Radio România Internațional

Tag: Nanau

  • June 9, 2021 UPDATE

    June 9, 2021 UPDATE

    LAW The Romanian government on Wednesday endorsed a law banning
    the cumulated salaries and pensions for state employees. The draft also
    provides for the optional increase of the pension age at 70. According to Prime
    Minister Florin Citu, the draft will be submitted to Parliament under an emergency
    procedure. Under the new law, pensioners, including former servicemen, may get
    jobs in authority and public institutions, local or central, or in state
    companies, but are no longer to receive pensions, only salaries. Also on
    Wednesday, the government decided to extend the state of alert for another
    month starting June 12th as well as the measures to be applied to prevent
    and fight the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.






    VISIT Romania is a genuine friend of the Jewish
    people and of Israel in the fight against anti-Semitism, Israeli president
    Reuven Rivlin said in a speech he delivered before the Romanian Parliament on
    Wednesday. He recalled that in January 2020, when world leaders marked in
    Jerusalem 75 years since the liberation of the death camps of
    Auschwitz and Birkenau, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis pledged to preserve the
    memory of Holocaust and step up the fight against anti-Semitism, racism and
    xenophobia. The Israeli president went on to say that his country cannot accept
    attempts at undermining its right to exist through the illicit use of violent
    means and by exploiting international law. Israel is Romania’s closest ally and
    strategic partner in the Middle East and the Romanian-Israeli relations are
    based on trust and durability, Senate President Anca Dragu said. Cooperation
    between the two countries is based on a solid foundation of mutual respect and
    deep friendship says Ludovic Orban, president of the Chamber of Deputies. A
    Romania-Israel business forum was also hosted by the Bucharest Parliament on
    Wednesday. President Rivlin has paid a formal visit to Romania. On Tuesday he
    was received by the head of the Romanian state Klaus Iohannis and held talks
    with the country’s Prime Minister, Florin Citu.








    FILM Romanian director Alexander
    Nanău’s film ‘Collective’ has been awarded the 2021 LUX Audience Award, the
    president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli has announced in the
    plenary session of the EU Legislature in Strasbourg. Two other films, ‘Another
    Round’ and ‘Corpus Christi’ have also been shortlisted for the aforementioned
    award, which is granted by the European Parliament and the European Film
    Academy jointly with the European Commission and Europa Cinemas. During a news
    conference in Strasbourg, the Romanian director has described the award as ‘a
    bridge for a better communication between the European citizens and those
    representing them in the European Parliament’.






    (bill)





  • “Collective” shortlisted for Oscar

    “Collective” shortlisted for Oscar

    Alexander Nanau’s
    documentary film Collective is on the short list for an Oscar in both the documentary
    feature and the international feature film categories. This is the first
    time that a Romanian production is shortlisted in two categories at the American
    Academy Awards. The film follows the investigation of a group of journalists
    into the corruption of the Romanian healthcare sector in the wake of a fire
    that broke out on 30th October 2015 at the Bucharest nightclub Colectiv
    and which killed more than 60 people. The film has already received two awards.
    Last year, it was named best documentary at the European Film Awards and this
    year it won the best documentary award from the London Critics’ Circle Film
    Awards. The Oscar nominations will be announced on 15th March and
    the award ceremony will be held on 25th April.




    Born in Romania and living
    in Germany, the film’s director Alexander Nanau says the nomination of his
    film, which is in fact a Romania-Luxembourg coproduction, is the work of a team
    from four continents. In a statement to Agerpress news agency, he emphasised
    that by its inclusion on the Oscars shortlist, the story in the film gets to be
    passed on. It’s a story about the state, about incompetent authorities who
    trample on people’s lives through deception and manipulation and it’s very important
    to be seen by as many people as possible and maybe it will help others realise when
    they are being manipulated and their lives are being placed in danger by the authorities,
    Nanau also said. He explained that some themes are universally valid, all over
    the word, one of which being the importance of having an independent press and
    the fact that without an independent press we basically have no access to the
    truth, because those in power will always be tempted to create a parallel
    reality and hide their intentions and abuse their power. Alexander Nanau was
    also quoted as saying that Romanian society has changed a lot since the fire
    at Colectiv in 2015. The wish for change is more and more visible, he said.




    Tragedies caused by the
    cynicism and moral corruption of hospital managers and the politicians who
    protect them, fires with multiple victims keep reoccurring in Romania. It was
    only a couple of weeks ago, that a fire broke out at a ward containing many patients
    at Matei Balş Institute in Bucharest, Romania’s
    biggest infectious diseases hospital and one of its most modern and best
    equipped. Another similar tragedy took place last November at the emergency
    hospital in Piatra Neamţ, in the north-east. Alexander Nanau believes this is
    the sad record of the incompetence and corruption of people who have been
    running state institutions and hospitals for dozens of years, the result being
    that people are dying. (CM)

  • February 10, 2021

    February 10, 2021

    Budget – Romanias state budget bill for 2021 has been completed and will be made public today. According to Prime Minister Florin Cîțu, the budget is based on a deficit of about 7% of GDP. The budget bill aims at resetting the economy, at repairing the anomalies introduced in the legislation in the last 4 years, without overlooking the observance of the budgetary targets. The prime minister has also said that the budget bill is intended to maintain the confidence of the EC, of the foreign investors and of the rating agencies. In order to meet the deficit figure agreed with the EC, the government has to reduce some expenses. It needs to cut or cap employee benefits, subsidies for unprofitable state-owned companies, and to reduce funding for political parties. Child allowances will remain unchanged this year, and public pensions will increase only as of January 1, 2022



    Protests — In Romania continue the protests of the trade unionists against the salary policies of the coalition government. Today, the Cartel Alfa trade unionists are picketing the Liberal Party headquarters in Bucharest, after on Tuesday they protested in front of the Finance Ministry. Sanitas trade unionists have also announced protests as of Thursday, dissatisfied with the announced reduction of employee benefits, the suspension of holiday vouchers for 2021 and the reduction of the food allowance. In turn, the Publisind trade union federation, affiliated to the National Trade Union Bloc, is organizing protests today at the Parliament Palace as well as at the Prefect’s Offices across the country. They have launched protests since December 31, 2020 and have announced they are going to continue the protest actions for an indefinite period of time. The National Federation of Pensioners in Romania is also protesting against the Governments decision not to increase pensions this year.



    Motion — The opposition Social Democrats – PSD, are submitting today, at the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest, a simple motion against the health minister Vlad Voiculescu, after having met with representatives of the professional and trade union organizations in the field and of the patients associations. “Within the Health Ministry, it was not action but inaction and an obvious inability to manage this pandemic that dominated during this period”, said the PSD deputy, Alexandru Rafila, Romanias representative at the WHO. The motion on health will be debated next week.



    Vaccine — More than 3 thousand new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection were reported in Romania on Wednesday in the past 24 hours. The total number of cases exceeded 752 thousand, with the death toll exceeding 19,100. Almost 1,000 patients are in ICUs. In another development, the first 14,000 doses of Moderna vaccine arrived in Romania. These will be distributed to regional and vaccination centers across the country. Since the beginning of the vaccination campaign in Romania, on December 27, about 140 thousand people have been vaccinated with the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine. The two vaccine types available in the European Union, Moderna and BioNTech-Pfizer, are very similar in effectiveness and use messenger RNA-based technology. The coordinator of the anti-COVID vaccination campaign, Dr. Valeriu Gheorghiţă, stated that in the second vaccination stage, which started on January 15, 40-45,000 doses might be administered daily throughout the country.



    colectiv — The documentary film collective, directed by Alexander Nanau, has been shortlisted in the Documentary Feature and International Feature Film categories of the Academy Awards. The film, co-produced by Romania and Luxembourg, is a story that presents the joint efforts of doctors, government officials and investigative journalists, who fight corruption while discovering large-scale fraud in the health system in Bucharest after the fire in the Colectiv club. The fire took place on October 30, 2015 and made 65 victims. The Oscar nominations will be announced on March 15, and the winners will be announced at the Academy Awards Gala on April 25. (tr. L.Simion)