The former president of Romania, Traian
\nBasescu, may be prosecuted in a case involving the kidnapping of three Romanian
\njournalists in Iraq in 2005, a Bucharest court decided on Friday, citing abuse
\nof office and conflict of interests among the charges. Back in 2009, the then
\nleader of the Greater Romania Party, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, filed a complaint with the General
\nProsecutor’s Office, accusing Traian B\u0103sescu and his former Interior Minister,
\nthe current co-president of the National Liberal Party, Vasile Blaga, of having
\nappropriated 4 million US dollars from the amount paid by the Romanian state as
\nransom for the three journalists. The probe into Vasile
\nBlaga was closed in 2010, and prosecution was ruled out. Traian Basescu finds
\nthe accusations ridiculous and views the case as an offence to Romania. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The
\nRomanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said on Friday, at the 4th Forum of
\nthe EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), held in Ulm, Germany, that the next step to be made, after the setting up of the EUSDR
\nmechanisms, is to start implement the strategy. The Romanian Foreign Minister
\ndrew attention to the fact that, through its macro-regional approach, the EUSDR
\nis an important tool for identifying viable solutions. This year, the Forum of the EU
\nStrategy for the Danube Region gathered over 1,100 participants, from
\nthe 14 countries that support the strategy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
On
\nFriday, Nicolae Timofti, the President of the Republic of Moldova, the former
\nSoviet country with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population, designated
\nthe Liberal Deputy Prime Minister Gheorghe Brega as interim Prime Minister, following the dismissal on
\nThursday of the government headed by the Liberal – Democrat Valeriu Strelet.
\nAccording to Radio Chisinau, Brega has stated that the priority for Moldova is
\nthe formation of a pro-European government. The EU has announced it is closely
\nmonitoring the political situation in the Republic of Moldova. In a statement
\nissued by the press office of the High
\nRepresentative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security
\nPolicy, Federica Mogherini, Brussels
\ncalls on Chisinau to form a new and stable government as soon as possible. The
\nnew government will have to fight against corruption, solve the crisis facing
\nthe banking sector and to negotiate a fresh agreement with the IMF, which is
\ncrucial for guaranteeing the country’s macroeconomic stability, the communiqu\u00e9
\nalso reads.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The foreign powers that support rival parties in the Syrian war announced in Vienna on Friday, after the first negotiations on the conflict in that country, that talks would be resumed in two weeks’ time. It was for the first time that Iran took part in such talks. Washington, Paris and their Western and Arab allies want a clear schedule for president Bashar al-Assad’s leaving power, while Russia and Iran insist that there should be a political transition in Syria, with Assad playing a part in that. Also on Friday, the US announced it would deploy a 50 – strong special contingent to northern Syria, to participate on the ground in the effort to combat the Islamic State. The war, which has been going on for four years, started out as a rebellion against president Bashar al-Assad and has so far killed over 250,000 people.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Bucharest
\nTribunal on Friday endorsed the request made by the National Anti-corruption
\nDirectorate for Gheorghe Nichita, the suspended mayor of Iasi, in north-eastern
\nRomania, to be placed under police custody, pending trial, for 30 days. Nichita
\nis accused of bribe-taking. In the same case, the court ruled that the
\nbusinessman Tiberiu Urdareanu be put under house arrest. They are being
\ninvestigated by anti-corruption prosecutors in a case regarding the awarding of
\na contract worth 15 million Euro from community funds. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Romania
\nmight reach an absorption rate of over 90% by the end of the 2007-2014 National
\nRural Development Programme, which means that more than 9 billion euros from
\nnational and European funds will have been attracted into the sector, said
\nGeorge Turtoi, secretary of state with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
\nDevelopment. This programme is the instrument under which non-reimbursable
\nfunds are allotted for private and public investments that ensure the
\ndevelopment of villages in Romania. The total funds earmarked under this
\nprogramme were 9.67 billion euro, which should have been contracted by the end
\nof 2013, but can still be paid until the end of 2015, Agerpres reports. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Nine
\ncentral and eastern-European countries will take part in Bucharest on November 4
\nin a high-level meeting, attended by the NATO Deputy Secretary General,
\nAlexander Vershbow. He has recently said that there are risks when Russia gets
\ninvolved in operations close to NATO territory. The President of Romania, Klaus
\nIohannis, who will be hosting the summit, has announced that the participants will
\nissue a joint statement regarding the adjustment of NATO to the current
\nsecurity context.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Romania ranks 2nd
\nin Central and Eastern Europe, after Poland, in terms of the performance of the
\ncompanies operating in the field of technology. The classification, made by the
\nDeloitte consulting and financial audit company, is based on the increase in
\nrevenues generated over a period of four years. Romania has 10 companies in
\nthis classification, with an average growth of over 500%. Most of them produce
\nsoftware programs and the best one, ranking 6th in the
\nclassification, provides online-payment services. This year the classification
\nincludes 50 companies from nine countries: Poland, Romania, Croatia, the Czech
\nRepublic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Serbia.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A roundup of domestic and international news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":100004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-100556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n