FINES The equivalent of 3.8 million Euros in fines was applied
last year to major supermarket chains in Romania, by the National Authority for
Consumer Protection (ANPC). According to the ANPC president, Horia
Constantinescu, the biggest fines went to Lidl, Profi, Penny and Kaufland,
while Selgros and Metro got the lowest. The Auchan supermarket chain ranks
first in terms of the products banned. In another development, in 2023, the
aforementioned institution registered over 200 thousand complaints. Most of
them were solved but almost 16 thousand proved to be ungrounded.
POLICE The Romanian police on Saturday announced that last year
they staged 187 operative actions, which led to the dismantling of 35 networks
involved in human trafficking and brought to court 465 people facing sexual
exploitation charges. According to the sources, human trafficking is a complex
crime with a significant cross-border impact but half of the investigations
carried out last year were focused on domestic human trafficking. The same
methods of recruiting the victims and forcing them into sex slavery were
noticed, such as promises of well-paid jobs, the well-known lover boy technique
to win the victim’s trust and force them into prostitution, sharing the profit,
abuse and emotional blackmail, seizing documents, threatening with reprisals
against the victims and family members and others. The trafficker’s profile has
also remained unchanged from the previous years. These are mostly Romanian
citizens of both sexes with various ages, and some of them have criminal
records.
RUGBY The new headcoach of the Romanian national fifteen, French
David Gerard, has announced a lineup of 32 players for the team’s debut game in
Rugby Europe Championship 2024. According to the Romanian Rugby Federation,
only 26 players will be going to Poland. Romania has been included in Group B
together with Portugal, Belgium and Poland. The Romanians will be up against
Poland in an away game on February 4; then they will have two game on their own
turf against Belgium on February 10 and Portugal on February 17.
HOLOCAUST January 27 is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day or
the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. On this day in
1945, the largest Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by
the Soviet Army. The day was decided through a UN resolution in 2005 in order
to commemorate the 6 million European Jews as well as the other millions of
victims of other nationalities killed by the Nazi regime. In a message conveyed
on Saturday, Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said the Holocaust wound
in the Romanian collective mentality can be healed only through the honest
assuming and promotion of the historic truth, needed remedies in a democratic
and European country. The Prime Minister underlined the importance of combating
any form of holocaust denial adding that education is an essential way of
progress and cultivation of tolerance.
SILVER Romanian athlete Dmitrii Shamaev on Saturday won the silver
medal in the 12.5 km men’s pursuit competition of the European Biathlon
Championship in Brezno Osrbile, Slovakia, the Romanian Biathlon-Ski Federation
has announced. The Romanian has ended the race after Isak Frey of Norway with
French Antonin Guigonnat in the third position. Romania still has nine athletes
in the aforementioned competition, five in the men’s and four in the women’s contest.
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