March 30, UPDATE 2016

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 30.03.2016, 12:15

Romania is in the front ranks
of the states fully abiding by their nuclear security commitments, having a
clear nuclear program and a responsible conduct. President Klaus Iohannis made
the statement in Bucharest on Wednesday, before heading for Washington to
attend the nuclear security summit. President Iohannis went on to say that
Romania reiterated that it was an active and responsible member of the
restricted group of states with relevant nuclear facilities and firmly
committed to promoting the global structure of nuclear security and fighting
nuclear terrorism. On his visit to the USA, president Iohannis will visit the
Holocaust Memorial and will have talks with representatives of the Romanian
community.

The Syrian refugee crisis demands an exponential
increase in global solidarity said on Wednesday in Geneva the UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-Moon, in the opening of a conference on this issue, organized
under the aegis of the UN. Ban Ki-Moon called on all the countries to receive
approximately half a million of Syrian refugees by 2018. 90 countries
participated in the conference, whose goal was to ensure shared responsibility
for the refugee crisis caused by the war in Syria. The five years of conflict in that country have claimed over 250,000 lives and have forced 5 million
people to leave their country. One day before the conference, the
non-governmental organization Oxfam published a report, which reads that the
rich countries have only received 1.39% of the total of 4.8 million Syrian
refugees. The organization called on those countries to accept at least 10% of
the refugees, most of whom are now in the countries neighboring Syria.

The
Romanian Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday voted against the request of the
National Anti-corruption Directorate for deputy Sebastian Ghita to be detained
and placed in preventive custody. Previously, the Chamber’s Legal Committee had
endorsed the detainment request, but the request for arrest did not get the necessary
number of votes. A person close to the former Social – Democrat Prime Minister
Victor Ponta, Ghita is accused of a number of crimes, including bribe,
blackmail, influence peddling and driving a car without a driving license. The
deputy has dismissed the accusations, saying that they actually target Ponta.
Also on Wednesday, the mayor of Craiova, Lia Olguta Vasilescu, was detained by
prosecutors of the National Anti-corruption Directorate. She is accused, among
other things, of bribe-taking and money laundering. On Thursday she will appear
before the Bucharest Tribunal, which will rule on prosecutors’ request to place
her in preventive custody.

The
Romanian State Secretary for Political Analysis and Liaison with Parliament,
Alexandru Victor Micula, was received in Budapest on Wednesday by the Hungarian
Defence Minister Istvan Simicsko. According to a communiqué issued by the
Romanian Foreign Ministry, they discussed bilateral cooperation in the military
field and within the UN and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development – OECD. The refugee crisis
and the frozen conflicts in the Black Sea Area were also high on the agenda of
the two officials’ talks.

Ion Ficior, the former warden of the Periprava labour camp
in south-eastern Romania was sentenced by the High Court of Cassation and
Justice to 20 years in prison, for crimes against humanity. The decision is not
final and can be appealed. Ion Ficior was sent to court in 2014, accused of
coordinating an abusive and repressive detention regime at the Periprava labour
colony between 1958-1963, when he was the head of the camp. His inhuman
treatment of the political detainees led to the death of over one hundred
people. Ficior is the second torturer from the communist period sentenced for
crimes against humanity. In a similar case, the former warden of the Ramnicu
Sarat penitentiary, Alexandru Visinescu, got the final sentence of 20 years in
prison for abuses committed against political detainees.

On
Wednesday, the Romanian women’s volleyball team CSM Bucharest defeated the
Turkish team Trabzon Idman Ocagi 3-1, in the first leg of the Challenge Cup
finals. The return match is scheduled for April 3rd in Turkey. In the semifinals, the team CSM Bucharest,
having an Italian coach, beat the Turkish team Bursa BBSK, the holder of the
trophy. Is for the first time that a Romanian women’s volleyball team plays in
a European cup’s finals.