August 7, 2016 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 07.08.2016, 12:15
TRAFFICKING Romania’s Directorate
for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism has announced it will conduct
verifications, following a report by the British TV station Sky News on
Romanian arms traffickers. The British journalists claim that, after two months of
negotiations, they were headed towards an isolated place in Romania, where they
met with the traffickers. According to Sky News, the arms were brought from
Ukraine, and the final destinations were Western Europe and the Middle East.
INFLATION
On Monday, the National Bank of Romania will present its quarterly report on
inflation. The document was analysed and approved at the last board meeting.
The annual inflation rate, calculated in June, remained negative, but
significantly higher that the rate in May, getting from -3.5 % to -.7 %.
PAY RISE The Romanian Government has
announced it will earmark some 22
million Euro this year to increase the payment of overtime for doctors on call, more precisely as of October 1st. The money is
supposed to be generated by a better management of the system’s resources, as
the Ministry of Health has stated. According to the same source, the advantage will be that these hours spent on call will be considered
work seniority and seniority in the field.
This decision is one of the most important steps made for the doctors’
benefit in the past years. Unfortunately, many of them, because of the low
salaries and lack of funding in the system, choose to leave the country and
work elsewhere.
TERRORISM Belgian prosecutors have started an investigation into what
they termed as a ‘terrorist assassination
attempt’, following the attack
committed in Charleroi on Saturday, Prime Minister Charles Michel announced on
Sunday. Two police women were injured, one of them severely, by a man who
attacked them with a machete. France Presse reports that the incident, which
occurred near the main police station in Charleroi, is the latest in a string
of attacks carried out in Europe in the past weeks. In Belgium, the terrorism
threat level is 3, on a scale of 4, which means that the situation is perceived
as serious, and the threat real, France Presse also reports.
ROYAL FUNERAL The former Sovereign of Romania
Michael 1st, who is currently in Switzerland, suffering from a
serious illness, will come to Romania next week to attend the funeral of his
wife, Anne, unless he is too weak to travel, the public TV station has
announced. Also, one of the couple’s five daughters, Irina Walker, has posted
on Facebook that she will not be able to attend the funeral, for personal
reasons. Queen Anne died on Monday in a hospital in Switzerland, aged 92. She
will be brought to Romania on Tuesday, August 9th, and the funeral will
be held on the 13th at the Curtea de Arges Monastery in southern
Romania, which is the necropolis of
Romanian royalty. August 13th will be a day of national mourning
both in Romania and in the neighboring
Republic of Moldova.
ENESCU This month we celebrate 135 years since
the birth of the great Romanian composer George Enescu. A violinist, pianist,
conductor and pedagogue he was one of the most prominent personalities of the
20th century. Some of his most famous works are the Romanian
Rhapsodies and the opera ‘Oedipus’. Written on a libretto by Edmond Fleg, based
on the famous Greek tragedy, Enescu’s ‘Oedipus’ is dubbed one of the masterpieces of the
genre. In 1946, George Enescu left Romania, as the totalitarian regime was
starting to settle in. He lived in Paris, where he died in 1955. The first
edition of the now famous George Enescu International Festival and Contest was
held in Bucharest in 1958. The festival is held once every two years.
