Eastern Europe

Maria Danilova – June 29, 2012

Two years ago, Hryhoriy, a retired police officer from a provincial Ukrainian town, nearly died of AIDS. Yet the ghostly, emaciated father of two considers himself lucky because he eventually got treated at a Kyiv clinic and is now slowly recovering.

Unlike the 53-year-old Hryhoriy, tens of thousands of fellow Ukrainians infected with HIV are not getting any treatment at all because the state says it doesn’t have enough money.

David Moye – April 30, 2012

There's a million-dollar gap in the Czech Republic's railroad budget thanks to the theft of a 10-ton bridge near the eastern town of Slavkov.

The bridge burglary is being credited to a "train gang" who reportedly arrived at Slavkov depot with forged paperwork claiming that the footbridge over the disused railway track had to come down, the Telegraph reported.

February 6, 2012

A Slovak court has banned a book about alleged high-level political corruption written by investigative journalist Tom Nicholson prior to its publication.

In a ruling issued in early February the court ordered Nicholson's publisher, Petit Press, which also publishes The Slovak Spectator, to desist from publishing the book or any other documents based on the so-called Gorilla file, a document which contains transcripts purporting to originate from conversations covertly recorded by the country’s SIS intelligence service between 2005 and 2006.

Dan Bilefsky – November 3, 2009

BUCHAREST — Alina Lungu, 30, says she did everything necessary to ensure a healthy pregnancy in Romania: She ate organic food, swam daily and bribed her gynecologist with an extra €200 in cash, paid in monthly increments of €25 handed over discreetly in white envelopes.

Another bribe of €25, or about $32, went to a nurse to guarantee an epidural. Even the orderly reaped an extra €10 to make sure he didn't drop her from the stretcher. But on the day of her delivery, she says, her gynecologist never arrived.