Radio România Internațional

Tag: RAF

  • August 15, 2018 UPDATE

    August 15, 2018 UPDATE

    PROTESTS – The head prosecutor with the Military Prosecutor’s
    Office in Bucharest, Ionel Corbu, said that the gendarmes’ intervention during
    Friday’s anti-Government protest was by no means justified, as long as there
    were several alternatives to quell the violent protesters. Ionel Corbu said the
    Military Prosecutor’s Office has received from the Romanian Gendarmes Service
    part of the documents it has requested, namely the action plan, the
    intervention plan and the operation log, adding however that no documents were
    received regarding the amount of tear gas used in the protests. The Bucharest
    Gendarme service said the tear gas used by the riot police was purchased from
    licensed manufacturers and that it is currently being used all over Europe. Military
    prosecutors continue to investigate the forceful intervention of the riot
    police on August 10 and are now looking into possible charges of abuse of
    office and actionable negligence. So far 200 people have filed criminal complaints.




    FEAST DAY – Orthodox and Eastern Catholic
    Christians in Romania on Wednesday celebrated the Assumption of Mary, the
    bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life.
    Churches and monasteries in Romania held special services on this occasion
    while thousands of Christians went on pilgrimage. Some 2.2 million Romanians
    celebrated their name day on Wednesday.




    NAVY DAY – August 15 is also Romanian
    Navy Day, as Saint Mary is also the patron saint of sailors. This year
    ceremonies were held in Constanta, Galati, Mangalia, Tulcea, Braila, Bucuresti
    and Cernavoda on this occasion. Attending the events were thousands of navy
    military, scores of warships and numerous aircraft. The largest naval show was
    held in Constanta, the largest Romanian port on the Black Sea. The guard of
    honor and brigades of Romanian military, alongside peers from Great Britain,
    the United States and Ukraine paraded on the waterfront before the fleet
    command. Attending the ceremonies, President Klaus Iohannis said Romania cannot
    truly be a powerful player in the region without a powerful army, which should
    include a well-equipped, well-trained and modern navy, capable to successfully
    withstand any challenge. The President went on to say that, as a sign of
    appreciation for the activity and special achievements of the Naval Forces, he
    has decorated the war flag of the Romanian Naval Forces with the Maritime
    Virtue Order in rank of Officer, as a sign of military peace. Defense Minister
    Mihai Fifor told the navy military that their responsibilities are key to
    securing the eastern flank of NATO and the EU. Fifor recalled that 2018, the
    year marking 100 years since the Great Union, will be a landmark for the
    military navy by means of the modernization program carried out to strengthen
    the immediate response capacity of the Romanian Naval Forces and to consolidate
    Romania’s position in the Black Sea region.




    ACCIDENT – President Klaus Iohannis has expressed his condolences
    for the families of the victims of Tuesday’s collapse of a motorway bridge
    close to Genoa, which killed dozens of people, including two Romanian
    nationals, a Presidency report reads. The President also conveyed his
    condolences to his Italian counterpart, Sergio Mattarella and to the Italian
    authorities. According to the Foreign Ministry, operations to extract the
    victims from the rubble are ongoing. A mobile consular team is on scene. Some
    250 firefighters and scores of search and rescue teams continue to look for
    survivors. According to our correspondent in Rome, 440 people were evacuated
    from 11 apartment buildings in the vicinity. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe
    Conte also visited the crash site, ensuring citizens the whole road
    infrastructure in Italy will be inspected to prevent such tragedies from
    happening.




    CAMPAIGN – The signature-gathering campaign entitled
    No criminally-prosecuted people in public office has so far raised over 800
    thousand signatures and is bound to continue until the end of the month, the
    president of Save Romania Union Dan Barna told the press on Wednesday. The set
    target is to gather 1 million signatures. This citizen initiative aimed at
    revising the Constitutions so that no person with a final criminal sentence can
    hold public office.




    MEETING – National Defense Minister Mihai Fifor on
    Wednesday met with his Moldovan counterpart, Eugeniu Sturza, on the sidelines
    of the Romanian Navy Day ceremonies held in Constanta. The two officials
    highlighted the good bilateral cooperation in the field of defense, also
    agreeing on enhanced cooperation as regards military medicine and education. As
    regards cooperation within NATO, Minister Fifor told Minister Sturza that
    Romania would continue to support Moldova’s efforts to join NATO.




    RAF – Six Russian bombers were intercepted over the Black Sea by British
    fighter jets deployed to Romania, charged with the security of NATO airspace, a
    Royal Air Force press release reads. Eurofighter Typhoon jets took off on
    Monday from Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase in southeastern Romania, after six
    Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer bombers were detected in NATO airspace over the Black Sea.
    The Russian aircraft were headed to Crimea. The operation was part of NATO air
    policing operations with support from the Royal Air Force, aimed at deterring
    Russian aggression and enforcing Great Britain’s commitment to NATO collective
    defense. Romania’s Defense Minister Mihai Fifor last month said such challenges
    from Moscow are quite frequent.




    FOOTBALL – Three Romanian football teams are on
    Thursday competing in the second round of the Champions League third
    preliminary round. All matches are played on home turf. CFR Cluj is playing
    Alashkert of Armenia and is sitting on a 2-nil away win in the first leg. FCSB
    will take on Croatia’s Hajduk Split, after drawing nil-all in the first leg,
    while Romanian Cup winner CSU Craiova is playing RB Leipzig. Craiova lost 1-3
    in the first leg.






    (Translated by V. Palcu)

  • July 26, 2018 UPDATE

    July 26, 2018 UPDATE

    EU PRESIDENCY Romania has finalised a calendar of the events and meetings to be held in the country and abroad during its presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2019. The announcement was made by the Minister Delegate for European Affairs, Victor Negrescu, who presented a report of his term in office so far. The calendar includes 1,400 formal meetings in Brussels and Strasbourg, and another 300 meetings in Romania. Negrescu added that the venues for these meetings have also been chosen.



    ANTI-CORRUPTION In Bucharest, the 4 candidates for the office of head of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate were interviewed on Thursday by the Justice Minister Tudorel Toader. On Friday a decision will be reached on either the nomination of one candidate, or the restart of the procedure, Tudorel Toader said. The 4 candidates are prosecutor Florentina Mirică – head of the Corruption Combating Division of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, prosecutor Cristian Lazăr – deputy chief of the Prosecution Division in the General Prosecutors Office, prosecutor Marius Iacob – deputy chief of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate and prosecutor Elena Grecu – head of division in the central structure of the Directorate. The former head of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate Laura Codruţa Kovesi was dismissed under an order issued on July 9 by President Klaus Iohannis, further to a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Romania.




    GREECE The Foreign Ministry in Bucharest has announced there is no information on whether there are any Romanians among the victims of the wildfires in Greece. The latest death toll of the wildfires that recently ravaged Greece stands at 81; 200 other people have been wounded with scores still missing. The Custodian of the Crown of Romania and president of the Romanian Red Cross, Margareta, has conveyed a message to Greece in which she expressed her compassion for the fire victims at the same time pledging support from the Romanian Red Cross. In turn, the Romanian Orthodox Church has urged all its churches around the country and abroad to donate money in order to give financial support to the victims of the fires in Greece. The funds raised will be eventually donated to the Archbishopric of Athens. On Wednesday Romania dispatched two planes to the fire-affected areas: one fitted with fire-extinguishing equipment and a Hercules C-130 to provide logistic support. Sweden has also reported a series of forest fires close to the Arctic Circle where several towns have already been evacuated.




    SWINE FEVER – In Romania, the authorities are trying to contain African swine fever, with an emergency committee set up by the Agriculture Ministry to monitor the outbreak. The ministry has also informed the European Commission that it will apply for compensations for the producers who have been forced to kill their animals. Some 440 hotbeds have been identified since the beginning of the year.



    AIR POLICE Two British Typhoon fighters were launched on Thursday from the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in south-eastern Romania, because a Russian aircraft flying over the Black Sea was heading for NATO airspace. A news release issued by the British Air Force mentions that the Russian bomber was a Su-24 FENCER aircraft. In May, when they were deployed on their 4-month mission in Romania, the British fighters were also forced to respond to a Russian aircraft approaching NATO airspace. The British aircraft are in Romania on enhanced air policing missions.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • June 14, 2017

    June 14, 2017

    CABINET – The fate of the leftist Government of Romania, headed by PM Sorin Grindeanu, will be decided today in a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party in power. The Committee will assess the performance of each Cabinet minister and a possible reshuffling. At the end of last week, the Social Democrat leader, Liviu Dragnea, who is also the head of the Chamber of Deputies, voiced his discontent with the work of several ministers, without disclosing any names. Dragnea also said he was not considering dismissing the entire Cabinet. In turn, PM Grindeanu said he had made his own assessment and he was content with the effects of the measures taken by his Cabinet. The Grindeanu Government took office after Decembers parliamentary elections.




    DEFENCE – The Romanian Defence Minister, Gabriel Leş, and his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, are on a visit to the Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base in south-eastern Romania. The two officials will have meetings with the pilots and technical staff working on the Typhoon aircraft of the Royal Air Forces, which have arrived in Romania for air policing missions. The planes are taking part in joint missions with MiG-21 LanceR aircraft of the Romanian Air Forces, until the end of August. According to a news release issued by the Defence Ministry, the RAF aircraft have been deployed to Romania as part of an Action Plan to ensure the NATO operational capability both in the northern and the southern part of the eastern flank of the Alliance.




    HEARINGS – The Mayor of Cluj in north-western Romania, Emil Boc, was heard by a special parliamentary committee investigating the circumstances of the 2009 presidential election. The prime minister of the country at that time and a loyal aide to then President Traian Basescu, who won a new term in office after defeating the former Social Democrat leader Mircea Geoană, Boc was the only one heard today. The head of the National Anti-Corruption Agency, Codruta Kovesi, refused to appear before the committee, but apparently she will receive a new invitation. The committee also requested a 60-day extension of the investigation and the postponement of the deadline for their report to early September. The committee was set up after the controversial journalist Dan Andronic, a political adviser to Basescu in 2009, made public allegations that the 2009 presidential vote had been tampered with.




    DIPLOMACY – The Romanian Foreign Minister, Teodor Meleşcanu, took part on Tuesday in Berlin in a conference on a decade of Romanian EU membership. On this occasion, he said that although Romania was not a founding member of the EU, it wishes to make a significant contribution to the future of the European project, so that the Union may remain an efficient and united community of values, playing a major role at world level. The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, will also be on a visit to Berlin between June 19 and 21, during which he will have meetings with his German counterpart, Frank – Walter Steinmeier, and with Chancellor Angela Merkel.




    NUCLEAR PHYSICS – The director for nuclear security at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and Engineering Research and Development in Măgurele, southern Romania, Mitică Drăguşin, Ph.D., is the first Romanian expert in nuclear decommissioning and the management of radioactive waste at the European Commission and parliament. The physicist was selected by the EUs Joint Research Centre. The Măgurele high power laser project is taking part in the World Expo 2017 in Kazakhstan, where the team will also present their offer in the field of decommissioning nuclear research facilities. The scientists in Măgurele are thus trying to generate top-level trade contacts to promote Romanian technologies and experts.




    HANDBALL – Romanias womens handball team has qualified to the World Championship due in December in Germany, after outplaying Austria 33-24 away from home on Tuesday night, in the second leg of the playoffs. In the first match, played on Friday at home in Oradea, Romania won 34-29. Romania is the only country to have taken part in all the 22 editions of the World Championship so far, and in 2015 it won the bronze medals.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • May 1, 2017 UPDATE

    May 1, 2017 UPDATE

    MAY DAY — Over 80 countries on Monday celebrated May Day, also known as the International Workers’ Day set up in 1889 to commemorate the Heymarket affair in Chicago. In Romania, the communist regime had twisted the holiday to serve as propaganda. Currently, May Day is a public holiday marking the beginning of the summer season. Over 40,000 tourists visited the Romanian Black Seacoast, especially the resorts of Mamaia and Vama Veche, while some 20,000 tourists chose mountain resorts as their holiday destinations.



    AIR POLICING — Over May 1 — August 31 a squadron of the Royal Air Force will be deployed to the Mihail Kogalniceanu military airbase in eastern Romania, where it will carry out air policing missions jointly with the Romanian Air Force, the Romanian Defense Ministry has announced. The squadron consists of 150 military, using Typhoon fighter jets for the first time in Romania. The British fighters will be supported by MiG-21 LanceR jets. Typhoon is one the world’s fastest aircraft, fitted with anti-air radars. Deploying RAF jets to Romania is part of NATO’s action plan to secure operational capability on the Alliance’s eastern, northern and southern flanks. The joint air policing missions will contribute to developing the reaction and deterrence capacity and to consolidating interoperability between Romanian and British air forces.



    MACRON — The European Union must reform itself to avoid France potentially leaving the European community, French pro-European presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has said. Macron is currently favourite to win in the second round of the presidential race which will be held this Sunday. His opponent is National Front representative Marine Le Pen. During the election campaign I have constantly advocated European ideas and policies, because these are very important things for the French people and for our country’s role in the context of globalization, but the dysfunctionality of the Union is no longer sustainable, Macron went on to say. Marine Le Pen on the other hand has overtly expressed her Eurosceptic beliefs during the campaign, promising to stage a referendum on France’s EU membership.



    STUDY — The Romanian economy is facing a severe labour market crisis, with the number of employees and the degree of qualification reporting a huge drop in recent years, which might actually worsen in the future. This is the main conclusion of a study made public on Monday by KeysFin financial consultancy agency. According to the research, the main cause is the exodus of Romanians towards the West, particularly after Romania joined the EU in 2007. On the other hand, the number of job vacancies has gone up since 2009, from 39,000 to 60,000 in 2016, the study also shows.



    SYRIA — A UN task force charged with identifying people who committed atrocities in Syria is due to start its activity soon, as a first stage in apprehending war criminals. The announcement was made on Monday by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. The setup of the task force, adopted at the UN General Assembly in December, was condemned by the Bashar al-Assad regime as an unacceptable involvement in the country’s domestic affairs. Over 320,000 people were have been killed since conflict broke out in 2011.



    EUROVISION — Romania’s representatives at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, Alex Florea and Ilinca Bancila have arrived in Kiev, playing host to this year’s edition. The two will be performing the song “Yodel it!” in the second semi-final, on May 11. The big final is scheduled for May 13. Romania’s best performances in the Eurovision are second place in 2005, with a song performed by Luminita Anghel and Sistem, third place in 2010 grabbed by the duo Paula Seling and Ovi and fourth place in 2006, a feat accomplished by Mihai Traistariu. (Translated by V. Palcu)

  • May 1, 2017

    May 1, 2017

    MAY DAY — Over 80 countries on Monday celebrated May Day, also known as the International Workers’ Day set up in 1889 to commemorate the Heymarket affair in Chicago. In Romania, the communist regime had twisted the holiday to serve as propaganda. Currently, May Day is a public holiday marking the beginning of the summer season. Over 40,000 tourists visited the Romanian Black Seacoast, especially the resorts of Mamaia and Vama Veche, while some 20,000 tourists chose mountain resorts as their holiday destinations.



    AIR POLICING — Over May 1 — August 31 a squadron of the Royal Air Force will be deployed to the Mihail Kogalniceanu military airbase in eastern Romania, where it will carry out air policing missions jointly with the Romanian Air Force, the Romanian Defense Ministry has announced. The squadron consists of 150 military, using Typhoon fighter jets for the first time in Romania. The British fighters will be supported by MiG-21 LanceR jets. Typhoon is one the world’s fastest aircraft, fitted with anti-air radars. Deploying RAF jets to Romania is part of NATO’s action plan to secure operational capability on the Alliance’s eastern, northern and southern flanks. The joint air policing missions will contribute to developing the reaction and deterrence capacity and to consolidating interoperability between Romanian and British air forces.



    MACRON — The European Union must reform itself to avoid France potentially leaving the European community, French pro-European presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has said. Macron is currently favourite to win in the second round of the presidential race which will be held this Sunday. His opponent is National Front representative Marine Le Pen. During the election campaign I have constantly advocated European ideas and policies, because these are very important things for the French people and for our country’s role in the context of globalization, but the dysfunctionality of the Union is no longer sustainable, Macron went on to say. Marine Le Pen on the other hand has overtly expressed her Eurosceptic beliefs during the campaign, promising to stage a referendum on France’s EU membership.



    COLLECTIVE PARDON — A few dozen people on Sunday protested the Government’s decision to pass a law on collective pardon. Protesters say the criminal legislation in Romania should be strengthened. The Chamber of Deputies is this week expected to debate and vote a draft law reducing the sentence of certain inmates due to improper detention conditions. The European Court of Human Rights has decided that detention conditions in Romanian prisons go against the European Convention for Human Rights and has given Romanian authorities 6 months to come up with a plan to solve the issue. The National Penitentiary Authority director Marius Vulpe has warned that collective pardon or house arrest is only a short-term solution to prison overcrowding.



    FRONTEX — On April 25 Romanian border police officers on the Aegean Sea saved 38 people, of whom 17 children, traveling on an overcrowded raft about to sink, the Romanian Border Police General Inspectorate has announced. The people were originating from Syria, Iraq and Kuwait. Since their deployment in Greece earlier this year, the Romanian border police working on Coast Guard ships have saved a total of 704 people in danger travelling on small-sized boats in Greek waters as part of individual or concerted FRONTEX efforts.



    HANDBALL — The Romanian men’s handball team Potaissa Turda on Sunday qualified to the Challenge Cup finals after defeating Valur Reykjavik of Iceland in the return leg of the semi-finals, played on home turf, 32-23. Potaissa qualified on aggregate after losing 30-22 to Valur in the first leg. In the final, the Romanian team will go up against Sporting Lisbon of Portugal. (Translated by V. Palcu)