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GLOBAL NEWS Daily from ROMANIA Monday, 12 December 2005

Businessman Florian Anghelescu Banned From Leaving Bucharest
The High Court prosecutors have banned businessman Florian Anghelescu from leaving Bucharest for at least 30 days, after investigators found over 100,000 packs of cigarettes with forged fiscal stamps and over 350 tons of tobacco that were not registered at his company's headquarter in the village of Ceptura, Prahova County. Anghelescu, who is the owner of Anghelescu Industry, a company that produces and sells cigarettes, is being investigated for several financial crimes. After hearing him on Saturday, prosecutors decided to ban Anghelescu from leaving the town, fearing he might flee the country. In early September, the businessman, who is the husband of former state aide Stana Anghelescu, was put under investigation after the Financial Guard and police found a large quantity of cigarettes with forged fiscal stamps at the his company's premises. The investigation into Anghelescu's activities started after a team of Financial Guard inspectors was prevented from checking a sales outlet in a Sector 1 commercial complex. A team of police agents was called for support and found that the inspectors had been driven out of the outlet during checks by one of the company's associates, identified as Anghelescu. The businessman and six other people reportedly took out several cartons of cigarettes and sent them away in two vans, after the inspectors were forced out. According to the inspectors, the cigarettes taken out of the shop had forged fiscal stamps.

Sixty Convicts Cleaned Bucharest's Streets
Sixty convicts from Rahova and Jilava prisons helped the City Hall employees clean the streets in two of Bucharest's sectors. According to the general manager of the National Jail Administration, Marius Iacob, the convicts were carefully selected, as only those imprisoned for minor deeds were allowed to exit the jails. Iacob said the cleaning activities are useful for both the citizens and the convicts who feel their actions are helpful and are encouraged to work.

Health Reform Leads To Famous Hospital Managers' Dismissal
Top doctors leading 26 hospitals and treating most of the VIPs will be removed from the administration of the health institutions, following a decision of Health Ministry yesterday. Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu announced that the administration boards of hospitals throughout the country will be dismissed, as a special investigation commission of the Health Ministry has found numerous irregularities in the hospitals' activities. This is the first time in the past 15 years when a minister decides to fire famous doctors who seemed intangible until now at the leadership of some of the best institutions in the country, including Fundeni, St. Pantelimon, Elias, and University hospitals. A new scandal is likely to break out, as those doctors have been treating and operating on politicians and their families, including President Traian Basescu, for years. Nicolaescu harshly criticized the management of the hospitals, accusing the administration boards with lack of professionalism with respect to the handling the funds. In his planned health reform, meant to take the system out of a crisis which is getting worse each year, Nicolaescu announced he wants hospitals to be led by real managers, and not doctors, as it is now. He said that a doctor who is a hospital director and a professor at the same time cannot fulfil any of these duties in a satisfactory manner. He pointed out that the Health Ministry's investigation revealed many misdeeds of the hospitals' directors and administrators, including fake financial reports, illegal contracts for external services, and lack of labour contracts.

American Doctor Awarded In Cluj
The OutNobel Foundation awarded the 2005 prize to the American Doctor Joseph Sinkovics from the University in Tampa, Florida, who discovered the first cellular fusion with monoclonal antibodies in 1969. Sinkovics made this discovery, which is very useful in cancer treatments, but the Nobel Prize went to two scientists from Germany and Argentina in 1985. During the award ceremony in the city of Cluj, he said that in the 60's when he was working at a hospital in Texas he managed to create a cell which, if kept in a proper environment was eternal. According to Sinkovics, he published the discovery in 1970 in the American magazine, Lancet. In 1975, the other two men made the same discovery, but published it in Nature magazine, and were awarded the Nobel few years later.

Life-Claiming Wreck Sold As Scrap Iron
The last piece of a ship that sank 14 years ago on the Danube River's Sulina arm was transported on the Sfantu Gheorghe arm, a week after it had been pulled out of the water, helping restore normal navigation on the Sulina arm. The piece of the Ukrainian ship, Rotock, was pulled out from the water on November 29, with special equipment and cranes designed to lift heavy weights. Furthermore, navigation on the canal was restricted during the transportation of the metal structure, which weighs over one thousand tons. The commander of the Tulcea Captainship, Dan Ichim, said the other pieces of the wreck brought out are also stored at Sfantu Gheorghe. The pieces will be sold for scrap iron, added Ichim. The Ukrainian cargo ship was built in 1973, at the Hezlun Rostock naval construction site in the former German Democratic Republic. It shipwrecked on the Sulina Canal's mile 31, near Partizani, in Tulcea County, on September 2, 1991, loaded with over 5,000 tons of steel. For a year after the incident, navigation on the canal was completely blocked.