January 5, 2015
News and current affairs from Romania
România Internațional, 05.01.2015, 11:59
The Romanian government called for a halt to payments towards US company Microsoft for 2013-2015. The motion was filed in the main local court in Bucharest at the end of 2014. An investigation was opened after the Anti-Corruption Directorate applied for it with the Government Control Office in relation to irregularities in the contracts signed by the Ministry of Education and Microsoft between 2009-2012. Prosecutors have widened the investigation, uncovering irregularities committed by officials from all governments between 2000 and 2012. 9 former ministers are suspected of influence peddling, bribery, money laundering or abuse of office in purchasing IT licenses. The value of contracts signed by Microsoft, Siveco and EADS with the Romanian state is over one billion Euro. According to anti-corruption prosecutors, bribes offered to officials totals over 60 million Euro.
The commission formed by Liberal and Liberal Democrat negotiators meets today to set the criteria for unifying locally in the new National Liberal Party, in the opposition, after the two parties merged. Sources on the inside said that some criteria to unify local organizations have been drafted, but they would only be made public after the Commission reaches an agreement. More on this after the news.
Only one Romanian out of a hundred has sufficient income to afford everything they want, according to a poll run late in December 2014. Almost 40% claim they barely have enough money to see them through the month, 29% manage to pull through, while 16% say then don’t make enough for the bare necessities. Less than a quarter of Romanians managed to have any savings last year, over 40% are in debt, and over half expect to have to make financial sacrifices in 2015. Romanians are more optimistic about the evolution of the country, with over 60% expecting economic growth and increased foreign investment, but are not optimistic about their living standards in the year to come.
Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, third WTA seed and number one favorite today, has made headway into the eighth finals of the Shenzhen tournament in China, with 500, 000 USD prize money at stake. Halep defeated the 55th seed, German Annika Beck, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. In the eighth finals, Halep will be taking on Russia’s Natalia Vihliantseva. The other Romanian tennis player taking part in the Shenzhen tournament, Monica Niculescu, was defeated by Polona Hercog from Slovenia, 6-1, 7-5.
Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice postponed for 21 January the sentencing in the trial involving strategic privatization implicating two former ministers, former minister of the economy Codrut Seres and former minister of IT and communications, Zsolt Nagy. The trial started in March 2009, accusing them of joining an organized crime ring in the privatization of Electrica Muntenia-Sud, Romaero and Avioane Craiova. In December 2013, the two were sentenced to six and five years in jail respectively, which sentence they appealed.
2 Romanians may be among the 26 crew, mostly Filipino, of the oil tanker that was attacked last night from the air by unknown parties while in the port of Derna, an Islamist stronghold in Eastern Libya, according to AFP. Libya Herald claims that two sailors have been slain, one Greek and one Romanian. The tanker was carrying 1,600 tons of crude at the time of the attack. Libya has been in chaos since the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011, with two governments, one internationally recognized that took refuge in Tobruk, and an Islamist one in the capital Tripoli.
