Radio România Internațional

Tag: Moldovan

  • October 20, 2024

    October 20, 2024

    MOLDOVA VOTES Moldovans are going to the polls today to cast their ballot for the president and to decide in a referendum the European future of this small, ex-soviet, Romanian-speaking country. The incumbent president, the pro-European Maia Sandu stands most chances to a second mandate and according to the polls, more than half of the respondents are voting in favour of the country’s joining the EU. However, it seems that detaching from Moscow’s sphere of influence is as difficult as gaining independence from the Soviet Union, which the country did more than three decades ago. The authorities in Chisinau have taken measures to prevent any internal and external provocations as well as any hostile actions, including from the pro-Russian, breakaway region of Transdniester. Over 22 hundred polling stations have been set up in the Republic of Moldova and over 230 for the Moldovans abroad, including 16 in the neighboring Romania.

     

     DAY According to Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the day of October 20th is a historic one for the neighboring ex-soviet, Romanian-speaking Republic of Moldova. “I am convinced that at the end of it, the Republic of Moldova will be one step closer to the European Union – where we can build the future together”, Ciolacu wrote on Facebook on Sunday. Numerous political leaders in Romania, both from the opposition and the ruling coalition, have urged the Moldovan citizens to say ‘Yes’ at the referendum concerning the European integration. According to the Moldovan ambassador in Bucharest, Victor Chirila, there are 100 thousand Moldovan citizens in Romania, out of whom 20 thousand are students.

     

    FESTIVAL Bucharest is presently seeing the 34th edition of the National Theatre Festival, unfolding this year under a suggestive motto, “Dramaturgy of the Possible”. Until October 28th, theatre goers are offered the opportunity of watching a series of performances, a selection which, according to organizers, is aimed at expressing various possible scenarios. The edition’s official selection includes over 30 performances mounted by theatre troupes from all over the country. Among these there is the Anthology of Disappearance by Radu Afrim, William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, directed by Andrei Serban, and Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. This year’s edition has also brought together theatre troupes from abroad, from Germany, Ireland, Poland and Belgium. The event has been produced by the Theaters Union in Romania, UNITER.

     

    TENNIS Romania’s table tennis player Bernadette Szocs has ensured medals in the singles and doubles contests of the European Table Tennis Championships underway in Linz, Austria. In the semis, Szocs will be up against Maria Xiao of Spain, after a win against Charlotte Lutz of France. In the doubles contest, Szocs and Sofia Polcanova of Austria will be up against the Czechoslovakian pair Hana Matelova/Barbora Balazova.

     

    (bill)

  • Romania’s Health Minister has been sacked

    Romania’s Health Minister has been sacked

    It is difficult to say whether this
    moment is ending a complicated situation within the government in Bucharest or
    is actually deepening the crisis of a very sensitive ruling formula. Although
    Vlad Voiculescu was seemingly ready to carry on with the job, the country’s
    Prime Minister Florin Citu decided to call on the president to sack Minister
    Voiculescu. The last straw seems to have been the release of some regulations
    on the quarantine measures to be imposed on some regions without the consultation
    of the Prime Minister or state secretary Raed Arafat, head of the Department
    for Emergency Situations, presently coordinating Romania’s fight against the
    Covid-19 pandemic.




    Andreea Moldovan, a controversial
    state secretary with the Health Ministry, has also been sacked. She is the one
    to have signed the new quarantine criteria. Vlad Voiculescu’s resignation has
    been asked for quite some time now by the public opinion and politicians alike.


    The former Minister’s support
    came from the alliance, which proposed him for this position. USR Plus boasts
    the largest number of votes in the ruling coalition second only to the National
    Liberal Party (PNL), which has also nominated the Prime Minister


    After the legislative elections
    in December, Florin Citu’s cabinet has been forged and enjoyed support from the
    PNL, USR Plus and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania. In
    Parliament it also benefits from the support of the Group of National
    Minorities in Romania.


    In other words, every MP of this
    parties must enjoy support so that the government may function in its present formula.
    Vlad Voiculescu’s mandate took place against the dramatic background of the
    pandemic, which is seeing its third wave these days in Romania. Furthermore,
    the last 4 months of this government have seen tragic events, which enraged the
    Romanian society. In late January, a blaze ripped through the section where the
    most severe Covid-19 cases were being treated at the National Institute for
    Infectious Diseases Matei Balş in Bucharest killing five patients. Others died
    later from wounds in the hospitals they were transferred to.


    Already under public scrutiny,
    the country’s healthcare system grabbed the highlights again on April 9th,
    after live transmissions from the evacuation of the orthopedic hospital Foisor
    in Bucharest had been aired. Foisor was to be turned into a hospital for the
    exclusive treatment of Covid infections but live footages during the evacuation
    process at midnight in cold weather have enraged the Romanians. Political
    reactions seemed to have been appeased on Monday in the wake of the USR’s
    support for its minister. However, on Tuesday, a new tragedy struck at another
    major hospital in Romania, the Victor Babes hospital for the treatment of
    infectious diseases. The faulty functioning of the oxygen machines fitting a
    mobile unit for the treatment of Covid-infected patients killed another three
    people at the aforementioned hospital.


    (bill)

  • Romania’s Healthcare Minister has again cautioned against the novel coronavirus

    Romania’s Healthcare Minister has again cautioned against the novel coronavirus

    Romania has
    lately seen an increase in the number of Covid-19 infections although the chart
    of the daily infections has hit a certain ceiling. Pundits believe the main
    problem is the pressure exerted upon the country’s healthcare system whose specialised
    personnel are tired and scarce. The
    daily death toll has also increased from one day to another and so has the
    number of those in need of intensive care to survive the severe forms of
    Covid-19. Health Minister Nelu Tataru believes the number of infections will
    increase in the next week mainly because of the holiday season.




    Nelu
    Tataru: With the holiday season in full
    swing now we are presently dealing with a higher number of cases. We are doing
    a lot of tests and consequently we expect many of these to be positive. We must
    clinically deal with these positive tests, and address the medium and severe,
    which are going to need intensive care treatment, where our resources are
    limited.




    Romania
    presently has 100 places in intensive care units fitted with ventilators. In
    this context, the minister has pointed out that prevention rules must be
    observed in order to limit the spreading of the virus. He has voiced hope that
    people have understood the importance of this moment and are no longer
    minimizing the situation.




    As long as
    we have new cases, the medical personnel that we now rely on will be
    overwhelmed. And since prevention rules aren’t observed, we can only handle
    what we get in hospitals. We have a limit, the minister says adding that a
    pandemic is not stopped in hospitals but outside them.




    The
    minister has also recalled that the government had to also handle a period of
    legislation vacuum during which over 46 hundred people infected refused hospitalisation
    and left hospitals. Authorities are now trying to identify these people in
    order to conduct epidemiological investigations. Those showing symptoms are
    being hospitalised, while those who do not have symptoms are being tested by
    paramedics and other mobile units and isolated at home.




    In another
    development, a monograph titled ‘The Covid-19 pandemic in Romania – Clinical
    and epidemiological aspects’ was released on Thursday by the Romanian Academy
    Publishing House. Attending the event, the country’s Health Minister underlined
    the support offered by the Academy is essential and gave assurances the medical
    personnel are doing their job in spite of the fatigue they are currently
    experiencing.




    According
    to Horatiu Moldovan, state secretary with the Ministry of Healthcare, the
    volume represents a major element of scientific research, which comes to
    indisputably prove and endorse the measures taken during the pandemic in
    Romania. The work also includes a synthesis of scientific data gleaned
    internationally and corroborated with clinical expertise and research of some
    of the most reputed scientists Romania has.




    (translated by bill)