Radio România Internațional

Tag: miners

  • January 16 , 2017

    January 16 , 2017

    BUDGET — The plenum of the bicameral Parliament in Bucharest meets today to form the commission that will investigate the budget adjustments operated in 2016 by the former technocrat government. The commission was required by the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea, whose party won the latest elections of December 11. On the agenda of Parliament are also forming new regulatory commissions for the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service. On Thursday, the head of the Intelligence Service, Eduard Hellvig, order suspended his first deputy, General Florian Coldea, accused of illegalities by former deputy Sebastian Ghita, who is under investigation in several corruption cases, and has lately been missing.



    BRUSSELS — The new Romanian foreign minister, Teodor Melescanu, joins today his EU counterparts in the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels. According to his ministry, the meeting will be an opportunity to review the main topics on the European agenda for the first quarter of 2017. Also on the agenda will be recent events in Syria, relations with Morocco, and negotiations on the peace process in Cyprus. As part of the meeting, the head diplomat in Bucharest will meet Federica Mogherini, European High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. This is his first meeting since taking over as Foreign Minister, a position he also held between 1992 and 1996, as well as in November 2014. He resigned when bad organization prevented thousands of Romanians living abroad to exercise their right to vote.



    MOLDOVA — Pro-Russian Socialist President of Moldova Igor Dodon goes on a three day trip to Moscow to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin. According to his office, Dodons priorities are to restore exports to the Russian market, which is presently under an embargo, and legalizing the situation of Moldovan workers in Russia whose work permits have expired. The same sources say that Dodon and Putin will also be discussing the situation in Transdnestr, a region that Moldova lost control over in 1992. Dodon, who was elected president of the Republic of Moldova in November, is the first high official from that country in 15 years to start his term with an official visit to Moscow.



    CANBERRA — Romania’s best placed tennis player, WTA no. 4 Simona Halep was today ousted from the very first round at the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open, by Shelby Rogers of the United States, 52 WTA, after two sets, 6-3, 6-1. Simona conceded defeat for the second year running in the kick-start round of the tournament in Melbourne. Another Romanian tennis player, Patricia Tig, was also knocked out in the first round by the Olympic champion Monica Piug of Puerto Rico, 6-nil, 6-1. Still, two Romanian players advanced to the next round. Irina Begu defeated Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, while Sorana Carstea beat Irina Khromacheva of Russia, 6-2, 6-1. In the third round, Tig will prove her mettle against Czech contender Kristina Pliskova WTA 58. The main draw of the women’s’ singles this coming Tuesday will see the last two Romanians playing in the first round, WTA 32 Monica Niculescu and WTA 125 Ana Bogdan, who are pitted against WTA 189 the Russian Ana Blinkova and, respectively, WTA 18 Elena Vesnina, also from Russia.



    BUCHAREST — The first post-communist president of Romania, Ion Iliescu, was today deposed by the General Prosecutors Office, in the case of the miners raids, under accusation of crimes against humanity. The leader of the miners who took part in the raid, Miron Cozma, was also deposed last week. Prosecutors accuse the people cited in the case of a generalized and systematic attack against protests in Bucharest in June 1990, people who were peacefully protesting against the newly installed power after the fall of communism. The attack by over ten thousand miners and workers, prosecutors say, was joined by forces of the ministries of the interior and defense, as well as intelligence agents. Against the background of several violent incidents in the capital, which the Army had already quelled, Iliescu claimed there was a coup attempt by the opposition, and called on the population to defend democratic insitutions. The miners of Jiu Valley, Romanias most important mining region, were brought to Bucharest, where they attacked the main university building and protesters camped outside it, as well as the offices of opposition parties and independent newspapers. The raids left four dead and over 1,200 injured.

  • December 6, 2016 UPDATE

    December 6, 2016 UPDATE

    GROWTH
    In the third quarter of this year, Romania saw the
    biggest growth in the EU, 4.6%, as compared to the same period in 2015,
    Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union said on Tuesday. This is
    the third quarter in a row when Romania had the biggest yearly growth in the
    EU. However, the growth pace registered by the Romanian economy slowed from
    5.8%, in the second quarter, down to 4.6% in the third quarter. According to
    Eurostat, the Eurozone economy grew by 1.7% in the third trimester of the year
    against the same period last year, while the European Union registered an
    annual economic growth of 1.9%.








    PROTEST Miners from the Romanian mines of Paroseni and
    Uricani have stopped the sit-down protest they began on Tuesday morning amid
    discontent for having not received their pay for November. The miners got
    assurances they would get their salaries shortly, though trade unionists fear
    the situation might get repeated on December 15th as well, because
    the Hunedoara Power Compound, which should be paying the miners’ salaries, has
    its bank accounts blocked. The European Commission has recently greenlighted
    almost 100 million euros in grants by the Romanian state with a view to closing
    down two unprofitable coal mines, Lonea and Lupeni in the Jiu Valley,
    south-western Romania.






    ATOMIC
    ENERGY     Over December 5th and 6th Romania’s state
    secretary for strategic affairs, Dan Neculaescu, was in Vienna attending the
    International Conference on Nuclear Security staged by the International Atomic
    Energy Agency (IAEA). In his speech, Neculaescu has highlighted the importance
    Romania attaches to the implementation of the commitments assumed during the
    summits over nuclear security; the Romanian official also highlighted the
    country’s role as a donor to the IAEA Nuclear Security Fund. He also evoked the
    active role Romania plays at a regional level in terms of nuclear
    security.


    MEETING The two-day meeting
    of NATO Foreign Ministers in Brussels, which involves the participation for the
    first time of Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union
    for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on Tuesday issued a statement on
    implementing a decision made at the Alliance’s Summit in Warsaw over cooperation
    between NATO and the EU. The document shows that at this moment, the security
    of Europe and North America is more interconnected than ever and the alliance
    will have to face challenges coming from south and east through joint actions
    and cooperation. The document comprises 42 measures leading to concrete
    cooperation between NATO and the EU also mentioning that NATO is the
    organisation that remains for the allies the essential framework for collective
    defence, consultations on security and decisions.



  • April 11, 2016 UPDATE

    April 11, 2016 UPDATE

    NATIONAL SECURITY LAWS – Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, will hold consultations, on Tuesday and Wednesday, with leaders of the parliamentary parties on the national security laws. The Romanian President has recently said the legislation in the field should be improved, and some provisions even replaced, because they are no longer suitable in the current security context, neither at national, nor at global level. Klaus Iohannis has said the citizens rights and freedoms should be taken into consideration when drafting the new legislation. In turn, justice minister Raluca Pruna has announced that on Tuesday the Government will start debating the national security laws.



    PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM – Romanias technocratic prime minister, Dacian Ciolos, said the country cant be modernised and an efficient fight against corruption is impossible without a reform of the central and local public administration. He also said Romania needs an efficient administration, which should function in a transparent way. Ciolos made the statements during a debate, entitled “The Prime Ministers Hour. He has announced that, after the local elections due in June, the Cabinet will introduce a set of legislative changes aimed at reforming the public administration sector, clarifying, among other things, the role of civil servants at local and central levels and the civil service recruitment criteria. In turn, the deputy PM and Minister for Regional Development Vasile Dîncu has said the mayors who win the June local elections may attend training programmes to improve their performance.



    LOCAL ELECTIONS – Romanian political parties, alliances, citizen organisations set up by ethnic minorities and independent runners may submit their candidacies for local and county councils and mayor seats, until April 26. As many as 126 parties, alliances and unions have registered their names and election symbols for the June 5 local election with the Central Election Bureau. The campaign for the local elections begins on May 6 and ends on June 4.



    BRANCUSI – The Romanian Culture Minister, Vlad Alexandrescu, on Monday announced the official opening of a public subscription for the purchase of sculptor Constantin Brancusis work “Wisdom of the Earth. He mentioned he was the first to have donated money in this campaign. The owners have recently accepted the 11 million euro bid by the negotiating committee appointed by the Government of Romania. Of the total amount, the Government has announced it will contribute 5 million euro, and the balance is to be covered by public subscription. This is not common practice in Romania, and the decision has generated differences of opinions. Dating back to 1907, Wisdom of the Earth, just like works such as The Kiss and The Prayer, was created when Constantin Brancusi was at the height of his creative powers.



    ECONOMY – The annual inflation rate in Romania stood at minus 3% in March, further down from the negative 2.7% in February, according to data made public by the National Statistics Institute (INS). The National Bank of Romania in February updated the inflation forecast for the year to 1.4%, up 0.3% since the previous forecast. The National Forecast Commission, in its winter forecast, maintained the expected year-end figure at 1.8% and the forecast for 2017 at 2.5%.



    COAL-MINING SECTOR – Miners and power industry workers with the Oltenia Energy Complex in south-western Romania started a rally to protest the lay-off of hundreds of complex employees. They will travel over 300 km to Bucharest, to hand a list of demands to the Government members. Among other things, the unionists demand that a plan be urgently put in place to enhance the efficiency of production units and that salary schemes should be based on performance criteria. In mid-March, the management of the complex decided to reduce or suspend certain operations in all its subsidiaries, both in the power sector and in the coal-mining sector, which will entail massive redundancies. Last year the company reported losses of over 200 million euros, 30% more than in 2014.



    HIROSHIMA – The foreign ministers of the G7 countries on Monday called in Hiroshima, Japan, for a world without nuclear weapons. At the end of last week the US Secretary of State John Kerry visited the memorial to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, the city was devastated by an American atomic bomb, which left 140,000 people dead. On the other hand, the G7 foreign ministers pleaded for strengthening the fight against the IS terror group. The meeting in Hiroshima of the G7 diplomacy chiefs comes in preparation for the meeting of the G7 heads of state, scheduled to take place at the end of May in Japan.


    (Translated by Ana-Maria Popescu and Diana Vijeu)

  • April 11, 2016

    April 11, 2016

    PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION – The Romanian Culture Minister, Vlad Alexandrescu, announced today the official opening of a public subscription for the purchase of sculptor Constantin Brancusis work “Wisdom of the Earth. He mentioned he was the first to have donated money in this campaign. The owners have recently accepted the 11 million euro bid by the negotiating committee appointed by the Government of Romania. Of the total amount, the Government has announced it will contribute 5 million euro, and the balance is to be covered by public subscription. This is not common practice in Romania, and the decision has generated differences of opinions. Dating back to 1907, Wisdom of the Earth, just like works such as The Kiss and The Prayer, was created when Constantin Brancusi was at the height of his creative powers.



    INFLATION – The annual inflation rate in Romania stood at minus 3% in March, further down from the negative 2.7% in February, according to data made public today by the National Statistics Institute (INS). The National Bank of Romania in February updated the inflation forecast for the year to 1.4%, up 0.3% since the previous forecast. The National Forecast Commission, in its winter forecast, maintained the expected year-end figure at 1.8% and the forecast for 2017 at 2.5%.



    LEGISLATION – PM Dacian Cioloş is presenting in Parliament today aspects related to the reform of public administration. He has announced that, after the local elections due in June, the Cabinet will introduce a set of legislative changes aimed at reforming the public administration sector, clarifying, among other things, the role of civil servants at local and central levels and the civil service recruitment criteria. Dacian Cioloş has also explained that the goal is to regain the confidence of the public that civil servants work for the best interests of citizens. In turn, the deputy PM and Minister for Regional Development Vasile Dîncu has said the mayors who win the June local elections may attend training programmes to improve their performance.



    ELECTIONS – Romanian political parties, alliances, citizen organisations set up by ethnic minorities and independent runners may submit their candidacies for local and county councils and mayor seats, until April 26. As many as 126 parties, alliances and unions have registered their names and election symbols for the June 5 local election with the Central Election Bureau. The campaign for the local elections begins on May 6 and ends on June 4.



    PROTEST – Miners and power industry workers with the Oltenia Energy Complex in south-western Romania have today started a rally to protest the layoff of hundreds of complex employees. They will travel over 300 km to Bucharest, to hand a list of demands to the Government members. Among other things, the unionists demand that a plan be urgently put in place to enhance the efficiency of production units and that salary schemes should be based on performance criteria. In mid-March, the management of the complex decided to reduce or suspend certain operations in all its subsidiaries, both in the power sector and in the coal mining sector, which will entail massive redundancies. Last year the company reported losses of over 200 million euros, 30% more than in 2014.



    HIROSHIMA – The foreign ministers of the G7 countries today called in Hiroshima, Japan, for a world without nuclear weapons. At the end of last week the US Secretary of State John Kerry visited the memorial to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, the city was devastated by an American atomic bomb which left 140,000 people dead. On the other hand, the G7 foreign ministers pleaded for strengthening the fight against the IS terror group. The meeting in Hiroshima of the G7 diplomacy chiefs comes in preparation for the meeting of the G7 heads of state, scheduled to take place at the end of May in Japan.

  • February 23, 2016

    February 23, 2016

    PROTEST – Over 500 miners from the Lonea mining exploitation have blocked themselves in the underground in token of protest against the current situation at the Hunedoara Energy Complex, in the centre of the country. Some of them have gone on hunger strike and one of them needs medical care. Some of those blocked in the underground already have health problems, because of the limited amount of air in the gallery. The miners do not intend to suspend the protest and wait for energy minister Victor Grigorescu to come at the Lonea Mine. They fear they would lose their jobs, because the Hunedoara Energy Complex has entered default of payment and might go bankrupt. In another move, the line minister said yesterday that the countrys energy strategy, which will be finalised this autumn, should look like a business plan, and should not be considered a mere public policy project. According to Grigorescu, placing the coal sector on the right base again, trading the Hidroelectrica company on the stock exchange and keeping nuclear energy experts in the country will be some of the elements included in the strategy.



    DIASPORA– The Romanians living abroad are vectors of development and modernisation for the country, Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, had today told a conference in Bucharest, attended by representatives of the Romanian organisations in the Diaspora. The Romanian President has also said the Romanians presence abroad should be a matter of choice and not of necessity and promised, on short term, to initiate a partnership meant to render Romania a prosperous and strong state. In turn, Romanian Prime Minister, Dacian Ciolos, has made public the governments intention to take a series of measures to determine the Romanians living outside the borders of the country to get more involved in investment projects, encourage peoples return to rural areas, increase the scholarship fund, improve consular services and help them exert their own rights, such as the right to vote.



    ECONOMY– The value of the merger and acquisition market in Romania increased by 160% in 2015, exceeding 3 billion Euros, a research conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania shows. Most transactions were made in the industrial production sector and on the real estate market, with the average value of a transaction standing at 26 million Euros, PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania also shows. The significant growth of the local market is partly due to a similar evolution at international level, as the total value of global mergers and acquisitions in 2015 broke the historic high set in 2007. PricewaterhouseCoopers, headquartered in New York, is the largest professional consultancy and auditing service provider in the world.



    HEALTHCARE- Cross-checks will be carried out in all hospitals in Romania between March 10th and 25th, healthcare minister Patriciu Achimas-Cadariu announced on Monday. The measure was taken after several babies from Arges County (in the south) were taken to the “Marie Curie Hospital in Bucharest, having been diagnosed with the hemolytic-uremic syndrome. The situation has brought to light a series of shortcomings in the healthcare system. Meanwhile, the situation of the seven hospitalised children has improved. Only one is still undergoing treatment in the intensive care unit. Two babies will be released from hospital this week. 3 children died this month of severe digestive problems. The epidemiological investigation coordinated by foreign experts, currently in Romania, continues.



    JUSTICE – The European Court of Human Rights has today ruled against Romania in the Romanian Revolution file. The state should pay 15,000 Euros to each of the 17 plaintiffs, who lost relatives during the anti-communist Revolution. The file was opened in 2014 against the Romanian state by relatives of the victims of the December 1989 Revolution. The lengthy investigation in the December 1989 Revolution carried out by military prosecutors is the main issue reproached by the plaintiffs.



    SYRIA– A ceasefire agreement will be enforced in Syria as of February 27, FP news agency quotes a joint Russian-American communiqué, released by the U.S. Department of State. The agreement excludes the Islamic State terrorist group and the Al-Nusra Front, the Al Qaedas branch in Syria. The government and the opposition in Syria stood for the ceasefire, but they put pre-conditions, which are difficult to meet. Russia and the US are co-chairs of the International Support Group for Syria, which is made up of 17 countries. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has hailed the agreement, considering it a sign of hope for the Syrian population, but he drew attention that there is still a lot to be done to enforce it.




    TENNIS – Romanian Simona Halep, the competitions second seed, is today playing Russian Elena Vesnina, in the second round of the Doha tournament, with 2.5 million dollars in prize money up for grabs. In the doubles, Simona Halep and Raluca Olaru of Romania lost in the first round to Andreja Klepac / Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia. On Monday evening, the pair made up of Romanian Monica Niculescu and Russian Margarita Gasparian qualified to the round of last sixteen of the Doha tournament, after securing a victory against the pair Daniela Hantuchova (Slovakia)/Ekaterina Makarova (Russia). In the singles, Niculescu has qualified for the second round, after defeating German Sabine Lisicki on Monday. She will face Serbian Jelena Jankovic in the second round.


    Translated by Diana Vijeu

  • March 18, 2015

    March 18, 2015

    Dozens of miners employed by the Oltenia Energy Complex are protesting either by blocking themselves underground or by hunger strike. They protest the fact that the state company has announced they would lay off 2000 employees, paying a small number of severance salaries. At the same time, the over 1,200 employees of a quarry in Valcea County, recently taken over by Oltenia Energy Complex, have gone on work stoppage. The company and the unions continue the negotiations for the collective labor agreement for 2015. Management has already laid out a restructuring plan for this year and plans to sign the collective labor agreement by the end of the month.



    Former head of the National Integrity Agency Horia Georgescu has been detained after the highest court of appeal endorsed the warrant submitted by anti-corruption prosecutors. He resigned after indictment in a case of abuse in office with damages to the state worth 75 million Euro. Georgescu is accused of involvement in the over-evaluation of property set for restitution, between 2008 and 2009, when he worked at the national institution supposed to be regulating the compensation of owners of abusively nationalized property. Also today, the judicial committee in the Senate votes on liftig parliamentary immunity for Dan Sova, former Minister of Transportation and Member of Parliament. He is also under accusation of abuse of office, in a case involing two state companies. At the same time, mayor of Constanta Radu Mazare has been released pending investigation. He is accused of bribes worth nine million Euro.



    Over 25 Romanian companies attend the IT fair in Hanover, Germany, the most significant such event in the world. The RomaniaIT pavilion offers mainly software solutions for a large array of applications, according to the Ministry of Trade and Economy in Bucharest. This edition, ending on March 20, is attended by over 3,700 companies in 75 countries. Organizers expect the number of visitors to reach around 250,000.

  • The 1990 Miner’s Raids File, Back on Prosecutors’ Table

    The 1990 Miner’s Raids File, Back on Prosecutors’ Table

    When we expected it the least, at the request of the General Prosecutor’s Office, the Bucharest High Court of Cassation and Justice opened the miners’ raids file on Monday. Prosecutors can now resume investigation into crimes such as murder and crimes against peace and humanity. Those believed to have caused the miners’ brutal intervention include the former leftist president Ion Iliescu, the then chief of the Romanian Intelligence Service, Virgil Magureanu and the head of the Romanian Police, general Corneliu Diamandescu, to name just a few.



    The High Court’s decision follows the ruling, last September, by the European Court of Human Rights, that investigations should be reopened. The ECHR showed the Romanian state’s obligation to do justice to the victims of crimes against humanity, regardless of how long ago they happened. The media says the miners’ raid pushed Romania on the brink of civil war. Political analysts say in turn that that was a classic case of state crackdown on its own people. On May 20, 1990, five months after the fall of Ceausescu’s communist dictatorship, one of the former ministers in the 1970s, Ion Iliescu, seen as a revolution leader, won the first free presidential election with 85% of the votes. His party, a heterogeneous mixture of genuine revolutionaries and second-hand communists had in turn won two thirds of the seats in Parliament.



    In Bucharest, University Square that had been occupied, ever since April, by students and proclaimed ‘free of neo-communism’, was empty, as protesters had to comply with the result of the elections. Only several tens of hunger strikers that seemed unable to cope with the disastrous outcome of the elections were still in the square that had previously hosted tens of thousands of exuberant and peaceful people. On the night of June 13, the riot police cracked down on protesters with such disproportionate force that it evoked the violent repression during the Revolution.



    It is still unclear if those who reacted the next day by engaging in street fighting against the riot police and storming the offices of the Interior Ministry and the National Television had any real connection with the Square or not. Ion Iliescu called them ‘legionnaires’, an allusion to the interwar far right movement, and, in spite of the fact that the army had already reinstated order, he called on people to come and rescue democracy, which he said was endangered. The miners in the Jiu Valley, in South-Western Romania, answered the president’s call. For only two days, on June 14 and 15, they took control of the capital city and acted as supreme authority. Time enough for them to kill at least 6 people, injure another 700 and throw 1000 people behind bars.



    The miners devastated the Bucharest University building, the head offices of several parties and of several independent newspapers. In 2010, Laura Codruta Kovesi, the then general prosecutor, the current head of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, admitted that the inquiry into the miners’ raid was one of the biggest failures in the history of the Public Ministry. Five years on, prosecutors seem to stand one more chance to shed light on that dark page in Romania’s history and do justice.