11 August, 2016

Queen Anne of Romania lays in state at the Royal Palace in Bucharest, Sky News stands by its report on weapon smuggling in Romania

Newsroom, 11.08.2016, 00:00

FUNERAL – Queen Anne, consort to the last Romanian sovereign, Michael I, is laid in state in the Throne Room of the Royal Palace in Bucharest. On Wednesday, at the former summer residence of Romanian royalty, Peles Castle, in Sinaia, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Moldovan President Nicolae Timofti, and Romanian PM Dacian Ciolos were among the many officials paying their respects. The funeral is scheduled for Saturday in Curtea de Arges, where the first king of Romania, Charles I, is buried. King Michael will be unable to attend the funeral due to ill health. The queen died on August 1st aged 92 in Switzerland, after a battle with cancer.

REPORT – British TV channel Sky News stands by its report on alleged weapon smuggling in Romania. A spokesperson for the channel said that the journalist who investigated the story was one of the most experienced investigative TV reporters. He said that the material was not staged. The British broadcasting oversight authority has been notified several times with regard to the report. British journalists claim that they were pointed to an isolated area of Romania after two months of negotiations, where they met weapon smugglers, who allegedly brought in weapons from Ukraine, to be sold in western Europe and the Middle East. As a result, the Romanian organized crime main unit started an investigation. The head of the unit, Daniel Horodniceanu, said that so far the report appears to have been staged. The go-between who introduced the reporters to the alleged weapon smugglers is a Romanian national who has been living in Britain for seven years. He told investigators that the TV channel paid people to act in the documentary, and that he was told the documentary would specify that it was a work of fiction. The Romanian embassy in London emphasized that the report was not accurate, and was prone to portray Romania in a negative light in Britain.

OLYMPICS – Romanian athletes will compete in fencing, tennis, rowing and swimming in the 31st edition of the Summer Olympic Games in Rio. Romanian fencers stand a chance of winning the first medal for the country. Romania’s team is considered the favorite for the silver. An eagerly expected game is the tennis match between the Romanian pair Horia Tecau- Florin Mergea and US pair Jack Sock/ Steve Johnson. The Romanians are considered favorites for winning. Following are the mixed doubles games played by the Romanian pair Florin Mergea/Monica Niculescu and David Ferrer/Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, and Romanians Horia Tecău/Irina Begu – Lukasz Kubot/Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. In rowing, the womens coxed eight team competes in the second qualifying rounds, while the womens double sculls and the light paired oars boats fight for a medal as well. In swimming, Romania has one representative in the 50m event, In handball, having lost the two fixtures against Angola and Brazil, Romanias womens national handball teams this past Wednesday outperformed Montenegro, 25-21. If they want to make headway into the semifinals, the Romanians are in dire need of a win against Spain and at least a draw against Norway in the final round.

ANKARA – At least eight people were killed and dozens wounded in two bombings by the PKK in Turkey. The attacks targeted police cars in south eastern Turkey, the majority Kurdish area of the country. Clashes resumed last year between Turkish security forces and the PKK, after a cease fire. The worst violence in the last 20 years ensued, resulting in hundreds of casualties among security forces.

ISIS – Between 2002 and 2015, terror groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda perpetrated over 4,900 attacks worldwide, leaving over 33,000 dead, according to a study run by the University of Maryland in the US. 80% of the attacks were committed using explosives, and only 16% using firearms. The most devastating attack, according to the study, occurred in June 2014 in Iraq, when 1,600 Iraqi army recruits were abducted in Tikrit to later be killed.