Romania Doctor Pays for Hacking off Penis

BalkanInsight.com

04 July 2008 Bucharest _ A Romanian court has ruled a doctor must pay €500,000 in damages to a patient for chopping off his penis during a temper tantrum. Naum Ciomu argued he was suffering from stress in late 2004, when during a routine operation to correct a testicular malformation, he suddenly lost his temper and sliced off the patient’s penis.

Shocked medics watched as Ciomu then placed the severed penis on the operating table and chopped it into small pieces.

Ciomu said his tantrum was brought on after he accidently cut his patient’s urinary channel and "overreacted" to the situation. He told the court it was a temporary loss of judgment due to personal problems.

Romanian girl in UK for abortion

BBC News

An 11-year-old Romanian girl is to have an abortion in the UK despite being cleared to have one in Romania.

The girl is 22 weeks pregnant after being raped by an uncle, who has since gone missing.

Abortion is illegal in Romania after 14 weeks, but a government panel last week decided she could have a termination because of exceptional circumstances.

The British charity Marie Stopes said it had arranged for the girl to have an abortion at an unnamed London hospital.

The organisation said it was approached by representatives of the girl after her arrival in Britain several days ago.

"With the girl's well-being a paramount concern, and immediate access to the service a priority, Marie Stopes International was able to make alternative arrangements for her," it said.

"She will now be treated in a public hospital under a private arrangement funded by Marie Stopes International."

'Decision for family'

Some 20 Christian Orthodox groups in Romania had threatened to press charges if the girl was allowed to abort the baby there.

But a government committee decided the operation could take place because the girl was a victim of sexual abuse and faced "major risks to her mental health" if the pregnancy continued.

While some pro-life Christian Orthodox groups had urged the family to keep the child, and offered to raise it in a church institution, the Romanian Orthodox Church said any decision on abortion should be left to the family.

Marie Stopes said it was encouraged that the Romanian government was "preparing new legislation to extend the Romanian limit on abortion upwards from its existing 14-week maximum in certain circumstances".

NYT: Radioactive Grass

June 29, 2008

By DANIELLE TRUSSONI

THE WHITE KING

By Gyorgy Dragoman.

Translated by Paul Olchvary.

263 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company. $24.

In “History and Utopia,” the Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran speculated about whether it’s “easier to confect a utopia than an apocalypse.” Utopia and its discontents, so central to Eastern European writers, are central to Gyorgy Dragoman’s darkly beautiful novel. A scathing portrait of life in a totalitarian society, “The White King” is both brutal and disarmingly tender. Dragoman’s answer to Cioran’s question is plain: Utopia creates its own hell.

Set in a nameless Communist country based on Romania, where Dragoman was raised, “The White King” is narrated by Djata, an 11-year-old boy whose father has been sent to a labor camp for a crime — signing “an open letter of protest” against the government — that brings ruin to his family. Djata’s mother loses her teaching job, and Djata, now “unreliable from a political point of view,” is expelled from Communist youth organizations, effectively ending his education. The boy’s grandfather, an influential party leader, is shamed into resigning his post.

No one knows if Djata’s father will ever return. This uncertainty forces Djata’s mother to take extreme measures to find out what’s happening to her husband, while her struggle to provide for the family leaves her little time for her son. Djata’s grandparents don’t offer much solace; they ignore the boy and despise his mother, convinced that she encouraged her husband’s dissident views. Djata must fend for himself, like a cold war Huck Finn tramping through concrete apartment blocks and facing down bullies.

The official party stance is that “the country’s future is its youth” and “there’s no way the party would expose this treasure to danger,” but Djata’s experience proves otherwise. After an “accident in an atomic power plant in the Great Soviet Union” reminiscent of Chernobyl, the boy is given iodine pills and forced to play soccer outdoors, taking care “to avoid contact with the ball because the ball picks up radioactivity from the grass.”

Dragoman, who now lives in Budapest, writes in Hungarian, and his prose is scintillating and acrobatic, featuring serpentine sentences that bend with each turn of Djata’s mind. Disregarding standard punctuation, the novel’s language acquires a kind of trudging exuberance — part exhaustion, part frenzy — that amply conveys the boy’s mood. Dragoman, who is 34, recounts the Eastern European experience from a fresh point of view. In his late teens when the Berlin Wall fell, he left childhood behind and became a free adult at the same time.

t one point, Djata’s grandfather takes him to a hill overlooking the city and instructs him to study the landscape as if seeing it “for the very first time or else the last time.” He suggests, Djata reports, that the boy “try looking at the whole thing, all of it as one, as if I was looking at a painting or a pretty girl, to try and see everything at the same time, it wasn’t easy doing so, he said, but if I could do it, then afterward I’d see the world differently.” Reading “The White King” has much the same effect.

Danielle Trussoni, the author of “Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir,” is writing a novel.

Romanian gov't to decide on 11-year-old girl abortion

BUCHAREST, Romania -- Romania's health minister said Wednesday a government committee will decide this week whether an 11-year-old who was raped by her uncle can go to Britain for an abortion or must continue the pregnancy.

The case, which surfaced earlier this month, has bitterly divided the medical community, child rights groups and the public. The girl is 20 weeks pregnant, which is over the legal limit for abortions in Romania. Her parents say they found out she was pregnant on June 2 when they took her to a doctor because she seemed unwell. She told doctors that she had been raped by her 19-year-old uncle, who has since disappeared.

Two local committees in northeast Romania where she lives have passed contradictory rulings. One committee said the girl should be allowed to have a legal abortion in Britain, as her parents want. A Romanian living in Britain has volunteered to finance the costs. On Wednesday, the parents received passports. Another committee ruled that because both the mother and fetus are healthy, the girl should give birth. Abortions beyond 14 weeks are illegal unless the pregnancy threatens the mother's health.

In Britain an abortion is legal up to 24 weeks if two doctors decide that the risk to a woman's physical or mental health will be greater if she continues with the pregnancy than if she ends it. The National Child Protection Authority said the girl should be allowed to have an abortion because she is already traumatized by the experience of rape and pregnancy. The National Doctors Council said that the rights of the fetus should be considered and the pregnancy should go ahead.

They argued that abortion laws should not be liberalized further. The Orthodox Church, to which most Romanians belong, called the case "an exceptional situation which must be treated in an exceptional manner and the family is the only one to take this decision," church spokesman Constantin Stoica said Wednesday. He said the church considers abortion a crime, but this belief applies to normal circumstances, and not to incest or rape. Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu said the case was delicate because it involved medicine, the law and morality. A government committee will publish a decision on the girl on Friday.

BBC shuts down Romanian service

BBC News

The BBC World Service is to close its Romanian language service, after 69 years of broadcasting.

Transmissions in Romanian will cease on 1 August.

In a statement, World Service Director Nigel Chapman praised the service, which he said had been "a beacon of free and independent information".

The closure was a result of increased media competition in Romania, falling audiences and the need for savings across the World Service, he said.

The Romanian Service will be the only language service to close during the term of the current World Service budget, which runs until April 2011, he said.

The World Service plans to retain all 31 remaining language services, six of them within Europe.

Mr Chapman said most Romanians preferred to get their news from television now and the service's audience figures had fallen to less than 3% of the adult population.

BBC broadcasting in Romanian to Moldova will also cease with the closure.

'Devastating blow'

During the Cold War the service battled against the tight media control exercised by Romania's communist authorities.

"Everyone agrees that their presence has contributed to the building of free and open media in Romania," Mr Chapman said in his tribute.

In December 2005 the BBC announced the closure of 10 language services - eight of them broadcasting to Eastern Europe - to pay for a new Arabic TV channel.

The National Union of Journalists' broadcasting organiser, Paul McLaughlin, told the BBC News website that the closure was shocking.

"It is a devastating blow for a service that is renowned for providing exemplary journalism, covering the area and the region."

He said that coming after management had given the impression that no more language services would be closed it represented a "double blow".

"It seems that, bit by bit, the BBC is intent on dismantling the World Service," he said, adding that members were considering the possibility of strike action.

6 allegedly steal electronics from moving trailer

By PATRICK McGROARTY

BERLIN (AP) — Six Romanians have been arrested on allegations they stole mobile phones and laptops from the back of a tractor-trailer as they followed it down a German autobahn at 60 miles an hour, Dortmund police said Tuesday.

"It was an extremely dangerous stunt — like an action film," said Manfred Radecke, a spokesman for Dortmund police.

Officers, having been tipped off about the gang's tactics, were able to stake out an area and watch the thieves in action last week, Radecke said.

In the nighttime darkness, with their lights off, the men drove up behind a transport truck.

Once in place, one man climbed onto the hood of his own car, then used a bolt cutter to break a lock on the trailer door before heaving it open and climbing inside. He then handed boxes of electronics back to a second man on the car hood, who loaded them into the thieves' vehicle, Radecke said.

A second car blocked the left lane during the operation to prevent other cars from pulling too close, he said.

Because both cars had their headlights off, Radecke said, the truck driver never noticed he was being robbed.

Police received a tip about the thieves after a driver reported witnessing a similar stunt two weeks ago.

Radecke said that five of the "autobahn pirates," as the Berliner Zeitung newspaper dubbed them Tuesday, appear to have traveled from Romania for the operation and that one lives in Dortmund.

"They won't tell us where they trained, how often they did this," Radecke said. "If any other German police departments have seen odd truck thefts, we hope they contact us."

Girl in Romania denied abortion despite rape allegation

BUCHAREST (AFP) — A medical ethics panel in Romania refused Friday to grant an abortion to an 11-year-old who had allegedly been raped by her uncle, a hospital official said.

"According to the penal code, after the 14th week of pregnancy, termination is only permissible if the mother's life is endangered or if the foetus suffers from malformation," said Vica Todosiciuc, head of the Cuza Voda maternity section in the northeastern city of Iasi.

"Having examined the girl, the panel observes that the pregnancy is proceeding naturally and therefore that termination should not be imposed."

The girl's parents discovered the pregnancy during a medical check-up two weeks ago after she complained of stomach pains. Police are hunting the uncle, who is said to have fled his home.

"The fact that the pregnancy stemmed from rape was not taken into account by the panel, for two reasons: one, because rape has not been proven; and two, because the penal code does not allow for any exceptions," Todosiciuc said.

"This was a very difficult decision for the doctors to make. They searched for a medical reason which would allow them to authorise a termination, but none was found."

An initial regional medical commission had recommended allowing termination, primarily because the girl is so young. But the law in Romania requires an ethnics panel to have the final say in cases which have gone past 14 weeks.

According to Romania's health ministry, the number of under-15s giving birth is on the increase, reaching around 500 in 2006.

Cinema And Romania's Grim Past

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days speaks volumes of history

Chris Knight, National Post Published: Friday, June 20, 2008

It should have been a time of shared national pride. Beating out No Country for Old Men, among others, the Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days became the first from that country to win the Palme d'Or -- the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival -- in 2007, just five months after the former Eastern bloc country was admitted into the European Union.

But back home, there was almost nowhere to see it. The nation of 22 million is home to fewer than 50 theatres and has the lowest per capita moviegoing rate of any EU member. (Canada has more than 50 drive-in theatres, and some 3,000 screens.)

Thinking on its feet, the distributor organized a 15-city, 30-day tour of the film, showing it in open-air venues, cultural centres or wherever a big enough wall could be found to serve as a screen. A film crew accompanied the caravan, and the result is a fascinating, 15-minute documentary included on the DVD release this week of 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days. It's not Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show, but it's a welcome bit of levity for a film whose subject is an illegal abortion during the bleakest years of Romania under Communist rule.

Projectionists were imported from Germany; no domestic movie market means no local sprocket wranglers. One of them compares portable 35mm systems to bread-baking, a very old technology that still works and is inexpensive, to boot. In one theatre, they come upon an ancient projector called the T7, built like a tank. "Classic!" one of the Germans crows. "Soviet?" No, the machine's owner corrects him:

"Romanian." It's so grimy that the film has to be cleaned between each showing, for fear that dirt will destroy the print. The tour ends with more than 17,000 people coming out to see the film. Some of them have not been to the movies since The Last Emperor in 1987 -- coincidentally the year in which this film is set.

4 Months is not an easy movie to watch. In Cannes, it earned the sobriquet "The Romanian abortion movie," and even the viewers interviewed for the DVD's documentary provide such comments as "disturbing," "the word 'shocking' is too weak" and "this is not a pleasing movie."

It is, however, a superb piece of filmmaking. It follows two young women, one of them pregnant and as far along as the title, as they seek out an illegal abortionist, rent a hotel room and perform the deed.

Oddly, the not-pregnant one seems more concerned, and does most of the legwork. She also has to attend a birthday party at her boyfriend's parents' house, an awkward gathering that skewers the pretensions of middle-class Romanians of the time.

Writer-director Cristian Mungiu was born in 1968 and came of age during the dark years at the end of the reign of Nicolae Ceausescu. In an interview on the DVD, he discusses his artistic choices, how the film's simple, realistic look was the result of much trial and error. In the complex birthday-party scene, for instance, he realized early on that by blocking it with the actors seated around three sides of a table, he had unconsciously created a parody of Da Vinci's Last Supper. Putting the camera into the centre of the gathering helped capture the chaos of the scene, although the long takes and overlapping dialogue meant it took five days to get it right.

Mungiu avoided music and excessive editing since he felt these would serve as emotional signposts, and he wanted audiences to draw solely on the characters' emotional plight. He even kept his cameraman from raising the lens to follow a character who stands up at the table, the better to preserve the naturalistic feel.

Viewers will notice that the movie begins and ends in mid-conversation, and includes props and plots (a knife, a lost identity card) that go nowhere. This was intentional, Mungiu says. Since the action takes place over a single day, it must include "things that happen but are not accomplished in that very day."

cknight@nationalpost.com

Romania puts super-size seven-year-old on strict diet

Wed Jun 11, 12:17 PM ET

Romanian authorities have taken a seven-year-old boy weighing more than 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds) out of his parents custody so doctors can help him lose weight, officials said Wednesday.

"We've taken charge of him for an unlimited period. He'll be put on a regime of strict diet and physical exercise by doctors" in a special care centre, said a spokeswoman for the child protection agency in the county of Botosani.

The boy, born to low-income parents who fed him mainly on bread and lard, was admitted to hospital two weeks ago suffering from respiratory and cardiovascular problems.

The media here have recently reported a number of cases of obesity among Romanian children. Last month, parliament adopted a "healthy food" law banning junk food from school canteens and shops on school premises.

11 big cats rescued from Romania arrive at South African wildlife reserve

The Associated Press

Saturday, June 7, 2008

BETHLEHEM, South Africa(AP) — The wide-eyed lion cub inched slowly to the edge of the wooden crate. He stared around him, then with a growl from the older cub behind him, he leapt out onto the grass.

They were among nine cubs, along with an adult lion and a tiger, rescued from bleak Romanian zoos and released Saturday into their new home — a sanctuary in South Africa that was once a notorious game lodge where lions were bred to be hunted.

When another of the crates was opened, the cubs disappeared inside but came out again, rolling and playing with two other young lions.

From the third and fourth crates came more frightened cubs who looked suspiciously around them, their bodies crouched low and ready to pounce.

Sticking close to each other, the cubs sniffed the grass, the air and after a while began purring loudly, finally safe from harm.

"It is wonderful to see these animals take their first steps on African soil," said Amir Khalil, director of Lionsrock, which was established by Austrian-based international animal welfare organization Vier Pfoten (Four Paws).

The latest arrivals brings to 46 the number of lions at the 1,100 hectare (2,720-acre) sanctuary, which was once Camorhi Game Lodge, where lions, especially rare white ones, were bred for hunting.

In 2006, the organization bought the game lodge, including 25 lions, one tiger, two leopards and a host of buck. Another 11 lions were rescued in November from a safari park in Austria that had gone bankrupt and the sanctuary was officially opened in February.

"The new habitat is a really perfect place for them to live out their lives with the peace and dignity they deserve," Khalil said.

The cubs that arrived Saturday, aged from six months to just over a year, were removed from their mothers at the run-down, financially crippled Braila Zoo in Romania.

"They could have died from neglect or sold on to individuals and put into small cages," Fiona Miles, operational director for Vier Pfoten in South Africa. "Their fate was unknown."

In Romania, the cubs were kept in small cages with concrete floors and metal bars. They had very little bedding and no grass, and were fed and watered to a minimum with little stimulation.

Jazz, the adult lion will be reunited with his mate Mavi, while Aline, an 11-month-old female tiger, who was found badly injured shortly after birth, will become a companion for Coda, the 2-year-old male tiger already at Lionsrock.

Miles said the animals were suffering from malnutrition and neglect when they were rescued, but their conditions have quickly improved. Aline was kept in a 4-square-meter (43-square-foot) cage.

"When we were sent pictures of them, we were saddened and shocked," she said, tears welling in her eyes as she watched the cubs playing with each other. "To see them like this — healthy and well — leaves me speechless."

Vier Pfoten does not buy the animals. Instead, the organization convinces the zoos to release them into their care.

The big cats arrived in Johannesburg from Frankfurt on Friday and were then transported the 250 kilometers (155 miles) to Bethlehem, in the central Free State province.

South Africa is famous as home to the "Big Five" animals — the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo. The country's flagship Kruger National Park attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Some 9,000 privately owned game farms and other government-run reserves also offer visitors a taste of the wild.

But South Africa also has become a choice destination for gun-toting tourists willing to pay more than US$20,000 (€15,200) to take home a prized "trophy" in the form of a lion or rhino's head.

New laws have clamped down on big-game hunting in South Africa in an attempt to clean up the industry and restore the principle of fair chase to the country's tarnished hunting industry.

With breeders warning that they may be forced to put down an estimated 3,000-5,000 lions because of the restrictions, Vier Pfoten, which has set up similar sanctuaries for circus bears in Europe, began trying to alleviate the plight of predators in South Africa.

There has also been a 47 percent increase in the number of births among the buck at the reserve since hunting has stopped and the animals are less stressed.

"Before they would see a vehicle and run like hell," park ranger Tienie Van Rooyen said. "But now they have settled down."

For visitors, Lionsrock offers a unique opportunity to get close to big cats in a breathtaking setting.

The lodge, with its wooden deck and chalets, is set up on a cliff side with a panoramic view of the plains below. Towering above is the rocky mountain whose shape resembles a brooding lion.

A colorful catwalk allows visitors to gaze down on the lions as they pad about their enclosures or slumber in the sun.

At night, the air is filled with the sound of the lions roaring. Now there are 10 more voices to be heard.

AP:Ex-king of Romania returns to family palace after 60 years

BUCHAREST, Romania - Romania's former king is returning to his family's mountain palace after 60 years.

Michael I, who is 86, says his return to Peles Castle — a 160-room palace in the Carpathian Mountains — rights a historic wrong. A few hundred people gathered Thursday to welcome him.

Michael was born on the estate and spent most of his childhood there. The palace was confiscated when the Communist regime forced him to abdicate in 1947.

Communism fell in 1989. In 2007 the government decided to return the estate to the former king. Michael says his family will maintain the main palace as a museum while living in a smaller palace on the estate.

Peles Castle was built in the resort of Sinaia in the late 19th century by Romania's first German-born king, Carol I

Romania team spurning central European cuisine to dine upon Turkish specialties from chef

The Associated Press

ST. GALLEN, Switzerland: He rarely appears in newspapers, only a handful know his name, and a select few have tucked into his sour soups and stuffed peppers.

Yalan Kadir is chef to the Romanian team, and just the mention of him brings a smile to the faces of the squad's usually reserved officials and has them licking their lips.

The Turkish cook's repertoire of healthy, tasty food includes pasta, fish and salad dishes that get consumed with gusto

"He cooks fantastically," said federation spokesman Paul Zaharia, breaking into a rare grin that contrasted with his usual sober demeanor.

Kadir arrived a week before the Romanian team in this mountain resort, making his own plans just as the squad is preparing for its opening match with France on Monday.

"I'll be doing five or six sour soups and cream soups a day instead of one a day," he told daily Pro Sport in a rare interview in April. "Gone are the days when I brought Romanian feta cheese and mineral water. It'll all be brought locally."

The hottest items on his menu are his soups, especially ciorbe — Turkish broth soured with lemon or borsch.

"His food is delicious," official Dan Bragoanu said. "I like everything that I've eaten. It's tasty and nutritious."

Kadir has been with the national team for about a decade, and it's hardly surprising that Romania has a Turkish chef, even if the officials mostly shrug when asked why.

There is a linguistic and culinary Turkish influence in Romania, the southern and eastern parts of which were under Ottoman authority until the country won its independence after a bloody war in 1877.

Alongside the obviously central European pork schnitzels, pickled cucumbers and bell peppers served with french fries that are widely available in Romania, are rice and meat stuffed vine rolls, roasted peppers in vinaigrette and smoked eggplant salad — all variations of Turkish cuisine.

And some Romanian players seem to have an affinity with Turkish clubs. Former star Gheorghe Hagi was a midfielder and coach at Galatasaray before coaching Bursaspor, while Mircea Lucescu coached Galatasaray and Besiktas.

But Kadir's menu doesn't just include the savory flavors one might associate with Turkish cuisine. Under the guidance of the team doctor and nutritionist Pompiliu Popescu, he even does desserts.

"He does all kinds of sweets, even chocolate ones," Zaharia said, with a grin.

Gay activists march in Romania despite opposition

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Around 200 gay activists marched through Bucharest on Saturday in a heavily policed pride parade that defied efforts by religious and far-right groups to have the annual event banned.

Earlier this week, anti-gay groups tried to get a court to rule against the march, Romania's fifth annual gay festival.

Two counter-demonstrations were held ahead of the parade. At one, members of a far-right group chanted "Romania does not want you" in a protest they said was "against sin."

Romania decriminalized homosexuality in 2001, but gay people often face hostility in this largely conservative country of 22 million where the powerful Orthodox church views homosexuality as a sin and a disease.

Police said the gay rights march passed off without incident.

"It is encouraging," riot police spokesman Marius Militaru told reporters. "People are becoming aware that we are heading towards a degree of normality."

Last year riot police detained dozens of protesters who tried to break up a gay rights march.

About 1,200 police were deployed to protect the parade this year.

"I want to thank the police here today ... but we should be able to march and be ourselves without the police marching along," Michael Cashman, a British member of the European Parliament, told activists.

(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Unlicensed French doctor performed back surgery on 100 people in Romania

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Police said Monday they believe an unlicensed doctor performed back operations on about 100 people in Romania before leaving the country as complaints began to be filed.

Romanian newspapers reported that the man in question _ a Frenchman named Francois Pinori _ also had performed surgery on more than 500 Italians before moving to Romania.
And he may be in Britain now, police said.

Pinori reportedly left Romania in 2006, shortly after the first complaints against him were filed. While police have yet to find him, they think they know where he is.

«We have information that Pinori is now in Britain,» said police spokesman Sergiu Rus.
Police are also looking for Pinori's patients so they can talk to them.

Rus said officials have determined that Pinori, who came to Romania in 2004 and worked as a doctor in a private clinic in Timisoara, presented phony papers when he obtained permission to practice.

Even so, after obtaining local approval, he should have also applied for a health ministry license, but the health ministry officials in Bucharest say he never did.

Health officials in Timisoara could not immediately be contacted.
The Romanian ministry of Health said it never licensed Pinori to practice medicine, as is legally required.

He worked in the clinic in western Romania for two years.
Patients reportedly paid ¤600-¤1,000 (US$900-US$1,550) to have Pinori perform operations such as the repair of a herniated disc.

Rus said some patients complained about their treatments and about the sums of money that they had to pay.

Romanian authorities began an investigation when they received the complaints, and asked Interpol for help.

Romanian newspapers wrote that Pinori had performed surgery on over 500 Italians before moving to Romania.

The chief of Interpol in Romania, Catalin Ionescu, said Pinori does not appear in the database of people for whom the institution is looking.

EUROPE: Home to Roma, And No Place for Them

By Claudia Ciobanu

BUCHAREST, May 16 (IPS) - A Roma ghetto in Ponticelli neighbourhood of Naples, Italy, was burnt down May 14 by locals angry over a reported attempt by a Roma young woman to kidnap a baby. The incident shows that, when it comes to living together with the 10 million Roma, Europeans today have no better answer than the "Gypsy hunts" of the Middle Ages.

The attempted kidnap in Naples is merely the last in a string of publicised crimes committed in Italy by Roma, usually from Romania. In the most notorious case, Romanian Nicolae Mailat raped and killed Italian teacher Giovanna Reggiani Oct. 30, 2007, on the outskirts of Rome.

Italian human rights organisation Opera Nomadi has calculated that of the 160,000 Roma living in Italy, roughly 60,000 come from Romania. Most of them inhabit improvised camps on the outskirts of towns or next to rivers. The Roma are a community that is believed to have migrated to Europe from India since the 14th century.

According to a survey commissioned this year by the Romanian Agency for Governmental Strategies, over 60 percent of Italians believe that criminality rates in their country have increased because of Romanians. Italians further said they considered Roma "the most difficult to tolerate."

Close to one million Romanians currently work in Italy. Romanians are said to be responsible for most of the illegalities committed by foreigners there. There is no clear indication that criminality rates for Roma from Romania are higher than for their non-Roma compatriots.

Anti-Roma and anti-Romanian feeling has been growing in Italy since last fall, reaching a boiling point with the attempted kidnap in Naples. Several shanty towns inhabited by Roma across the country have been burnt down over the past week. The Italian authorities are currently raiding Roma camps, rounding up "illegal immigrants" and issuing expulsion decrees.

While Italy's rejection of Roma is in the limelight these days, "voluntary repatriations" of Roma from France to Romania have been taking place for months without much public discussion. The French government pays for the flights back home and gives 300 euros to each person agreeing to return to Romania.

At the beginning of April, trains leaving from Bucharest to various towns in the country were full of Roma families returning from France. One of the women told IPS that the money would be spent on Easter celebrations and that her family would try to return to Western Europe. On the trains, the Roma slept in the corridors, while non-Roma inside the sitting compartments guarded the doors carefully. This reporter was not let into a compartment until those inside were confident she is not Roma.

Non-Roma Romanians are keen to be differentiated from the Roma. They claim they do honest work in the West and should not be demonised because of the criminal acts committed by Roma.

But allegations that Roma commit more crimes than non-Roma are unfounded. A 2008 study commissioned by the National Agency for Roma in Bucharest ('Come Closer. Inclusion and Exclusion of Roma in Present-Day Romanian Society) quotes chief police officer Stefan Campean from the General Police Inspectorate as saying that in spite of the public perception, Roma do not commit more crimes than non-Roma in Romania. Besides, most of the offences by Roma are petty crime, often involving food thefts.

While Western European countries are pushing Roma eastwards, back to their places of origin, in countries like Romania and Bulgaria, where Roma have lived for seven centuries, they are usually excluded from regular residential areas, schools and jobs.

About 2.5 million Roma live in Romania, and close to another million in neighbouring Bulgaria, out of a total of six million all over Central and Eastern Europe.

In Zapaden Park, a neighbourhood in the Western part of Bulgarian capital Sofia, the areas inhabited by Roma begin right where the city ends along with the paved roads. To visit Roma dwellings, one has to walk a muddy path, and fields scattered with trash on both sides. The garbage collecting truck makes its way along the same route, seemingly just cruising around because at no point do the workers stop to pick up the dirt.

There are no waste collecting points anyway, so the people in the area are forced to dump their rubbish in the street. This is the classic picture of Roma urban areas in Bulgaria and Romania, spatially segregated from the non-Roma neighbourhoods, and often lacking basic facilities.

In Romania, according to the 2008 study 'Come Closer', 60 percent of the Roma interviewed declared that someone in their family had gone to bed hungry in the past month. Over 50 percent of Roma children do not have a winter coat and another 50 percent live in a household that cannot afford shoes for all members.

The same study shows that only 17 percent of Roma households have access to gas and just 14 percent have water pipes in the house. Some 40 percent of the Roma interviewed do not have any documents for the land their shelters are situated on.

According to the Institute for Quality of Life Research in Bucharest, 47 percent of employable Roma in Romania had jobs in 2007, a significant improvement over previous years. However, write the authors of 'Come Closer', "Roma are generally informally employed, on a daily basis, mostly in unqualified occupations which require hard physical work, but which are stigmatised as temporary, inferior occupations."

Only 9 percent of the Roma interviewed for the 'Come Closer' study had completed high school, and another 2 percent held university degrees.

In some regions, as many as 10 percent of the Roma do not hold valid identity documents, Andreea Socaciu from the local Association for Community Partnership told IPS. This situation leads to difficulties in accessing education, jobs and social welfare.

Socaciu, who is involved in a programme helping Roma get official papers, says "there are areas where we are back in the Middle Ages. Entire families live in 20 square metre spaces, in one room, with no facilities. Children are forced to drop out of school, so the labour force of the future is jeopardised."

A national strategy for documenting Roma and facilitating their access to information about health, education and jobs was put forward in 2005, says Socaciu, adding that what her organisation does is merely "the starting point." Other measures taken by Romanian authorities include reserving places in higher education for Roma students and providing "health mediators" for Roma communities.

Progress is slow, however, and the authors of 'Come Closer' say that working abroad remains "the main strategy for emancipation" for Roma. Of those interviewed, 74 percent declared they plan to go abroad for work, half of them saying they will do this within a year, an indication of the seriousness of their intentions.

"Those who come to Italy for work don't do it because this is a beautiful country, they do it because of poverty at home," says Najo Adzovic, the informal leader of a Roma camp on the outskirts of Rome. "Conditions must be created for them to return to their country with dignity. They need a work place above all. Perhaps Italian businessmen, who make good money in Romania, could offer work places to Roma." (END/2008)

Serbia, Macedonia and Romania Join Europe in the Night of the Museums

Balkan Travellers

16 May 2008 | Various cities throughout the Balkans are joining the international Night of the Museums event, which will take place around the world on the evening of May 17.

The museums in 23 towns in Serbia, Skopjie in Macedonia and Bucharest and Cluj in Romania will stay open late into the night, offering their residents and visitors nocturnal tours through permanent and special exhibitions, light shows, theatrical and music performances.

In Serbia, more than 130 museums and galleries will stay open in 23 towns, including the capital Belgrade, Novi Sad , Valjevo, Šabac, Pančevo, Niš, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Zrenjanin, Sombor, Kikinda, Jagodina, Sirogojno, Požarevac, Subotica, Čačak, Vrbas, Kladovo, Zaječar, Vršac, Aleksinac, Vranje and Užice.

One of the planned events in Serbia that BalkanTravellers.com found out about will be internationally-renowned artist Maria Dubin’s “live” painting at the Museum of Natural History in Kalemegdan in Belgrade. Sponsored by property consultants Colliers International Serbia, Dubin will paint three artworks – capturing her impression of the museum’s exhibits, which will then be exhibited Museum on Saturday night. The artist will be working in a tent that the general public will be able to visit.

In Macedonia’s capital Skopje, two original paintings by Pablo Picasso will be displayed at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Arts. The two artworks include “Head of a Woman,” which the artist himself donated in 1964, after the Skopje earthquake and “Dance of Satires,” which is the property of an anonymous Macedonian collector.

In Romania, the cities of Bucharest and Cluj will participate in the Night of the Museums. In the capital, according to National Network of Romanian Museums website, well-known artworks of the National Art Gallery and the European Art Gallery are to be (re)discovered in a new context, with lights, music and video.

At the Art Collections Museum in Bucharest, artworks from broad fields – painting, graphics, applied art – and cultural spaces (from the Western world to the Far East) within its 15 collections will be available for viewing. There will be a light show in the Honor Court of the Royal Palace and various theatre and music performances, including a classical music and operetta mini-concert at the Little Museum Opera.

The Art Museum in Cluj will open its doors to visitors with an exhibition by artists, including Theodor Aman, Nicolae Grigorescu, Ion Andreescu, Ştefan Luchian, Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Tonitza, Gheorghe Petraşcu, Hans Mattis Teutsch.

Bulgaria’s capital Sofia also joins in the Night of the Museums. BalkanTravellers.com highlighted

The Night of Museums, conceived to be a free for all social event, was created in 2005 by the French Ministry for Culture. According to event’s official website, in 2007, it brought an estimated 1.3 million visitors to 956 museums in France and 960 museums in 41 other European countries. earlier this week some of the planned events for the evening of May 17.

Holocaust survivors: No money to fund restitution appeals

ynetnews.com

Despite court decision to recognize restitution right of Bulgarian, Romanian Jews who lived in curfew during WWII but did not survive concentration camps, official says they live below poverty line as government fails to recognize, compensate them

Yael Branovsky

It is unheard of that people who can hardly make ends meet have to hire lawyers so that the court recognizes their rights,” chairman of the Association of Immigrants from Rumania, Ze’ev Schwartz, said Sunday in regards to the court decision to render eligible for restitution 100 Bulgarian and Romanian-born Jews who lived under curfew conditions during the Holocaust but not in concentration camps. Schwartz told Ynet that nearly 6,000 Holocaust survivors from Romania are living below the poverty line and are not receiving any compensation from the government. Schwartz said he is hard at work in setting up headquarters to protest outside the prime minister’s residence in the next few weeks.

“It is fairly odd that the court has recognized those rights while the government has not,” he said. Schwartz added that a large group of Romanian Holocaust survivors was driven away from their homes during World War II, leaving their assets behind, yet the government has failed to compensate them since doing so would require a long and expensive bureaucratic process. “I’m tried of keeping silent; this is simply a scandal. We will act at once to fix it." The State of Israel's official Appeals Committee ruled that 100 Jews living in Bulgaria and Romania under curfew conditions during the Holocaust are now eligible to receive lawful restitution, according to the 1957 law regarding victims of Nazi persecution. The committee also recommended that every Jew who lived under Nazi rule should be entitled to reparations and that Bulgarian and Romanian-born Jews be compensated following individual assessment from now on.

According to the committee, "minute distinctions" between survivors had led to a situation in which some have been recognized as victims while others have not. “There is an innate problem in being able to confirm factual findings regarding events that took place six decades ago in a distant reality,” the committee members said. Back in 2005, The Supreme Court ruled that Bulgarian-born Jews receive restitution even though they were “only” expelled from their homes and were not transported to concentration camps. However, they were required to deliver documents dating back decades in order to prove they have been suffering from mental disability.

AP: One person dies in train derailment in Romania

BUCHAREST, Romania: Romania's government says a train has derailed in the country, killing one person and injuring five people.

Railway police say two and a half carriages of the train came off the tracks. It was traveling from Bucharest to the northeast city of Iasi when the derailment occurred at about 5 p.m (1500 GMT) Saturday near the town of Valea Calugareasca.

Transportation minister Leonard Orban says one person died and five people were hospitalized in the nearby city of Ploiesti. The train track has been closed in the area, which is 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Bucharest, and an investigation into the cause of the derailment is under way.

Romania to set up evacuation transit centre for refugees

09 May 2008

BUCHAREST, Romania, May 9 (UNHCR) – The Romanian government has agreed to set up a special evacuation transit centre for refugees in other countries facing acute danger. It will be the first of its kind in Europe.Under an agreement signed in Bucharest on Thursday by Romanian Interior Minister Christian David and senior representatives of the UN refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the centre will provide a temporary haven for refugees pending final resettlement in a third country.

The new centre, to be located in the western Romanian city of Timişoara and able to accommodate up to 200 people, will shelter individuals or groups of people still facing acute danger in their country of first arrival and in need of immediate evacuationSenior UNHCR officials warmly welcomed the development. "It's an extraordinary gesture for an EU [European Union] member state to make available sovereign territory to accommodate the most destitute refugees awaiting permanent resettlement in a third country," said Machiel Salomons, UNHCR's representative in Romania.

Once the facility is up and running, UNHCR will identify those persons in need of transit evacuation, provide them with refugee certificates and negotiate for their onwards resettlement. IOM will arrange the transportation of evacuees, their health screening and cultural orientation programmes.Resettlement countries have pledged their support to this initiative, while UNHCR has called on donor governments to provide financial support.

The decision to build the evacuation transit centre comes almost three years after Romania gave more than 400 Uzbek refugees safe haven in Timişoara. Intensifying violence forced them to flee eastern Uzbekistan and seek shelter in Kyrgyzstan. The vast majority have since been resettled to third countries.And in March 1999, Romania accepted some 4,000 refugees from Croatia and from Bosnia & Herzegovina who were subsequently resettled to the United States.

Report: Five people detained in Romania on suspicion of attempted match-fixing

The Associated Press

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

CLUJ, Romania: Five people were detained by police on suspicion of attempted match-fixing Wednesday after being discovered with €1.4 million (US$2.15 million), prosecutors told the state news agency.

The five are suspected of planning to bribe players from Universitatea Cluj before its Romanian league match against CFR Cluj, anti-corruption prosecutors told Rompres news agency.

They are being questioned by Cluj prosecutors, who didn't release an official statement.

CFR Cluj won 1-0 to become the first non-Bucharest team to win the league since communism ended in 1989. If Universitatea had won or drawn the game, then Steaua Bucharest would have won the title.

Prosecutors had tapped phones in Bucharest before the detentions, and police traveled to Cluj, 300 kilometers (187 miles) northwest of the capital, to detain the five after they were discovered in a restaurant with the money in a suitcase, sports newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor reported.