August 12, 2016 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 12.08.2016, 12:15
Saturday was declared a day of national mourning in Romania and the neighboring Republic of Moldova to honor the memory of Queen Anne, the consort of the last king of Romania, Michael I. The funerals will take palce at the royal necropolis in Curtea de Arges (in southern Romania), after the Queen’s remains were held for two days in the Throne Hall of the Royal Palace in Bucharest, where thousands of people went to pay their final respects. Aged 94 and himself in poor health condition, King Michael I will not be able to attend his wife’s funerals. He was at her side every day at the Swiss clinic where she died of cancer on August 1. Born in Paris, in 1923, Princess Anne of Bourbon Parma met King Michael in London, in 1947. In the same year, on December 30, when the country was under Soviet occupation and was ruled by a puppet Communist government, King Michael was forced to abdicate and go into exile. The king returned to Romania after the anticommunist uprising of December 1989 and regained his Romanian citizenship, which had been withdrawn by the Communists, and part of his properties. King Michael promoted in the western chancelleries Romania’s admission into NATO in 2004 and its EU accession in 2007. His first-born daughter, Crown Princess Margareta, is the king’s successor to the throne.
A former deputy governor of the National Bank of Romania, Bogdan Olteanu, has been placed under 16-day arrest under an order issued by Romania’s Supreme Court on Friday. He was already on house arrest, in an investigation in which he is accused of influence peddling. According to the National Anti-corruption Directorate, between July and November 2008, when he was the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Olteanu, a member of the National Liberal Party, requested and received from a businessman 1 million euros and election campaign support, in exchange for an appointment as governor of the Danube Delta. Bogdan Olteanu is the first National Bank official ever detained by prosecutors. The central bank said the investigation concerns the period before Bogdan Olteanu became deputy governor in 2009.
President Klaus Iohannis has congratulated Romania’s women’s epee team for the gold medal obtained in the Rio Olympics. ‘Through their talent, their stamina and after thousands of hours of training, Simona Gherman, Ana Maria Popescu, Simona Pop and Loredana Dinu have managed to bring Romania a gold medal, making an entire country proud of their performance’ the Romanian president wrote on his Facebook page on Friday. The Romanians defeated titleholder China, 44-38. This is the first medal obtained by the Romanian delegation in Rio and the 16th ever obtained by the Romanian fencers in the Olympic Games.
The Romanian police are investigating the activity of a company that delivered sports equipment to the Romanian Olympic delegation participating in the Rio Olympics. The company is suspected of counterfeiting an equipment brand. On Friday the police searched the headquarters of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee from where they seized sports equipment, but have not heard anybody yet. According to press reports, the members of the Olympic delegation complained about the quality of equipment, namely that the colors transferred to the athletes’ skin and tears developed in the fabric after only a few days. The same press reports write that the company Pax Creative, that delivered the official equipment for Rio 2016 Olympics, was set up by the former president of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee, Octavian Morariu, who is currently a member of the International Olympic Committee and the acting secretary general, Ioan Dobrescu.
5 Romanian citizens, among whom 4 minors, have been evacuated from Syria, via Turkey, upon request, the Romanian Foreign Ministry announced in a communiqué on Friday. According to the source the 5 were repatriated by air and land with the support of the Romanian embassies in Damascus and Ankara, of the General Consulate in Istanbul and of the International Organization for Migration. The Romanian citizens reached Romania safe and sound on Thursday. The Romanian Foreign Ministry recalls that since the start of the civil war in Syria, in 2011, it has provided consular assistance and protection and has facilitated the evacuation and repatriation of 722 Romanian citizens and members of their families. (news translated by Lacramioara Simion)
