After workers asked Putin for help, corruption uncovered

[bemildred]

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian investigators opened a new corruption case Wednesday against subcontractors building a space center where workers have gone unpaid for months and have appealed directly to President Vladimir Putin for help.

The Vostochny Cosmodrome, under construction in a remote area in the Far East, is a priority project that will give Russia its own facility for manned space launches and ease its reliance on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Interior Ministry on Wednesday said its investigators had uncovered the embezzlement of 50.5 million rubles (nearly $1 million) by one of the subcontractors, in addition to the embezzlement of 48 million rubles by a separate subcontractor uncovered earlier. The ministry did not name the subcontractors.

Some of the construction workers have not been paid since December, and they have staged several hunger strikes.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/science/article/After-workers-asked-Putin-for-help-corruption-6216537.php

[Igel]

1. The Mafia doesn't like competition.

Last year the All-Russian Popular Front or whatever that pan-nationalist front Putin founded is called established a media protection fund. At the same time that many media providers were being harrassed and hounded, fines imposed, fees instated, etc., a media protection fund hit the ground running.

It protected not just everybody. But "legitimate" reporters and media workers, which is to say, those hired by the state-run media, those that took their cues from the state-run media, and the political parties that formed part of the front. If a local government official not affiliated with the central government blocked access, unfairly penalized a reporter for reporting corruption, or even fairly revoked a reporter's license for biased, untruthful, or libelous reporting, the legal fund went into high gear. This was billed as a great freedom-of-the-press mechanism.

The same protections were not available for those who did the same kind of reporting on government officials loyal or supported by Putin, One Russia, or other "patriotic" parties.

[bemildred]

2. I was mainly interested that AP produced such a story and SFChron printed it. nt