Radio România Internațional

Tag: programmes

  • The European Cybersecurity Competence Center in Bucharest

    The European Cybersecurity Competence Center in Bucharest


    In December 2020, at the end of a tight race also attended by Belgium, Germany, Spain, Luxemburg, Poland and Lithuania, Romania was designated by the EU representatives to host a major EU agency namely the European Cybersecurity Competence Center. The institution has been designed to protect the economy and the population to support research in this field and help the European institutions to develop their cybersecurity capabilities. But why Bucharest?


    Because Romania brands itself as an IT-savvy country scoring high on rankings of digital skills and training. Bucharest is also ranking high in broadband internet speed rankings. Another reason was that by that time the country had been unsuccessful in its bids to host EU organizations.


    May 9, a major EU landmark, has been chosen as the date of inaugurating this agency, and the ceremony has been attended by the countrys Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca and several European officials, including the Director-General of the European Commissions Department for Communications Networks, Roberto Viola.


    “The Centre is responsible for managing EU cybersecurity funds for the current long-term EU budget (2021-2027), notably adopting cybersecurity work programmes and for managing cyber projects under the Digital Europe Programme and Horizon Europe. Furthermore, it will manage projects on Security Operations Centers as part of the Commissions proposal to establish a European Cyber Shield and it will collaborate with a network of National coordination centres aiming to build an ecosystem for cybersecurity innovation and competitiveness across the EU.


    According to Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market, “Cybersecurity is a critical priority and safeguarding our digital sovereignty requires joint efforts.”


    He recalls that “the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre brings together top-tier experts and resources from across the EU to develop innovative solutions to cyber threats and enhance our resilience against attacks. By working together, we can build a safer and more secure digital world for all Europeans.”


    In the following 7 years, the European Cybersecurity Competence Center is expected to run 4.5 billion Euros in cybersecurity projects. Out of the total sum, two billion are European money while the rest comes from the EU member states.


    (bill)


  • December 31, 2022

    December 31, 2022

    NEW YEAR PM
    Nicolae Ciucă said in his New Year address on Saturday that in 2022 Romanians
    proved their solidarity, handled challenges hard to imagine and managed to do
    more than just endure. He mentioned the crisis facing Romania, with a war at
    its borders, high energy prices and skyrocketing inflation. The PM emphasised
    that the government would continue to protect citizens’ interests, to support
    the economy and take care of the vulnerable. In turn, the Royal House of
    Romania wished A happy new year, with health, hope and peace in their hearts
    to all Romanians in the country, in the neighbouring Republic of Moldova and
    abroad.


    MEASURES In
    Romania, the pension point value will be raised by 12.5% as of January 1, to
    reach nearly EUR 360, and minimum wages will be increased to EUR 600. On the
    other hand, the 10-eurocent governmental discount on fuel prices will be
    discontinued. The government says it is ready to reintroduce it, should fuel
    prices rise beyond citizens’ spending power. As of January 1, fuel excises will
    be cut down, while electricity and natural gas price caps and discounts will
    remain in place.


    JUDICIARY The
    year 2023 must see a crackdown on organised crime and criminal groups, Justice
    Ministry officials posted on Saturday on the institution’s Facebook page. According
    to them, Romania has the legislation, institutions and modern strategies to
    achieve this goal. What it needs is more investment in logistics and leaders
    able to encourage all prosecutors to undertake and accomplish their critical
    social mission of safeguarding the law and protecting citizens and the state
    from all forms of crime, the Justice Ministry emphasised. The message also says
    that the Ministry’s top accomplishment in 2022 was its contribution to Romania
    being issued a last positive report under the Cooperation and Verification
    Mechanism in the judiciary and the lifting of this mechanism.


    POPE Pope emeritus
    Benedict XVI died this morning, aged 95, the Vatican announced. Over the past
    few days his health had deteriorated, AFP reports. The former Pope spent his
    last 9 years of life in the monastery within the small papal state, after
    resigning in 2013, for reasons that are still unclear. Elected on April 19,
    2005, following the death of Pope John Paul II, he was the first German leader
    of the Catholic Church in 482 years. On February 11, 2013 Benedict XVI
    announced his resignation from the papacy, on account of his age and ill health.
    Joseph Ratzinger was the first Pope since the Middle Ages to step down
    voluntarily.


    FUNDING
    Romania this year received the green light for the partnership agreement and
    all the 16 programmes under the 2021-2027 cohesion policy, thus avoiding the
    risk of losing EUR 5.2 bln, the ministry for investments and European projects
    announced. According to the institution, these 16 programmes will bring into
    the country EUR 46 bln in strategic investments in safer hospitals, transport
    networks, the water and sewage infrastructure and support for the business
    community. Eight of the 16 programmes are regional. In the previous EU financial
    period, 2014-2020, Romania received EU funds totaling EUR 25.4 bln. (AMP)

  • A National Anti-cancer Plan

    A National Anti-cancer Plan

    According to centralized
    data, cancer remains a major health issue at world level being among the main causes
    of premature deaths in people with ages between 30 and 69 in 134 countries,
    Romania included. However, authorities in this country have decided to do more
    for the prevention and treatment of this dreadful disease. An outcome of the
    cooperation between healthcare authorities, physicians – including in the
    private field – and patient associations, the National Plan for the Prevention
    and Combating Cancer is an initiative the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis kicked
    off eleven months ago.




    After passing through all
    the necessary stages, the law endorsing this plan, which is being implemented
    for the period between 2023 and 2030 has been promulgated by president Klaus
    Iohannis.




    Klaus Iohannis: We have the obligation to take action now on behalf
    of those who lost the battle with the illness and those who have been diagnosed
    with this terrible disease. There is remarkable medical progress,
    state-of-the-art technologies, which can turn cancer into a treatable disease.
    And the Romanians have a right to these present day innovations.




    Under the law, all the
    Romanian citizens, residing in Romania, citizens of the EU member countries as
    well as the foreigners and stateless individuals living or residing in Romania
    have a state-guaranteed right to medical and social services comprised by the
    National Plan for Preventing and Combating Cancer. These services include the
    prevention, investigation and treatment of cancer, access to care services,
    including palliative care, psycho-oncology and social services as well as to food
    subsidies.




    Romania is actually
    lining up to the European standards in the field. The move was all the more so
    necessary because statistical figures for Romania were quite alarming, as physician
    Dana Paun, presidential healthcare advisor told Radio Romania.




    Dana Paun: Cancer represents a major
    healthcare issue after cardiovascular diseases and for this reason we needed
    this plan, which comprises very clear objectives. For instance, national
    screening programmes have become operational. We have so far benefitted for
    funding from the Healthcare Ministry only for the uterine cancer, but they want
    to implement screening programmes for other types of cancer. At the same time
    there are plans for a national cancer registry for all the types of cancer
    affecting the Romanians. An inter-disciplinary approach is also under
    discussion as one patient cannot be treated by only one physician. You need a
    team of doctors to study the case and prescribe the treatment, surgery,
    radio-therapy, chemotherapy, so that the patient may benefit from the right
    treatment.




    And since a series of expensive
    innovative therapies have emerged
    and the National Insurance House is unable to cover these new types of
    treatment, there are plans for a healthcare innovation fund to provide the Romanian
    patients access to them.


    (bill)

  • Environmental reconstruction in the Făgăraş Mountains

    Environmental reconstruction in the Făgăraş Mountains

    The project’s target this spring amounts
    to 100 hectares and benefits from financial support from the European
    Commission through its LIFE programme. 435 thousand seedlings are being planted
    in four environmental reconstruction areas: at Groapele, a region affected by
    massive logging and arsons, Dobroneagu, Valea Dambovitei and Leresti. The
    seedlings of local species either come from Carpathia nurseries or are
    purchased from local producers. Here is Mihai Zota, conservationist director
    with the aforementioned foundation.


    Mihai
    Zota: I can tell you there is a
    long way from planting these seedlings to a real forest, particularly in our
    case as we are trying to rebuild the natural forest environments, which existed
    in this area but have been cut down. It was a certain trend back in the
    communist era, but also after it, to replace forests of beech and sycamore with
    spruce as spruce was believed to be a species which takes to the soil faster
    and its timber can be used in constructions. We are now doing some history
    research in an attempt to identify the real forests that were covering these
    areas in ancient times and try to rebuild them accordingly. This aspect is very
    important to us because we believe that nature knew better than us, people,
    which are the right type of trees to cover a certain area, as this process
    happened in millions of years. And whenever man intervenes, nature fights back
    and we are witnessing all sorts of unwanted phenomena, like the appearance of
    huge swarms of insects, windsnaps, windthrows etc.


    Mr. Zota is actually referring here to an
    environmental reconstruction instead of reforestation because the process of
    creating a new forest entails many more activities besides the actual planting
    of trees.


    Mihai
    Zota: We are conducting tests
    on various hectares in all these areas in an attempt to identify how many
    natural seedlings we are having on the ground. Seedlings appear naturally after
    any logging, but they are not enough to make the forest regenerate by itself. We
    always find seedlings from various species after deforestation. Afterwards we
    are making comparisons between what was the forest like many years ago and then
    we drew our conclusions what species to plant so that we rebuild the forest
    like it was back then. We are not trying to outclass the engineering skills of
    mother nature but we are making some predictions because research shows that in
    the next 50 years, forests are likely to go up at least 100 meters, covering
    more land uphill. And if we are now seeing beech trees at 14 hundred meters up
    in the Fagaras mountains, in 50 years we are going to see it at altitudes of 16
    hundred meters. So, we are trying to take into account these phenomena,
    influenced by global warming of course. After we have identified the
    composition and the number of seedlings we are going to need, we do our work in
    two big stages, in spring and autumn. Why we need two stages? Because we have
    noticed, that due to climate changes, the period of time we can plant these
    seedlings has shortened.


    The seedlings used in this project come
    from two nurseries and greenhouses and they have been grown naturally in good
    conditions, without chemical additives used. So, the process of building a
    forest from scratch isn’t simple at all and needs maintenance works for at
    least seven years. Without the proper monitoring and constant maintenance, such
    barren areas are difficult to be built into real forests. Besides all its
    environmental functions, a forest like this can sustain an entire social
    system. 120 daily workers and scores of forestry employees are presently being
    involved with suchlike reforestation projects.




    (bill)

  • L’abandon…

    L’abandon…

    Trop denfants roumains sont victimes dabandon ! Quils grandissent dans un orphelinat, au sein dune famille daccueil ou encore dans une branche de leur famille éloignée, pour tous lexpression « chez soi » a disparu ou du moins perdu tout sens.



    Si lon en croit les statistiques, aujourdhui, près de 76 mille enfants ont des parents partis travailler à létranger. Renate Weber, Avocate du Peuple, affirme que ce nombre sélèverait en fait à près de cent mille, un chiffre bien funeste.



    Parmi ces dizaines de milliers denfants, près de 4 000 sont répartis entre 140 centres de placement. Pourquoi ? Robert Ion, directeur chargé du développement au sein de lONG « Hope and Homes for Children », explique :



    « En Roumanie, un enfant sur trois vit sous le seuil de pauvreté. Cest à cause de cette pauvreté que beaucoup arrivent aujourdhui dans les centres de placement. Ce sont généralement les quatrièmes, cinquièmes ou sixièmes enfants dune fratrie, issus de milieux ruraux, que les parents nont plus les moyens délever à la maison. Mais il existe beaucoup dautres facteurs qui expliquent larrivée de ces enfants en centre de placement. Par exemple, lorsque les deux parents sont partis travailler à létranger, lorsque lenfant a été abandonné à lhôpital ou encore lorsque la justice a décidé de léloigner de sa famille car il est victime dabus. Mais parmi tous ces facteurs, cest bien la pauvreté qui reste la principale cause. »



    Lhistoire a prouvé que les chances de se faire une place dans la société pour ces enfants sont très minces. Comment faire pour que cela change ? Robert Ion explique :



    « La première chose serait dallouer un budget permettant dempêcher la séparation de lenfant et de sa famille. Aucun des gouvernements daprès la Révolution na pris de telles mesures budgétaires. Alors quil en existe pour les centres de placement, donc une fois les enfants séparés de leurs familles, cest terrible ! Il faudrait agir en amont, et aider les parents et les enfants de milieux modestes afin quils ne soient pas séparés. La séparation est une véritable tragédie, aussi bien pour lenfant que pour la famille dans son ensemble. Il en résulte un placement de lenfant, qui ny est pour rien dans cette affaire. Les programmes permettant dintervenir pour empêcher une telle séparation dépendent souvent dONG comme la nôtre. Sur le long terme, nous devons remettre en question la notion déducation : léducation des parents issus de milieux vulnérables, et léducation de la société dans son ensemble. De même, nous devons, en tant que pays, cesser denvisager le placement comme moyen de protection de lenfant. Jamais nous ne laisserions nos propres enfants dans un centre de placement. Alors comment pouvons-nous lenvisager comme une solution viable pour les autres ? Il nous faut développer les services de prévention, augmenter le nombre de familles daccueil et dassistantes maternelles professionnelles, capables daccompagner les parents afin de maintenir les enfants au sein du foyer. »



    Le directeur chargé du développement détaille pour nous les trois étapes mises en place par « Hope and Homes for Children » pour endiguer ce phénomène :



    « Nous accompagnons chaque famille de manière personnalisée, en fonction de ses besoins et de ceux de lenfant. Cela peut prendre la forme dun traitement médical, dun accompagnement pour éviter la déscolarisation de lenfant, ou encore dachat de vêtements, de matériel ou de biens de première nécessité que la famille nest pas en mesure de soffrir, et ce pour différentes raisons. Nous œuvrons pour la fermeture des centres de placement que nous souhaitons remplacer par ce que nous appelons la « prise en charge alternative », à savoir des familles daccueil, des assistantes maternelles professionnelles etc. Enfin, nous accompagnons aussi les jeunes qui, une fois atteint lâge de 18 ans, sortent de ce système et doivent se débrouiller seuls. Par exemple, en payant leur loyer, car ils sont considérés comme une population vulnérable. Ils devraient normalement avoir accès aux logements sociaux, mais il en existe très peu en Roumanie. Alors, lorsquils quittent le système, sils ne sont pas pris en charge, la seule alternative reste la rue. Ensuite, nous devons rester à leurs côtés lorsque se pose la question de leur parcours scolaire ou de leur expérience professionnelle. Pour nous, la protection de lenfant est absolument primordiale, et cest à ce moment-là que nous sommes le plus impliqué. Tout le monde peut simpliquer dailleurs, il suffit de se rendre sur notre site departedefrica.ro pour voir comment vous pouvez aider les enfants que nous accompagnons. Vous pouvez aussi envoyer « hope » par sms au 8864 pour faire un don de 4 euros par mois. »



    Oana Drăgulinescu, fondatrice du Musée numérique de lAbandon, sest aussi impliquée. Le siège virtuel du musée nest autre que le dortoir de lancien foyer-hôpital pour enfants atteints de handicaps graves de Sighetu Marmației (dans le nord de la Roumanie) – lun des symboles les plus frappants du phénomène dabandon de la Roumanie communiste davant 1989. Fermé depuis maintenant 20 ans, les images de cet hôpital ont marqué à jamais les mémoires après la Révolution. Nous aimerions faire de ce musée un espace permettant à ces communautés traumatisées et oubliées de tous de sexprimer.

    Un lieu pour que ces centaines de milliers denfants, abandonnés sous le communisme ou plus récemment, puissent guérir cette blessure, précise Oana Drăgulinescu : « De quelle guérison parle-t-on ? De la nôtre, en tant que nation probablement. Nous devons nous soigner face à lindifférence. Il existait des centaines dinstitutions comme celle-ci en Roumanie, et au moins une dizaine étaient aussi épouvantables que celle de Sighet. Ces institutions se trouvaient au cœur de nos villes, et des gens comme vous et moi y travaillaient. Et pourtant, il semblerait que personne, pas même ceux qui travaillaient dans le système social, navait connaissance des horreurs qui avaient lieu à Sighet. Pour moi cest un moyen de se protéger. Lorsque lon constate de telles horreurs, on détourne le regard. Cest aussi plus facile sur le court terme ! Sur le long terme en revanche… le nombre denfants abandonnés en Roumanie na ni diminué après 1989, ni après labrogation du décret 770 interdisant lIVG et toute forme de contraception. Pour nous, il serait salvateur de parler de tous ces aspects. Nous nous rendrions compte que partir à létranger pour trouver du travail et offrir une vie meilleure à nos enfants peut sapparenter, certes dans une moindre mesure, à un abandon. »



    Noubliez pas : labandon est la forme la plus grave de négligence envers lenfant ! (Trad : Charlotte Fromenteaud)

  • RRI’s shows on TuneIn

    RRI’s shows on TuneIn

    Dear friends, our programs are also available on TuneIn (Radio Romania International 1).



    You can also listen to us on your fixed or mobile phone, in the USA, at the following call-to-listen phone number: 716.274.2526.



    This incurs no extra charge and is the equivalent of making a standard mobile call in the US.

  • RRI’s shows on TuneIn

    RRI’s shows on TuneIn

    Dear friends, our programs are also available on TuneIn (Radio Romania International 1).



    You can also listen to us on your fixed or mobile phone, in the USA, at the following call-to-listen phone number: 716.274.2526.



    This incurs no extra charge and is the equivalent of making a standard mobile call in the US.

  • Economic Programs

    Economic Programs

    One month before the start of the campaign for the parliamentary elections due on December 11th, the party ranking first in the polls, the Social Democratic Party, has drawn up its economic agenda, as part of its potential governing program. The Social Democrats propose a mix of liberal and social initiatives, aimed at satisfying the captive voters. Their program includes measures such as the elimination of 100 non-fiscal fees, fiscal relaxation measures, as well as measures aimed at increasing people’s incomes.



    Also, the Social Democratic Party would like to see more money in the 2017-2020 budget as a result of European funds absorption, the setting up of a sovereign development fund and investments under which the amounts entering the economy would return to the general consolidated budget in the shape of taxes and fees, including the VAT. Also, the Social Democratic Party would like to ensure a fiscal re-launch for employees, for the income tax to reach zero, as of January 1st 2008, for those who earn up to 2000 lei, which is 450 Euro, for doctors and IT specialists. As for pensioners, the Social Democrats come with a proposal that nobody would refuse: eliminating the income tax as of next year, also if the pension is lower or equal to 2000 lei.



    Also, all pensioners would no longer have to pay contributions to the health insurance fund. As the main opponent of the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party would like to give the economy a boost by investing an additional 24 billion Euros in the coming four years. As regards taxation, the liberals propose the generalization of the 16% flat tax, now applicable only to the income tax. Therefore, the standard VAT and the social contributions paid by employers and employees would be all brought to the level of 16%.



    The newly created Save Romania Party, ranking third in voters’ preferences, comes with a long term vision for sustainable development, based on investments, not on consumption and fiscal incentives, as well as strategic investments in infrastructure and education. Under the Union’s program, transportation is a national priority and health care would benefit from additional funds from the budget and would enter a process aimed at rendering it more effective. Debates on the three parties’ economic offers have been disturbed by the dispute over the warning launched by Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, who said that, after the elections, he would not designate a prosecuted or convicted Prime Minister.



    The President did not give any names, but the leader of the Social Democratic Party Liviu Dragnea, sentenced in the famous case of the 2012 referendum on the impeachment of the then president Traian Basescu, felt like the cap fit him. Offended, he accused the head of state of overstepping his constitutional responsibilities. That moment marked the unofficial start of the election campaign, which is very likely to be marked by fierce electoral confrontations.



    (Translated by Mihaela Ignatescu)