Radio România Internațional

Tag: Skripal case

  • September 5, 2018 UPDATE

    September 5, 2018 UPDATE

    Emergency decree — The leftist government of Romania on Wednesday approved through an emergency decree the budget adjustment bill. The PM Viorica Dancila said that the budget adjustment, which is a positive one, is meant to support, among others, investments and the losses incurred by pig farmers due to the African swine fever crisis. In turn, president Klaus Iohannis strongly criticized what he called the ‘inadmissible manner’ in which the government acted, given that the budget adjustment bill was approved without the approval of the Supreme Council of National Defense. Further talks on this issue have been scheduled for Thursday between president Iohannis and the justice minister Eugen Teodorovici.



    Parliament — The Chamber of Deputies Wednesday rejected a request by the right-wing Opposition to set up 2 inquiry committees, one on the Government’s handling of the African swine fever crisis, and another one on the intervention of riot police at the anti-government protests in Bucharest on August 10th. The authors of the request said they wanted to identify the causes for the quick spreading of the disease in Romania and to find out whether certain public institutions were involved in activities beyond their legally defined powers. Also on Wednesday the General Prosecutor’s Office announced the start of prosecution, in rem, for the crime of spreading diseases among animals and plants and for professional negligence. At present swine fever outbreaks are reported in 11 counties in Romania, triggering the culling of over 140,000 pigs and spreading further, in spite of the measures taken by authorities. On Tuesday the Senate’s defense committee cancelled the hearings on this topic, at the request of the Social Democratic Party in power. Scheduled to be heard in Parliament were the Interior Minister, Carmen Dan, the coordinator of the gendarme intervention Laurenţiu Cazan, and the Prefect of Bucharest, Speranţa Cliseru. So far 770 people affected by the brutal police intervention during the protests have filed criminal complaints.



    Poisoning — British prosecutors on Wednesday announced they held enough evidence to indict two Russian citizens in the case of the poisoning with a nerve agent of the former double agent Sergey Skripal and of his daughter in March in the southwest of England. European arrest warrants have been issued for the two Russian citizens Aleksandr Petrov and Ruslan Boşirov. The British authorities have pointed out that they will not ask for the two Russians’ extradition because the Russian Constitution does not allow it. The Skripal case has caused a serious bilateral crisis and led to a wave of mutual ousting of diplomats, a process that also involved allied countries of the UK, including Romania. (news translated and updated by L. Simion)

  • April 5, 2018 UPDATE

    April 5, 2018 UPDATE

    ROMANIAN ACADEMY – Historian Ioan-Aurel Pop, the rector of the ”Babeş-Bolyai” University in Cluj-Napoca (north-western Romania) on Thursday was elected president of the Romanian Academy. He received 86 of the 148 votes that were cast during the General Assembly of the Romanian Academy. The newly elected president, who will have a four-year term in office, will take over the position 15 days since his election. The elections for four positions of vice-president and one of secretary general will be held on April 20. The former president of the Romanian Academy, Ionel Valentin Vlad, passed away in December 2017.



    SECURITY MEASURES – Over 50,000 employees of the Romanian Interior Ministry have been mobilised to maintain public order, safety and security across the country at Easter. Gendarme and police troops will be chiefly deployed around churches and other religious institutions. 250 thousand people are expected to attend more than 700 public events that will take place in Romania in the next four days. Traffic police, equipped with more than 300 traffic radars and backed by helicopters, will be monitoring traffic on Romanias motorways at Easter.



    MARCH – The “Eudoxiu Hurmuzachi Institute for the Romanians abroad, an institution subordinated to the Ministry for the Romanians Abroad jointly with the Lauder-Reut Educational Complex will be staging a March of Holocaust survivors – “Lets learn together, in Poland, over April 9-13. The event, which has an educational character and is aimed at teaching students a dramatic episode in history, involves the participation of young people from 52 countries. The Romanian delegation includes students from Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The project is part of the IEH “The Romanian Identity Caravan, which includes a series of cultural events destined to promote Romanian culture and to consolidate Romanian national identity, and is part of the Strategic Programme – “The Romanian Common Cultural Area – the Great Union Centennial 1918 – 2018.



    HEALTHCARE – Romanian health minister, Sorina Pintea, on Thursday said a revision of the legislation on the purchase of medicines is needed, in order to make sure that suppliers who take part in tenders provide the necessary amount of pharmaceutical products throughout the duration of the contract. She also said that the line authorities are permanently monitoring the stocks and the consumption level of pharmaceutical products in order to intervene urgently and legally, so that the necessary amount of medicines be provided to patients. The statements were made after last month, the relevant minister requested a report with centralised data as to the lack of medicines or to discontinuities in the process of supplying with medicines hospitals and medical centres included in the national oncology program.



    SKRIPAL CASE – The US diplomats who have been declared persona-non grata by Russia, in retaliation for the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats by the US, in the wake of the Skripal scandal, on Thursday left the US Embassy in Moscow, on the last day set by the Kremlin for them to leave the Russian soil. Serghei Skripal, a former Russian double agent who was living in the UK and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury, south-western England on March 4. London has openly accused Russia of involvement in the case and has announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats from British soil, a decision which was followed by similar measures taken by the US and over 20 other countries, with a total of 150 Russian diplomats being sent home. In late March, Russia, which denies any involvement, took a retaliatory measure, by expelling 60 US diplomats, closing down the US Consulate in Saint Petersburg and calling on London to reduce the number of its embassy and consular staff in Russia.



    HANDBALL – The Romanian womens handball team CSM Bucharest on Friday will meet on home soil the French team Metz, in the first round of the Champions League quarter finals. In the three other matches, the defending champion, Gyor of Hungary will meet Buducnost Podgorica of Montenegro, FC Midtjylland of Denmark will face Vardar Skopje of Macedonia, and Ferencvaros Budapest of Hungary will take on Rostov- Don of Russia. The winners will qualify for the Final Four tournament. We recall that CSM Bucharest won the Champions League in 2016.(Translated by D.Vijeu and D. Bilt)