Moldova

The institutions tasked with tackling corruption in Moldova are locked in an unsightly row that looks a lot like a struggle for power.

Cegeka, a European information and communication technology (ICT) service provider based in Belgium, has launched its expansion in Greece by looking for new office space and hiring its first executives in Athens, it announced on Thursday.

The company is looking for highly skilled IT professionals to join its team.

On the third day of the Internet Freedom Meet in Belgrade, BIRN presented its months-long research report titled "Hidden in Plain Sight: Telco Accountability Research Using Ranking Digital Rights Methodology".

The research showed that the customers of telecom companies in five Balkan countries and Moldova face challenges in making sure their rights to privacy are respected.

Moldovan economists and MEPs have welcomed the decision of the Commission for International Trade of the European Parliament which on Monday voted to extend by one year the suspension of taxes and import quotas on products exported from Moldova to the EU.

Applying methodology developed by Ranking Digital Rights, an independent research programme at the Washington-based New America policy think-tank, BIRN analysed the practices of the two biggest telecom companies in each country: Albtelecom and Vodafone Albania in Albania; BH Telecom and Telekom Srpske in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Ipko and Vala in Kosovo; A1 and T-Mobile in North Macedonia; Moldce

Fugitive and convicted Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor announced on Monday the creation of a new political bloc to replace the Shor Party he previously led but which was recently declared unconstitutional by Moldova's Constitutional Court judges and outlawed.

"The Republic of Moldova vehemently condemns threats directed at Moldova made by a Russian representative in the occupied part of Ukraine to attack a bridge between Moldova and Romania. This is not acceptable".

Energy companies OMV Petrom and Romgaz on Wednesday backed plans to develop the Domino and Pelican Sud commercial natural gas fields in the Romanian Neptun Deep perimeter in the Black Sea.

The two companies will invest up to 4 billion euros for the development phase of the project, which will generate production of about 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas over ten years.

"We started with the idea that we need a safe space and that we could do something for the community that's open weekly, to have cultural activities and be activists through a cultural perspective," said Lorelei Grigorita, Queer Café's 24-year-old administrator.

"The United States proudly supports Greece's leadership role in redrawing the energy map of Southeast Europe, diversifying energy sources with its Balkan neighbors and helping to break Russia's gas monopoly," US Ambassador to Greece George J. Tsunis said in a tweet, after visiting the northern city of Alexandroupoli with four fellow ambassadors from Balkan countries on Friday.