Radio România Internațional

Tag: oil

  • August 28, 2019

    August 28, 2019

    UK The President of Romania Klaus Iohannis had a telephone conversation with the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, at the request of the latter, the Romanian Presidency announced. The 2 officials mainly discussed the relations between Romania and the UK, and aspects related to Britains withdrawal from the EU. With respect to Brexit, the Romanian President emphasised that an orderly exit is in the interest of both the UK, and the European bloc. Iohannis also told PM Boris Johnson that Bucharests top priority is to protect the rights of the Romanian citizens living in Britain. PM Boris Johnson assured the President of Romania that protecting the rights of the Romanians in the UK after Brexit was very important to London, and the British authorities would keep this goal in mind.




    LAW Romanias Ombudsperson Renate Weber challenged the new Administrative Code at the Constitutional Court. She put forth 3 reasons for the action: the emergency order endorsing the Code comes against the rules on delegated legislation, against constitutional requirements on the powers of MPs, and affects the regime of fundamental public institutions. The Administrative Code has been introduced through a government emergency order, which triggered criticism from the Opposition and civil society.




    PARLIAMENT The Chamber of Deputies, convening in special session at the request of the Opposition, Wednesday dismissed a bill on amnesty and pardons for certain offences. The document, initiated in 2017 by former justice minister Florin Iordache, from the Social Democratic Party, was passed by Senate that same year, and provides pardons for prison sentences of up to 5 years. The agenda of the Chamber of Deputies also includes a bill on repealing the Law on compensatory appeals and a bill endorsing Government Emergency Order no 114, which introduces fiscal and budgetary measures and measures concerning public investments.




    OIL Romania is among the EU countries that rely the least on oil imports, with net imports accounting for 61% of the national consumption, according to data for the year 2017 made public by Eurostat. Smaller dependency rates are reported for the UK (35%) and Denmark (negative 4%). At the opposite pole, the EU member states with the highest oil import dependency rates are Estonia (115%), Malta (104%), Slovenia (103%) and Bulgaria (102%).




    WILDFIRE Wildfires continue to ravage the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, in spite of the authorities sending the army to fight the flames with planes and ground troops. Apart from the air forces, scores of fire-fighting units have been mobilised to contain the fire. So far 7 Brazilian states have resorted to the Army, including to the 43,000 troops stationed in Amazonia, but the number of troops deployed for this operation and their intervention methods remain unclear, France Presse reports. According to governmental sources the number of wildfires in the Amazon rainforest went up 83% this year, destroying vast parts of an eco-system that is vital to combating global climate change.




    TENNIS Three Romanian players have qualified into the second round of the US Open, the last Grand Slam tournament of the year. Simona Halep, number 4 in the world, defeated the American Nicole Gibbs, 6-3, 2-6, 6-2. Sorana Cîrstea beat the Czech Katerina Siniakova, 7-5, 6-2, and Ana Bogdan won against Britains Harriet Dart, 6-3, 6-1. The only Romanian in the mens competition, Marius Copil, also moved into the US Open second round, for the first time in his career, after defeating Ugo Humbert of France, in a match that lasted more than 4 hours.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • The Ploiesti of Old

    The Ploiesti of Old

    Located 60 kilometers from Ploiesti, on the road to the Prahova Valley, the most popular mountain area in Romania, Ploiesti got its name, according to a local urban legend, from a shepherd called Mos Ploaie, ploaie being the Romanian word for “rain. Ploiesti was also the capital of the first Romanian republic. The city is known as the capital of black gold and also as “the most beautiful ugly city in Romania.



    This description is related to the title of a book published by the Association for Education and Urban Development “How Beautiful this Ugly City Can Be. The book comprises memories of several inhabitants of Ploiesti which tell of the particular charm of a city that was faced with many difficulties over the years. “Ploiesti might seem a city without history. In fact, its history was fatefully tied to oil and the oil industry. Oil was behind the citys boom in the early 20th century and it was again oil that brought its downfall, historian Lucian Vasile, one of the editors of the book, told us. Still, the early days of Ploiesti werent tied to the crude oil deposits the area was so abundant in. What had the city looked like before the oil industry flourished?



    Lucian Vasile: “The city was at the junction of several trade routes, which is why trade was an important source of income for the city dwellers in the 19th century. Then, with the development of infrastructure linking Bucharest to Transylvania, Ploiesti became an important postal and rail hub. The Southern Station was the main rail junction, as the tracks separated here, headed either to Transylvania or to Moldavia. It wasnt just one city, there were several cities in one. Each of its slums developed its own identity. Today the word preserves only its pejorative meaning, but I disagree. Each of the slums had a church at its center, which gave the name for that particular slum: the St. Friday slum, the St. Demetrius slum, the Princely slum, the St. Elijah slum and so on.



    In the mid-19th century, after the first oil refinery was set up in Ploiesti in 1857, the city saw an era of prosperity. It was around that time that an anti-monarchy movement declared Ploiesti the capital of the first Romanian Republic in August 1870. Although the city remained the de facto capital for just one day, that didnt stop the city from seeing the most flourishing chapter in its history in the early 20th century. This is transparent in the architecture of the city, as historian Lucian Vasile told us:



    Lucian Vasile: “There was a fairly peaceful competition between architecture in Neo-Romanian style and modernist architecture with an ArtDeco touch. However, the two trends coexisted and architecture in Ploiesti, just like in Bucharest, stood out through contrast and diversity. Next to a building in Neo-Romanian style, there was a smaller, modern block and farther on, a 19th century villa and next to it, another building in Neo-Romanian style. Ploiesti was not a unitary city, but that was actually its charm. It had crooked, twisted and narrow streets, which was quite unpleasant for the residents at that time. However, for us, today, that is picturesque and fascinating, stirring our nostalgia.



    Naturally, prosperity brought about demographic growth and diversification in Ploiesti. Historian Lucian Vasile explains:



    Lucian Vasile:“This architectural competition was also an outcome of demographic eclecticism. Jews made up the largest ethnic community in the city, which today is much smaller than in the interwar period. At that time, Jews accounted for about 5% of the citys population. There were also German, Italian, Dutch, British and French communities. In the 19th century in particular, there were not many experts in pharmaceuticals, architecture or constructions in Romania. That is why, a large number of ethnic Hungarians came from Transylvania, as well as many Saxons and Italians, who raised buildings in Prahova County and in Ploiesti.



    Badly damaged during the 1944 bombings, many historical buildings in Ploiesti were not restored and communists preferred to pull them down to modernize the city. That turned Ploiesti into the first planned city in communist Romania; its varied architecture was replaced by the stylistic uniformity of the new blocks of flats that made the city look ugly. However, the old spirit of the slums has been maintained: blocks of flats have coexisted with old houses that have survived along with certain traditions typical of the suburbs, with country and urban influences.


    (translated by: Vlad Palcu, Ana-Maria Palcu)