Romanian newspapers on Wednesday look way back into the past of late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who would have turned 93 today. Major shifts in the Superior Council of Magistrates, erroneous statistics on cancer in Romania and a situation of Romanian highways also feature in the papers today.
Evenimentul zilei quotes documents that look deep into the past of late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, killed during the 1989 revolution, to provide a glimpse of how the intelligence services in Romania worked before the communist regime. Before his figure would have a mark on the history of the toughest Communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe, Ceausescu, who would have turned 93 on Wednesday, felt the treatment the State Security on the interbelic era reserved for enemies of the political establishment in Romania, the paper reads.
It quotes documents published by an association that depict a young communist militant plotting against the social order of the epoch, spreading manifestos and standing up against prison guards. And the paper notes Ceausescu was first arrested at the age of 15, in November 1933, when the State Security of the monarchic state would not have an issue with arresting underaged people.
The documents are also quoted by Gandul, a paper that points out how the State Security was tailing the young "boot maker's apprentice", son of a "drunk" father.
Elsewhere in the news today, Romania libera reads about a "historic decision of the Constitutional Court" to remove the "old guard" from the Superior Council of Magistrates in Romania. It reads that the activity of the Council was brought to a halt following a Constitutional Court decision to invalidate the election of seven members in the Council, including magistrates Lidia Barbulescu, Dan Lupascu and Dan Chiujdea and civil society representative Victor Alistar. The six would no longer be allowed to attend the Magistrates Council sessions. The six along with other candidates were approved by the Senate to join the Council late last year, but the governing Democratic Liberals challenged the election of some of the magistrates at the Constitutional Court.
Gandul analyzes the promises of and investments made by authorities in relation with Romanian highways. It reads that the budget of the state company overviewing road infrastructure is similar to that of 2010 - 1.42 billion euro. At an average cost of 7 million euro per kilometer of highway, the budget would be enough for projects covering 200 km of highway. This year, 117 km opf highway are expected to be finished, according to official data.
And Evenimentul zilei reads that experts are challenging WHO statistics that place Romania among the last in Europe when it comes to the rate of cancer among the population, while Western countries come first. According to offial data, Romania has about 205 cases of cancer per 100,000 people, while Danmark, for example, has a higher incidence (326 cases per 100,000). But the paper quotes experts who show Romania does not have an official registry of people with cancer and this makes it impossible to evaluate a real number of patients.
