May 12, UPDATE

Romanian Foreign Ministry subject to attempted cyber attack

Newsroom, 12.05.2017, 20:13

CYBER ATTACK – The Romanian Intelligence Service announced on Friday that it had managed to counter an attempted cyber-attack against a Romanian governmental agency. The information comes after Romanian and foreign media announced that a group of elite hackers having ties with the Russian government masqueraded as NATO representatives to send phishing emails to diplomatic organisations in Europe, including the Romanian Foreign Ministry. Experts identified the emails as having been sent by a group known to the cyber defence community as APT28. According to the US intelligence community, APT28 has been actively involved in political espionage activities in Europe over the past 10 years, and has collaborated with Russian intelligence services.

VACCINATION – The PM of Romania, Sorin Grindeanu, Friday requested the immediate set up of a task force made up of representatives of the Government, of professional associations, of civil society, which should find immediate solutions to the vaccine crisis in Romania and prevent similar occurrences in the future. The task force will have a clearly defined role, which includes the drafting of legislation which would allow, in the short run, the procurement of the required vaccines, and in the medium run to ensure predictable and steady vaccine stocks. In turn, the Healthcare Minister, Florian Bodog, said he would propose the establishment of a Vaccination Programme Management Unit within the ministry. This structure will be tasked with the timely and constant procurement of vaccines. The vaccine crisis is a recurrent problem in Romania, with shortages reported in hospitals and drug stores once every several months, although they certain vaccines are compulsory.

STRIKE – Air traffic controllers in Romania Friday were on a warning strike, guiding only one-third of the flights. The humanitarian, medical, search and rescue and the emergency flights were not affected. Air traffic controllers are primarily disgruntled with the lack of a new collective bargaining agreement for 2016-2017 and with the fact that hiring has been frozen, although since the conflict in Ukraine the number of flights in the Romanian air space has grown significantly. The latest strike of air traffic controllers took place in July 2015.

INVESTIGATION – The former Romanian MP Sebastian Ghita will be heard by the Supreme Court in Belgrade on May 19, in view of extradition, but the hearing will not be public, Serbias Supreme Court announced. Sebastian Ghita is detained in Serbia, after he was apprehended by the authorities on April 14. Bucharest requested the extradition of Ghita, who fled the country late last year, ahead of a hearing with the National Anti-Corruption Directorate and one day before his parliamentary immunity expired. Sebastian Ghita was subject to a national search warrant, and on January 10 the Romanian Supreme Court ordered the issuing of a European arrest warrant. Ghita is tried in two corruption cases and prosecuted in another two.

MOLDOVA – The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova has a new president for the next 3 years, Tudor Pantaru. He has Romanian citizenship as well. Pantaru has been a judge with the Constitutional Court since 2013, and was a Deputy in Moldovas first democratic Parliament, in 1990-1994. He also served as the first ambassador and permanent representative of Moldova at the UN, and was one of the signatories of Moldovas Declaration of Independence. Pantaru held a number of international offices, including judge posts with the European Court for Human Rights and with the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2002. The pro-Russian President Igor Dodon was critical of the Constitutional Court employing citizens of foreign countries, and said the institution needed to be freed of people who support Moldovas union with Romania.

TENNIS – The best ranking Romanian tennis player, Simona Halep (8 WTA), Friday qualified into the final of the Madrid tournament, which has 5.4 million US dollars in total prize money. She defeated Anastasija Sevastova (Latvia, 22 WTA) in 2 sets, 6-2, 6-3. Halep will play against the winner of the match pitting Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russia, 9 WTA) against Kristina Mladenovici (France, 17 WTA). Simona Halep also played the quarter-final of the doubles event in Madrid, together with Irina Begu, against Timea Babos (Hungary) / Andrea Hlavaskova (the Czech Republic), but were edged out of the competition.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)