BUCHAREST, Romania –  Dr. Catalin Cirstoveanu runs a cardio unit with state-of-the-art equipment at a Bucharest children’s hospital. But not a single child has been treated in the year-and-a-half since it opened.

The reason?

Medical staff he needs to bring in to run the machinery would have expected bribes.

So Cirstoveanu has launched a lonely crusade to save babies who come to him for care: He flies them to western Europe on budget flights so they can be treated by doctors who don’t demand kickbacks.

That’s what Cirstoveanu did last week for 13-day-old Catalin, who needed heart surgery. Cirstoveanu packed a small bag, slipped emergency breathing equipment into the baby carrier and caught a cheap flight to Italy, where doctors were waiting to perform the surgery.

The operation was successful. Two days later, though, a 3-week-old baby that Cirstoveanu whisked away to the same clinic in northwestern Italy — with tubes piercing her tiny frame — died before she was able to have lymph gland surgery.

“I was very worried it wouldn’t work,” said Cirstoveanu. “But in Romania, she would have died anyway.”

The soft-spoken Cirstoveanu is fighting an exhausting and largely solitary battle against a culture of corruption that’s so embedded in Romania that surgeons demand bribes to save infants’ lives and it’s even necessary to slip cash to a nurse to get your sheets changed.

It’s one of the reasons why the country’s infant mortality rate is more than double the European Union average, with one in 100 children not reaching their first birthday.

“To be honest, it’s so deeply rooted into our system that it’s really difficult to eliminate,” Health Minister Ladislau Ritli said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Officially, the new cardio unit that Cirstoveanu runs at the Marie Curie children’s hospital isn’t functioning because jobs have not been filled. The real reason appears to be that Cirstoveanu has banned staff from taking bribes. That means that high-tech machinery lies idle because qualified experts do not bother to apply for jobs, as they know they cannot supplement their incomes with bribes.

The zero-tolerance policy to corruption makes for a grueling work schedule for Cirstoveanu, who needs to shuttle babies abroad for surgery — and take care of them on the flight. During the two-hour flight with the girl who died, Cirstoveanu fixed tubes, sedated her and hand-pumped oxygen to keep her alive.

In the less than 24 hours Cirstoveanu had in Bucharest between returning from Catalin’s trip and departing with the little girl, he even squeezed in a shift at the Marie Curie clinic.

Patients in Romania routinely discuss the “stock market” rate for bribes. Surgeons can get hundreds of euros (dollars) and upward for an operation, while anesthetists get roughly a third of that, depending also on what a patient can afford. Nurses receive a few euros (dollars) from patients each time they administer medications or put in drips. Getting a certificate stamped to have an operation abroad can easily cost hundreds, if not thousands of euros (dollars) if you ask the wrong doctor.

While the Romanian state appears unwilling to do anything, it often ends up footing the bill.

At the Marie Curie unit, Catalin’s operation would have cost euro2,000 to euro3,000 ($2,700 to $4,000) without bribes. Romanian state health insurance is paying 10 times that for his operation in Italy — a small fortune in a country where the average monthly salary is 350 euros after tax.

Many disillusioned doctors have abandoned the country, which spends just 4 percent of its gross domestic product in health care — about half of the percentage of GDP spent by Western European countries.

Last year, some 2,800 Romanian doctors — discouraged by the antiquated and corrupt health system and low wages — left to work in western Europe, according to the Romanian College of Doctors.

“Ideally, we would have decent salaries and nobody would be tempted to accept informal payments,” said the Ritli, the health minister. “And the population would be educated so people would believe that this is not the only way to get proper health care.”

Bribes across Romania accounted for some $1 million a day in 2005, according to a World Bank report; more recent estimates are not available. The culture of bribes — or “informal payments” as they’re commonly known — is tacitly accepted.

But anger is rising. One of Marie Curie’s donors, Procter & Gamble, has several times gone back to the hospital and the Health Ministry to ask questions about when the unit will start functioning.

The tragic plight of Romanian children is nothing new.

In a misguided effort to boost Romania’s then-population of 23 million, Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu banned birth control and abortion, which led to thousands of infants being left in orphanages in harrowing conditions broadcast around the world after his execution in 1989.

Nearly a quarter-century later, the country’s shortcomings are again being seen through the gaze of children and powerless parents trapped in a web of corruption.

For those whose children die shortly after birth, grief is magnified when they do not receive a birth certificate or even see their babies alive. Angela Vasile, whose baby daughter, Cristina, only lived one day, saw her infant just once after she’d died, lying on a metal table.

She was then put in a ward of nursing mothers, adding to her anguish.

Bianca Brad, a Romanian celebrity, spoke out publicly about the pain of losing her baby at birth — calling the situation “criminal.” She founded the “EMMA Association” to help grieving parents, offering support for those who do not receive psychological counseling and remain locked in years of grief.

Yet remarkable things are happening at the Marie Curie Hospital. Cirstoveanu is personally overseeing the survival of Baby Andrei, an 8-month-old Roma baby born to underage parents. His intestines are almost nonexistent.

The tiny infant who weighs about 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) with limbs that look like gnarled twigs was given only days to live. His bright eyes, alert gaze and lively personality have endeared him to all staff who comfort him in their arms as much as they can outside of his incubator.

Andrei can only have lifesaving surgery in the United States — and a fee of hundreds of thousands of dollars is proving prohibitive. Nurses are so fond of the bright boy that they are playing the state lottery in an attempt to raise funds for his surgery.

Even in this grim setting, there are signs that doctors are mobilizing in a bid to make things better.

Anca Mandache, a child heart surgeon, left her career in France to offer her services to the Marie Curie hospital, taking a salary one tenth of what she would have earned there. Others also are expressing an interest in working at the clinic

Cirstoveanu, who also flies sick babies to Germany and Austria, says he feels “ashamed” that he has to go to the lengths he does to save children, but talks with pride of the moment he sees the joy of relieved parents whose babies survive.

They are in awe of his dedication.

“Cirstoveanu is more than a hero — he is a god for us and the children,” said Gheorghe Meliusoiu, Catalin’s 28-year-old woodcutter father. “If there were more like him, many lives would be saved.”

AP/Greek Police

March 28, 2012: A 2,500-year-old statue of a young woman that was illegally excavated and hidden in a goat-pen near Athens is seen in this police handout photo.

ATHENS, Greece –  Greek police recovered an ancient statue that was illegally excavated and hidden in a goat pen near Athens, and arrested the goat herder and another man who were allegedly trying to sell the work for $667,000.

The marble statue of a young woman dates to about 520 B.C. and belongs to the kore type, a police statement said Wednesday. Police photos showed the 4-foot work to be largely intact, lacking the left forearm and plinth.

Although dozens of examples of the kore statue and its male equivalent, the kouros, are displayed in Greek and foreign museums, the type is considered very important in the development and understanding of Greek art. New discoveries in good condition are uncommon.

Archaeologists who inspected the find estimated its market value at $16 million, a police official said.

“They told us that this is a unique piece,” the official said on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to the speak to the media since the investigation is still ongoing.

Still bearing traces of soil, the statue has the hint of a smile on its lips, elaborately braided hair and an ankle-length gown.

Police said it had been concealed in a goat pen near the village of Fyli, in the foothills of Mount Parnitha on the northwestern fringes of Athens. The 40-year-old goat herder and another Greek man aged 56 were arrested.

Detectives are seeking to determine where the statue was excavated, which could potentially lead archaeologists to a previously unknown 6th century B.C. sanctuary or cemetery.

The archaeological remains of civilizations stretching back thousands of years are spread all over Greece. By law, all antiquities are state property. But pillaging is a highly lucrative business.

The police official said the suspects arrested Tuesday had put out feelers to potential buyers in Greece, and “would have sold it for a relative pittance, euro500,000, given its market value.”

In another major success two years ago, police in southern Greece recovered a pair of twin kouros statues, and arrested two suspected looters.

Dozens of illegally exported finds have been returned to Greece over the past few years, including masterpieces from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

MONS, Belgium –  Afghan forces will soon start taking charge of security for three-quarters of the nation’s 28 million people, NATO’s top military commander said Wednesday, a milestone as the country assumes the lead for protecting the majority of its population.

Adm. James Stavridis also insisted the training of the Afghan army and police was proceeding very well, despite attacks in which Afghan soldiers have turned their weapons on their U.S. and NATO partners.

“Very shortly we will announce further transition that will encompass 75 percent of the population,” Stavridis said in an interview with The Associated Press. He did not elaborate further on the exact timing of the announcement.

NATO leaders are meeting in Chicago in May to map out a strategy to support the Afghan security forces after the withdrawal of most allied troops at the end of 2014. NATO forces have already handed over authority for about half the population, including the capital, in the first two tranches of a transition that started last year.

This is the first public prediction that after the third phase occurs Afghan security forces will be assuming the lead for protecting the majority of the population.

The war has been increasingly unpopular in both the United States and Europe, where governments are focused on cutting defense expenditures as part of wider austerity measures.

The NATO training mission has been hit hard recently by a series of attacks by members of the Afghan security forces. Last month, a gunman killed two senior U.S. military advisers involved in the training program in an attack inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the killings, saying it was in retaliation for the burning of Qurans at a U.S. bases.

Stavridis said the target of over 350,000 security forces members will be achieved this summer, several months ahead of plans.

“The strategy is sound and is providing results,” he said. “I expected good performance from the Afghan National Army (after 2014) … they are a very proud army, led by experienced combat officers.”

The process of transitioning to Afghan lead was accelerated last year.

Instead of a six-stage process, the plan was changed to now achieve the transition in five steps, with the last starting as early as mid-2013 instead of 2014 — when most NATO troops are scheduled to depart Afghanistan.

Long-term funding for the force — estimated at over $4 billion a year — and how contributions would be divided up between coalition members and other donors, remain unresolved.

“It’s important that all … ISAF nations and other nations involved in international effort contribute to Afghan security forces post 2014,” Stavridis said.

Stavridis, the first Navy admiral to serve as NATO’s supreme commander, is part of the military and political team assembled by President Barack Obama to conduct the war. The group includes Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s civilian chief.

UNITED NATIONS –  The U.N. ambassador from the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines was briefly arrested and handcuffed by a New York police officer Wednesday for alleged disorderly conduct after he walked through a barricade to get into his office building.

Ambassador Camillo Gonsalves told The Associated Press that he was returning to his office after lunch and stepped out of his official car, through a barricade in front of the building — as he has done for the past five years — when he was confronted by an officer who shouted: “What do you think the barricades are there for?”

He said he walked to the elevator and the officer ran into the building, “grabbed me by my neck and shoulders, spun me around and said, `Didn’t you see me talking to you.”‘

Gonsalves, the son of St. Vincent’s Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, said he replied: “You couldn’t have been talking to me.”

He said the officer then demanded identification. “I said, `Why? Am I under arrest?’ He said, `Well you are now.”‘

“At that point he handcuffed me, with assistance from other officers he called as a backup,” Gonsalves said.

He said other ambassadors with offices in the building — including the envoys of Gambia, Dominica and St. Lucia as well as his own staff — came into the lobby and began to tell the officer he was in the wrong. As a U.N. diplomat, Gonsalves has diplomatic immunity.

“The officer, for the first time, inquired who I was,” Gonsalves said. “I told him. He called for his superiors. The U.S. State Department, as host country, was also called and they sent representatives.”

He said, “The initial position of the NYPD was that I was disorderly, and something should be done because of my disorderly conduct.”

But Gonsalves said after discussions with him, the State Department representatives, and the other diplomats, “the NYPD were persuaded to release the handcuffs, and I’m back in my office now.”

He said he was in handcuffs for about 20 minutes.

“Separate and apart from any diplomatic immunities, I personally think the officer was wrong and committed an assault against me,” he said.

“We will be following up,” Gonsalves said. “We will seek other forms of redress, but what form it will take, I can’t say.”

There was no immediate response Wednesday to a request for comment from the NYPD.

Gonsalves said that aside from the officer who handcuffed him, the other police officers who came to the scene were “very professional and very courteous,” and he also praised the State Department officials from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations who arrived promptly and “were exemplary.”

Gonsalves explained that the building where his country’s U.N. mission has its office has extra security because Israel’s U.N. Mission is located there.

“There’s nothing novel about what I did today in terms of entering the building,” Gonsalves said. “There’s never been an incident before.”

JERUSALEM –  A stray cat got the fright of its life when it ventured onto a basketball court — and was chased away by a giant dog.

Maccabi Tel Aviv’s mascot Donny the Dog jumped into action when he spotted the confused cat in the middle of the floor during a professional game against Bnei Hasharon in Israel.

The floppy-eared mascot in the yellow uniform leapt toward the black-and-white feline, sliding across the parquet floor and narrowly missing a clean catch.

He then got up and took another lunge before chasing the crafty kitty out of the gym.

Israel’s Channel 5 sport network captured the awkward moment on Saturday, which quickly drew almost 100,000 views on YouTube.

AP

March 28, 2012: This aerial shot provided by Greenpeace shows Total’s Elgin Wellhead Platform in the North Sea off the shore of Scotland.

Total SA said Friday it is moving two rigs into place to start drilling relief wells at the site of a serious gas leak in the North Sea off the shore of Scotland, even though it currently has “no means” of monitoring the well pressure in the area, Dow Jones reported.

The move highlights the serious risks that still remain nearly a week after the leak first began.

It was only because Total was able to track the pressure levels in the G4 well, where the leak took place, that the company was able to preempt the leak and safely evacuate its staff on Sunday, narrowly avoiding a major tragedy. But now Total will be operating without this early warning system.

Total has “no means at all to monitor pressure there, the platform is unmanned,” Michel Hourcard, senior Vice President of Development for Total’s Exploration and Production division, said.

Total still doesn’t know the cause of the gas leak, but suspects tiny pores and leaks could have formed in the well’s casing due to changes in pressure and temperature, or as a result of shifts in the rocky formation the well passes through. This means that other wells could also be affected.

“Every well that goes through that layer [the zone above the reservoir thought to be the source of the leak] could be affected, but with different degrees of permeability,” David Hainsworth, a health safety and environment manager at Total, said Thursday.

Total now has no way of knowing whether the other wells are being similarly affected.

Despite the progress in mobilizing the drilling vessels, safety issues remain a serious concern and could slow efforts to stop the leak.

Hourcard said he could not put a final date on when Total might start drilling operations as a full risk assessment needs to be conducted first.

Moreover, a gas flare on the platform is still burning, threatening to ignite the gas cloud that is leaking from the facility. Until the flare is extinguished and gas stops escaping onto the platform, no personnel can board it.

RAMORE, Ontario –  Millions of dollars in Canadian coins were scattered across an Ontario highway when a security truck hit rocks and toppled over Wednesday, leaving two people with life-threatening injuries, police said. 

The Brinks vehicle struck an outcropping at about 4:00am local time near Ramore, Ontario, 395 miles northwest of the capital, Ottawa, triggering a chain of collisions involving two oncoming trucks and a minivan.

The two people in the Brinks truck were taken to nearby hospitals with “life-threatening injuries,” South Porcupine Ontario Provincial Police Constable Marc Depatie told AFP, adding that no one else was injured.

Police and Brinks staff, meanwhile, arrived at the crash site to secure the cargo, which was “strewn about the entire scene” and estimated to be worth between C$3.5 million ($3.5 million) and C$5 million, Depatie said.

“Some of the cargo, the Loonies and Toonies (one and two dollar coins), were dispersed up to and including the tree line of the highway,” he said. “It’s a rather significant debris field.”

A private contractor will use magnets to recover as much of the cargo as possible. “It will be an onerous task,” Depatie said from the crash scene.

VIENNA –  The styles of the interviewees and the venues for the interviews for this report couldn’t have been more different and might say a lot about why the two sides in the Iran nuclear crisis are not necessarily seeing eye to eye.

Yukiya Amano works in the hi-tech steel and glass headquarters of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, found in the outskirts of Vienna. The organization’s director-general sits at a massive desk in a modern stream-lined office. The career Japanese diplomat is surrounded by public relations aides and his quotes are clear and precise…and carefully worded. He’s amiable in a controlled and careful way.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA, works out of a stone and brick townhouse in the heart of old Vienna. While his desk, too, is modern, it’s in a room that could have hosted royalty. During the visit he also showed off another room containing a replica uranium enrichment centrifuge. And another in the basement that has a decidedly Iranian lounge feel. His interview style was emotional and at times spontaneous.

While you could imagine these two sitting down for talks, having them see eye to eye might be another story, and downing an Austrian beer together…maybe not.

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SOFIA, Bulgaria –  Bulgaria has abandoned plans to build a second 2,000-megawatt nuclear power plant on the Danube River with Russian firm Atomstroyexport, a top official said Wednesday.

After a government meeting, Vladislav Goranov, Bulgaria’s deputy finance minister said the nuclear power plant will not be built in the Danube town of Belene but a natural gas power plant would be built there instead. He did not elaborate.

Goranov said one of the two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors already assembled by Rosatom subsidiary Atomstroyexport and originally meant for Belene will be placed in Bulgaria’s sole nuclear power plant, Kozloduy, boosting its capacity to 3,000 megawatts.

On Thursday, Bulgaria’s newly appointed Economy and Energy Minister, Delyan Dobrev, is scheduled to travel to Moscow to talk to Russian officials about the decision.

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov’s center-right government has repeatedly pledged to lessen Bulgaria’s almost total dependence on Russian energy supplies.

Last December, Bulgaria dealt a blow to Moscow’s plans to expand its energy sales in Europe, scrapping a $1.34 billion pipeline deal to carry Russian oil to Greece due to financial reasons.

KABUL, Afghanistan –  Two hundred French troops said goodbye to the war in Afghanistan on Wednesday as part of France’s accelerated pullout from the country.

In January, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a faster-track exit for France, breaking from previous plans to go along with to the U.S.-led coalition’s plan to withdraw combat forces by the end of 2014.

Sarkozy said France would speed up its withdrawal timetable, pulling out 1,000 — 400 more than its previous target — of its current 3,600 soldiers by year-end and withdraw all combat forces by the end of 2013. His announcement came a week after four unarmed French troops were killed by an Afghan soldier in Kapisa province in eastern Afghanistan.

The French troops waiting to board their flight out of Afghanistan were not stationed in Kapisa, but in Surobi district, about 30 miles east of Kabul.

They said they were elated to leave and thought the Afghan forces they left behind were ready to go solo.

Capt. Nicolas from Battle Group Picardie said his daughter was born in June and he was in Afghanistan in September.

“I think she might be able to say a couple of words now,” said Nicolas, who was not permitted to release his last name. “I’m really happy to go home to hear her.”

A 32-year-old lieutenant named Jeremie, who also did not disclose his last name, said the security situation in Surobi had improved.

“We were under fire only once in the last four months,” he said. “It wasn’t a big attack. We came under fire from one direction.”

He said the Afghan security forces were adept at finding weapons caches and defusing bombs.
“I think I can say that they do their jobs — maybe not quite good, but good,” he said.

The NATO-led international force in Afghanistan has been steadily handing over responsibility for security to the government’s army and police ever since the alliance’s last summit in Lisbon in 2010. There, NATO leaders decided to move the Afghans into the lead role in fighting the Taliban by 2014 and end the coalition’s combat role.

However, Sarkozy, who is engaged in a tough re-election campaign ahead of the April vote, has been under political pressure to withdraw French troops even earlier. Polls show most French want an early pullout and his main challenger, Francois Hollande, has said that his hope would be to bring home all French forces this year.

Capt. Francois, deputy commander of one of the units in Surobi, said the French troops played a support role in missions led by the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.

“From what I’ve seen, they have the capacity and the ability and it seems to me that they are a professional army,” he said.

In Paris, French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said that after more French troops leave in the next few days, about 3,400 French troops will still be in Afghanistan. There are no specific plans yet for the withdrawals scheduled for 2013, he said.

France, one of the top five troop-contributing nations in the international force, has lost 92 troops since 2001.

Maj. Philippe Baille, a spokesman for the French contingent in Afghanistan, said that after 2014, French soldiers will continue training Afghan security forces and providing logistical support for the Afghan army.

In addition to pulling out troops, about 1,300 vehicles and the equivalent of 1,700 containers of materials will be repatriated by 2014, he said. For now, the equipment is being flown to Abu Dhabi and then transferred onto boats headed for France, he said.

The troops that left on Wednesday were from the 1st Infantry Regiment from Sarrebourg, the 3rd Engineer Regiment from Charleville-Mezieres and the 1st Artillery Marine Regiment from Couvron.

It was feared that France’s announcement could step up pressure on other European governments like Britain, Italy and Germany to pull out their troops faster. So far, that hasn’t happened.

Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, who visited Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, said Britain has made a long-term commitment to the Afghan people.

“We will help to finance the Afghan national security forces for many years after 2014. We have taken responsibility for running the Afghan National Army officer academy which we will build outside Kabul,” Hammond said. “We have not yet taken the decision about what if any military footprint we will retain after 2014.”

Britain has announced that it will withdraw 500 troops by the end of this year, reducing the size of its contingent in Afghanistan to 9,000.