August 8, 2014, UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 08.08.2014, 19:59
The European Commissioner for Agriculture, Romanian Dacian Ciolos, has stated that European agriculture is a sector flexible enough to rapidly reorient itself towards new markets and opportunities. He made the statement following Russia’s decision to ban the imports of agricultural foodstuff from the EU. In turn, Brussels has announced it takes the liberty of imposing fresh sanctions on Russia. Next Thursday, experts in EU agriculture will gather in Brussels to hold talks on this issue. The US Treasure’s Under Secretary , David Cohen has stated that Russia’s embargo on Russian foodstuff will have an insignificant impact on the US economy. Moscow has decreed full ban on most products coming from the EU, the US, Australia, Canada and Norway. The Russian Prime Minister, Dmitri Medvedev, has stated that the measure was taken in response to western countries’ sanctions against Moscow.
The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday brought back to Romania a group of 50 Romanian citizen, mostly children, following the deterioration of the security situation in Gaza. The Romanian Foreign Ministry has also supported the evacuation of 8 Hungarian citizen and 5 citizen of the Republic of Moldova. This is the third such operation since the conflict broke out in the region. So far, 153 Romanians have been brought back to Romania from the Gaza Strip, together with family members.
Under a final and irrevocable ruling, the Bucharest Court of Appeal on Friday sentenced business man Dan Voiculescu, founder of the Conservative Party, to 10 years in prison, for influence peddling and money laundering. The case concerns the fraudulent privatization of a food research institute in Bucharest. Attractive due to its real estate properties placed in a privileged residential area, the institute was put up for privatization and bought by the holding owned by Dan Voiculescu. The institute’s assets were under- evaluated, causing a prejudice of over 60 million Euros. Last year, the Bucharest Tribunal sentenced Voiculescu to 5 years in prison. All through the 6 years of trial, Dan Voiculescu claimed the reason behind the case was political revenge. Also sentenced to prison in the same case were another 12 people, among whom former Minister of Communications Sorin Pantis, and Gheorghe Mencinicopschi, General Director of the Food Research Institute in Bucharest. They will stay 7 and 8 years in prison respectively. The court also decided the seizing of 29 thousand square meters of land belong to the institute, the building hosting Antena 3, one of the TV stations part of the media holding owned by Dan Voiculescu as well as other assets owned by the family.
The US Federal Aviation Administration announced that it was banning all US airlines from flying in the airspace above Iraq, due to the potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict in the area. The announcement was made a few hours after US fighter planes bombed targets of the Iraqi Islamic State, which were threatening the US personnel in Erbil, in the Iraqi Kurdistan. Previously, the US President Barack Obama had stated that he had authorized humanitarian drops of food and water in Iraq, as well as targeted air strikes against Jihadists, in order to avoid a genocide. In the north of Iraq, thousands of Christians and members of a Kurdish community about whom the Jihadists say serve the devil, have been forced to find refuge in a mountain desert area. Gathered in an emergency meeting in New York, the UN Security Council voiced support for the Baghdad authorities in their fight against the Islamists and called on the international community to support and help the Iraqi government and people. In Rome, Pope Francis too launched an appeal to protect people in northern Iraq forced to take the path of exodus.
The World Health Organization on Friday declared the Ebola epidemics a public health emergency of international concern. The emergency commission of the organization believes that for the virus to be stopped from spreading an international coordinated action is necessary. The EU has allocated another 8 million Euros to help stop the spreading of the epidemics in West Africa, raising its total contribution so far to 12 million. The epidemics has hit four countries on the African continent: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast. Over one thousand 7 hundred people have been affected, of which some one thousand have died. The US authorities have raised the alert level to maximum. According to the representative of the WHO in Bucharest, Victor Olsavszky, the risk of infection in Romania is minimum.
