ENERGY \u2013 At present Romania has no problems with its natural gas supplies, the National Natural Gas Transport Company, Transgaz, announced on Friday. According to a news release issued by the institution, the system is balanced and operates at normal standards in spite of the extremely low temperatures reported these days. The situation is under permanent monitoring and there is no emergency in the system, Transgaz added. Romania has 1.3 billion cubic metres of natural gas stored in its six underground facilities, and the daily consumption is around 50 million cubic metres. The low temperatures of the past few days pushed the daily electricity and natural gas consumption figures to record levels.<\/p>\n
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JUDICIARY \u2013 The Mayor of the town of H\u00e2rl\u0103u (in eastern Romania), the Social-Democrat Constantin Cernescu, and the deputy Florin \u0162\u0103pu\u015f\u0103, have been taken by anti-corruption prosecutors under charges of bribe taking, abuse of office, forgery and criminal incitement. In the same case, which probes into illegal transactions with wood carried out over the past two years, the head of the local forestry office and his personal driver have also been arrested.<\/p>\n
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DIPLOMACY \u2013 The Minister delegate for the Romanian diaspora, Dan Stoenescu, is on a three-day visit to neighbouring Ukraine as of Friday. During the talks with Ukrainian officials, Stoenescu reiterated Romanias support for the EU accession efforts made by Ukraine, and Bucharests willingness to provide assistance in extending domestic reforms in the field of national minorities. The agenda also includes meetings with members of the Romanian community in Ukraine, which is nearly half a million people, mostly living in villages and towns near the common border.<\/p>\n
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BODNARIU CASE – A delegation of the Parliament of Romania is in Norway, in an attempt to contribute to the settlement of the situation of Romanian families whose children were taken over by the Norwegian social services. The Orthodox Bishop Macarie Dragoi of Northern Europe is also on a visit to Norway. He said the family is the most appropriate environment for educating children. These visits come against the backdrop of strong emotional responses in Romania after the Norwegian authorities decided to take five children, aged between 4 months and 10 years, from a Romanian-Norwegian family, on grounds that the children were subjected to physical punishments by their parents. Thousands of Romanians, both in Romania and abroad, took part in rallies to voice their solidarity with Ruth and Marius Bodnariu. <\/p>\n
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MIGRANTS \u2013 More than 40 migrants drowned off the Greek and Turkish coastlines, in two separate incidents, while trying to reach the EU. According to commentators, such tragedies are the result of a deadly combination of bad weather, overloaded boats and huge numbers of refugees from Africa and Asia, who try to cross the sea into Europe every day. According to the International Organisation for Migration, 31,000 people arrived on Greek islands since the beginning of the year, which is 21 times more than in January 2015. Last year over a million migrants and refugees crossed the Mediterranean to get into Europe, and 3.700 drowned.<\/p>\n
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