4 August, 2019

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 04.08.2019, 14:02

Caracal. Investigators returned on Sunday at the home of Gheorghe Dincă
from Caracal, in southern Romania, the man who said, after being detained more
than a week ago, that he killed two teenagers, 15-year-old Alexandra Măceşanu and
18-year-old Luiza Melencu. New biological samples were collected on Saturday
from the suspect’s courtyard and home. Investigations focus now on placing
Luiza Melencu, the girl who went missing in April, at Dincă’s home. He says he
dumped her body in the Danube. The Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime
and Terrorism (DIICOT), which is conducting the inquiry, said ash collected
from Dincă’s home also showed traces of Alexandra Măceşanu’s DNA, the girl who
went missing on the 24th of July. On the following day, she managed
to call the emergency hotline, but the authorities were slow to react and
intervened when it was too late. The series of unacceptable mistakes made in
this case have already led to resignations and dismissals.

INF. The foreign
ministry in Bucharest has posted a message on its official Twitter page saying
Romania stands together with the United States and its NATO allies on the INF
nuclear treaty, which has ceased to exist. Russia and the US announced on
Friday the cessation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned missiles with
ranges between 500 and 5,500 km. Washington said it would withdraw from the
treaty back in February. Moscow reacted on the same day, saying it too would
pull out. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has accused Russia of being in
material breach of the treaty, with Moscow repeatedly rejecting the accusation.
The INF pact, which was signed by the US and the former USSR in 1987, banned ground-launched
missiles with short and medium ranges.

Shootings. Ten persons, including the attacker, were killed in a
shooting at a bar in Dayton, in the US state of Ohio, and at least 16 people are
in hospital with injuries, the local police have announced. This incident came
hours after 20 people were killed and 26 wounded in an armed attack at a shopping
centre in El Paso, in Texas. At the end of last week, another attack took place
at a gastronomic event in Gilroy, California, in which four people were killed.

Tourism. More than five million tourists were reported in Romania in the
first six months of the year, less than last year, according to the National
Institute for Statistics. The majority were Romanian, with foreign visitors
accounting for under 21%. Among foreign tourists, most of them came from
Europe, 85% of whom from the EU. 115,000 tourists came from Germany, and around
92,000 from Italy and Israel each. The visitors used mostly road and air
travel.

Festival. Untold, the electronic
music festival hosted by the city of Cluj-Napoca, in north-western Romania,
comes to an end today with a one and a half hour act from the British singer
Robbie Williams. The line-up of the final day also features David Guetta and Martin Garrix on the main stage and the Romanian acts
Paraziţii and Macanache on one of the smaller stages. The four-day festival has
brought together 200 acts, including the likes of Armin van Buuren and 3 Are Legend.

Fair. Seven Romanian clothes manufacturers are taking part in an
economic mission in Atlanta, in the US, in an event meant to promote the
creative industries and exports of quality products with high added value. The
seven companies are attending for the first time one of the biggest fashion
fairs in the US, hoping to forge collaborations with US companies, writes a
statement from the ministry for business, trade and entrepreneurship in
Bucharest.

Tennis. The Romanian tennis player Patricia Maria Ţig has defeated
Italy’s Jasmine Paolini to reach the final of the tournament in Karlsruhe, in
Germany. Ţig, who is currently no. 223 in the WTA ranking, will be facing the
world no. 65 Alison van Uytvanck of Belgium in the final. In the US, the
Romanian-Dutch pair Horia Tecău and Jean-Julien Rojer have reached the doubles
semifinals in Washington after defeating the Bryan brothers of the US. Tecău
and Rojer will face the all-Australian pair Alex De Minaur and John Peers in
the semis.