7 years ago, a conversation about the media in Georgia would inevitably have brought up the issue of investigative journalism or rather its abolishment. Today you would rarely hear the same sentiment - investigative reporting is moving into oblivion. Scoop Caucasus' coordinator in Georgia, Akaki Gogichaishvili, gives a brief outlook on the obstacles for investigative reporting in the country.

On July 28th, Victor Ciobanu, a journalist for Jurnalul TV in Moldova, was reporting on a copyright court case in front of the Chisinau Court of Appeals, when a person working for the Moldovan Center for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption (CCECC) approached him, destroyed his camera and removed the memory card.

The International Press Institute (IPI) addressed an open letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday 10 August 2010 respectfully urging him to address a disturbing deterioration in press freedom over the last six months in Ukraine.

On 9 August 2010 the mayor of the Serbian city of Zajecar, Bosko Nicic decided to prevent all directors of companies and public institutions in the city from making statements to the media without his prior consent.

Several events and court decisions in Serbia are highly positve according to The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO)

According to information received by SEEMO, the Serbian journalist Teofil Pancic was attacked by two alleged perpetrators who beat him with Metal bars as he sat in a packed public transportation bus in Zemun, Serbia. After the attack, the perpetrators fled the scene and remain at large. Pancic suffered a concussion and injuries on his right arm.

The The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe recently published their Report to the Permanent Council by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, 29 July 2010. The Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, critisizes several countries which are supported by Scoop and Scoop Caucasus.

Thanks to a grant from the Swedish international development cooperation agency SIDA Scoop will from autumn 2010 and the next three years also support investigative reporting in Russia. The grant from SIDA (950.000 EUR or 9,790.000 SEK) covers the North-western part of the Russian Federation, but Scoop has also own funding for some activities in other regions in the European part of Russia.

The European Commission is calling on journalists committed to reporting human rights, democracy and development issues to apply for the 2010 Lorenzo Natali Prize. The Prize is open to print, online, TV and radio journalists working in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab World and the Middle East, and Europe.

According to information received by SEEMO, an unidentified man shot down Socrates Giolias, director of the radio station Thema 98.9 FM and administrator of the most popular social and political Greek blog Troktiko on July 19th.

An explosive device was thrown in the courtyard of Caslav Milisavljevic, editor-in-Chief of Radio Kosovska Mitrovica, in the Kosovo municipality of Zvecan July 20th. The device exploded, causing damage to three automobiles, but fortunately no one was hurt in the incident.

New Serbian Law on Electronic Communications a Threat to Freedom of Expression. The law apperently envisages the creation of a database on personal electronic communications of citizens and allows national security and police forces to view the contents without the need for prior permission.

The 6th of July, a Baku district court convicted Editor-In-Chief Eynulla Fatullayev of drug possession and sentenced him to 2.5 years in prison, writes Article 19 who condenms this act.

Romanian journalist Adrian Mogos wins the CEI SEEMO Award for Outstanding Merits in Investigative Journalism 2010. Click here to read more about the investigations he has carried out, especially "The Fields of Terror" about the new slavery in the heart of Europe, which was supported by Scoop.

Let’s go visit the neighbours. That’s the starting point for a journalist and a photographer from Romania to do raw-style and deeply fascinating journalism travelling through the countries around the Black Sea. The immediate result is a highly recommendable Blog taking the reader along to get a fascinating and insightful first impression of this particular region. And what pictures!

A new law, the Icelandit Modern Media initiative, makes Iceland the place to be for reporters who want freedom of expression.

The President of Romania initiated a National Defence Strategy which contained, among other things, serious allegations against the media.

The state of Croatia's media has deteriorated dramatically in the past couple of years and Croatian journalism is possibly in an even worse state that it was during the depressive war years in nineties writes Scoop's national coordinator in Croatia, Barbara Matejcic.

A group of 23 organisations fighting for the freedom of expression express their concern with the escalating threats to freedom of expression in Ukraine. They demand that Ukrainian authorities stop interfering with the work of the media.

Scoop-supported reporter Nevena Panayotova, Bulgaria, has just received the James Bourchier Special Award for Journalistic Excellence for the Bulgarian articles from the gold mining investigation.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has compiled a list of people of interest in its coverage area. Some of these people are criminals, some are politicians and some are businessmen. Some are all three. All of these figures are well known and figure regularly in stories about organized crime and corruption.

Co-founder of Scoop, Anne Haubek,won the national part of the European Parliament Prize for Journalism 2010. And: she is now nominated for the European version. The prize is given for reporters having treated important European topics or improved the understanding of the EU-institutions and policy.

Freedom of expression campaigners will protest on Thursday 3 June outside the Azerbaijani embassy in London, calling for an end to the persecution of jailed journalist Eynulla Fatullayev.

The investigation on Moldova's former president Voronin and the family empire done by Stefan Candea, Vitalie Calugareanu, Dumitru Lazur, Vlad Lavrov and Irina Codrean recieved the Global Shining Light Award at the 6th Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva.

If journalists have a good idea for an investigative story but lack time or money to carry out the research, they can apply for funding. As a new option this call not only offers support for cross-border stories but also for European affairs stories. New call from The European Fund for Investigative Journalism.

According to information brought to the attention of SEEMO, the reporter Ernest Vardanian was arrested on 7 April 2010 in front of his house in Tiraspol and was accused of espionage and treason by men who indentified themselves as secret service agents of the Transnistria region of Moldova. Vardanian remains in pre-trial detention. If found guilty, he could face 12-20 years in prison.

National tv recently showed a 30 minutes long show about Russians invading the country. But it was all constructed - and the tv station did not tell this until later!

A Kazakh newspaper routinely harassed for its coverage of government policies, human rights abuses and corruption has been fined US$400,000 and handed a distribution ban, report the Almaty-based Adil Soz - International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

New call for entries for the 16th edition of the Ilaria Alpi Television Journalistic Award is published. The competition is open to reports and press investigations dealing with issues of civil and social commitment (solidarity, no violence, justice, human rights, employment).

With a dire media sector the investigative journalism in Kosovo is going through a rough period of time. The lack of economic development has made the media too dependent on the income from the public sector. On the other hand the Government has shown not only the will to use public advertising to subdue the media, but was proven to be with control-freak tendencies as well.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the unsolved murder of Monitor editor-in-chief Elmar Huseynov, who was fatally gunned down in his apartment building in a well-organised attack. ARTICLE 19 calls on the Azerbaijani government to redouble its efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice, and to take immediate action to improve freedom of expression in Azerbaijan.

The prominent Georgian investigative journalist Vakhtang Komakhidze received death threats from the Georgian authorities on February 10. He had recently returned from a visit to South Ossetia where he has been producing a documentary examining the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict.

Ivan Shulha, an independent Belarusian journalist and a member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, was charged with minor hooliganism and sentenced to an administrative arrest for 10 days.

Two veteran reporters present The One-Day Masterclass in Investigative Reporting: David Leigh, investigations editor of The Guardian and professor of reporting at City University, London; and Nick Davies, special correspondent of The Guardian and author of Flat Earth News....

If you are a journalist in Switzerland, South Africa or Indonesia and think UK libel law doesn't affect you, you are wrong. The UK courts allow pretty much anyone to sue you there. Read the terrifying results of the report made by Drew Sullivan for The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA).

Not enough money or training - sure, these are some of the obstacles for doing investigative journalism in Albania. But there is another, even more worrying sign of why Albanians have not built strong investigative journalism in a sustainable way with the collapse of Communism: Albanians, including many in the country’s journalism community, have become increasingly cynical.

At a seminar in Ukrainian capital Kyiv close to 100 reporters and huge media interested convinced the Scoop team that investigative journalism in the country is doing well.

Two reporters who have worked with support from Scoop were awarded at 'The Third National Competition for the Best Anti-Corruption Investigations Published in National and Regional Media of Ukraine'.

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

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

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

The Programme for African Investigative Reporting (PAIR), is moving ahead with national seminars in five countries and announcement of the first round of grants for investigations.

Everybody in Moldova was convinced that the election was flawed. But the proof came when Lilia Gurez and Igor Volnitchi published their investigation of the election campaign. The investigation was awarded by the Eurasia Foundation Moldova as the best investigation of the election.

An exposé on a West African, internationally-linked, tobacco smuggling ring worth hundreds of millions of dollars; an undercover report from a Somali warlord brothel and the courageous publication of a Nigerian story that was under threat of censorship, has won the inaugural Pan-African Investigative Journalism Awards, extended by The Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR).

Dario Novalic and Mustafa Mustafic have received a prize for their documentary “If you are watching this mum” at the International TV Festival Bar in Montenegro.

Report on the situation from Scoop-coordinator in Serbia, Milorad Ivanovic, deputy Editor in Chief - Blic, Serbia’s largest daily, and founder and president of Media Focus - Center for Investigative Journalism in Serbia.

A team from Reporters without Borders has researched the media situation in the Russian Federation and sees some improvement.

Investigative reporters are facing harder times in East- and South East Europe. According to this year’s World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters without Borders most of the countries, where Scoop is active, offer less freedom to the press in 2009 than in 2008.

Five Azeri journalists were jailed and three detained this month, prompting the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, to condemn Azerbaijan's "appalling position" on press freedom and raise fresh concerns over fairness of country's defamation laws.

Scoop has received a grant from Open Society Institute to support Russian investigative journalists. The grant - 77.000 EUR for the period 2009-2011 - will be used for training seminars, training material, expanding of the network of investigative journalists, participation in international conferences and support of investigations.