Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in an unlikely turn of events, has bestowed an annual journalism prize on investigative reporter and editor Mikhail Beketov, who was threatened, beaten and crippled for his reports in opposition to a state-backed toll highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Russian environmental activists said Friday they had been repeatedly attacked by security guards and unknown "goons" while trying to prevent logging in a Moscow region’s Khimki forest for a disputed highway.

MOSCOW – Something has broken down in the government system. Bureaucrats themselves seem to be admitting their own environmental crimes. How else can one explain the recent appearance on the Russian Natural Resources Ministry’s web site of a list of sites under construction for the 2014 Sochi Olympics that are undergoing environmental evaluation? “Under construction” are the key words here, because environmental impact evaluation is a procedure meant for planned economic activities – not wetlands already buried in oblivion by bulldozers, with foundation piles sticking out of them…