Romania

I have a small group of Romanian friends who are different and more delicate than my other friends. We live and work outside Romania and part of what draws us together is our love for our birthplace.One of these people, a gentle religious scholar named Ioan P. Colianou, was murdered last week in Chicago. It was a brutal and mysterious murder. He was found in a locked bathroom stall at the Divinity School of Chicago, shot in the head. No money or valuables were taken. Someone had shot him over the top of the next stall.

The image of naked Romanian orphans crowded together in cages, splashing in puddles of urine while jaded caretakers poured gruel down their throats just would not leave Kristie Wian's mind.Wian, who raises two children in a quiet West Severna Park waterfront community, said she couldn't sleep for two days after watching a "20/20" broadcast depicting the prison-camp conditions in Romanian state-run orphanages. The camps were home for the "unsalvageable" -- children abandoned by their parents and deemed worthless by the government because of some disability or psychological disorder.

CONSTANTA, Romania - Kurt Sanger is only a captain, and so he will leave to higher-ups the question of whether Romania would make a good ally, as the United States sets about a historic reordering of its military alliances from its old friends in Western Europe to new ones in the east. He does, however, have some thoughts about Romania as a place where American soldiers like him, perhaps soon, might find a new home. "Paradise isn't too strong a word," said Sanger, 31, a U.S. Marine reservist.

WHAT WAS THE WORST thing that has happened to Eastern Europe? Communism. Who fought the Communists more fiercely than anyone else? The Nazis. When was Eastern Europe subjugated? When the Nazis lost. So where does that leave the Jews? On the inconvenient side of history -- history, that is, as too many Eastern Europeans would have it. Countries such as Latvia, Croatia and now Romania have struggled with the idea that not all anti-Communists were national heroes. They were trapped for 40 years in a fog of Soviet-style myth and propaganda after World War II, and now, at times, they're having trouble regaining a clear vision.

Sheilah Kast lived in Romania for a few years while her husband, Jim Rosapepe, served as U.S. ambassador there. He's now a state senator and the couple live in College Park, which seems a long way from the Balkans. But Kast finds the town just as interesting. "Some folks are oriented toward the university, but there's a nice range of people. And it's not snooty, and it's diverse and low key." Kast, 58, the host of WYPR's Maryland Morning, has also done television, but likes radio better.

Murray PhillipsFolk singerEMERSON, N.J. -- Murray Phillips, 83, a folk singer and songwriter, died of leukemia Saturday at his home here.He was best known for his renderings of authentic American ballads from the Revolutionary War era to the early 1900s.He appeared at the Blue Note and other clubs and halls in the New York metropolitan area, and he performed on television. He recorded four albums of children's songs on the RCA label.Born in New York City, he received a bachelor's degree from City College and a master's from Columbia University.

MOSCOW -- President Mircea Snegur of Moldova imposed a state of emergency on the former Soviet republic yesterday, ordering his forces to take the offensive against Russian and Ukrainian separatists but acknowledging that it may bring civil war to his country.Mr. Snegur, declaring that all efforts at a political settlement had failed in the escalating, two-year conflict, told his nation, "As God as my witness, I never wanted bloodshed, (but) the hour has come when we can no longer delay putting our own house in order in the way that we consider proper."

Channel 13 has decided not to pre-empt the first half-hour of the U.S.-Romania World Cup telecast tomorrow, WJZ programming director Michael Easterling said yesterday.Originally, Channel 13 was going to show a 30-minute infomercial at 4 p.m., when ABC's coverage of the 4:05 game begins. Now, WJZ will pick up the telecast at 4.Easterling said the switch was in response to calls to the station about the delay, reported yesterday in The Sun, and to the strong ratings performance for the American team's opener last Saturday.

NICOLAE PLESITA, 80 Sheltered Carlos the Jackal Gen. Nicolae Plesita, a die-hard Communist and chief of the Securitate secret police who arranged shelter in Romania for terrorist Carlos the Jackal and was tried for the bombing of Radio Free Europe, died Monday in Bucharest in a Romanian Intelligence Service hospital, where he was being treated for illnesses including diabetes, the Agerpres and Mediafax news agencies reported, citing family members....

Cardinal Guido del Mestri,82, a member of the Roman Curia, died yesterday in a clinic in Nuremberg, Germany. He was a Vatican diplomat who became an archbishop in 1961. He served as papal nuncio to West Germany from 1975 to 1984, before Pope John Paul II named him to the College of Cardinals in 1991. In 1990, he journeyed to Bucharest, Romania, and took part in the renewal of the Catholic Church there after the fall of communism. Earlier he was a diplomat in Romania under Communist rule.He was born in Banja Luka in Bosnia-Herzegovina, studied at a Jesuit college and at the Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained in Rome in 1936.