LAW In Bucharest, the Offshore Bill is to be
discussed this week by the specialised committee of the Senate, the first
parliamentary chamber to vote on the act. The bill regulates the development of
the natural gas reserves in the Black Sea, and stipulates that the Romanian
state has pre-emptive rights to purchase these resources. The Senate is still
waiting for the official opinion of the Economic and Social Council before
discussing the bill, for which the leaders of the ruling coalition have taken
responsibility. The Senate’s vote is expected to take place in May.
REFUGEES The Romanian Border Police announced that
the number of Ukrainian nationals that entered the country on Monday was 38.3%
higher than on the previous day. According to a news release, 4,412 Ukrainian
citizens entered Romania in 24 hours. Since the start of the crisis, over
786,000
Ukrainian citizens have crossed the border into Romania. According to the
Border Police, measures have been taken to reinforce border security.
HEALTH According to the latest official data, 321
COVID-19 cases and 1 related fatality were reported in Romania in the past 24
hours. More than 1,200 patients are currently in hospitals, 221 of them in
intensive care. In other news, one case of acute severe hepatitis was reported
in Romania, in a 5 year old. On April 21, the WHO announced 169 cases of acute
hepatitis of unknown origin among young children worldwide. At least one child
died and 17 needed liver transplants, the institution said.
MOLDOVA The president of
the ex-Soviet Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, has called for a meeting of the Supreme
Security Council concerning the recent incidents in the pro-Russian separatist
region of Transnistria, in the east of that country. Two blasts were reported today in Maiak, where
two communication towers in the radio and television centre were blown up. No
victims have been reported. On Monday, the headquarters of the Security Service
in Tiraspol had been attacked with rocket launchers, and a shell was found near
the building. The doors and windows of the office were broken, and so were the
windows of nearby buildings. According to
Moldova’s Reintegration Policy Bureau, the goal
was to create tension in the region, which has been out of the Moldovan
authorities’ control since 1992, when an armed conflict that had killed
hundreds of locals was ended by the intervention of Russian troops supporting the secessionist rebels, less than a year after Chișinău had
proclaimed its independence. The ex-president of Russia Boris Yeltsin promised
to pull out the troops from Transnistria at the 1999 OSCE summit, but some 1,500
military and substantial amounts of Russian weapons appear to still be there.
UKRAINE In its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has
increased attacks on civilian targets, particularly railways, to prevent
Ukrainian forces from receiving weapons from the West. At least 5 civilians
were killed. Russian troops also destroyed 6 electricity generating units of
the Ukrainian railways, and a weapons storage facility in Slovyansk. The
Ukrainian forces withstood the attacks and said victims were reported, but did
not provide any details.
AID NATO and EU foreign
ministers convene today at the Ramstein US military base in Germany, to discuss
additional military assistance for Ukraine. At the beginning of the conflict,
the West hesitated to provide weapons to Ukraine for fear that the violence
would spiral into a larger-scale war. This reluctance subsided, however, and
today’s talks will focus on how Kyiv could be supplied with the necessary
weapons not just to withstand the Russian attack in Donbas (east), but also to
counter-attack. Previously, the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov accused NATO
of involvement in a proxy war, and said the weapons delivered by the West to
Ukraine will be legitimate targets. (AMP)