August 18, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 18.08.2014, 12:00
The Romanian Senate is convening today in an extraordinary session to debate the law on reducing the social security contributions to be paid by employers by 5% as of October 1st. On Tuesday the law will be debated in the Chamber of Deputies as well. The law was sent back to Parliament by President Traian Basescu because it did not specify the sources from which to cover those sums of money that cannot be collected from the state budget. If Parliament votes the law once again without any modifications, the President can challenge it at the Constitutional Court before promulgating it. The initiative of calling extraordinary Parliament meetings belongs to the opposition. The government coalition claims the extraordinary meeting is nothing but an electoral move.
In Romania torturer Ion Ficior, accused of crimes against humanity perpetrated during the Communist years has been sued. He headed the labour colony in Periprava between 1958- 1963. According to prosecutors he set up and coordinated a repressive, abusive and inhuman detention regime that led to the death of 103 political detainees. Ion Ficior is the 2nd torturer sent to court in Romania. Previously Alexandru Visinescu, a former commander of the Communist prison in Ramnicu Sarat, was sent to court by the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, being accused of crimes against humanity. Ion Ficior and Alexandru Visinescu are among the 35 torturers identified by the Institute for the Investigation of Communism Crimes, who are accused of crimes and political abuse during the Communist regime.
In Romania, as many as 63 thousand high school graduates are today taking the second session of the 2014 Baccalaureate exam. Exams start with the oral examination of linguistic communication competences in the Romanian language and in the mother tongue for the national minorities. These will be followed by oral examinations of the competences in a language of international circulation and of computer skills and by written examinations in the Romanian language and literature and in the mother tongue of national minorities and in the compulsory and optional subject matters. In the first Baccalaureate session held in June-July more than 59% of the 12th form graduates passed the exam, that is 3% more than last year.
Three Romanian football sides are playing their opponents in the playoffs of the European cups this week. In the Champions League, Steaua Bucharest, on their own turf, will be up against Bulgarian side Ludogoretz Razgrad, while in the Europa League on Thursday Petrolul Ploiesti will be squaring up to the Croatians from Dinamo Zagreb also in a home game. Astra Giurgiu will travel to Lyon, in France, to meet local side Olympique. Romanian champions, Steaua, have secured their presence in the groups of Europe’s second football tournament irrespective of the playoffs results. The Romanians are playing for the 11th time in a row in an inter-club European competition.
Intense fighting continues in the north of Iraq where the Kurdish forces on Sunday took over control of the country’s largest dam in Mosul from the jihadists of the Sunni movement the Islamic State. The Kurds were backed by the American planes that, since last week, had been launching air strikes on certain targets of the extremists. The jihadists are controlling vast territories in Iraq and Syria and are accused of atrocities, mainly against the Yazidi minority that has taken refuge in the past days in the Sinjar mountains. The great power have lately intensified efforts to stop the funding of the insurgents, to provide weapons to the Kurds and help the tens of thousands of Iraqis fleeing the conflict areas.
No progress has been made at the Berlin meeting regarding a ceasefire and political settlement in Ukraine, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday. The foreign ministers of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine met Sunday in Berlin to work out a solution to the Ukrainian crisis. The talks focused on finding out solutions to stop the hostilities and on the humanitarian aid necessary for the civilians. A Russian convoy is still blocked at the border with Ukraine, against the backdrop of Ukraine’s suspicions that the convoy is actually an undercover attempt for a military intervention. The Ukrainian government forces have been involved since early April into an anti-terrorist action against the secessionists in the east of Ukraine. On Sunday they took over control over a large part of Lugansk, one of the main rebel bastions. The conflict in the east of Ukraine has left more than 2 thousand people dead so far and hundreds of thousands of civilians have been forced to flee their homes.
