The National Uranium Company (CNU) will open a new uranium quarry in Tulgheş, Neamț County, because the uranium mine at Crucea-Botușana (Suceava County) will be closed temporarily and partially for up to nine months, writes News.ro. The decision regarding the mine in Crucea entails the temporary and partial termination of the processing platform in Feldioara (Brașov County). Earlier this year, CNU was left without its unique commercial customer, Nuclearelectrica, following an auction of raw material, when it lost the sintered uranium dioxide powder supply contract in favor of a supplier from Canada. At this moment, only the National Administration of State Reserves and Special Problems (ANRSPS) is the off taker of uranium extracted by CNU. “CNU is practically obliged to open a quarry in order to reduce the production costs and to be competitive in the market. Currently, the costs are much higher compared to the international market because the current mine in Crucea is about to be depleted. Works on the quarry start this year and could take two to three years”, writes News.ro.  At the same time, representatives from the Ministry of Energy noted that, this year, about 700 of the 1,200 employees at CNU will be dismissed with severance payments.

The International Monetary Fund will sound a fresh alarm over the state of the global economy this week when it reveals its latest forecasts for growth against the backdrop of slower world trade and jittery financial markets.  The expected warning over risks to financial stability and economic growth will underscore fears in the UK that its own economy has slowed in recent months, unable to shake off global pressures.  The IMF’s latest update is expected to reprise warnings about risks from a slowdown in emerging market economies, China’s downturn and lower commodity prices. The Washington-based Fund already cut its outlook in January and recent downbeat comments from its managing director Christine Lagarde were taken by many as a hint that more cuts are to come in Tuesday’s World Economic Outlook.  Lagarde said in a speech that the global economy had lost momentum and that “the recovery remains too slow, too fragile, and risks to its durability are increasing.” She also called on governments to pursue more growth-friendly policies.  “Given comments from Christine Largarde recently a downgrade to the IMF’s world growth forecasts looks to be on the cards,” said Ryan Djajasaputra, economist at the bank Investec.  The new economic outlook, published ahead of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings later in the week, will likely renew warnings over risks the global economy from expected moves by the US Federal Reserve to lift interest rates back to more normal levels.

An oil analyst with advisory group Peel Hunt, Werner Riding said: “I don’t think the North Sea is dead by a long shot. New successful companies will be born from this downturn, and it’s the smaller more nimble players who could benefit the most from low asset prices.” He added that small-cap players including Faroe Petroleum and Serica are both likely to complete deals within the next six months, at the bottom of the oil price cycle, before seller expectations become too optimistic. “I’d be surprised if both didn’t try to acquire more production assets before the end of the year. In particular Faroe will want to offset to the loss of production from the Njord area which is due to come offline this summer and will make a material impact on revenue if that production isn’t replaced,” he said. Faroe boss Graham Stewart confirmed that although the group is not currently in late stage discussions with anyone specific he expects to complete “a value enhancing acquisition by the end of the current year”.  A spokesman for Serica said the company is “keeping its ears to the ground”.  Mayfield’s Mr McKelvie said that as low oil prices have become entrenched asset-holders are beginning to accept a new economic reality which is helping to close the gap between bids and offers in asset sale talks. Meanwhile investors are more willing to support new deals, he said.  “Six months ago when we began looking at this people could see the opportunity but weren’t sure. But in the last two weeks we’ve been talking to investors and they’re more up for it. “Getting that pool [of investors] together has been really important, and the fact that these investors can now see the opportunity is good for us,” he said.

Several myths have been shattered through the recent disclosure of the conversation between IMF employees Poul Thomsen and Delia Velculescu, which shows how they conspire to reach their goals, and for us, the subject is even more interesting, especially since they both are connected to Romania.
Poul Thomsen is the head of the IMF for the European Division, responsible for the IMF program in Greece and Portugal, which also oversees the activity of the IMF country teams, (including) those in charge of Iceland, Ukraine and... Romania.     Merkel couldn't wage a war on three fronts - "the British front", "the Greek front" and "the German front" - and, according to the plans of Poul Thomsen and Delia Velculescu, would be forced to strike a deal. The first myth that the knowledge of this conspiracy shatters is the fact that the IMF is involved in conspiracies. For years, the people who have been saying that they are suspicious of conspiratorial nature of the IMF have been ridiculed in every possible way.  The "high life" of the financial sector said about these distrustful people that they don't understand that the World Bank and the IMF are just "devices" of international financial coordination, without any political agenda, driven only by technical objectives. They said that the suspicion is a sign of the discontent of the people forced to implement the reforms and the restructurings required by the IMF, but which were in fact necessary.

 Others claim that it is the "ultravirulent strain" of the terrorism bred and fed on Europe's soil. Not by foreigners, but by the new generation of alienated people. The deep and always renewed gap between "The haves" and "The have nots", between the privileged and underprivileged of an era of never-ending crisis and of the systematic destruction of societal balance, of inequalities disregarded, when they have not been sometimes cultivated knowingly, is roaming Europe from one end to the other and is present in each of its societies. Especially the ones that, for various reasons, have kept their borders open to a significant flow of migrants over the last seventy years. France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain are currently the "schools" that are raising, ideologically train and which the "gladiators" of the new type of locally fed terrorism act in, even if the ideology and the education remain "imports".  The insular communities of migrants, for the most part separated from the rest of society and antagonized have become the breeding ground for this new type of terrorist, born European to die, also in Europe, as a sacrifice to the Islamic jihadism. Every month, every year, France, Germany and other European countries "export" to the Jihadi training camps in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen or Afghanistan hundreds, thousands of young people anxious to return home to blow up the neighborhood or the city they grew up in! It is an equation that nobody was prepared for, hence the head start that terrorists have over the protectors of the legal and constitutional order.  Last but not least, from the institutions that should have kept us safe from terrorist actions, at least the highly violent ones, another "explanation is being disseminated". They, these "overweight" and heavily budget-consuming institutions supposed to defend citizens have been built and trained for a different type of war! Not for terror. No one can change them from one day to the next and truth be told, politicians haven't been exactly in any hurry to define their mission and duties. Even when they did it, meekly, they did so by juxtaposing new duties, as if they had been perfectly compatible with the older ones!!! As if you could hunt for two rabbits that are each running in different directions, with one shot. It isn't exactly possible, but no one is willing to admit that!!

The period of economic boom has exacerbated the asymmetry between customers and banks, and this aspect has created the need to create an entity that would provide consumers with the option for the alternative resolution of disputes with banks, namely the Center for Alternative Resolution of Lawsuits in the Banking System (CSALB), says Bogdan Olteanu, the deputy governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR).  The official of the Central Bank said: "The financial sector has made this financial effort that I praise, to find the necessary mechanisms for this structure, to remove the need for consumers to bear any costs"  The creation of the SAL has produced a series of controversies, as many people feel that it is a complicated process.  Bogdan Olteanu said, quoted by Agerpres: "For one of the parties, for the banks, what is so complicated is that there currently is a system that treats them asymmetrically compared to the treatment that consumers get! Yes, that's how things work nowadays, at least in Europe. There is an asymmetry in treatment that balances out the relationship between consumers and banks and it is natural for it to be that way, because there is an asymmetry in accessing information, there is an asymmetry in the processing of that information between consumers and banks, and then the institutional system rebalances the relationship which makes it possible, for instance, for a decision rendered here to be mandatory, while consumers are allowed to challenge it further if they do not agree with it".  In the opinion of the NBR deputy governor, lawyers are against the system because they are losing money the moment consumers decide not to go to court to resolve the lawsuit with the bank and they go to the Center instead: "It is a success and I want to celebrate it. We are among the countries that have succeeded in building such a Center. I hope that next year we are going to find that we have also made it functional. (...) Good luck to banks in scrubbing their reputation of the dirt that has accumulated during the boom period. We are, I hope, on the right path to reestablish this relationship of trust, where citizens go to confidently deposit the money earned through their work with the bank, and other citizens go in with confidence to borrow that money, to use it and then pay it back, so that the depositor can get it back at any time".

Ever since the first Greek 'bailout' program was signed, in May 2010, the IMF has been violating its own "primary directive": the obligation not to fund insolvent governments. As a result, the IMF's leadership has been facing a revolt from its staff members who demand an exit strategy arguing that, if the EU continues to obstruct the debt relief necessary to restore the solvency of the Greek government, the IMF should leave the Greek program.  Five years on, this IMF-EU impasse continues, causing a one-third collapse of Greek GDP and fuelling hopelessness to a degree that has made real reform harder than ever.   Back in February 2015, when I first met Poul Thomsen (the IMF's European chief) in a Paris hotel, a fortnight after assuming Greece's finance ministry, he appeared even keener than I was to press for a debt write off: "At a minimum", he told me "€54 billion of Greece's debt left over from the first 'bailout' should be written off immediately in exchange for serious reforms."  This was music to my ears, and made me keen to discuss what he meant by "serious reforms". It was a discussion that never got formally off the ground as Germany's finance minister vetoed all discussion on debt relief, debt swaps (which were my compromise proposal), indeed any significant change to the failed program.