July 17, 2020
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 17.07.2020, 13:55
Covid-19 Romania. In Romania, the number of infections with the new coronavirus has exceeded 35,800, according to data announced on Friday by the Strategic Communication Group. Since the previous report, 799 new cases have been registered, which is an absolute record since the start of the pandemic. Of the people confirmed positive, more than 22,300 have been declared cured and discharged. Another 17 people infected with COVID-19 lost their lives, the death toll reaching 1988. Abroad, 5202 Romanians were confirmed infected with the new coronavirus, and 122 died due to COVID-19. On Wednesday, the Bucharest government extended the state of alert by 30 days, due to the increase in the number of cases of infection with the new coronavirus.
Quarantine law. On Thursday, the Romanian Senate adopted, as a decision-making body, the law on quarantine and isolation. In six days of debates, the bill initiated by the Government went through numerous changes. Earlier, in the Chamber of Deputies, the document, harshly criticized by specialists, the opposition and NGOs, had been seriously amended. In the form in which it was definitively voted, the law stipulates, among other things, that the quarantine measure is established on the basis of official scientific statements and case definition, at the persons home, at a location declared by them or in a space designated by the authorities.
European Council. An extraordinary European Council meeting takes place in Brussels today and tomorrow. The meeting is dedicated to negotiating the multiannual budget of the European Union for the next seven years and the European Economic Recovery Plan. Present at the meeting, the Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, will reaffirm the major objective of Bucharest in terms of the future budget of the union, namely to obtain the most important allocations for the common agricultural policy and for the cohesion one. The head of state will advocate for appropriate allocations for the less developed regions of the Union, as well as for increased flexibility in the absorption of amounts. Regarding the economic recovery plan, Klaus Iohannis will support the option of a higher share of grants compared to loans in the total amounts allocated and will support the idea of a long period for the implementation of the new recovery instrument, so that the amounts can be fully and efficiently absorbed.
Economy. The Romanian Government has approved a set of bills aimed at restarting economic activities. It is about providing funding for digitization and staff training, which can benefit large companies as well as SMEs. At the same time, the Executive adopted a project granting 200 million euros for the establishment of enterprises in rural areas and an emergency ordinance that supports the leasing of equipment and machinery by SMEs. Another normative act adopted allocates 150 million euros to support new business ideas that are proposed by students, and the elderly with low pensions will receive electronic vouchers for a hot meal.
Pandemic. Nearly 14 million people have been infected with the new coronavirus in the world since the beginning of the pandemic and more than 592,000 have died. According to worldometers.info, almost 8.3 million people have been cured so far. In the last 24 hours, the USA and Brazil have reported new records of detected cases, reaching, in total, almost 3.7 million cases and over 2 million respectively. On the other hand, Israel imposes restrictions on weekends as of Friday due to the large number of new cases detected daily. Among other things, restaurants and gyms, shops, shopping malls, barbershops, libraries, museums will be closed. In the face of rising contamination and the threat of a second wave, several European countries continue to tighten sanitation and quarantine conditions. Germany, one of the relatively least affected countries, has authorized strengthened local quarantine measures, with “bans on exit” from limited geographical areas in the event of peak contamination. In France, where several outbreaks of contamination have reappeared in recent days, wearing a mask will become mandatory next week in all enclosed spaces reserved for the public. Sweden, which has attracted worldwide attention with its less stringent coronavirus strategy, is now facing a record number of new cases of Covid-19 in the European Union, but authorities say the epidemic is slowing down.
Corruption. In Romania, the former prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate, Mircea Negulescu, was placed under judicial control for 60 days. The same measure was taken in the case of the policeman Mihai Iordache, detained, together with the former magistrate, by prosecutors with the department in charge of investigating crimes in the judiciary. The sentence is not final and can be challenged. The two are accused of inventing evidence in two cases. Among them, the “Tony Blair” case, in which the former Social Democrat prime minister Victor Ponta, currently the leader of the Pro Romania party, was accused of arranging the visit of the former head of the British government in Romania to gain image capital in the 2012 election campaign. Negulescu is accused, among other things, of abuse of office, unjust repression and false declarations.
Cyber-crime. The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have claimed that hackers in Russia have cyber-attacked several organizations that trying to find a vaccine against coronavirus infection. “During 2020, the APT29 hacker group has launched attacks on organizations involved in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Most likely, its purpose was stealing information and intellectual property related to the development and testing of coronavirus vaccines “- reads a joint statement of the three states. Russia has denied the allegations, terming them as ungrounded. (M.Ignatescu)
