Radio România Internațional

Tag: alerts

  • Drone alerts on the Eastern Flank

    Drone alerts on the Eastern Flank

    The terror campaign the Russian army is carrying out in Ukraine continued last weekend unabated. According to the Ukrainian Air Forces, Russia launched 67 long-range drones in a large-scale night attack against 11 Ukrainian regions. On their way to targets, these drones are also violating the air space of the countries neighboring Ukraine, as it happened again last nights. One of these Russian drones has crashed close to the town of Rezekne in eastern Latvia, 50 kilometers close to the borders of this NATO country with Belarus and Russia.

    Land troops and air surveillance devices belonging to Romania’s Ministry of National Defence have been deployed to conduct search operations in the regions close to Periprava, in Tulcea County, south-eastern Romania, where parts of the drones the Russians used to bomb Ukraine’s ports on the Danube have allegedly crashed.

    The Bucharest administration has announced that a Russian drone on Saturday night entered Romania’s airspace on its way to Ukrainian targets. In response two F-16 fighters had been ordered to take off to monitor the situation and the General Inspectorate for Emergency situations had issued heads-up in the counties of Tulcea and Constanta, in Romania’s south-east, against the risk of falling debris.

    On Sunday morning the Romanian Ministry of Defence briefed the allied structures over the situation created and conveyed a firm message of condemning these attacks mounted by the Russian Federation against elements of Ukrainian civil infrastructure, which the Romanian side considers ‘unjustified and in severe contradiction with international law’.

    A protest message has also been issued by the Romanian Foreign Ministry. The diplomacy in Bucharest said the radars of Romania’s armed forces had identified a drone, which violated the country’s airspace on its way to an Ukrainian target, and called for the cessation of Russia’s irresponsible escalation of the security situation.

    Romania’s Foreign Ministry has also called for the observance of the rule of law including in the case involving the inviolability of Romania’s airspace and has reiterated its vehement condemnation of these illegal attacks. Since the onset of the Russian invasion of that country in February 2022, Russian troops have launched thousands of missiles and long-range drones against various military and civil objectives causing numerous victims against the population. Following these attacks, a series of Russian drones fell on the Romanian territory mostly in unpopulated areas. In order to fight off such attacks, Romania has joined the countries that are donating to Ukraine some of their surface-to-air Patriot missiles.

    (bill)

  • August 22, 2022 UPDATE

    August 22, 2022 UPDATE

    Measures – The Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă, the Energy Minister, Virgil Popescu, and the representatives of the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority will once again analyze the support measures for the population, in the context of the skyrocketing prices for electricity. The measures will apply next year, after March 31, the date until which household and non-household consumers benefit from electricity and gas price compensation, depending on consumption. The government wants to invest in new infrastructure projects in the field, which should exploit local natural resources. On the other hand, the Romanian government could adopt, in this weeks meeting, the emergency ordinance that provides for the increase in the salaries of public sector employees by a quarter of the amount they were supposed to receive this year. The Finance Minister, Adrian Câciu, explained that the increase has already been applied in the education and health domains, and next the other state employees are going to benefit from this increase.



    Weather – In the next 24 hours, the weather in Romania will be generally unstable. The National Meteorological Administration has issued Code Yellow and Code Orange alerts for weather instability and heavy rain falls, valid until Tuesday evening in almost all regions of Romania. For short periods of time, and especially through accumulation, the water amounts recorded will be of 25…35 l/sq.m., and of than more than 60…70 l/sq.m on small areas. Hail storms are expected in isolated areas. From a thermal point of view, the weather will be relatively cool in the southwest, and in the east and southeast warm with high discomfort conditions (the humidity temperature index reaching and slightly exceeding the critical threshold of 80 units). Highs across Romania will range between 24 and 34 degrees Celsius.



    Tennis — The Romanian tennis player Irina Begu on Sunday qualified for the round of 16 of the WTA 250 tournament in Cleveland USA, which has total prizes up for grabs worth over 250 thousand dollars. The Romanian player secured a two-set win against the American Peyton Sterns and next she will be up against the winner of the game pitting Sofia Kenin of the USA against other qualified player. Another Romanian in the competition, Sorana Cîrstea will play against fourth-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium in the first round.



    Covid – About 2,600 new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection have been registered in the last 24 hours in Romania, after more than 11,800 tests were carried out, the Health Ministry announced on Monday. 10 deaths were also reported. In specialized health units, the number of COVID-19 patients is 3,580. 253 people are in ICUs. On the other hand, the protective mask will not be mandatory in schools and no special sanitary measures will be taken, said the prefect of Bucharest, Toni Greblă. Upon checking the stage of preparations for the beginning of the school year, the prefect explained that there were no discussions about additional measures to be imposed in educational units, in the context of the increase in the number of COVID cases. Recently, the Health Minister, Alexandru Rafila, said that he recommended the use of protective masks in schools, but the only additional protective measure would be the ventilation of the classrooms.



    Drought — In Romania, the crops area affected by the drought, at national level has so far exceeded 400,000 hectares located in 34 counties, according to the data provided by the Agriculture Ministry. Out of the total cultivated area, more than half of the plots cultivated with wheat and triticale, a hybrid of wheat and rye, have been affected, followed by corn crops, covering over 75,000 hectares. 2020 was considered by meteorologists the driest year in Romanias history for important areas in the country, such as Dobrogea (south-east). The drought reported two years ago was reflected in the crops registred by Romania, which were much smaller in compariosn with the previous years. 9LS)

  • June 28, 2018

    June 28, 2018

    European Council — The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is participating for two days in the European Council meeting in Brussels. Talks will focus, among others, on the European defense policy, economic growth and competitiveness, digitalization, innovation and trade and the post-2020 EU budget. The main topic of the summit is migration. According to a communiqué of the presidential administration, Klaus Iohannis will reiterate the need to continue the consolidation of the EU’s external border protection and will highlight the need for a collective effort of member states to intensify dialogue with the migrants’ countries of origin or of transit. In a letter conveyed to the heads of state and government of the 28 EU members, the president of the European Council Donald Tusk points to the very high stakes involved, and to the growingly heated debates over migrants. He underscored that the EU’s target should be to dismantle the bootleg-type of business, this being the most efficient way to stop the migrants’ flow and to put an end to loss of human lives at sea.



    Brussels — The Speaker of the Romanian Senate Calin Popescu Tariceanu is having talks today in Brussels with the First Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, about observance of human rights and freedoms in Romania and about the institutional relations in a rule of law state. A press release issued in Bucharest writes that the talks will tackle the stage of monitoring of the Romanian judiciary by the EC through the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification (CMV) and bilateral issues. The meeting is taking place in the context in which the EU officials are closely monitoring the amendments brought to the justice laws by the ruling coalition in Romania made up of the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberal and Democrats, amendments that are being contested by the opposition parties, civil society and part of the magistrates and that triggered off street protests. In Bucharest, the US Embassy issued a release stating that important partner states have called on Romania to consider the potentially negative impact of the amendments to be brought to the criminal laws and have asked the authorities to avoid changes that might undermine the rule of law or Bucharest’s capacity to fight crime and corruption.



    Weather — Romania’s eastern half will be under a code yellow alert for rain until Thursday night. The highs of the day will range between 23 and 29 degrees C, with a 20 degree reading in Bucharest at noon. Meteorologists warn that it will continue to rain in most regions of Romania until Saturday. Hydrologists have also issued a code orange alert for flooding for 8 drainage basins in the south, center and east valid until Thursday afternoon. For other rivers in the south, east and center of the country a code yellow alert has been issued, valid until midnight. According to the Interior Ministry rainfalls have affected 60 localities in 14 counties. The Ministry officials have mobilized at national level, around 16 thousand employees and more than 6,600 technical means.



    Government — The Romanian government is today discussing a bill on granting state aid to those companies who make large-scale investments, mainly in less developed regions. According to the finance minister Eugen Teodorovici the government decision submitted for analysis is a follow-up of the state aid scheme that was successfully implemented between 2014-2017. Minister Teodorovici said that resuming this scheme would boost economic growth, bridge the gaps between regions and help produce innovative products.



    DIICOT — The prosecutors of the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism in Bucharest started the investigation in rem in the case of the criminal complaint made by the opposition National Liberal Party president Ludovic Orban against the Social Democratic prime minister Viorica Dancila, a case in which he accuses her of high treason and disclosure of secret information that undermines national security. The complaint is related to a memorandum discussed in the government meeting that analyzed the adequacy of relocating the Romanian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Ludovic Orban accused Viorica Dancila of revealing confidential information and of having presented the Romanian President with false information in relation to the respective memorandum. (news translated by Lacramioara Simion)