15 February, 2016

A selection of local news plus our special thanks to the listeners who contributed to our celebration of World Radio Day 2016.

Newsroom, 15.02.2016, 12:00

Almost 100 persons have applied for asylum in Romania since the beginning of the year. According to the General Immigration Inspectorate, most of the asylum seekers are men aged between 18 and 34 who come from Pakistan, Syria and Iraq. The immigration police examine each individual case, approving or rejecting applications based on the documents in the application file and the information provided by asylum seekers during interviews with the Romanian authorities verified against information provided by their countries of origin. Around 2,600 beneficiaries of some form of international protection have been registered in Romania to date.

The Romanian prime minister Dacian Ciolos is on a two-day trip to Brussels for talks with senior European officials. He will present the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and the president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz with his cabinets priorities, its economic development vision, the programme for administrative reform and Romanias planned contribution to European agenda. Talks will also tackle migration, the Energy Union and energy security, the progress made by Romania as part of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism as laid down in the latest European Commission report and the countrys prospects of entering the Schengen area. Dacian Ciolos will also meet the leader of the European Peoples Party Joseph Daul, the commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and EnlargementJohannes Hahn and the commissioner for budget Kristalina Georgieva.

Romanian president Klaus Iohannis is today receiving the president of the European Council Donald Tusk in Bucharest. The talks are held ahead of the European Council meeting on February 18th and the 19th where a political agreement may be signed on a recent proposal from Brussels regarding Britains exit from the European Union. The most sensitive issue to be tackled by president Iohannis is the situation of the Romanian and east-European citizens working in Britain, given that one of Londons requests is the restriction of social benefits granted to workers from other EU states. The leaders of the Vishegrad countries, namely the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, are meeting in Prague to coordinate their positions in this regard. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, who together have 1.1 million workers in Britain, have again said they are opposed to any discrimination in the treatment of foreign workers.

The Romanian foreign minister Lazar Comanescu is today attending a meeting of the EU External Affairs Council in Brussels. The EU ministers are discussing topical issues, such as the political and economic situation in the Republic of Moldova and the way in which the EU can support this ex-Soviet state with a majority Romanian-speaking population, the future of the EU-Belarus relations, the recent developments in Syria and climate change. The European officials will also have an exchange of opinions with the Lebanese foreign minister Gebran Bassil on the stage of EUs relations with Beirut and the impact of the Syrian and Libyan crises on the Middle East.

The president of the Republic of Moldova Nicolae Timofti travels to Bucharest on Tuesday for a two-day visit. He will have talks with his counterpart Klaus Iohannis, prime minister Dacian Ciolos, the Senate speaker Calin Popescu Tariceanu and other Romanian officials. Talks will look at the bilateral relations, Moldovas European agenda and the economic, political and social cooperation between Moldova and Romania. President Timofti will also hand special distinctions to president Iohannis, state secretary Raed Arafat and the popular Romanian actor Florin Piersic. On Friday, the Moldovan prime minister Pavel Filip said Romania would grant humanitarian aid to his country consisting in food for vulnerable people and heavy fuel oil to supplement Moldovas reserves in case its natural gas supply is disconnected.

Parliament in Bucharest will today examine and vote on a request by president Klaus Iohannis on the participation of the Romanian army in the training of the Iraqi security forces as part of an international coalition against the Islamic State. Romania is to deploy 50 military, army instructors, general staff, special forces, military intelligence and ground forces to train the Iraqi army. The president has requested Parliament to approve this mission, which is to last only this year.

The education minister Adrian Curaj says the current legislation on the awarding of doctoral papers is incoherent. Last week, his ministry launched a public debate on a new government decision on doctoral studies.

Romanias Simona Halep is still number three in the WTA world ranking published on Monday, after Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber. However, Halep has to defend her title in Doha this week in order to keep her current ranking. Unless she wins the Doha tournament, she will be outranked by Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland and Garbine Muguruza of Spain. Three other Romanian players are in the WTA top 100: Irina Begu, who moved up one place to no. 33; Monica Niculescu, who retains her 37th place; and Alexandra Dulgheru, who is down two places to no. 56.

We would also like to thank the following listeners who sent us their views as part of this years celebration of World Radio Day on February 13th: Mitul Kansal, Clara Andrade, Riaz Ahmad Khan, Atul Kumar, Amari Amar, Abdelkader Khelil, Jahangir Alam Manto, Shivendu Paul, Muneer K P, Muhammad Arshad Qureshi, Shahzad Shabbir, Mikio Kohara, Mahesh Jain, Stephen Cooper, S B Sharma, Hans Verner Lollike, Denmark, Mohamed Elsayed Abd Elraheim, Mr. Najimuddin, the president of the International DX Radio Listeners Club in Murshidbabd, India and Mogire Machuki.

(Translated by: C. Mateescu)