Romania Who? Romania What? Romania Where?

Reuters says Romania is a former republic of the Soviet Union; Fox News presented PM Adrian Nastase as the country’s president; a photo of President Traian Basescu cashing in money from an ATM illustrates an article on a Hungarian website about the problems the visually impaired in Hungary have in using the machines.

What is wrong with Romania’s image abroad and where is the money spent for building it going to?

Basescu’s photo illustrated on www.origo.hu an article describing the problems the visually impaired have in a market economy not adapted to their needs.

The article focused mainly on the law suit filed by a blind person against the OTP Hungarian Banking Group, on grounds that the ATM machines are not adapted to Braille, hence for the blind people use.

The adjoining picture showed Basescu in front of a BRD-Societe Generale ATM machine; the picture was taken on the occasion of launching the first new denominations of the leu in Romania.

The picture had no caption.

A picture of Romanian President Traian Basescu illustrated an article addressing the problems the visually impaired have in accessing ATM machines in Hungary; the administrators of the Hungarian news website promptly replaced it after Jurnalul National pointed them out the mistake.

Jurnalul National contacted the administrators of www.origo.hu, asking them to explain why the marriage of that article with that photo.

A few hours later editor Petho András sent an email explaining it was a mistake and that they corrected it. Indeed the new photo shows an OTP ATM, with no person standing beside it.

Petho said that most likely the Basescu photo came from the photo file of the EPA news agency.

For those willing to have a glimpse of our officials extracting the new Romanian leu in the night of its launching, official Romanian websites provide plenty of photographs.

Check www.gov.ro/prim-ministru/foto/afisaremici.php?idg=1651&templ=Templates/general.htm&lang= ,

Or www.presidency.ro/? _RID=fdet&id=1446.

The OTP Banking Group is present on the Romanian market, after buying the majority stock in the RoBank. Also, the Hungarian group is bidding in the privatization of the Savings Bank.

For its part, Reuters squarely put Romania on the map as a former Soviet Republic in its article on the recent visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Romania, stating that the new American bases would be placed in a country formerly part of the Soviet Bloc. If the English version may leave room for some interpretation, the French language version of the same Reuters article simply calls Romania a former Soviet Republic.

Fox News Television did its part of the deed, and identified then PM Nastase as the country’s President, last year in July, when he was visiting the United States.

Nastase’s program during the last day of his visit included a half-hour meeting with President George W. Bush, and then interviews with CNN and Fox News.

The latter television network announced that "President Bush met Romanian President".

One likely source for the Fox News error might be the fact that a day before, on 20 July, Nastase announced his intention to run for presidency in the fall elections.