Radio România Internațional

Tag: nuclear security

  • 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 1, 2016 UPDATE

    April 1, 2016 UPDATE

    NUCLEAR SECURITY – US President Barack Obama on Friday warned that the nuclear terrorist threat by jihadist groups continues to loom over the international community, despite global counteraction. In the opening of the nuclear summit in Washington, Obama said that although the risk has been significantly lowered, nuclear terrorism continues to evolve. Terrorist will find it harder and harder to obtain nuclear material, much owing to a key treaty ratified in over 102 states. Representing Romania in Washington was president Klaus Iohannis.



    NOMINATION — Romanian Justice Minister on Friday nominated Augustin Lazar for the position of Prosecutor General of the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The proposal has been submitted to the Superior Council of Magistracy. Under the law, the Romanian President appoints the Prosecutor General, after being proposed by the Justice Minister and green-lighted by the Superior Council of Magistracy. Augustin Lazar is at present Prosecutor General with the Alba Iulia Prosecutor’s Office. The office of prosecutor general has been left vacant after Tiberiu Nitu resigned on February 2, 4 months before his mandate expired, against the backdrop of an investigation into the illegal use of motorcades.



    PROTEST – Family doctors in Romania are protesting again, unhappy with the fact that medical services cannot be reimbursed, as the framework agreement with the National Health Insurance Agency was not extended. Doctors have announced they will not issue any subsidised prescriptions and medical letters. They are unhappy with the under funding of their sector and with the fact that they are forced to pay from their own pockets the errors produced by the health card. Doctors threaten that if their claims are not solved, within 10 days they will start a warning strike. Last week, family doctors picketed the headquarters of the Health Ministry.



    ELECTIONS IN MOLDOVA — Presidential elections will be held on October 30 in the Republic of Moldova under a draft law voted on Friday by the Moldovan Parliament. The election campaign will start on July 30. The mandate of the current head of state, Nicolae Timofti will expire on March 23, but he will remain interim president until the elections. The next president will be voted directly by Moldovan citizens, after the Constitutional Court last month nulified a 2000 provision stipulating that Parliament must elect the head of state.



    COMMEMORATION — The village of Fantana Alba in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, paid an homage to the victims of the April 1, 1941 massacre, when over 2,000 Romanians were executed by Soviet troops for wanting to take refuge in Northern Bukovina, in Romania at the time. Attending the event, Minister Delegate for Romanians Worldwide Dan Stoenescu said this painful moment would linger in the collective memory of Romanians and Ukrainians. Stoenescu went on to say that history decided that important communities of the two countries shoud live on both sides of the border. Dan Stoenescu said it was the duty of Romania and Ukraine to work together to create the premises of a good cohabitation, respect and trust, contributing to the much-needed increase of stability in this part of Europe.



    INVESTIGATION — A criminal investigation was opened in Bucharest after two Muslim young girls wearing the Islamic veil were assaulted on a street in District 2. According to the local police, the young women, aged 16 and 18, were assaulted by a group of five unknown individuals, who pulled off their veils and physically assaulted them. The victims didn’t need medical care and didn’t file a complaint, but the police have referred the matter to itself. Romania is home to over 65,000 Muslim people, most of whom are of Tartar and Turkish origin.



    CURRENCY – In January — March 2016, Romania’s national currency, the leu, managed to appreciate against 13 currencies out of the 16 most important in the region, but also against the Euro, the USD and the Swiss Franc. The Romanian currency thus registered its best January — March period in the last years. Euro lost 1.1% to the leu, from 4.52 lei, the reference rate established by the National Bank of Romania in its last session in December 2015, to 4.47 lei, as set on Thursday. The USD lost 5% to the leu in the first quarter of the year, after depreciated against the EU against the background of cautious expectations regarding the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve, the most powerful central bank in the world.



    TURKEY – The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, currently on a visit to Washington, has made an appeal to the European countries to support his government’s fight against the Kurdish separatists. On Thursday, Turkey was hit again by a suicide attack, the third in less than three weeks, claimed by the PKK. A car bomb exploded in the town of Diyarbakir, in the south-east, killing 70 policemen and wounding 27 people, half of them also policemen.



  • 31 March, 2016

    31 March, 2016

    Romania’s president Klaus
    Iohannis is attending the nuclear security summit in Washington. Before his
    departure, he emphasised the need for solidarity, responsibility and joint
    action in the face of terrorist threats, which can take many forms. He also
    said that Romania meets the highest standards when it comes to nuclear
    security. Today, Klaus Iohannis will visit the Holocaust Memorial in Washington
    and attend a dinner at the White House hosted by US president Barack Obama in
    honour of the participants in the summit.




    The Bucharest
    Tribunal today looks at a request by anticorruption prosecutors to allow the
    temporary 30-day arrest of Craiova’s mayor Lia Olguta Vasilescu. She was
    detained on Wednesday on charges of bribe taking, using her influence to obtain
    undue financial benefits and goods and money laundering. Prosecutors allege
    that in 2012, when she was serving as a senator for the Social Democratic
    Party, Vasilescu convinced a number of business people to finance her mayoral
    race by contributing more than 130,000 euros to her campaign. Also today, the
    High Court of Cassation and Justice is considering a new date for the so-called
    Referendum case, in which the Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea is accused
    of creating a national system of voter influence that allegedly rigged the
    referendum on the impeachment of the then president Traian Basescu on 29th
    July 2012.




    According to the
    Pentagon, the US will deploy an armoured brigade in Eastern Europe with
    continuous rotations starting in February 2017, as part of efforts to
    discourage possible Russian aggression. The brigade will number 4,200 troops,
    as well as tanks and other types of armoured vehicles. The troops will rotate
    in and out of the allied states on the eastern flank, such as Romania,
    Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. US combat brigades of the
    ground forces are also stationed in Germany and Italy. About 62,000 US military
    forces are permanently based in Europe. To reassure its allies in Eastern
    Europe, NATO took a series of measures in the spring of 2014, such as opening
    logistical centres and deploying fighter aircraft in the Baltic states and
    additional ships in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Moscow says the permanent
    deployment of troops along its borders violates the NATO-Russia Founding Act
    signed in 1997.




    The Romanian Intelligence Service is investigating,
    together with national and international partners, the use of Romanian anonymous
    pre-paid phone cards in areas with terrorist organisations. The Service has
    recently said that persons affiliated to terrorist groups have used pre-paid
    phone cards in Romania to communicate abroad. The investigation also looks at
    the possible use of such cards in the attacks carried out in Europe.




    The International Criminal tribunal in The Hague today
    acquitted the former leader of the Serbian Radical Party Vojislav Seselj, who was on
    trial for inciting and committing war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia Hertegovina
    during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Held for 12 years at the
    Scheveningen prision from February 2003
    to November 2014, Seselj was temporarily released on humanitarian grounds. He
    did not attend the reading of the verdict. A week ago, the court in The Hague
    sentenced the former political leader of the Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic to
    40 years in prison for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.




    Romania may become an important player on the regional
    energy market by 2020 if the BRUA natural gas pipeline is developed, the
    Romanian economy minister Costin Borc told the Bucharest Forum held by Aspen
    Institute Romania. According to the minister, the pipeline, which links
    Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, provides new opportunities for the
    Romanian energy sector on the European market. He also said Romania must
    continue work on the Arad-Szeged pipeline between Romania and Hungary and on
    the Iasi-Ungheni pipeline linking Romania to the Republic of Moldova, which
    will allow Romania to consolidate its position as an exporter on the natural
    gas market. The minister also emphasised the need to develop the country’s
    transport and IT infrastructure.




    Two Romanian women’s handball teams are playing in the
    Champions League quarterfinals in two home matches. In their first
    participation in this most important club competition in Europe, the Romanian
    champions CSM Bucharest face the Russian side Rostov-Don. To qualify for the
    Final 4 tournament in Budapest on the 7th and 8th of May, CSM have the difficult
    task of defeating the Russian champions, the only team in European women’s
    handball to win every match in the last 8 months. The return match is scheduled
    for 9th April. The second Romanian team playing today are the domestic
    vice-champions HCM Baia Mare, who are facing the Montenegrin side Buducnost
    Podgorica. The return match is scheduled for 10th April.




    The
    Romanian-Russian pair Monica Niculescu and Margarita Gasparian on Friday
    face the Hungarian-Kazakh pair Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova in the semifinals of the Miami tennis
    tournament worth 6 million dollars in prize money. While this is Niculescu and
    Gasparian’s third tournament as a pair, they pulled of a surprising win over
    the Swiss-Indian pair Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza. In the
    singles event in Miami, world no. 5 Simona Halep of Romania lost to the Swiss
    player Timea Bacsinszky, world no. 20, in the quarterfinals.

    (Translated by: C. Mateescu)