August 21, 2017 UPDATE

French President Emmanuel Macron will pay a visit to Bucharest at the invitation of President Klaus Iohannis/ Romania is a transit rather than a destination country for migrants/ The alleged perpetrator of the Barcelona attack has been shot dead

România Internațional, 21.08.2017, 18:28

VISIT – French President, Emmanuel Macron, on Thursday will pay a formal visit to Romania, at the invitation of his Romanian counterpart, Klaus Iohannis. The visit was agreed upon during the bilateral talks the two officials had on the sidelines of the European Councils June session, in Brussels. On that occasion, President Iohannis voiced Romanias determination to remain Frances staunch partner and to support, together with France, the re-launch of the European project. The talks between the two leaders will lay emphasis on ways to develop and deepen the bilateral relation under the strategic partnership and also on focal points of interest on the international and European agenda and on security issues. At economic level, talks will aim at boosting two-way trade exchanges, also by diversifying the fields of cooperation. Given the tradition and cultural affinities between the two states, the talks in Bucharest will also focus on cooperation during the 2018 – 2019 Romania-France Cultural Season.

MIGRANTS – Romania is a transit rather than a destination country for migrants, facing a relatively small number of refugees, migrant pressure being moreover exerted on Central and Northern Europe, Romanian foreign minister Teodor Melescanu said in Bucharest on Monday. He said Romania didnt accept the idea of a mandatory refugee quota to relocate migrants, but it will comply with its duties entailed by its status of EU member state. Melescanu made this statement against the backdrop of a recent surge in illegal border crossing attempts in Romania by migrant groups. Romanian Coast Guard policemen on Sunday night intercepted, in the Black Sea, a small boat with some 70 illegal migrants on board, among whom 23 children. They were Iraqi and Syrian nationals. On August 13, another boat under Turkish flag with 69 illegal migrants of Iraqi nationality on board was intercepted by the Coast Guard in Romanias territorial waters, and two human traffickers, a Bulgarian and a Cypriot nationals, were taken into custody by the line authorities. On Monday, Romanian border policemen on duty at Nadlac II, in the west, found 42 people from Iraq, Syria and the Comoro Islands hiding in a truck driven by a Turkish national, with the intention of illegally leaving Romania to reach a Schengen country. Another group made up of 24 Syrian and Iraqi migrants who intended to illegally cross Romanias national border, guided by a Romanian citizen, were stopped on Sunday night by border police officers at the Nadlac border crossing point.

ATTACKS– The Catalan police has
confirmed that the alleged perpetrator of the Barcelona attack, Moroccan Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, was shot dead in Subirats, west of Barcelona, on
Monday. He has been identified as the driver of the van
who ploughed through Barcelona’s Las Ramblas
crowd, killing 13 people. Also on Monday the regional interior minister,
Joaquim Forn, announced that death
toll taken by the two attacks carried out last week in the Spanish region of
Catalonia, in Barcelona and Cambrils, and claimed by the Islamic State,
rose to 15. The last victim is a man stabbed to death, found in a car which
tried to drive past a police road block just hours after the Barcelona attack.
The policemen haven’t linked the incident to the attacks in Catalonia so far. The
perpetrators of the two attacks were members of a Jihadist cell comprising 12
people. On Monday, Romanian political leaders signed the book of condolences
opened by the Spanish Embassy in Bucharest, in respect and remembrance of the
victims of the recent attacks.

TENNIS – Romanias best ranking tennis player Simona Halep was trounced by Spanish challenger Garbine Muguruza 6-1, 6-0 in the finals of the WTA tournament in Cincinnati with over two million and a half dollars in prize money. Halep, the worlds second best tennis player has for the third time missed the chance of becoming WTA number one. We recall the Romanian player lost the Roland Garros finals to Jelena Ostapenko and the quarters in Wimbledon to Johanna Konta. Simona also lost the finals in Cincinnati to Serena Williams in 2015 and was stopped in her tracks last year in the semis by Angelique Kerber.