Morning headlines – March 2nd 2021

Coronavirus and vaccines

• Vaccination in Romania: More than 940.000 people got vaccinated (more than 618 with both doses). In the last 24 hours, more than 32.000 people were administrated the vaccine (more than 1.100 with both doses).
• Coronavirus in Romania: In the last 24 hours, there were recorded 2.096 new SARS-CoV-2 cases, 53 deaths and in ICU there are 1.022 people hospitalized.
• The Czech Republic wants vaccines from Russia and China. The Czech Republic has announced, on Monday, that it ordered the Russian Sputnik V anti-COVID—19 vaccines due to the necessity to make up for the delayed deliveries of the EU vaccines. The president of the country says she is considering also the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm, says Digi24.

Global military and political events

• The EU is sanctioning Russian dignitaries involved in the investigation of Navalny. The EU will announce, today, the names and sanctions of some Russian officials involved in convicting Putin’s opponent, Aleksey Navalny. The sanctioned dignitaries are Alexander Klashnikov, director of penitentiary services, Alexander Bastrykin, from the Russian Investigation Committee, Igor Krasnov, general attorney, and Viktor Zolotov, chief of the National Guard of Russia, said European sources, according to AFP.
• The US is sanctioning Russia for the treatment of Navalny. On Tuesday, the US will also impose sanctions to some Russian officials involved in the investigation and arrest of Aleksey Navalny, says AP.
• FBI, huge reward for Putin’s chef. The US wants to arrest “Putin’s chef”, and the FBI has offered a $250.000 recompense for any information that could lead to the arrest of the Russian business man Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a close person to Kremlin, known also as “Putin’s chef”, says Digi24. He is the founder of the Russian mercenaries Wagner, but the FBI is accusing Prigozhin for conspiracy to defraud against the US, after the Russian business man has founded the Internet Research Agency, which is supposedly involved in influencing the result of the US presidential elections from 2016.
• The Russians have a positive attitude about the EU. More than half Russian (55%) have a positive attitude towards the UE, says a survey presented by Tass. Other 18% of them are undecided, meanwhile 27% have a negative attitude. As for the Russia-UE relations, only 15% thinks that are positive, meanwhile 26% thinks that are neuter and 40% think the relation are strained.
• The jihadists have attacked a UN base in Nigeria, 25 people were caught in the bunker. Jihadists of the terrorist group Islamic State have attacked a UN base in Dikwa village, in North-East Nigeria, have defeated the militaries and are trying to enter and get the 25 workers who got caught in the bunker, says AFP.

Romania’s defence and security

• Romania’s reserves have decreased. Romania’s foreign reserves (currency and gold) decreased on February 28^th to 39.992 billion euro, comparing to 42.559 billion euro, on January 31^st, says Mediafax. During this month, 2.557 billion euro in entries and 4.872 million euro in exits, in rate payments and interests in the public debt account. The level of gold reserves has been maintained to 103.6 tons. Given the international prices developments, its value is somewhere around 4.853 billion euro.
• The budget – The final vote in Parliament. On Tuesday, the plenum of the Legislative continues the debate on the annexes of the Laws of state budget and social insurance budget for 2021, and at the end of the day these will get the final vote, says Agerpress.