PUTIN The incumbent president
\nof Russia, Vladimir Putin, is running for another term in office in the
\npresidential election due over March 15 and 17, the Central Election Committee
\nhas been quoted by the Russian and international press agencies as saying.
\nAccording to these sources, both the supporters and opponents of the Kremlin
\nleader are expecting him to win a new 6-year mandate. If Putin completed this
\nmandate he could become the longest-lived Russian leader since the 18th
\ncentury. A former agent of the Soviet political police, the KGB, and former
\nPrime Minister, Putin got his first mandate as a president in 2000, a
\ndesignated successor of Russia’s post-soviet president Boris Yeltsin. In 2008,
\nwhen the Constitution didn’t allow him a third consecutive mandate, he formally
\nceded his seat to Dmitri Medvedev, but he remained the strongman of the Russian
\npolitics. Since the amended Constitution of 2012 Vladimir Putin has
\nuninterruptedly held the presidential seat of the Russian Federation. His
\nregime has been marked by the bloody reprisals against the breakaway
\ninsurrection in Chechnya, the elimination of his domestic opposition, the
\ninvasion of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2022. <\/p>\n
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ORDINANCE Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu on Monday announced
\nthat he decided to extend for another 60 days the ordinance on capping trade
\nmark-ups in basic staple. Ciolacu says that according to data released by the
\nNational Institute for Statistics, prices in December 2023 were 5.8% higher
\nthan a year before, whereas before the introduction of the aforementioned
\nmeasure, the difference in prices between June 2023 and June 2022 was nearly
\n18%. <\/p>\n
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\n
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FUNDS The
\nRomanian Foreign Ministry on Monday voiced maximum concern about the latest
\nsevere accusations regarding the alleged involvement of some of the personnel
\nof the UN Agency for Relief and Works for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the
\nHamas terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7th. The Romanian
\nMinistry says that until the completion of the investigation into the
\naforementioned allegations it will not release new procedures for volunteer
\ncontributions to the UNRWA. The Ministry recalls that Romania has firmly
\ncondemned the terrorist attacks on October 7th and voiced regret for
\nthe victims, the hostages taken, and made an appeal for their release. We
\nrecall that several countries, including the USA, Canada, the UK, Italy and Germany
\nhave suspended their funding to the UNRWA until the completion of the
\ninvestigation into the aforementioned allegations. <\/p>\n
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IMF An
\nInternational Monetary Fund mission headed by Jan Kees Martijn arrived in
\nBucharest on Monday to review the latest economic and financial developments.
\nThis is a regular consultation based on Romania’s relation with the IMF, and it
\ncomes 4 months after the previous visit. The IMF expects a budget deficit of 6%
\nof GDP and an economic growth rate of 2.3% this year. IMF experts also
\nrecommend a number of additional reforms, and in the previous assessment visit
\nthey mentioned the scrapping of the remaining exemptions, privileges and
\nloopholes, a more efficient VAT implementation, a reformed property tax system,
\nand the use of fiscal policies in order to promote efficient energy and the
\nclean energy transition. Romania has no ongoing agreements with the IMF at
\npresent.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(bill)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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