May 20, 2024

A roundup of domestic and international news

Mihaela Ignătescu, 20.05.2024, 13:55

VISIT. The Romanian Prime Minister, Marcel Ciolacu, pays an official visit to Turkey, Romania’s most important commercial partner outside the European Union, on Tuesday. The visit takes place at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The program also includes a joint meeting of the governments of the two countries. The parties aim for bilateral trade to exceed 15 billion dollars.

MONITORING. Starting October 1, the Romanian Ministry of the Interior will expand, on a national level, the electronic monitoring project regarding protective orders against aggressors. Currently, this surveillance system is applied in the Capital and in several other counties and covers only domestic violence situations for which a protective order was issued against the aggressor. In another move, an international meeting is taking place in Bucharest with the aim of analyzing the phenomenon of domestic violence. Official data show that in Romania, in the first 3 months of this year, around 3,000 provisional protective orders were issued, of which almost half were transformed into protection orders by court. In the same period, the police intervened in almost 30,000 cases of domestic violence. Criminal acts in the field of domestic violence have increased, compared to the first 3 months of last year.

HOSPITAL. The construction works at the Regional Emergency Hospital in Cluj were inaugurated at the end of last week. It’s the third giant medical unit, after the ones in Craiova and Iasi, which will serve the population in the center of the country. The value of the project exceeds 700 million euros, and the completion date is expected in three years. The medical unit, located in the town of Floreşti, will have almost 850 beds, a helipad and 22 operating rooms. The Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, has stated that, in Romania, the quality of medical assistance will significantly improve, including through the construction of the three regional hospitals. According to him, there are currently 20 medical units that are under construction or where construction will start shortly, and this is due both to the money received through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, as well as to the mayors and presidents of county councils who have a legitimate interest in protecting the health of their fellow citizens.

MOURNING. The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene, has declared five days of national mourning after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash and appointed First Vice President Mohammed Mokhber as interim president, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reports. When a president dies while in office, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic requires the first vice president to serve as interim president for a period of 50 days, with the approval of the supreme leader, who has the final say in all matters of state in Iran. The announcement of the president’s death opens a period of political uncertainty in Iran, a major player in the Middle East, a region rocked by the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas, press agencies note. Ebrahim Raisi, who had the title of ayatollah, was the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran for almost three years. Considered an ultraconservative, he was elected in June 2021 in the first round of a vote marked by record absenteeism in the presidential elections and the absence of strong competitors.

FESTIVAL. The International New Music Week, the most important domestic festival dedicated to contemporary music, organized by the Union of Composers and Musicologists in Romania, is taking place in Bucharest these days. The public is invited to more than 20 exciting concerts with the music of our times. The festival is structured as follows: new music for the voice, performances in experimental formats, electro acoustic, silent film and live music and commemorations.

TRIAL. The former leader of the miners from Valea Jiului (central Romania), Miron Cozma, was heard this morning at the General Prosecutor’s Office, in the miners’ riot case from June 1990. Several people, including the former president Ion Iliescu, the prime minister from that date Petre Roman, the deputy prime minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu and the former head of the Romanian Intelligence Office, Virgil Măgureanu, are accused of crimes against humanity. The military prosecutors claim that, on June 11 and 12, 1990, the state authorities decided to launch a violent attack against the demonstrators in University Square in Bucharest, who were peacefully expressing their political opinions, opposed to the government. Over 10,000 miners were brought to the Capital to restore order. Four people were then shot dead, almost 1,400 suffered physical or mental injuries and 1,250 people were deprived of their freedom.

FOOTBALL. The Romanian football team FCSB has won the national title, after a 9-year break, and will play in the Champions League preliminaries. In second place was CFR Cluj (north-west), which will play in the Conference League preliminaries, just like the future winner of the play-off against CSU Craiova, third place in the championship, and Universitatea Cluj. The winner of the Cup, the second division team Corvinul Hunedoara (center-west), will play in the Europa League preliminaries. (MI)