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What the newspapers say: April 26, 2006

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Newspapers on Wednesday publish grim accounts on the effects of the Danube floods on local communities while the authorities put the blame on the infrastructure abuses of the former Communist regime.

On the political stage, a confrontation between Justice minister and a group of the governing coalition keeps the headlines, while the US Ambassador warns Romania needs more sentences, not only judicial inquiries on corruption. And the country prepares for the second leg of the UEFA Cup semifinals, bringing Steaua Bucharest against Middlesbrough tomorrow.

One of the flooded villages in southern Dolj county, Rast, is a „cursed village” as the flooding Danube waters have dug in the cemetery soil and brought the dead from the ground, Gandul reports.

And in that village, where one of the elderly people died as he defied calls for evacuations, a camp for the displaced has been put under quarantine because the large amount of the dead animals – and dead ancestors – floating in the water.

According to Jurnalul National, the danger of further floods is still out there despite the Danube was receding yesterday. And the newspaper reports that PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu had no idea of a study of the Environment Ministry whose minister Sulfina Barbu said authorities knew from January what regions are prone to Danube floods.

The same newspaper quotes Tariceanu saying that the current situation on the Danube could have been prevented should ex-dictator Nicolae Ceausescu have not ordered intensive agricultural works and the building of too many dams in the area back in the sixties.

According to Evenimentul Zilei, Tariceanu was considering yesterday that the land stolen from the Danube forty years ago should be returned to the Danube natural circuit to prevent a repeat of the current floods.

And Adevarul and Cotidianul renew reports on interventions from politicians and well-connected business people in the most affected area, the south Dolj county, where people are saying that such interventions prevented flood-restraining measures to be taken in due time to prevent the catastrophe.

Meanwhile Cotidianul and most other newspapers report the confrontation sparked between Justice minister Monica Macovei and the Hungarian Democrats – UDMR, who are part of the governing coalition, after the former accused them in an interview on Tuesday of blocking the fight against corruption through their opposition to Justice Ministry proposals in the field.

Macovei’s statements were received with a wave of criticisms from UDMR politicians, who accused her of not accepting that part of her legislative proposals have errors.

But the confrontation took over the whole government as Macovei received the backing of the Democratic Party, but was criticized by PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu’s Liberals, as Evenimentul Zilei reports.

The same Evenimentul Zilei publishes an interview with the new US Ambassador to Bucharest Nicholas Taubman, who said much has improved in Romania over the past several years, but yet much is still to be done especially in the fight against corruption, where there are many graft investigations against important people, but too few sentences.

„There are not enough prisons for all those who should be convicted”, Taubman warned.

Meanwhile, Cotidianul writes that EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn will answer today a set of questions from members of the European Parliament regarding the stage of Romania and Bulgaria’s preparations to join the EU next year.

He will have to say whether the Commission can confirm that reforms in the two countries are going well, to explain possible safeguarding measures if something goes wrong and to comment on the fight against corruption and the reform of the judiciary in the two candidate states.

Also on the European front, Jurnalul National reports that after the European Parliament forced tougher measures on adoptions in Romania years ago, it was now calling for a review of the changes and for „more flexibility” on the Romanian side as MEPs are no longer pleased by the country’s legislation in this field.

The newspaper shows those who call for a review are the same MEPs who have supported Baroness Emma Nicholson five years ago when she called for a Romanian moratorium on international adoptions.

But what counts more than anything else on Romania’s posture in Europe these days is not politics but the match between Steaua Bucharest and Middlesbrough in the decisive leg of the UEFA Cup semifinals in England tomorrow.

According to Gandul, 2,000 Steaua fans will support their team on English turf where tickets were still available yesterday in comparison with Romania where tickets for the first leg last week were sold out long before the match.

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