VASLUI, Romania, May 17 (Reuters) – Valentin Boanta, sitting
in his jail cell, proudly explains the device he has invented
which, he says, could make the world’s ATMs impregnable even to
tech-savvy criminals like himself.

Boanta, 33, is six months into a five-year sentence for
supplying gadgets an organised crime gang used to conceal ATM
skimmers, which can copy data from an unsuspecting ATM user’s
card so a clone can be created.

BUCHAREST/SOFIA, April 26 (Reuters) – After hacking the
Pentagon, NASA and Britain’s Royal Navy for fun, TinKode got a
real job as a computer security expert for a Romanian cyber
safety consultancy.

TinKode was the name used by Romanian Razvan Cernaianu when
he revealed security holes in government and corporate systems
across the world, earning him a two-year suspended prison
sentence.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania expects to pass legislation this week to compensate all owners of property seized under communism, seeking to draw a line under a haunting past more than 20 years after the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Bucharest has lagged behind other former Soviet satellites in central and eastern Europe in addressing its communist past. Some senior officials from that era remain in high office, while hardly any crimes have been prosecuted.

POROSCHIA, Romania (Reuters) – Florin Dumitru, like millions of subsistence farmers in Romania, the European Union’s second-poorest country, will have no choice when the horse that ploughs his scrap of land can no longer earn its keep.

“What do you have to do when he can’t plough or pull a cart any more? You just sell it to the slaughterhouse to butcher it,” said Dumitru, 40, who lives in Poroschia, home to one of Romania’s big abattoirs.

BUCHAREST, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Romania’s borrowing costs
dropped to record lows on Wednesday after JP Morgan said it
would include the country’s debt in an emerging market index.

Bond yields have now fallen by around one percentage point
since a December parliamentary election gave leftist Prime
Minister Victor Ponta a mandate to conclude a new deal with the
International Monetary Fund.

BUCHAREST, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Romania’s new government
delayed sales of state assets on Wednesday, going against an
agreement with the International Monetary Fund and raising
doubts over its commitment to a new pact.

Leftist Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who won a Dec. 9
election, had reassured investors by saying he would replace a 5
billion euro IMF deal expiring in early 2013 but the proposals
of his new administration could be an obstacle.

BUCHAREST, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Romanian President Traian
Basescu re-appointed leftist Victor Ponta as prime minister on
Monday, having said he would never do so again, giving his arch
rival a mandate to complete a new deal with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF).

The move follows Ponta’s Social Liberal Union (USL) winning
a two-thirds majority in a Dec. 9 parliamentary election and
eases concerns over Romania’s political stability. But the two
men dislike working together and the partnership may not last.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s president flew to Brussels on Thursday, his absence further delaying talks on forming a new government four days after elections, as his feud with the premier helped keep the country in political limbo.

Traian Basescu is reluctant to reappoint as prime minister leftist rival Victor Ponta, who tried to impeach him in July, but has limited options because of the latter’s overwhelming victory in the Sunday parliamentary polls.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Prime Minister Victor Ponta’s governing alliance has won more than two-thirds of parliamentary seats, which could make it easier for him to curb the powers of his main rival, the right-wing President Traian Basescu.

According to Ponta’s Social Liberal Union (USL), the alliance won up to 68 percent of parliamentary seats in Sunday’s election. That majority would allow it to make constitutional changes, which it wants to limit the president’s powers and change procedures for appointing prosecutors and judges.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Exit polls showed Romania’s prime minister won a clear victory in a Sunday election, which may herald another round of a power struggle with the rightist president and complicate talks for a new IMF deal.

Victor Ponta’s leftist Social Liberal Union (USL) won 54-58 percent of votes according to three exit polls and is headed for a majority, but analysts said President Traian Basescu may ask someone else from the USL to form a government.