National Press Review, 18 March

The Gândul reveals the results of a survey conducted by the greatest brokerage and economic consultancy agency, Nomura, in Japan, according to which ‘Romanians are the most exposed Europeans to hunger, being among the first twelve populations in the world threatened by food crisis.’ The Gândul required a response to the Ministry of Agriculture where the State Secretary, Adrian Rădulescu, flatly denied the aforementioned possibility and briefly recommended the Japanese ‘not to interfere’.

Journalists too, have poked their nose in Japanese’s issues and found something: ‘a road in Kanto destroyed by the last week nine grade earthquake was rebuilt by Japanese workers in only four days’. The daily publishes telling photos with images before and after the disaster in order to fully enlighten Romanian readers.

Today, the Adevărul unmasks one whom it calls ‘another PM tick’ who got rich after signing various contracts with Government and who is Florian Anghel, from PDL who stands in the top five businessmen dealing with lawmakers. His deals with the state boomed after he had become the head of the County Council in Prahova and reached the top during the PM term. In the last two years, since he has been working as a representative, the business managed by Florian Anghel’s family has got 12.4 million euros contracts with lawmakers. Quoting the press in Prahova, the daily outlines that Anghel bought a whole mountain with only 150 thousand euro which is a value equivalent to an apartment in a new neighborhood.

On the front page, the Jurnalul Naţional requires Sorin Blejnar, head of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (NAFA), to resign and claims that since last year summer, he has been investigated by police and prosecutors in Barşov, for having protected for money some specialized groups in oil smuggling and fiscal evasion. The daily quotes a file related to a criminal group that brought the Government a three million euros prejudice. Moreover, the daily adds that there were also sent to jail two NAFA employees charged with having supported an organized criminal group, with fiscal evasion and forgery related complicity.

Does anyone remember about Mohamed Munaf? He was well-known when the Romanian journalists had been kidnapped in Iraq and he cooperated with Omar Haissan in organizing the kidnap. The Evenimentul Zilei brings out that Munaf was finally acquitted by the judges in Iraq and that he is steel free. In Romania, he was sentenced to a ten year imprisonment being charged with complicity in terrorism but there were few chances for him of having returned in his country in order to serve his prison term.

The România Liberă and other dailies reveal the case of Mihai Necolaiciuc, former head of CFR, charged with many illegal acts performed during his position and who brought the company million euros prejudices. Lately, has been heard, for thousand times again, that he will be deported from the Unites States in order to be judged. The former Minister of Transports, Miron Mitrea, who supported Mihai Necolaiciuc’s position, answers to the România Liberă in response to prosecutors’ charges brought against the former head of CFR.

‘The Government is responsible for the high prices of tourism in Romania’, claims the Jurnalul Naţional. ‘Hotels’ owners assert that price would go down if they enjoyed the same tax incentives as their Bulgarian neighbors. In Bulgaria, food prices VAT is three times lower, goods prices is significantly lower than in Romania and payroll taxes are at half, too all these leading to price differences in Romanian and Bulgarian hotels’, declares Paul Mărăşoiu, the head of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism in order to respond to the discontent of greatest German travel agencies (TUI, ITS, Deltour) taking into account bad services and over-expensive prices that Romanian seaside hotels’ owners offer.

‘Bucharest tortured by blackouts’, the Adevărul headlines. There are some districts were power supply stops every day. The ENEL Company explains that electricity network in Bucharest is forty years old and that it no longer meets power consumption needs.


Translated by: Cristina Anamaria Maricescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University