Radio Romania International

Archives: Today in the News

A HUGE POLITICAL SCANDAL IN THE MEDIA (12.10.07)
(2007-10-12)
Last updated: 2007-10-15 16:45 EET Print
This week the European Commission has warned Bucharest to straighten up its irregularities in the payment system for agriculture. And Brussels gave Bucharest one month for that, otherwise the safeguard clause for agriculture might be activated and Bucharest might lose big money. And also this week, the Romanian Minister of Agriculture had to resign amid accusations of corruption. The accusations culminated on Wednesday evening when Romania’s public TV station ran a hidden camera recording showing Minister of Agriculture Decebal Traian Remes allegedly taking bribe. In parallel runs an audio recording of a telephone conversation in which a former minister of agriculture asks the present minister of agriculture to fix a tender in favour of a businessman in exchange of material benefits. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu who had been supportive of the agriculture minister in the early stages of suspicion, had no choice but ask for his resignation. The scandal spread like fire in the media, and many discussions focused not so much on whether the minister was guilty or not, but on the fact that evidence from a file leaked to the public television, which has refused to reveal its source. The National Anti-Corruption Directorate, The High Council of Magistrates and the National Audio-Visual Council have insistently called for an investigation to find out the source. The big question mark is still over who leaked the recording. The president of Romania, Traian Basescu is among the suspects. He firmly rejected any involvement: “I definitely haven’t given anything to anyone. And I can tell you that there are pieces of evidence in that file which are by far more interesting than the video recording.” The head of the news department of the Romanian television, Rodica Culcer says she did the right thing and she has no intention of resigning. Rodica Culcer says she decided to broadcast the recording as she considers the matter as being of public interest. On Thursday evening the television announced it would show a second part of the recording, but TVR General Director Alexandru Sassu stopped that from happening. The media perceived the decision as censorship. Friday’s issue of the Evenemintul Zilei headlined: ‘the Chief Censor at TVR’. In reply the director general of the public TV station argues that to continue broadcasting similar materials would be illegal, unfair and inopportune. The editorialist of the Gandul daily newspaper, Cristian Tudor Popescu, who is also the president of the Romanian Press Club draws attention to the fact the public television is not allowed to get involved in the political war in Romania, as the public television functions according to different principles than commercial TV stations.

		WMA
	64kbps :	1 2 3
	128kbps :	1 2 3
		MP3
	64kbps :	1 2 3
	128kbps :	1 2 3
		AAC+
	48kbps :	1 2 3
	64kbps :	1 2 3

Listen again
to RRI's broadcasts


Listen Here
These are the hours when you can listen to the programmes broadcast by the English Service of RRI.
Time (UTC)	12.00 - 13.00
01.00 - 02.00	18.00 - 19.00
04.00 - 05.00	21.30 - 22.00
06.30 - 07.00	23.00 - 24.00

Curs valutar: 04 Apr 2025

EUR:	4.977 RON
USD:	4.5295 RON
GBP:	5.8826 RON
AUD:	2.8108 RON
CAD:	3.199 RON
JPY:	0.030933 RON
INR:	0.0531 RON
TRY:	0.119 RON
ZAR:	0.2387 RON

Actualizati scriptul la versiunea 2.0!

Weather Forecast

Historical mascot of RRI

© 1999 - 2011 Copyright Radio Romania International