1.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Romania)
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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania is one of the fifteen ministries of the Government of Romania. The current Foreign Minister is Lazăr Comănescu, Romania used the Julian calendar until 1919, but all dates are given in the Gregorian calendar. The following party abbreviations are used, Additionally, the stance of prime ministers prior to the development of a modern party system is given by C, MC, RL. Interim officeholders are denoted by italics, for those who held office multiple times, their rank of service is given by a Roman numeral
2.
Victor Ponta
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Victor-Viorel Ponta is a Romanian jurist and politician, who served as Prime Minister of Romania between his appointment by President Traian Băsescu in May 2012 and his resignation in November 2015. A member of the Social Democratic Party and its leader from 2010 to 2015, he was joint leader of the then-governing Social Liberal Union. Ponta has been a member of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for Gorj County since 2004, in the Emil Boc cabinet, he was Minister-Delegate for Relations with Parliament from 2008 to 2009. Meanwhile, Ponta was the subject of controversy due to allegations of plagiarism in his doctoral thesis, seven months after gaining office, Ponta helped lead the USL to a decisive victory in parliamentary elections, prompting his appointment to a full four-year term as premier. A little over a year later, the USL fell apart, a finalist in the November 2014 presidential election, Ponta lost to PNL candidate Klaus Iohannis. The following month, the UDMR quit government, prompting Ponta to form a cabinet, with the Conservative Party. The cabinet was in office for less than a year. Meanwhile, he has also claimed ancestry in the Albanian village of Moscopole, Victor Ponta was born in Bucharest, completing secondary studies in 1991 at the citys Ion Neculce High School. In 1995, he graduated from the University of Bucharests Law faculty and he has written several books in his field, including one on the International Criminal Court, the subject of his doctoral thesis. Between 1996 and 1998, and since 2002, he has taught Criminal Law at the Romanian-American University, from 1995 to 1998, Ponta worked as a prosecutor handling cases at the Sector 1 courthouse. From 1998 to 2001, he was a prosecutor at the Supreme Court of Justice in the division, in particular dealing with economic. From 2000 to 2001, he coordinated the Bureau for Combating Money Laundering, in April 2002, Cristian Panait, a prosecutor involved in cases connected to then-Prime Minister Adrian Năstase, fell from the third-floor window of his home. He died the day, and the incident was ruled a suicide a day later. The following January, his aunt filed suit to contest the fact that no charges were filed, the complained also mentioned Panaits fellow prosecutor Ponta, claiming the former had told her, that dog Victor Ponta did me in. She also said the two had been friends until Panait accused Ponta of influence peddling due to what he saw as the involvement with underworld figures. Prior to the 2012 legislative election, opposition campaigner Adriean Videanu charged that Pontas blackmail, from 2001 to 2004, Ponta held the rank of Secretary of State as head of the governments Control Department. Additionally, he helped uncover cases of fraudulent use of Phare funds, in March 2004, he became Minister-Delegate for Control of International Grant Programmes Implementation and for Monitoring the Application of the Acquis Communautaire. A PSD member by 2002, he was from July to November of that year head of the Interim National Council of the Social Democratic Youth
3.
Medgidia
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Medgidia is a city in Constanța County, Dobruja, south-eastern Romania. Archaeological findings show that Dobruja was inhabited since the Neolithic period, starting with 46 BC the region was administered by the Roman Empire. A castrum was built in the Carasu Valley, becoming the cradle of the settlement, in 1417, the Turks invaded Dobruja. From the 15th century onwards the region started to be colonized with Muslim population, the settlement named Karasu was mentioned on the map of Iehuda ben Zara in 1497, in the notes of Paolo Giorgio and Evliya Çelebi. Modern Medgidia was built by the Ottoman administration on the place of the old Karasu beginning with 1856 and it was built as a planned city to accommodate refugees from the Crimean War and to serve as an economic hub for the central zone of Dobruja. The town was named in honour of the sultan Abdülmecid I, after the Russo-Turkish War, Northern Dobruja became part of Romania. Medgidia is located between the Danube and the Black Sea, just 39 kilometres away from Constanța, the general aspect of the relief is that of a low plateau with a limestone structure, covered with thick deposits of loess. The natural resources in the area consist of deposits and kaolin sand. The limestone structure of the earth permits a natural filtering of the groundwater, the climate is temperate-continental, with short and cold winters and very hot summers. Medgidia became a municipality in 1994, Medgidia also houses a 500-bed hospital. Out of 1,200 registered enterprises, only 30 are state-owned and 15 are joint ventures, beside the agricultural activities, the main industry deals in cement and building materials, agricultural machinery and forging equipment, wood processing and furniture factories. Medgidia lies in the center of an area of several tens of millions hectares, with a fertile soil. The town is a road and rail node and a port to the Danube-Black Sea Canal. The Danube-Black Sea Canal crosses the town for about 6 km of its length, the canal has a capacity of 11.2 million tons/year and can admit ships of 5,000 tonnes deadweight. Provided with road and rail links, the harbor offers storage facilities and cranes able to lift up to 16-ton weights, beside a SNCFR marshaling yard, along the Canal there is a Free Trade Area in course of being finalized. A planned highway from Bucharest to Constanţa, partially financed by the EU, will bypass the town, also, the Medgidia railway station links trains to a few, but very important towns and cities, including Constanţa, Tulcea, and Bucureşti Nord. It was opened in 1964 with exhibitions of Romanian contemporary painting, sculpture, the permanent exhibition takes in classic and modern artworks but also works of contemporary art classics, Lucian Grigorescu, Nicolae Tonitza, Francisc Șirato, Ștefan Dumitrescu, Iosif Iser. The museum also displays a collection of ceramic artworks, in 1991 the museum was named after Lucian Grigorescu, a town native, who was deemed as the most Latin among the Romanian painters
4.
Socialist Republic of Romania
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The Socialist Republic of Romania refers to Romania under Marxist-Leninist one-party Communist rule that existed officially from 1947 to 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian Peoples Republic, the country was a Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc state with a dominant role for the Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its constitutions. As World War II ended, Romania, a former Axis member, was occupied by the Soviet Union, gradually, more members of the Communist Party and communist-aligned parties gained control of the administration and pre-war political leaders were steadily eliminated from political life. In December 1947, King Michael was induced to abdicate and the Peoples Republic of Romania was declared, at first, Romanias scarce post-war resources were drained by the SovRoms, new tax-exempt Soviet-Romanian companies that allowed the Soviet Union to control Romanias major sources of income. Another drain was the war reparations paid to the Soviet Union, in the 1950s, however, Romanias communist government began to assert more independence, inducing, for example, the withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Romania by 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s, Nicolae Ceaușescu became General Secretary of the Communist Party, Chairman of the State Council, Ceaușescus denunciation of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and a brief relaxation in internal repression helped give him a positive image both at home and in the West. However, rapid growth fueled by foreign credits gradually gave way to an austerity. A large number of people were executed or died in custody during communist Romanias existence, while judicial executions between 1945 and 1964 numbered 137, deaths in custody are estimated in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Many more were imprisoned for political, economical or other reasons and suffered abuse, geographically, it bordered the Black Sea to the east, the Soviet Union to the north and east, Hungary to the north, Yugoslavia to the west and Bulgaria to the south. Romanian forces fought under Soviet command, driving through Northern Transylvania into Hungary proper and this changed in March 1945, when Dr. Petru Groza of the Ploughmens Front, a party closely associated with the Communists, became prime minister. His government was broad-based on paper, including members of most major parties except the Iron Guard. However, the Communists held the key ministries, and most of the ministers nominally representing non-Communist parties were, like Groza himself, despite the Kings disapproval, the first Groza government brought land reform and womens suffrage. However, it brought the beginnings of Soviet domination of Romania. In the elections of 19 November 1946, the Communist-led Bloc of Democratic Parties claimed 84% of the votes, a show trial of their leadership was then arranged, and they were put in jail. Other parties were forced to merge with the Communists, in 1946 and 1947, hundreds of participants in the pro-Axis government were executed as war criminals, primarily for their involvement in the Holocaust and for attacking the Soviet Union. Antonescu himself was executed 1 June 1946, by 1947, Romania remained the only monarchy in the Eastern Bloc. On 30 December that year, Michael was at his palace in Sinaia when Groza and they presented him with a pretyped instrument of abdication and demanded that he sign it. With pro-Communist troops surrounding his palace and his lines cut
5.
Social Democratic Party (Romania)
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The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. PSD traces its origins to the Democratic National Salvation Front, a group established in 1992 from the post-communist National Salvation Front. In 1993 this merged with three parties to become the Party of Social Democracy in Romania. The present name was adopted after a merger with the smaller Romanian Social Democratic Party in 2001, since its formation, it has always been one of the two dominant parties of the country. The PDSR governed Romania from 1992 to 1996, while the PSDR was a coalition partner between 1996 and 2000. The party left government after Prime Minister Victor Ponta resigned in November 2015, the founder of the party, Ion Iliescu, became President of the Republic, in office from the end of Communism in 1989 to 1996, and again from 2000 to 2004. On 22 April 2016, Liviu Dragnea was found guilty for vote rigging in the 2012 referendum, dragneas electoral rights and party membership were not suspended, thus he refused to step down as President of the PSD, having the support of almost the entire party. FDSN won the 1992 elections and went on to govern Romania until 1996, on 10 July 1993 it took the name of Party of Social Democracy in Romania upon merger with the Socialist Democratic Party of Romania, the Republican Party and the Cooperative Party. From 1994 to 1996 the PDSR ruled in coalition with the right-wing Romanian National Unity Party and Greater Romania Party, PUNR had ministers in the cabinet chaired by Nicolae Văcăroiu from March 1994 to September 1996. PRM was not present at the Cabinet, but was given some posts in the State administration, the PDSR went into opposition after the 1996 election, which was won by the right-wing coalition Romanian Democratic Convention. PSDR merged with PDSR on 16 June 2001, and the party took its present name. Mircea Geoană was elected president of the party in April 2005 by delegates at a PSD Party Congress held in Bucharest and his victory represented a surprise defeat for former President Ion Iliescu, who was expected to defeat Geoană handily. On 17 April 2008, the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party announced they would form an alliance for the 2008 local elections. In February 2010, the Congress elected Victor Ponta as president, on 5 February 2011, the PSD formed a political alliance known as the Social Liberal Union with the Conservative Party and National Liberal Party. The USL was disbanded on 25 February 2014 with exit of the National Liberal Party which immediately entered opposition, a number of its current or former senior members have also been accused of corruption, interfering in the judiciary and using their political positions for personal enrichment. Alleged text transcripts of PSD meetings surfaced on an anonymous Web site just before the 2004 Romanian presidential election, Năstase and his ministers are shown talking about political involvement in corruption trials of the governments members, or involvement in suppressing disobedient media. Năstase stated that the transcripts were fake, but several party members, including former PSD president, adrian Năstase temporarily self-suspended himself from the position on 16 January 2006 pending investigation of a scandal provoked by his wealth declaration, where he was accused of corruption. Politicians of the party have occasionally employed utilitarian anti-Semitism and this means that politicians who may usually not be anti-Semites played off certain anti-Semitic prejudices, in order to serve their political necessities
6.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
