Nationalism sucks! Why the 24th January Unification should not be celebrated in Iasi.

Alexander John Cuza (or Alexandru Ioan Cuza) was a Moldavian-born Romanian politician who was the first ruler of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia between 1859 and 1866.

On 24th January 1859 Cuza became ruler of Wallachia after he was elected earlied as the ruler of Moldavia. This way Cuza achieved a de facto union of the two principalities. This is known as the "small" unification in Romanian culture. The "big" unification is the one from 1st December 1918 when Transylvania joined the Romanian Kingdom.

Every year in 24th January there are big festivities in Iasi. But there is no reason to celebrate. 1859 represents the beginning of a sad period for Iasi.

Few people know that in Wallachia most of the people wanted the unification, but in Moldavia a lot of people were opposing this unification (Nicolae Istrate, Gheorghe Asachi, Costache Negruzzi etc.). Their most important fears were confirmed by later events. They warned that Iasi might lose its importance as an effect of moving the capital of the newly formed country to Bucharest. They also feared that the entire region of Moldova would be less favored than the Southern part.

Before the events in 1859 Iasi was in many ways more developed than Bucharest. But since then most of the resources were directed towards Bucharest and this city also attracted most of the talents. Over the last 150 years Bucharest had a much faster development and Iasi was neglected.


Nationalism is a notion that can be very attractive at first sight, but most of the times it is deceiving and can lead people to do stupid things. It leads to unnecessary "unifications" and also to other ugly things like wars and ethnic conflicts (see the example of former Yugoslavia).

I would like to think that in 150 years the Romanian society evolved, but I'm sad to see that no big change has happened. Romanian people are still superficial. They are very sensitive to emotions that can manipulate and remain untouched by facts and reason.

There are still people who are willing to "sacrifice their lives" for their country... willing to fight stupid wars out of "nationalism" and "patriotism". There are enough people willing to do stupid things and hurt other humans, just because they believe in the "beautiful lies" of one doctrine or another. After all, Nazism, also known as National Socialism, had at its core nationalistic ideas.

Network suspected of smuggling women to Western Europe was smashed by police

Reuters writes about the arrest of 30 people from the group known as Cordunenilor Gang, located mainly in Iasi, Romania

This is a network suspected of smuggling women to western Europe. They were operating in Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain and Ireland.

The group's victims were sexually exploited, obliged to become beggars or forced into pickpocket gangs in major European cities.

Romania aims to join the EU's Schengen zone of passport-free travel in 2011. Strengthening the fight against cross-border crime is one of the conditions for joining the area.

Election in Ukraine - first round is undecided. There will be a second round

According to official results released on Monday, with 82 percent of the ballots counted, Viktor Yanukovich had 35.7 %, and Yulia Tymoshenko had 24.8 %.

The other candidates were far behind. Third place went to businessman Sergiy Tigipko with 13 % of the vote

The official turnout was 66.7 percent.

On Sunday night, both Yanukovich and Tymoshenko reached out to losing candidates for endorsements. A looming question is whether those more ideologically aligned with Yulia Tymoshenko will support her.

Despite warnings of large-scale election fraud in the days leading up to Sunday's vote, officials and election observers said the ballot seemed fair and orderly.

Elections in Ukraine - first round tomorrow 17 January

A total of 18 candidates are contesting Sunday's election including President Viktor Yushchenko though he is regarded as having little chance of success.
 
Opinion polls and analysts say there will be no outright winner on Sunday. The candidate with the most chances seems to be Viktor Yanukovich, a former Prime Minister, and the candidate that lost the elections 5 years ago after the Orange Revolution. The second candidate seems to be Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

There are voices that say that Ukrainians need to choose between EU/NATO and Russia. But some other annalists say that no matter who wins Ukraine will continue to be somewhere in the middle because the citizens of this large country are very divided. In the Western and central regions of Ukraine there is strong support for stronger ties with EU and for no relations at all with Russia. People in the Eastern regions are more oriented towards Russia and they reject any possibility that Ukraine joins NATO or EU.


It is also my opinion that no matter who will win, this will not change the situation. Ukraine will not be able to make a clear decision towards any of the sides. This is a situation similar to the one in Moldova. With one exception: Ukraine already tried to get closer to the EU but this proved to be a failure. So I don't think that Ukraine will be ready any time soon to reject the ties with Russia and to try to get closer to Europe. Too many people are still suffering after the previous experiment. Let's just hope that Moldova's European experiment will prove to be more succesful.

Mihai Eminescu - Romanian National Poet. Born January 15 1850, 160 years ago

Mihai Eminescu is often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. His poems span a large range of themes, from nature and love to hate and social commentary. Eminescu's poems have been translated in over 60 languages.

Read more about him on Wikipedia.

Mihai Eminescu is also a very present figure in Iasi. There are numerous statues of the poet in Iasi. The biggest Library in Iasi is Mihai Eminescu Cental Universitary Library. One of the most important parks in Iasi has as one of the main attractions Mihai Eminescu's linden tree.

First round of negotiations on Moldova-EU association agreement to be held in Chisinau today 12 January 2010

The first round of negotiations on the Moldova-EU association agreement will be held in Chisinau today, 12 January.

The event will start with a plenary meeting, after which European and Moldovan experts will bring together into four working groups: 1. Political dialogue and the reforms, cooperation in the foreign policy and security fields; 2. Economic sector and financial cooperation; 3. Justice, freedom and security; 4. Inter-human contacts.

Natalia Gherman, deputy minister of foreign affairs and European integration, will represent Moldova at the talks.

The EU representative will be Gunnar Wiegand, head of the unit for Russia, Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia of the Directorate General for External Relations of the European Commission.

Moldova's government said the treaty would enable Moldova to integrate with the EU politically and economically. They also expressed hope that this would lead to the liberalization of visa rules before 2012 and would be instrumental in setting up a free trade zone between Moldova and the EU.

Moldova is no longer threatened by communism. But now there are other problems

Starting with the events in April 2009 Moldova changed the course of history. It all happened with the help of Facebook and Twitter.

Support Moldova on Facebook

Moldova is no longer threatened by communism. Moldova already took the first steps on the path of democracy.

But there are still many other problems.
Moldova is still a very poor state.
There are still a lot of Moldavians trying to make a living abroad.
The level of tolerance is very low.
The pro-Romanian extremists are often in conflict with the pro-Russians extremists.
Religious minorities are often attacked by the Christian Orthodox majority. The rights of sexual minorities are not even discussed.
Human trafficking is still a big issue.

In order to start the process of improving on all these issues, Moldova will continue to need international support.

There are already 5000 people in the "Support Moldova" community on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/support.moldova

If you are not already a member, please join us. Ans also please promote this page to your Facebook friends and suggest them to become members.

You can also follow Support Moldova on Twitter:
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1st Georgian airplane in last 1.5 years landed in Moscow today. Peace has been given a chance

Airzena Airlines launched its first charter flight from Tbilisi to Moscow today. This was the airline's first flight after almost a year and a half pause.

The aircraft flew from Tbilisi International Airport at 12.30 and landed at Moscow's Domodedovo airport after two hours and twenty minutes.

Most of the tickets for today and the subsequent flights were sold-out.

The airline made a request to conduct sustained flights to Moscow, but the Russian Transport Ministry allowed conducting only three charter flights.

Having peace in the Eastern-European region is very important if we want to see an economic recovery.

Romania becomes first country to introduce junk-food tax

A new tax on junk food products will be introduced as of March 2010 in Romania. This was initiated by the Health Ministry. The move appears to set a worldwide precedent.

Health Minister Attila Czeke said that he will introduce the fast-food tax in order to contribute to the country's health programmes. 

The ministry justified its proposal by pointing out that more and more people in Europe suffer from obesity, increasing the risk of diabetes, hypertension and premature death.The proceeds will be considered income for the Health Ministry to spend on health programmes.

A fast-food tax, also referred to as a 'junk food tax' or 'Whopper tax', has been discussed for many years in the US but has never been introduced.

Iasi county has the second largest 2010 budget after Bucharest, but this is not as good as it seems

The Romanian Parliament is discussing the national budget for 2010.

Iasi county is supposed to get 653 millions RON from the national budget. This is the second largest amount after Bucharest.

Things are good only at the surface. Because if we look deeper we will see that this is not as good as it seems.

A neighouring county, Suceava, will get 600 million RON, even if the population of Suceava is smaller. The per capita amount shows clearly that the budget for Iasi is not as big as it seems. For Iasi the per capita amount is 790 RON. In Suceava this amount is 845 RON.

Iasi. The City of the Beginnings

The First Jewish Theatre in the World. The First School in Romanian. The First Monument. The First University. The First Sinagogue in Romania. All in Iasi. And more...