Archive » February 2009 » 14 February 2009 The english news from 14 February 2009
Romania, Bulgaria risk more EU aid cuts
Romania has gone backwards in the fight against corruption in the past six months, while Bulgaria registered some progress after seeing its pre-accession funds frozen in July, the European Commission has said. "It is important that the Romanian authorities regain momentum on judicial reform and fight against corruption so as to reverse certain backward movements of recent months"…
Audit: No customer data exposed in Kaspersky breach
An independent audit of a data breach at security firm Kaspersky's U.S. Web site has confirmed that no customer data was exposed, Kaspersky said on Friday. A Romanian hacker site used a SQL injection and cross-site scripting attack to get access to a database on a Web site of the Moscow-based Kaspersky and publicized the attack on Saturday…
Netherlands Remains Most Critical EU Member on Romania, Bulgaria
The Netherlands says it is and will remain the most critical EU member state regarding supervision of the degree to which Bulgaria and Romania are sticking to the accession agreement. "We see that the Bulgarians and Romanians have stepped up their efforts, but we continue to consider that insufficient concrete results are being booked. Continued pressure is therefore important," according to European Affairs State Secretary Timmermans…
In Romania, bribery is a health problem
Alina Lungu, 30, says she did everything necessary to ensure a healthy pregnancy in Romania: She ate organic food, swam daily and bribed her gynecologist with an extra €200 in cash, paid in monthly increments of €25 handed over discreetly in white envelopes. Another bribe of €25, or about $32, went to a nurse to guarantee an epidural. Even the orderly reaped an extra €10 to make sure he didn't drop her from the stretcher…
Engel & Volkers franchise looking to expand its network
Engel & Volkers, a real estate franchise selling high quality property, has announced its results for last year. According to the Hamburg-based franchise, its residential real estate division enjoyed the greatest growth in its home market of Germany. Compared to last year, the turnover in this area increased by 9.3 percent and the German network of shops selling residential properties expanded by 20 percent…
Romanian government agrees to drastic austerity package
Romania, like other Eastern European states, has been hit hard by the international economic crisis. While mass redundancies in industry are rapidly pushing up the unemployment rate, the government in Bucharest is shifting the burden of the crisis onto the backs of working people through a series of harsh austerity measures…
Romanian foreign investment up 25%
Foreign investment in Romania soared by almost a quarter during 2008, new statistics have shown. Data published by the Romania Central Bank show direct foreign investment (FDI) rocketed from 7.25 billion euros (£6.44 billion) in 2007 to more than nine billion euros (£8 billion) last year - an increase of almost 25 per cent…