September 18, 2013
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Mihai Pelin, 18.09.2013, 12:12
The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile announced on Wednesday it filed a criminal complaint against a former commander of a communist camp. According to the Institute, colonel Ioan Ficior, now aged 85, enforced an extermination policy of the political detainees in the prison in Periprava, in an isolated part of the Danube Delta. According to the Institute, his actions can be considered genocide as they caused the death of over 100 people. Fecior is the second communist torturer whose name is made public, out of a list of 35. Over 600 thousand Romanians were convicted and imprisoned between 1945 and 1989 for political reasons.
The Romanian medical staff started protests actions on Wednesday, dissatisfied with their small salaries. Protesters will be picketing outside the ministries of health and finance every day, until September 27th, to ask for bigger salaries, for at least 6% of the GDP to be earmarked for the health system and for a legal framework that should guarantee the proffessional independence of those who work in the public and private systems. Unless their demands are met, the Romanian medical staff will stage large protests in Bucharest in October followed by an all-out trike in November.
Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, accompanied by the ministers of agriculture, defense and energy will pay a visit to Ankara on Thursday. Ponta will meet with Turkey’s president Abdullah Gul and with Prime Minister Ercep Erdogan. The Romanian delegation’s talks will focus on bilateral ties. Turkey is Romania’s biggest commercial partner from outside the European Union.
“The military option should still be on the table”, to put pressure on the Syrian regime and make it observe the Russian-American agreement on the elimination of the chemical weapons in Syria. This statement was made on Wednesday by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen who backs the adoption, by the UN Security Council, of a a firm resolution that can constitute the framework for a swift, secure and verifiable elimination of all chemical weapons in Syria. Also on Wednesday the UN announced that its inspectors, experts in chemical weapons, who had been accused by Russia of being subjective, would soon return to Syria.
A 48-hour strike against the government’s latest plans to fire thousands of public sector staff was staged in Greece on Wednesday. The austerity measures taken by the authorities under the pressure of international lenders are a condition for Greece to receive another installment of its foreign loan. In spite of the fact that it received financial assistance worth a total of 240 billion euros and a cut by 100 billion euros in its foreign debt, Greece still can’t manage to get its economy back on track. Representatives of the EU, the Europea Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund will go to Ahens next week to radiograph the Greek economy again.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry warns Romanian citizens who are currently in Greece or are planning to travel to this country that its entire public system is paralysed until Thursday, September 19th, by an all-out strike. The Romanian Foreign Ministry recommends Romanian citizens to avoid the areas where protest actions are held and to contact Romania’s Embassy in Athens in case they need assistance.
Two Romanian films will be screened at the International Film Festival in Haifa, Israel, which kicks off on Thursday. One of them is “Child’s Pose”, directed by Calin Peter Netzer and the other is “Of Snails and Men”, directed by Tudor Giurgiu. “Child’s Pose” is Romania’s entry at the Oscars next year, in the best foreign film category. As for “Of Snails and Men”, it has already won several international awards, at festivals in Poland and Spain.
