June 13, 2017
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 13.06.2017, 13:37
CORRUPTION – Romanian prosecutors re-started the criminal prosecution of the former president of Romania Traian Basescu, for abuse of office in the so called Flora case, after judges with the High Court of Cassation and Justice admitted the request filed by the Prosecutors Office. The case was re-opened after a businessman filed a complaint, accusing Traian Basescu of having illegally returned, back in 2003, when he was the mayor of Bucharest, a 40,000 square meter piece of land. The commercial complex Flora was later built on that ground. The businessman claims that Basescu abused his office by endorsing the return of the property, and the damage is estimated at more than 100 million Euros.
NSI – According to the National Statistics Institute, the average income in Romania went up by 1% in April, reaching the equivalent of 520 Euro, which is a historic record. The most significant increases were reported in relation to financial transactions and auxiliary activities, while decreases were recorded in the oil and natural gas extraction industry and in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. In another development, the number of pensioners dropped to under 5.2 million, and the average pension went up by 8.1%, reaching some 220 Euro. The pensioners/employees ratio is still 9 to10, which means that 10 employees support 9 pensioners.
MINERS RAID – Romania is commemorating 27 years since miners raids of June 13-15, 1990, which put an end to a large-scale rally against the left wing power instated after the fall of the communist dictatorship in December 1989. Against the background of violent clashes in the capital, which the army had already managed to stifle, the then president of the country Ion Iliescu claimed the right wing had planned a coup and called on the population to defend the democratic institutions. As a result of the call, miners from Jiu Valley came to Bucharest and attacked the University, the headquarters of the main opposition parties and the offices of independent publications. Their raids ended in four deaths, hundreds of people wounded and more than one thousand people arrested abusively. Romanias image abroad was also affected by the violent raid of June 1990. As part of the investigation, restarted in 2015, the General Prosecutors Office has prosecuted the former president Ion Iliescu, the former Prime Minister Petre Roman and the Director of the Romanian Intelligence Service Virgil Magureanu, alongside another 15 people.
RUSSIA – The main opponent of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, was sentenced last night to 30 days in prison for staging unauthorized manifestations across the country, against corruption in politics. His main collaborators and the opposition politician Ilya Yashin were also detained. The largest number of protest rallies were held in Moscow and Sankt Petersburg, with thousands of people participating. The special police OMON intervened brutally when activists started chanting against the regime, and arrested some 2000 people in the two cities, including youth and even pupils. The US and the EU have condemned the arrests and have called on Moscow to release them.
HANDBALL – Romanias womens handball team is playing today, away from home, against the Austrian squad, in the decisive leg of World Championships qualifiers. In the first game, on Friday night, on home turf, in Oradea, north-western Romania, the Romanians defeated Austria 34-29. Romania is the only country that has participated in all 22 editions of the World Championship, and in 2015 it won the bronze medal.
FOOTBALL – Tonight, Romanias national football team takes on in Cluj, north-western Romania, the representative of Chile, in a friendly game. This is the first match to be played before the Romanian supporters after the defeat sustained in Warsaw on Saturday, when the national squad lost 1-3 to Warsaw, in the World Cup preliminaries group E. Poland is leader of the group with 16 points, followed by Montenegro and Denmark, both with 10 points, Romania and Armenia with 6 and Kazakhstan with 2 points. In the next preliminary match, Romania will play against Armenia, on September 1st. For the first time in its history, Romania is trained by a German , Cristoph Daum. He is increasingly contested by the Romania media, supporters and specialists, who say that he has done nothing to improve the performance of the national squad.
