A theatrical play based on the true stories of a man and two women deported to Siberia will be staged at the Mihai Eminescu National Theater in Chisinau. Petru Hadârcă, director of the Siberian Files, told IPN that he came up with the idea for the play quite late, despite having worked before on several radio drama pieces in Bucharest on the same subject. “If we had tapped deeply enough into this subject 30 years ago, in the middle of the national revival wave, today we would not have had such nostalgia for the Soviet regime,” the director said. Petru Hadârcă added that the play is not meant to put the deportations on trial, but rather to keep the story of the play’s three protagonists alive. “They all teach us that we must not seek vengeance for their suffering and at the same time that their suffering must not be forgotten. This is the core idea: we must not forget.”
A museum dedicated to the famous late poet Grigore Vieru will be opened in Chisinau. The Chisinau Municipal Council decided to repurpose a public area located in central Chisinau to be used by the future museum under a 10-year free tenancy agreement.
Five years of DCFTA: Moldova’s exports to the EU in 2014-2018 rose by US$ 1.8 billion owing to the Association Agreement signed with the EU in the summer of 2014. The sum is by about 35% higher than in the period before the signing of the document, in 2011-2014. Five years after the signing of the DCFTA, exports of primary products rose, but of processed products declined. Among the most exported food products are the wheat, sunflower seeds, wines, corn, sugar and others. The exports of walnuts, sunflower oil, fruit juices and vegetables diminished. Secretary of state at the Ministry of Economy Iuliana Drăgălin said the rate of implementing the European standards at economic level now stands at 86.54%.
The freshly released Kroll 2 Report fails to give an exact number for how much money was stolen in the bank fraud, and provides little detail about how exactly the money was stolen from the banking system. Also, it doesn’t contain an analysis of the legal framework, specifically how the law had been amended to facilitate the fraud, and fails to look at the actions or inactions of the supervisory bodies like the National Bank and the prosecutors, expert Sergiu Tofilat of the WatchDog.MD Community commented for IPN. One explanation, according to Tofilat, is that the National Bank withheld some key information from Kroll. For example, this can be deduced from the fact that the report mentions some minor transactions to Victoriabank, while omitting entirely the high-profile case of Veaceslav Platon that involved tens of millions of euros.
“The bank fraud was a very well-orchestrated operation. Some already known and widely circulated information found confirmation in the Kroll 2 Report. It’s clear for everybody who did the job and who reaped the benefits,” political pundit Ion Tăbârță commented for IPN. Tăbârță says the release of the second report from the financial investigations firm shed more light on how the embezzlement took place.” “How come Ilan Shor and his people were left to engage in political activity unhindered and how on earth they became mayors and MPs if it was known that Shor had been the frontman? We all saw how the criminal case of the controversial politician has been purposefully dragged through court for so long. The previous government was fine with this, as long as they had (Shor) under their influence and could use him for various political maneuvers and public rallies. At one point the Shor Party seemed to be a strike force with an order to harass the opposition,” said Ion Tăbârță.
MP Alexandru Slusari, chairman of Parliament’s inquiry commission investigating the bank fraud, said that while Ilan Shor’s name is associated with as many as 77 companies involved in the bank fraud, the mastermind must be someone else, as “Shor and his entire group in Parliament are just useful tools”. “We need to find out during our investigation who the main architect was, who started it and who contributed at different stages”, Slusari said during Natalia Morari’s Politica talk show on TV8.
Slusari said that the former National Anticorruption Center director Viorel Chetraru testified for the commission. “He told us some very important information, especially from 2011, when a hostile takeover was carried out on four banks and an insurance company. He told us names, operative information about who was behind, he said that he repeatedly warned the leadership of the country about the risks and problems with the privatization of BEM, who was behind all the transfers”.
The parliamentary majority, at the suggestion of the expert commission, refused to include Democratic MPs Andrian Candu and Vladimir Cebotari in the makeup of the commission of inquiry into the bank fraud. On November 13, 2014, the Government decided to provide emergency loans to the value of 9.5 billion lei and the relevant decision was signed by Andrian Candu, who served as minister of economy in the period.
Prime Minister Maia Sandu requested the 660 prosecutors working in Moldova to behave like real prosecutors and not to stay hidden in offices until the administration is changed. “The administration will be replaced. Moreover, Eduard Harunjen will answer in accordance with the law as billions of lei were stolen from the state owing to his actions and inaction,” she noted, making reference to the news conference given on July 4 by Prosecutor General Eduard Harunjen and deputy chief Anticorruption Prosecutor Adriana Bețișor, who, according to her, tried to show that they investigate the banking fraud, but failed lamentably. “The theft of the US$ 1 billion and other resounding cases remain stagnant,” stated the Premier.
The official Chisinau condemns the attempts made by the administration of the Transnistrian region to class the citizens of the Republic of Moldova as foreigners in their own country and to make them go through checkpoints. The dispute between the two sides was aroused by the regular abusive activities of the Transnistrian bodies that try to institute a “border” in the Security Zone, it is said in a press release of the Moldovan delegation to the Joint Control Commission.
Parliament voted to dismiss Anatolie Zagorodnîi as general director of the National Agency for Dispute Resolution.
Twenty Romanian universities from 16 university centers presented their educational offer for Moldovan lyceum graduates who want to continue their studies over the Prut in Chisinau on July 4 and 5. The Romanian Universities Fair will be held in Balti on July 6th and on July 7th it will come to Cahul.
Details on IPN!
