November 4, 2019 UPDATE
An update on domestic and international news
Newsroom, 04.11.2019, 19:56
Investiture — The Liberal government proposed by the leader of the National Liberal Party, Ludovic Orban, was sworn in on Monday evening before the country’s right-wing president Klaus Iohannis. The latter congratulated the Liberals who managed to put an end to the previous Social Democratic governing which he labeled as toxic, and expressed hope that Romania would be put back on the right track. Previously, Romania’s Parliament invested the new Liberal government with 240 votes. The new minority government needed at least 233 votes to pass. Ludovic Orban signed, last week, several political agreements with the representatives of the Save Romania Union, the People’s Movement Party, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, and the national minorities group. Although the Social Democratic Party and Pro Romania party decided to boycott the vote, some deputies and senators from these two parties voted for the new government. Ludovic Orban has admitted the mandate of the new government is short, adding that urgent measures need to be taken, among which a last budget rectification to ensure all the necessary payments by the end of the year and the drafting of the 2020 budget, which should focus on investments in education, healthcare and infrastructure. The MPs that voted in favor of the new Liberal government said they would permanently monitor its activity, their vote not being a blank check. Thus, the Liberal government will take over from the Social Democratic government headed by Viorica Dancila, dismissed on October 10 through a motion of no confidence. Immediately after the vote, Viorica Dancila talked about a black day for democracy when the executive power was illegitimately confiscated. She fiercely attacked her counter-candidate in the upcoming presidential election, the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, whom she considers the mastermind of the dismissal of the Social Democratic government.
Frigate — The frigate ‘King Ferdinand’ of the Romanian Navy, a Puma naval helicopter with a special operations navy crew on board are participating until Thursday in NATO’s ‘Sea Guardian 19’ operation in the Mediterranean. The frigate will carry out missions to deter any illegal actions on NATO’s and EU’s southern flank under NATO’s Allied Maritime Command. The program included stopovers in the ports of Aksaz in the south of Turkey, Alexandria in Egypt and Haifa Israel.
Special announcement – 1 of the 5 short wave transmitters that beam RRI’s broadcasts is not working. The transmitter in Tiganesti, BD 300-1 near Bucharest, is still out of work. RADIOCOM, our broadcasting service provider, has announced that it will take up to several months to replace the broken components.
In exchange, another short wave transmitter, in Galbeni, in the northeast of Romania, ID 300-1, has been repaired and is currently working.
Due to the failure of the transmitter in Tiganesti, the digital broadcasting (standard DRM) of some RRI programs in English, French, German and Russian has also been disturbed. Meanwhile, we are kindly asking you to tune in for RRI’s short-wave broadcasts on the second frequency which we listed on the frequency schedule, as RRI usually broadcasts its programs on two frequencies to one target area. You’ll find the frequency schedule on RRI’s webpage www.rri.ro, under the ‘Frequencies’ button.
We are sorry for any inconvenience and hope the situation will be remedied soon!
(update by L. Simion)
