August 10, 2014 UPDATE
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Florentin Căpitănescu, 10.08.2014, 19:31
Romania’s embassies in West Africa do not have any information regarding the existence of Romanian citizens infected with Ebola virus, the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest on Sunday announced. According to the same sources, Bucharest’s diplomatic missions in the region have not received any requests for the repatriation of Romanian citizens. At the same time, the Foreign Affairs Ministry has give assurances that the country’s diplomatic missions are keeping in touch with the Romanian citizens who have announced their presence in the region. Representatives of Romania’s embassies in West Africa are constantly participating in working meetings together with their EU colleagues in an attempt to contain the spread of Ebola infections. Four West African countries, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria are being affected by the latest Ebola outbreak. Since the beginning of the year roughly 1000 people have been killed by the hemorrhagic fever also known as Ebola, for which there is no efficient cure.
Romanian rowers Lazar Dumitrescu and Victor Mihalachi on Sunday walked away with gold from the canoe doubles 1000-meter race of the World Kayak-Canoe Championships held in Moscow. The Romanians ended the race a boat ahead of runner-up Hungarian crew. The two Romanian rowers, who on Saturday won silver in the 500-meter race, have an impressive prize closet, which includes four gold medals, one silver and one bronze in world championships. They have also won 10 medals in European championships; three gold, three silver and four bronze.
US and British planes have dropped humanitarian aid supplies in northern Iraq, to help thousands of Yazidis who follow an ancient religion influenced by Zoroastrianism and fled their homes after the Islamic State group had issued an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay a religious fine, flee their homes or face death. Leaders of the two states have emphasized that dropping supplies is not a long term solution and that a real solution must be found in order to a void a genocide. On Saturday, the US continued their air strikes against the Jihadists, who are threatening the autonomous Kurdish region.
Leaders of the opposition National Liberal Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, are to convene in a joint session of the Christian-Liberal Alliance on Monday in order to designate their common candidate for the presidential election in November. According to the Alliance’s protocol, the candidate will be designated upon sociological surveys. The main candidates are National-Liberal leader, Klaus Iohannis, who is currently the mayor of Sibiu, a city in central Romania, and Democrat-Liberal deputy president Catalin Predoiu. Out of the two candidates Iohannis has been credited with higher chances to defeat the current Social-Democratic Prime Minister Victor Ponta in the upcoming election.
Turkey saw historic presidential election on Sunday — the first in which the head of state gets his five-year mandate through direct voting. According to partial returns published by international press agencies, the election has been won by conservative Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, far ahead his main rivals, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and Selahattin Demirtas, who is representing the Kurdish minority. Prime Minister Erdogan has strengthened his position as a favourite in the presidential race upon the landslide victory of his Justice and Development Party AKP in the municipal election in March this year in spite of the ample protests Turkey saw in May 2013. Erdogan pledged to boost the prerogatives of the president by adding more amendments to the Constitution, which could mean passing to a Presidential system from a Parliamentary system instated by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923.
Authorities in Kiev on Sunday rejected a proposal for a ceasefire accord made by a pro-Russian leader in eastern Ukraine. Kiev said it would accept such an agreement if the rebels laid down their weapons and surrendered. Ukraine’s troops are still fighting separatists in Donetsk, a stronghold of the pro-Russian rebels. More than 12 hundred people have been killed since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
