CANDIDACY The National Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party,
number one in the government coalition in Bucharest, is to convene on Friday to
validate the candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Viorica Dancila for the
presidential election this autumn. The country’s president Klaus Iohannis has
also announced his intention to run for the presidential seat. Iohannis is
backed by the National Liberal Party, the main opposition party in Romania.
Another candidate is Dan Barna, head of the USR-PLUS Alliance, also in
opposition, as well as Calin Popescu Tariceanu leader of ALDE, the second party
in the ruling coalition.
DAY On Friday Romania marks 75 years since the
country’s former king, Mihai 1st, decided to arrest Marshal Ion Antonescu, the
head of the pro-German government in Bucharest taking Romania out of the Axis.
According to historians, the king’s decision to join the Allied Powers
shortened the war in Europe by six months saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
Three years later when the country was under the Soviet occupation and led by a
puppet government, the king was forced to abdicate and go into exile. The
former king returned to Romania after the anti-communist revolution of 1989 and
died two years ago at the age of 96.
SURVEY Students from Eastern Europe in schools across England and
Scotland have been facing an increasing wave of racism and xenophobia, shows a
survey conducted by the Strathclyde University in Glasgow. The Brexit
referendum and the anti-migration discourse of some politicians have largely contributed
to this phenomenon in the past three years. According to the study, quoted by
Radio Romania correspondent, 77% of the students interviewed have confessed
they suffered in a way or another from acts of racism, xenophobia and
harassment, while half of them say that such abuses have increased after the 2016
Brexit referendum. The interviewees say they have been victims of verbal abuse
in the street, transport means or even on school premises and some of them have
accused the teaching staff of having ignored the phenomenon. The survey, which
was conducted between October 2016 and May 2018, involved over 1,000 students
with ages between 12 and 18 mostly from countries like Romania, Poland and
Lithuania who lived in Britain for at least three years.
(translated by bill)