February 2, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 02.02.2014, 14:13
Romania’s supreme defense council is convening in Bucharest to discuss the reports drawn up by the Government and the Special Telecommunications Service on the air crash on January 20th in the Apuseni Mountains. Prime Minister Victor Ponta has voiced his discontent with the way in which the line institutions reacted and has announced he will ask for the resignation of the head of the Special Telecommunications Service, Marcel Opris. The plane carrying a medical team was forced to land in a mountain area, from an altitude of 1 thousand 400 meters. All seven passengers survived the crash, but two of them died before the rescue team found them, after more than 6 hours of search. As a result, the Interior Minister Radu Stroe resigned.
122 detainees have been released in Romania following the coming into force of the new Criminal Code and Criminal Proceedings Code on February 1st. Also, 176 people will be transferred from prisons to educational detention centers. The government has announced it will change some controversial provisions of the Criminal Proceedings Code. President Traian Basescu, the opposition and magistrates stand against the article that forbids phone tapping before the start of prosecution, which would render probation extremely difficult. In another move, Prime Minister Ponta has announce that the article that confines the freedom of the press will also be abrogated.
Washington calls on Moscow to put pressure on Bashar al Assad’s regime to speed up the evacuation of chemical weapons from Syria, for them to be neutralized. According to sources with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Syria has evacuated only 5% of its chemical arsenal. According to an UN resolution, Damascus must surrender its chemical arsenal for neutralization until mid this year. Starting 2011, Syria has been faced with violent reprisals and clashes between insurgents and the security services subordinated to Bashar al Assad. Around 130 thousand people have died.
At the Security Council in Munich, the US Secretary of State John Kerry and Ukrainian opposition leaders have reached an agreement regarding the steps that need to be taken to overcome the crisis in Ukraine. According to the leader of the Batkivshcina parliamentary group, Arseni Iatzeniuk, the agreement provides for the cease of violence, the release of all protesters and the investigation of all cases involving the kidnapping, torturing and killing of Ukrainian citizens. A special commission will be set up to this end, made up of members of the opposition, of the ruling power and the Council of Europe Secretary General Thornbjorn Jagland. The agreement also includes a constitutional reform and a semi-presidential republic. Ukraine is being faced with an unprecedented political crisis after the Ianukovici administration refused, in December, to sign the association agreement with the EU, choosing instead a rapprochement to Russia.
