Chisinau

The European Union and Moldova signed a package of documents in Brussels on Thursday that will enable Chisinau to receive macro-financial aid worth 100 million euros.

According to reports, Moldova will receive 40 million euros in the form of a grant and 60 million euros as a loan. The first installment is due to arrive by the end of this year.

Authorities in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria have ordered all men aged between 18 and 50, including reservists, to take part in a general mobilization.

The decree has created anxiety among many people in Transnistria, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty station in Chisinau, Moldova.

The new report by the Promo-LEX NGO says the situation for human rights for people living on the left bank of the Dniester river in the breakaway Transnistria region did not improve between January and July 2017.

The report says that there are still big problems regarding free movement rights, access to education and land ownership rights.

Moldova's new Minister of Defence, Eugen Sturza, says he intends to develop and modernise Moldova's military, in a move that risks worsening tension between Chisinau and Moscow.

Moldovans who leave their country to work abroad have been choosing the European Union over Russia, indicated by the fact that remittances sent home are increasingly in euros and dollars rather than in Russian rubles, official statistics showed on Monday.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva has arrived on a two-day working visit to Chisinau, Moldova.

Today, Minister Zaharieva is meeting with Moldova's Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Andrei Galbur.

On 31 October the two will open a Bulgarian consular office in the town of Taraclia.

Moldova's organised crime prosecutors announced on Wednesday that they will prosecute seven people, including a well-known Moldovan fugitive who has been wanted by Interpol since 1998, for involvement in a plot to assassinate Vladimir Plahotniuc, the head of the ruling Democratic Party and also one of the country's richest and most powerful politicians.

The UN General Assembly is to discuss by the end of October Chisinau's request for Moscow's forces to leave Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway area of eastern Moldova, as the Russian troops continue manoeuvres in the separatist region.

The launch of its flights from Athens International Airport, with the launch of 8 new routes in 2018, to Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Lithuania, Republic of Moldova and Poland, announced today Wizz Air, the largest airline in Central Europe and Eastern Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Moldova's President Igor Dodon at a meeting on Tuesday that Moldova needs to align its political stances more closely with Moscow if it wants to join the Eurasian Economic Union and solve the issue of the breakway region of Transnistria.