August 9, 2015 UPDATE
A roundup of Romanian and world news
Newsroom, 09.08.2015, 19:27
Three counties in western Romania are under a code orange alert for extreme heat until Wednesday, with temperatures expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius. A code yellow alert will be valid in another eight counties and will gradually extend to cover the entire country, while drought will continue to be reported next week as well, according to weather forecasts. Farming areas in most of the country are affected by the lack of rainfalls. Navigation on the Danube is hindered, although not completely stuck. In the Danube Delta, a UNESCO world heritage site, access by boat on several tens of canals is impossible because of the low water level.
Representatives of the Romanian communities in the diaspora, MPs from Romania and the neighbouring Republic of Moldova, as well as professors from the countrys main universities are attending, as of Monday, a new edition of the Summer University in Izvoru Mureşului. The Romanian Cultural Institute, through the Directorate for Romanians Abroad, supports the participation in this one-week event of 80 leaders of Romanian associations, major personalities of the diaspora. This years theme is “Romania and the Romanians on the EU and NATO borders. The topics include the rights of the Romanian minorities in the border regions and in the Balkans, as well as the stronger ties between Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The President of Romania Klaus Iohannis, PM Victor Ponta and cabinet members are among the guests of the event.
Romanian police are considering several possible causes of Saturday nights incident on the A2 Motorway connecting Bucharest to Constanta, involving a coach carrying 53 Ukrainian citizens. Two people died and 48 were injured. One of the assumptions is that the Bulgarian driver fell asleep while driving. The passengers included a group of children returning from summer camp, two families and other people coming back from a holiday in Bulgaria. The State Secretary with the Romanian Interior Ministry Raed Arafat said the victims were taken to hospitals in Bucharest.
Bulgarias security services have started the search of two foreign citizens, a man and a woman, who have allegedly joined the Islamic State group, the Bulgarian public television announced, quoting the site SofiaGlobe.com. According to the source, the man produced a Romanian identity document, while the woman is an Iranian-born French citizen. The Radio Romania correspondent in Sofia says the authorities strengthened security in public areas and raised the alert levels in major transit areas—airports, train and bus stations in the capital and other important cities in the country. In Bucharest, the Foreign Ministry subsequently announced that, for security reasons, the Bulgarian authorities temporarily introduced additional border checks.
Japan commemorated on Sunday 70 years since the launch, during World War II, of the atomic bomb over the city of Nagasaki, in the west, which killed some 74,000 people. The blast came 3 days after the one in Hiroshima, in which 140,000 people died. The two strikes forced Japan to surrender and ended the war in the Pacific, three months after the conclusion of the one in Europe. The supporters of the decision say that this way an American land invasion was avoided, which would have left millions of people dead. In December 1967, Tokyo undertook to never produce, possess or allow nuclear weapons on Japanese territory.
