August 19, 2014 UPDATE
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România Internațional, 19.08.2014, 19:23
The Iaşi-Ungheni pipeline, through which Romania will provide natural gas to the Republic of Moldova, will be opened next week, on which occasion PM Victor Ponta will make a visit to the neighbouring country. The Romanian foreign minister, Titus Corlăţean, said it was a historic moment and a proof of Romania’s support to Moldova in its EU accession efforts. It will also be a concrete measure that would gradually allow the country to strengthen its energy independence, so necessary to any state.
The president of the People’s Movement Party, Elena Udrea, is the candidate of this pro-presidential opposition party in November’s presidential election in Romania. The decision was made on Tuesday by the National Board of the party, after the day before Cristian Diaconescu, a former foreign and justice minister, who had been nominated as candidate, announced he would leave the party and run independently. He explained that he made this decision after fellow party members had initiated a public campaign to change the party’s presidential candidate.
The Russian deputy PM, Dmitry Rogozin, and the Moldovan economy minister Adrian Candu, are to discuss in Chisinau on Thursday about Moscow’s restrictions on imports of Moldovan products and its decision to introduce customs duties on 19 categories of products. Dmitry Rogozin announced on Facebook that after August 24th he intends to travel to the pro-Russian separatist region of Transdniester, in the east of the Republic of Moldova, where representatives of Chisinau and Tiraspol discussed the situation of Romanian schools. The OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities, Astrid Thors, warned that schools with Romanian tuition may be closed down unless the central authorities and the secessionists reach an agreement before the start of the school year next month. Amid pro-Russian pressure put on Romanian teachers and students, Thors said children’s right to education in their mother tongue must be fully respected, and they must not be victims of political disputes. Transdniester has been outside de facto Moldovan control since 1992, after an armed conflict that killed hundreds of people and brought to an end by the intervention of Russian troops on the side of the separatists.
The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Tuesday ordered the army to attack terrorist targets in response to the three rockets fired in the afternoon from Gaza into southern Israel, in spite of the temporary ceasefire. On Monday night in Cairo, the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed on a 24-hour extension of the Gaza truce. For a lasting truce to be reached, the Israeli government demands the disarming of Gaza, whereas Hamas, which controls the area, wants a lift of the Israeli siege on Gaza. Israel’s offensive on Gaza, launched on July the 8th, left more than 2,000 Palestinians and nearly 70 Israelis dead.
The Iraqi army, with the help of Shiite volunteers and militias, Tuesday launched a major operation to retake Tikrit, 160-km north of Baghdad, from the Islamic State fighters who have been controlling it since June. The move started as the rebels were attacked on other fronts as well by Kurdish troops, aided by Western weapon supplies and US air strikes. Islamic State insurgent sites in northern Syria were also attacked by Syrian air forces. On June 9th, the Islamic State launched an offensive and seized control on the north, east and west of Iraq. They are accused of perpetrating murders and atrocities. The UN Security Council recently warned, in a resolution, that the Islamic State is a threat not only to Iraq and Syria, but also for the stability and security of the Middle East as a whole.
