January 19, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news.
România Internațional, 19.01.2014, 13:44
Romanian President Traian Basescu is today starting a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Basescu has meetings with Israel’s President, Shimon Peres and the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. The official program will start on Monday morning in Jerusalem. The Romanian President’s agenda also includes meetings in Ramallah and Tel Aviv, with representatives of the Romanian communities. In a recent interview President Basescu has said the visit is mainly aimed at strengthening ties between Romania and Israel.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry has firmly condemned the bloody attack on Friday in Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, that killed at least 21 people among whom United Nations, IMF and EUROPOL staff. A Foreign Ministry release says that Romania is supporting Afghanistan’s continuous efforts to combat terrorism, under all its forms. The suicide attack took place in a restaurant popular with foreigners in the heart of the Afghan city Kabul. The Taliban claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, calling it a revenge for the U.S. air strike earlier this week. In another development, at least 20 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 30 were injured on Sunday when an explosion hit an army convoy in the northwestern town Bannu. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast.
The pro-European opposition in Ukraine is today staging new protests in the country’s capital city Kiev, in spite of the enforcement of a set of laws that restrict the citizens’ right to anti-governmental street protests. The new laws, passed this week by Parliament and ratified by president Viktor Yanukovici, stipulate harsher penalties for protesters and even send them to prison for up to 5 years if they block official buildings. The High EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, has deemed the measures regrettable while the American Secretary of State John Kerry called them undemocratic. The opposition in Ukraine has firmly denounced these laws as attempts to put an end to the anti-government protests that have been staged since the end of November.
The Haiti-born Canadian pugilist Jean Pascal beat on points the Romanian-Canadian boxer Lucian Bute, in one of the biggest all-Canadian fights ever staged in Montreal. The non-title light-heavyweight fight lasted12 rounds, at the end of which Bute lost his NABF title. For Bute, who scored 31 victories in 32 matches in the professional category, this is the second defeat in his career, after the one in May 2012 when he lost the IBF super middleweight title to British Carl Froch.
