat profits of the separatists from the self-proclaimed Transnistrian republic, the lack of access of official bodies regulating radioprotection and nuclear security to verify the quality of scrap metal used at Râbniţa Metallurgical Plant and the quality of metal items produced, highly endangers the citizens security and health.  
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After the publication, on 30 January, of the article „Papuc&Fulger”, API’s Investigations Department requested the General Prosecutor’s Office (PGO) and the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Center (CCCEC) to check the information presented in that investigation under Art. 274 of the Criminal Procedure Code (initiation of criminal proceedings).  
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Arthur and Ludmila Platonov live together with their three minor children across the street from the forest by the Chisinau hippodrome. They have a small household and a little two-bedroom house. To earn their living, they started a business with glass recipients.  
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The General Prosecutor has, for the first time, reacted to an investigation published by an independent mass media body, by suspending from office the Chisinau prosecutor, Boris Lupasco, referred to in the investigation of API’s Investigation Department – “Prosecutor Lupasco in strings”, published on 13 February this year.  
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Boris Lupaşco was appointed prosecutor of Chişinău municipality in October 2002 by the current governance. He succeeded Petru Bobu, who was dismissed as a result of a service control conducted by the General Prosecutor’s Office in connection with the kidnapping of the Deputy Director of the Department for Informational Technologies.  
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During the first days of his mandate, President Voronin stated, in a meeting with the leaders of the Trade Union “Solidarity” that he would appoint corrupt individuals in leading positions to fight against corruption  
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The Power has been shamelessly lying to us for two years about fighting against corruption. For two years we have been hearing the head of the state say that fight against corruption is a priority for the current governance. During this period, however, none of the corruption cases have been taken through the end. There have been many scandals about the involvement of some officers in corruption cases, but sooner or later, a veil of silence fell on all of them.  
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Andrei Ciubov from Nimoreni, Ialoveni (former Chişinău judet) is fond of motorcycles. However, for one month now motorcycles have transformed his life into a nightmare.  
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On the eve of signing of the Moldova-destructing memorandum, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, presented a plane to the Moldovan President.  
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On Friday, on St. Michael and Gabriel Day, Başcalia, the home village of Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev, and other Moldovan villages, celebrated the hram.  
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After a few years of working in Italy, Pavel Malic from Zubreşti, Străşeni (former judet Chişinău) returned in July of this year with his wife home, to work some more on their household. Their joy of seeing again their motherland and relatives turned in a few days into a real nightmare.  
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After the publication, on 19 September of this year, of the article Radioactive bomb at Râbniţa, we got different kinds of feedback from the readers; some of them were skeptical about what is happening at the metallurgical plant, others seemed concerned about it, while some local mass media hurried to raise in the heights the Râbniţa metallurgical plant. But there has been no feedback from the country’s administration. Below are more details on this case.  
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Because the authorities are playing up daily trying to solve the bread crisis, we tried to investigate whether there is indeed a bread crisis and whether it is indeed a consequence of natural calamities or is caused by the governors. The information we got from different sources is really controversial. From August to December 2002, Moldova exported an amount between 250 and 300 thousand tons of food wheat.  
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• Russian owner of Metallurgical Plant transformed Moldova into a cemetery of radioactive wastes

Last fall, the employees of Râbniţa Metallurgical Plant (MP) began complaining about headaches and weaknesses and, in a few weeks, the town hospitals ran out of free beds. That state of affairs at the plant alerted the entire sanitary system in the region. Especially after what one of the employees, affected by the mysterious disease, died.

 
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Deputy Director of Customs Department favors liquid gas smuggling

In April of this year, the General Deputy Director of the Customs Department (CD), Vitalie Slipenchi, signed a letter to Chişinău Customs in which he requested that the company „TAT Gazgrup” be allowed to import liquid gas, although the company did not hold the respective license.  
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The ex-head of the investigation group says his successor needed at least three weeks to verify all the materials obtained during the investigation, but in that period the case “was crossed out”.  
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Cotorobai’s people, with the help of law-enforcement institution officers, tried a lot of methods – complaints against the investigation group members in which they libeled the latter, requests, false documents alleging them to be representatives of Russian economic agents etc.  
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(continuation from past issue)

All alcohol transactions of Cotorobai grouping, alias „Gorbatyi”, have been conducted based on illicit contracts of millions of dollars. The criminal investigation group who has investigated the most serious cases of alcohol smuggling found at least four such contracts.

 
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We found out that the grouping of smugglers that do illegal alcohol business is headed by Alexandru Cotorobai, alias „Gorbatyi”, and counts about 30 persons – from TIR drivers to customs and law-enforcement body employees. Their “mish-mashes” reached Romania, Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Bulgaria.  
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In May 1999, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted the law on the restructuring of agricultural enterprises to be privatized. To start the mechanism in that process, the Government set up, three months later, a republican commission on the assignment of debts of agricultural enterprises to oil product suppliers. The commission had to identify the economic agents who had supplied the enterprises with oil products for agricultural works. At that moment, the commission secretary, Ianoş Chiperi, main specialist at the Ministry of Finance (MF), became aware that he could take advantage of his position and put into action a devilish plan.  
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The businessman Petru Şoşev, ex member of the Communist Party (CP), contacted a few weeks ago API’s Investigation Department requesting the latter to investigate his arrest by law-enforcement institutions and his 20 day detention, actions which he considers “illegal” and “executed upon the order of some of the country’s top officials”.  
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Trafficked and thrown down from the 7th floor

At just 22, Ecaterina Pârţac from the village of Bălăneşti, which is located in Nisporeni area, feels as if she has lived an entire life. In just a few years she was predestined to go through so much that nothing can surprise her now. Her dream of working somewhere abroad and of providing for her living here in Moldova turned into a nightmare which will follow her for the rest of her life.  
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At the request of the General Prosecutor’s Office, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova makes, on 28 November 2002, amendments to the state budget law, by which it provides an additional amount of MDL 4,480,000 for the payment of one-time allowances upon retirement from the prosecutor’s office.  
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* Tactics and strategies of fighting against the ones who are inconvenient to the power.
Do you still believe that the power’s declarations regarding the fiery fight against corruption are sincere? May be, but this is so to a low extent and only when it is about political opponents, i.e. the people that do not obey. This fight, as we have established in the investigation materials which API has been realizing for half a year now, is done only ostentatiously.  
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In March 2002, the head of the Department for Veterinary Medicine (DMV) of the Ministry of Agriculture (MA), Efim Reniţă, was caught by the police in the act of taking bribe – 300 dollars – from the manager of the firm “Daniela Târsână”, for an authorisation and sanitary veterinary notice of import of 50 tons of lime chloride. Reniţă issued the authorisation and import notice violating the legislation in force. Immediately after being caught, Reniţă was arrested based on warder issued by the court of Centru sector and was held in preventive arrest for 94 days.  
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In the Role of Killers

Officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MAI) and of the Information and Security Service (SIS) have attempted on a businessman’s life

 
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The press has been following for many years the joint stock company with mixed Moldovan-Russian capital "Moldova-Gaz", the distributor of Russian gas in Moldova. Those who have been among the enterprise’s management have played the Moscow’s game in such a way that Russia could hold Moldova in a check position due to the debts always maintained “at the right level”.  
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Mişin Unleashed Prosecutor Hunting At the end of January of this year, in the newspapers of the Association of Independent Press, there was published the article “Mişin intimidates prosecutors”, which showed how the current power exerts pressure on the judiciary. The article generated a real „break-down” in the Deputy Chairman of Parliament, Vadim Mişin, especially that there was also reproduced a letter in it through which he directly was requesting the General Prosecutor (GP) to get involved in stopping the criminal investigation against four police officers. Right after the material was published, Mişin requested Rusu to initiate an office investigation to track down and punish the persons who had supplied the respective documents to the press. Even though the “guilty one” was not identified, there was found someone to blame. Without any grounds, the GO signed an order for the dismissal of Ion Diacov, head of division in the General Prosecutor’s Office (GPO). In the end, the GPO spokesman, Iacob Guja, was dismissed  
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Persons under criminal investigation are promoted to responsible positions Valeriu Ignat, searched by the Ukrainian police for embezzlement, is appointed Head of Division in the Moldovan Customs Service  
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In March of this year, the representatives of the Anti-Economic Crime and Corruption Department (DCCOC), within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, caught in the act the head of the Veterinary Medicine Department (VMD), Efrem Renita, Main State Veterinary Inspector. He claimed from Daniela Tarsana, owner of an individual enterprise, 300 dollars and office supplies in the amount of MDL 390, in exchange for issuing a license.  
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Civic Initiative for a Clean Parliament made public the list of candidates for the position of MP in the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova on July 29, 2009 that do not meet the moral integrity criteria of the civil society.  
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