November 29, 2014 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
România Internațional, 29.11.2014, 19:42
Over 3.2 million citizens with the right to vote are expected to go to polls in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova. Moldovans will choose the 101 parliament members for a 4-year term. The elections in the former Soviet republic, with a mostly Romanian speaking population, are seen as crucial for Moldova’s path towards the EU. Members of 20 political parties and coalitions as well as 4 independent candidates are competing for an MP seats. On Friday, Romania’s president-elect Klaus Iohannis, who made his first visit to Chisinau after winning the presidential elections in Romania, said Bucharest’s main goal is to see Moldova part of the EU. Iohannis met in Chisinau with his counterpart Nicolae Timofti and with the head of Moldova’s Liberal Democratic Party, the former prime minister Vlad Filat, whom he conveyed a message of support for their country’s bid for the European Union.
As many as 2,700 military will be part of the December 1st parade in Bucharest. The event, marking Romania’s National Day, will also be attended by military from France, Poland, Turkey, the US and the Republic of Moldova. Alongside the traditional military parade, this special day will be market by a series of cultural events. On December 1st, 1918, in the city of Alba Iulia, in central Romania, the representatives of the Romanians, who formed a majority in Transylvania, Crisana, Maramures and Banat, decided the unification of these provinces, which had been under Austrian-Hungarian rule, with the Kingdom of Romania. This unification represented the completion, at the end of WW1, of the process of forming the Romanian national unitary state, by bringing under Bucharest’s authority all provinces with mostly Romanian population, who had been part of the neighboring empires. After the anti-communist revolution of 1989, December 1st became Romania’s National Day.
Larisa Iordache of Romania on Saturday won the all-around gold by two full points with a score of 59.766 at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Stuttgart, Germany. Jessica Lopez of Venezuela, won the silver medal with a 57.799 points while Germany’s Kim Bui brought home a surprise bronze with a score of 56.665 points. The next stage of the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, on December 6th.
The Bucharest Christmas Market officially opened on Saturday evening, completing the glittering atmosphere of 3 million lights especially set up for holidays in Romania’s capital city. For one month, the Bucharest Christmas Market offers visitors traditional objects, ceramics, icons, traditional costumes and masks, musical instruments and also Romanian traditional food.
On the second day of his visit to Turkey, Pope Francis stood Saturday for two minutes of silent prayer facing east, inside one of Istanbuls most important mosques, the Blue Mosque. Following in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI who visited Turkey in 2006, Francis prayed alongside the Grand Mufti of Istanbul, Rahmi Yaran. The Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi called it a beautiful moment of inter-religious dialogue”. On Friday, in Ankara, the Pontiff approached the problem of Christian persecution in Iraq and Syria and called on the Middle East and Turkey in particular to be open to dialogue and firmly oppose any form of fundamentalism and terrorism.
