Transmitter – Dear friends, Radiocom has reported a major malfunction at one of the shortwave transmitters in Țigăneşti, near Bucharest. The RRI programs have been temporarily moved to a second transmitter, to other frequencies and, partially, to other target areas. Please go to RRI’s website, the How to listen button, to see the new frequencies.
Government – The investiture of the new Romanian Government, PSD-PNL-UDMR, sent a positive signal to Romanian businessmen and foreign investors, claims the social-democratic prime minister Marcel Ciolacu. Last night, at the first meeting of his cabinet, he said that the interest rates for Romania’s external loans have already started to decrease. One of the priorities of the new Government is the setting up of the budget for next year, which seems to be, at the same time, the main difficulty it will face in the assumed effort to reduce expenses. The draft budget law is based on a new emergency ordinance regarding fiscal-budgetary measures, which will include a large part of the unpopular measures that the Government must implement in order to reduce the deficit.
Cernăuţi – The leaders of the Romanian community in the Cernăuţi (Chernivtsi) region, in present-day Ukraine, express their concern over the Romanian state’s interrupting the payment of scholarships for students and teachers from Romanian schools and high schools, the special envoy of the state press agency AGERPRES reports. The scholarship, worth 400 Euros, is granted annually by the Romanian Government, through the Department for Romanians Everywhere, with the aim of encouraging learning in the Romanian language. Last year, over 5,500 students and over 1,200 teachers from Romanian schools in the Cernăuţi region benefited from this money, whose payment was, however, suspended in 2024. Over 400 thousand ethnic Romanians live in the neighboring state, the majority in northern Bukovina, in northern and southern Bessarabia and in Herța County, eastern Romanian territories annexed in 1940, following an ultimatum, by the Stalinist Soviet Union and taken over in 1991 by Ukraine, as a successor state.
Christmas Pastoral Speech – ‘Let’s not forget, in our prayers and in the signs of our brotherly love for Christmas and New Year, our Romanian brothers who are far from their country and home’ the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Daniel, asks in His Christmas Pastoral Speech. On New Year’s Eve and on the first day of the New Year, let’s raise prayers and thank God for the benefits we received in the past year and let’s ask Him for help in all the good and useful work of the New Year, the Patriarch said. And Cardinal Lucian, Major Archbishop of the Romanian Church United with Rome, urges in the Christmas Pastoral Speech to a life ‘in harmony and communion with one another’, stressing that one cannot contribute to a future of peace and freedom, without learning the lessons of history. At the last population and housing census in Romania, of 2021, religious affiliation was declared by 16.397 million people from the total resident population. 85.3% of them are Orthodox, 0.7% Greek Catholic. 0.9% of the interviewees declared themselves without religion or atheists.
Chişinău – Maia Sandu took the oath of office as the president of the Republic of Moldova on Tuesday, during a ceremony held at the Palace of the Republic in Chişinău. In her speech, the head of state emphasized that European integration and justice reform remain the main objectives in her new mandate. At the same time, she warned that joining the European Union is not a miraculous solution for all internal problems, but said that the Republic of Moldova managed to defend its democracy in the face of external threats. Maia Sandu is the 6th president of Moldova, the first woman in this position and the first directly elected president who obtained two mandates. (LS)
