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Adrian Nastase up to President Basescu

Daniel Morar, a head of the DNA (National Anti-Corruption Department), asked the Romanian President to consent to the opening of criminal inquiry against ex PM Adrian Nastase.
This is the third criminal case against Adrian Nastase that the DNA authors. According to the ex PM's lawyer, Adrian Nastase hasn't been informed so far about the DNA head's request or about the charges in the new case. The lawyer claimed the case had nothing to do with the other two that had sent the ex PM to court.
A communique issued in November 13, 2006 announced the trial against Adrian Nastase, mentioning the latter was also under more investigations because of having taken bribe. There was mentioned that the inquiry was about the way the ex PM had got to own the whole house in Muzeul Zambaccian Street, Bucharest, estimated to more than 1,5 million Euro. Social-Democrat Miron Mitrea is investigated in the same case for bribe.
It is to be reminded that two months ago the Constitutional Court decided that the norms settling the application of usual criminal procedures for crimes committed by ex ministers when they were in power was unconstitutional. The government modified the legislation yesterday, deciding that the charging and suing of ex government members for crimes committed while in power would be proceeded to in keeping with Law 115/ 1999 on governmental responsibility.

Ovidiu Banches & Adrian Galca
Ziua Miercuri 12 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Iliescu strikes back

The layers in the largest party in Romania, the only socialist group, are disturbed. If there is no earthquake coming, then significant changes are to be expected before the countdown for the local and parliamentary elections. The most spectacular evolution of events within the PSD (Social-Democrat Party) may be the deposition of Mircea Geoana, accompanied by a comeback of Ion Iliescu, even if provisory. And, although it is still in shade, we can notice the intensifying regaining of authority with Adrian Nastase as beneficiary.
Right now Mircea Geoana, who got to head the PSD spectacularly, by facing Ion Iliescu, is being blamed for everything. He is reproached that the PSD, although in the opposition, has been losing points in opinion polls instead of improving to get power again. To a party still clientele-based it would be a disaster if the alternation of ruling parties principles was done away with and the left didn't take over after four years of governing by the right. And Mircea Geoana is also blamed for the referendum against the Romanian President, although the PSD isn't guilty of it. Nevertheless, this party failed to focus on the referendum initiative decisively. Others are to be blamed for it, mainly the PNL (National Liberal Party). The Liberals didn't even try an alliance with the other parliamentary parties in order to sack Basescu for good and they neither made use of the time when the President was suspended in order to promote laws to prevent him from playing with the Constitution norms in the future.
Mircea Geoana is also paying for a PSD victory: the law raising pensions for the retired Romanians. The PSD authored the project first, but then the PNL took over. Traian Basescu's rough opposition to the pension raise had a bizarre effect, forcing the government into promoting it vehemently in order to shade the contribution of the PSD. Mircea Geoana is paying for it until the victory comes.
In case their bill against the government fails, he will pay for this too. If it still takes place, it will end up with disaster. Geoana has forgotten about the magic words any MP utters when early elections are a threat: "We are not going home". More recently, Geoana is also blamed for Basescu's chase of his political adversaries, some of them outstanding PSD personalities, by means of criminal investigations dominated by political criteria. It is in progress right now, with the vulnerable president of this party using criminal records as threat himself.
Given these, political enemies are sticking close to Mircea Geoana. There are many who want to fix him. Ion Iliescu is the first, because after the election he was humiliatingly defeated by Mircea Geoana and he nearly quitted. There are more prominent leaders of the PSD who are seeking revenge. One of them is Adrian Nastase, now about to be thrown over board. Dan Ioan Popescu, still somehow influential, was already sacked.
But who will take over, in case Geoana is done away with ? The PSD has got only two solutions available for the time being: interim leaders, Victor Ponta and Cristian Diaconescu undoubtedly among them, or Ion Iliescu's comeback.
I believe that, until things are settled to serve Adrian Nastase, the second solution is more at hand. He would be a guarantor that, Basescu's political revenge will end some day. Whether you like it or not, Iliescu strikes back.

Sorin Rosca Stanescu
Ziua Miercuri 12 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Atta's mysterious phone call

The French daily Liberation published in yesterday's edition a classified FBI report on the authors of the attacks in September 11, 2001. The document mentions the 19 hijackers' activities in the last 18 months before the attacks. According to the French journalists, the activities of Mohammed Atta, thought to be the brain behind the attacks, include extremely interesting details. A number registered in Romania was on his phone call list. Atta could have dialed it either to contact an accomplice or to get support for his terrorist action, Liberation mentions.
According to RFI Romania, the phone number used by terrorist Mohammed Atta, taken from the FBI report and mentioned by Liberation, is 04071899042, but it is not registered in Romania. RFI quoted sources who read the report said the exact number in the report was 04071899042 (the area code for Romania is 004) and it is present in several official documents, such as some belonging to the court in Virginia, US, or the National Bank of Cyprus. According to such documents, it was used by Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, a friend of Mohammed Atta. The respective number was registered in 2000 in Hamburg, Germany, and 040 is the area code for the latter city, the terrorists' operational base.
On the other hand, the figures after the respective area code have never belonged to a Romanian phone number of any kind. Sources from the National Authority for Communication and Information Technology in Romania told it the RFI.
The report does not present the outcome of investigations and it is therefore unknown to which end Atta could have dialed the number Liberation claims to be in Romania. But the terrorist used a different international number - 17 943 755 60 - , mentioned in the French daily, either to contact an accomplice or to get support for his terrorist action.
When the RFI Romanian asked about the Romanian phone number, one Liberation official mentioned the daily would publish a correction.
Ioan Talpes confirms it
On the other hand, Marius Bercaru, a spokesman for the SRI (Romanian Secret Service), said yesterday that there was no operative connection between the attacks in September 11, 2001 and the so-called phone number from Romania, included on Mohammed Atta's phone call list.
But Ioan Talpes, formerly a presidency adviser for security matters, said he could remember that in 2001 there was rumor that the leader of the hijackers had talked to a person having a Romanian phone number. Talpes added the SRI was the only institution entitled to explain what exactly had happened. (...)

Doru Dragomir
Ziua Miercuri 12 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

How to Remember 9/11

If actions speak louder than elegy, it tells you where we are that the team coverage on the eve of the 6th anniversary of 9/11 alternated between General Petraeus' performance on Capitol Hill and Britney Spears' performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Osama returned to prime time, only to be mocked for his "impotence" and apparent need for Grecian Formula. A New Jersey community that lost 100 people that day has had to delay expansion of its memorial because fundraising fell short. September 11 falls once again on a Tuesday, we are six years away from the fire, and wondering what that means.
A USA Today poll found that more than two thirds of Americans view 9/11 as the most memorable news event of their lifetime. Far from pressing it neatly between the pages of a heavy book, to be retrieved only on special occasions, the day in memory has gained in power and urgency. Nearly one third said the event changed the way they lived - which is up from 18% five years ago, as though it was possible to see the change, or at least safe to admit it without having to swat away charges that "the terrorists win" if you do anything differently.
The mass murder remains, more than ever, a collage of personal tragedies. The names are read out one at a time, people march with buttons bearing the face of the one they lost, lay a wreath at a memorial. 13 candles lit in the church that lost 13 members. People make mourning small enough to capture and coax into service: myGoodDeed.org was launched as the micromemorial, a vehicle for people to use the day to do something for someone else. So far 284,185 people have pledged a good deed, to donate blood, take clothes to the Goodwill, knit socks for soldiers, skip lunch and give the money away.
There are many people, of course, who don't need to be reminded to remember. There are the moms sending children who never met their fathers off to their first day of kindergarten. There are the first responders who are discovering that they are sick and in need of treatment, including 2000 New York City fire fighters. There are the presidential candidates who regularly patrol the sacred ground; Giuliani goes there in every speech, Edwards talked about confronting terrorism a few blocks from Ground Zero, and the entire political debate this week is wrapped around the progress of a war that magnifies memory and distorts it. The 9/11 attack united us; the response to it divides us.
The homefront remains on alert, but in a leisurely, one eye open kind of way. Police at the Pentagon scrape the air for signs of radiation or chemical attack, track the wind direction to guide escaping employees. But 9/11 Commission chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton used the anniversary to remind people that security remains a shield with holes. Most air cargo is still not screened, the high tech bomb detectors are indefinitely delayed, and Congress demands tighter standards for drivers' licenses but won't fund them. The broadcast industry has until 2009 to turn over the spectrum that rescuers need to beam signals through concrete and steel. Three years ago, Kean and Hamilton observe, their commission noted that the Department of Homeland Security reported to 88 congressional committees and subcommittees. At least that number has now been pared down - to 86.
Some people fear complacency; others fear forgetting. Others have only limited space in memory, and the day is overwritten by the events that followed, by war and hurricane and every family's private trials. But the record can't be erased, any more than a year can have 364 days, and anything can bring it back full screen, like a glance at a skyline, a siren in the distance, a prayer that comes as reflex as you walk to work and remember the day they never came home.

NANCY GIBBS Time writer
Time Marti 11 Septembrie 2007 http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20070911/us_time/howtoremember911