2 April 2009 - Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems has received an order for a total of 76 units of the V90-3MW turbine for two projects in Romania.
The order has been placed by EDP Renovaveis.
The contract comprises supply, installation, a VestasOnline Business supervisory control and data acquisition solution, as well as a five-year service agreement. The first turbines are expected to be installed by the end of 2009.
The total annual production of the two wind power plants will save the environment from more than 195 500 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
Meanwhile, Vestas s has received an order from EDF Energies Nouvelles for delivery of 37 V90-2MW wind turbines for installation in Sardinia, Italy.
The contract includes supply, installation and commissioning of the turbines and a five-year service agreement. The wind turbines will be delivered to a project in the municipality of Bonorva in Sardinia during 2009 and 2010.
With a total installed capacity of 74 MW, the wind power plant is expected to annually save the environment from approximately 48 500 tonnes of CO2 emissions and will cover the yearly electricity consumption of almost 50 000 Italian households.
Austria hand coach Constantini winning start
Wednesday 01 April 2009, 21:16
KLAGENFURT - Austria beat Romania 2-1 in a World Cup Group Seven qualifier on Wednesday to give their new coach Didi Constantini a winning start.
Rapid Vienna forward Erwin Hoffer struck twice before halftime to secure Austria's first win in five matches.
Romanian midfielder Cristian Tanase opened the scoring when he lobbed a long-distance shot over Austria goalkeeper Michael Gspurnig on 26 minutes but Hoffer equalised immediately and scored again just before the interval.
Austria next play group leaders Serbia in Belgrade in June.
KLAGENFURT - Austria beat Romania 2-1 in a World Cup Group Seven qualifier on Wednesday to give their new coach Didi Constantini a winning start.
Rapid Vienna forward Erwin Hoffer struck twice before halftime to secure Austria's first win in five matches.
Romanian midfielder Cristian Tanase opened the scoring when he lobbed a long-distance shot over Austria goalkeeper Michael Gspurnig on 26 minutes but Hoffer equalised immediately and scored again just before the interval.
Austria next play group leaders Serbia in Belgrade in June.
Romanian Phisher to Spend 50 Months in a U.S. Prison
A federal judge has sentenced Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, a Romanian citizen arrested in 2007 on phishing charges, to 50 months in a federal prison, according to Wired. In July 2008, the phisher pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud.
Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, 23, originally from Craiova, Romania, was apprehended by authorities in June 2007 in Bulgaria, following an international arrest warrant issued on his name by the Interpol. He was wanted by the authorities for taking part in a cyber-fraud operation that involved cloning the websites of various U.S. banks and stealing financial information.
The Romanian was extradited to the United States in November that same year to face trial. He subsequently pleaded guilty in July 2008 and asked for leniency through a letter sent to the judge. After he serves the prison sentence, Mr. Nicola-Roman will be placed under supervision for another three years.
According to a May 2008, FBI press release, Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman was a member of a larger international cyber-crime gang that operated out of the United States, Canada, Pakistan, Portugal and Romania. Ciprian Dumitru Tudor, Mihai Cristian Dumitru, Petru Bogdan Belbita, all residents of Craiova, Romania, as well as Radu Mihai Dobrica, Cornel Ionut Tonita and Cristian Navodaru, all residents of Galati, Romania, are also wanted in connection with the same operation.
The cyber-crooks cloned the websites of various financial institutions, including Citibank, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Comerica Bank, Wells Fargo & Co., eBay and PayPal. They then sent e-mails to many customers of those institutions, claiming various technical difficulties within their online systems.
In order to trick the users into providing their banking details on the fake websites they set up, the phishers also launched denial of service attacks against the legit ones. One important aspect of this scheme was that significant effort was put into making the e-mails and cloned pages look genuine. For example, the poor spelling that characterizes many phishing schemes was not present.
The siphoned bank details were employed to forge fake credit cards and extract money from ATMs or buy goods online. Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman says that he did it in order to help his ill mother. "During the time of my criminal conduct, my family was going through some troubles. I was living with my mother who is on long term disability and received a monthly benefit in the amount of $100-120. This money was not enough for her to support herself, given that she spent it all on medication she needed. We needed money to pay the bills and to buy food and other necessary goods," the Romanian wrote in his letter to the judge.
"The defendant, Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, is the first foreign defendant ever convicted in the United States for phishing. The Court is therefore presented with a unique opportunity, to demonstrate that criminals overseas cannot conduct their phishing schemes with impunity, by imposing a Guidelines sentence on the defendant," the U.S. prosecutors mentioned in the indictment.
We recently reported that the Romanian organized crime police arrested between 15 and 20 persons in connection with another phishing and cyber-fraud operation that targeted banks in Italy and other European countries. A Romanian hacker was also recently apprehended for compromising a computer network belonging to the U.S. Department of Defense back in 2006.
Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, 23, originally from Craiova, Romania, was apprehended by authorities in June 2007 in Bulgaria, following an international arrest warrant issued on his name by the Interpol. He was wanted by the authorities for taking part in a cyber-fraud operation that involved cloning the websites of various U.S. banks and stealing financial information.
The Romanian was extradited to the United States in November that same year to face trial. He subsequently pleaded guilty in July 2008 and asked for leniency through a letter sent to the judge. After he serves the prison sentence, Mr. Nicola-Roman will be placed under supervision for another three years.
According to a May 2008, FBI press release, Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman was a member of a larger international cyber-crime gang that operated out of the United States, Canada, Pakistan, Portugal and Romania. Ciprian Dumitru Tudor, Mihai Cristian Dumitru, Petru Bogdan Belbita, all residents of Craiova, Romania, as well as Radu Mihai Dobrica, Cornel Ionut Tonita and Cristian Navodaru, all residents of Galati, Romania, are also wanted in connection with the same operation.
The cyber-crooks cloned the websites of various financial institutions, including Citibank, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Comerica Bank, Wells Fargo & Co., eBay and PayPal. They then sent e-mails to many customers of those institutions, claiming various technical difficulties within their online systems.
In order to trick the users into providing their banking details on the fake websites they set up, the phishers also launched denial of service attacks against the legit ones. One important aspect of this scheme was that significant effort was put into making the e-mails and cloned pages look genuine. For example, the poor spelling that characterizes many phishing schemes was not present.
The siphoned bank details were employed to forge fake credit cards and extract money from ATMs or buy goods online. Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman says that he did it in order to help his ill mother. "During the time of my criminal conduct, my family was going through some troubles. I was living with my mother who is on long term disability and received a monthly benefit in the amount of $100-120. This money was not enough for her to support herself, given that she spent it all on medication she needed. We needed money to pay the bills and to buy food and other necessary goods," the Romanian wrote in his letter to the judge.
"The defendant, Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, is the first foreign defendant ever convicted in the United States for phishing. The Court is therefore presented with a unique opportunity, to demonstrate that criminals overseas cannot conduct their phishing schemes with impunity, by imposing a Guidelines sentence on the defendant," the U.S. prosecutors mentioned in the indictment.
We recently reported that the Romanian organized crime police arrested between 15 and 20 persons in connection with another phishing and cyber-fraud operation that targeted banks in Italy and other European countries. A Romanian hacker was also recently apprehended for compromising a computer network belonging to the U.S. Department of Defense back in 2006.
Romania is not affected by the Moldova Gas Pipeline blast
BUCHAREST, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Romania is not affected by the explosion of the gas pipeline in the neighbouring Republic of Moldova and the gas supplies are at normal parameters, declared on Wednesday Ioan Rusu, general director of state-run national gas transporter Transgaz.
"We were informed of the explosion. Gas flow to our country is normal, we continue to import the same quantity and Romania is not affected. The flow was reduced to half only for the pipelines transiting our country, one that goes to Bulgaria and other two that transport gas to Turkey," Ioan Rusu was quoted as saying by local media News In.
The pipeline exploded Wednesday morning around 5.30 a.m. local time (GMT 03:30) in southeastern Moldova.
"We were informed of the explosion. Gas flow to our country is normal, we continue to import the same quantity and Romania is not affected. The flow was reduced to half only for the pipelines transiting our country, one that goes to Bulgaria and other two that transport gas to Turkey," Ioan Rusu was quoted as saying by local media News In.
The pipeline exploded Wednesday morning around 5.30 a.m. local time (GMT 03:30) in southeastern Moldova.
AP: Romania's Central Bank Keeps Rates Unchanged At 10%
NEW YORK -- Romania's central bank decided to keep its monetary policy rate unchanged at 10% on Tuesday despite the sharp economic downturn.
The decision to stay on hold "reflects ongoing concerns about the currency," said Neil Shearing, Emerging Europe economist at Capital Economics. "Our forecast for rates to hit 8% by the end of the year is now in doubt, but we still expect gradual cuts in interest rates from the second half of this year." Romania will receive a financial support package totaling about $27 billion from several multinational institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. "An IMF rescue package does not alter the fact that the leu remains fundamentally overvalued," Shearing said.
The decision to stay on hold "reflects ongoing concerns about the currency," said Neil Shearing, Emerging Europe economist at Capital Economics. "Our forecast for rates to hit 8% by the end of the year is now in doubt, but we still expect gradual cuts in interest rates from the second half of this year." Romania will receive a financial support package totaling about $27 billion from several multinational institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. "An IMF rescue package does not alter the fact that the leu remains fundamentally overvalued," Shearing said.
Romanian phisher stuck casting behind bars for four years
Judge Janet Half of the US District Court for the District of Connecticut made history on March 31 when she sentenced Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, a 23-year-old native of Romania to 50 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. This is the first time a foreign national has been tried and convicted as a phisher in the United States, which may be why Judge Half chose the sentence that she did. The intended message is quite clear—if we catch you at this, you're going to pay for it.
We weren't able to confirm that Ovidiu-Ionut's guilty plea and sentencing came out of the international, trans-Atlantic phishing bust we covered almost a year ago—sections of the PACER database were offline as of this writing—but the dates roughly match up. That takedown was the result of a joint FBI/Romanian endeavor; the phishers were charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The group's normal business operations and the actual phishing process were handled by the Romanian side of the business while the Americans were responsible for encoding and verifying the stolen credit card/debit card data.
The Register reports that this same group was also responsible for an October 2006 attack against the Brattleboro Savings & Loan Association. In that attack, the phishers sent out an e-mail advising Brattleboro S&L members that the bank's website was unavailable while service upgrades were being performed. Users were ordered to confirm their e-mail addresses under penalty of account deletion. In a nifty twist, the phishers than launched an actual DDoS attack against the bank to make the "service upgrades" appeared legitimate.
Nicola-Roman was captured in Bulgaria on an Interpol warrant and extradited to the US sometime later. Romania's decision to cooperate with US law enforcement on cracking down on phishers as well as allowing one or more of their nationals to be tried here speaks to the spirit of international cooperation that's needed at all levels if we, the Internet-using public, ever want to see a reduction in the sheer amount of malicious and illegal sewage flowing across the system.
We weren't able to confirm that Ovidiu-Ionut's guilty plea and sentencing came out of the international, trans-Atlantic phishing bust we covered almost a year ago—sections of the PACER database were offline as of this writing—but the dates roughly match up. That takedown was the result of a joint FBI/Romanian endeavor; the phishers were charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The group's normal business operations and the actual phishing process were handled by the Romanian side of the business while the Americans were responsible for encoding and verifying the stolen credit card/debit card data.
The Register reports that this same group was also responsible for an October 2006 attack against the Brattleboro Savings & Loan Association. In that attack, the phishers sent out an e-mail advising Brattleboro S&L members that the bank's website was unavailable while service upgrades were being performed. Users were ordered to confirm their e-mail addresses under penalty of account deletion. In a nifty twist, the phishers than launched an actual DDoS attack against the bank to make the "service upgrades" appeared legitimate.
Nicola-Roman was captured in Bulgaria on an Interpol warrant and extradited to the US sometime later. Romania's decision to cooperate with US law enforcement on cracking down on phishers as well as allowing one or more of their nationals to be tried here speaks to the spirit of international cooperation that's needed at all levels if we, the Internet-using public, ever want to see a reduction in the sheer amount of malicious and illegal sewage flowing across the system.
Romania: Pension point to increase to 718 lei
Bucharest, March 31 /Agerpres/ - Starting on Wednesday, the pension point will increase to 718 lei, this increase being stipulated in the draft budget for 2009.
On Wednesday too they will introduce the minimum guaranteed social pension amounting to 300 lei (1 euro=4.23 lei)
The next increase in the pension point is scheduled for October 1, when it increases to 732 lei. On that date too the social pension is to grow to 350 lei.
As for the salaries, a possible rise will be discussed after April 15 and will depend on the economic progress in the first quarter.
The minimum salary is currently 600 lei and Minister of Labour Maria Sarbu estimated two weeks ago that it would probably stay the same all this year
On Wednesday too they will introduce the minimum guaranteed social pension amounting to 300 lei (1 euro=4.23 lei)
The next increase in the pension point is scheduled for October 1, when it increases to 732 lei. On that date too the social pension is to grow to 350 lei.
As for the salaries, a possible rise will be discussed after April 15 and will depend on the economic progress in the first quarter.
The minimum salary is currently 600 lei and Minister of Labour Maria Sarbu estimated two weeks ago that it would probably stay the same all this year
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
