August 10, 2016 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 10.08.2016, 12:36

CONDOLENCES Romania’s
President Klaus Iohannis, the President of the Republic of Moldova Nicolae
Timofti and the Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos were among the officials
who on Wednesday paid their last respects to Queen Anne, consort to the last king
of Romania, Michael I. On Tuesday, the coffin was taken to the
Hall of Honour of the Peles Castle in Sinaia, and on Wednesday it was laid in
the throne room of the Royal Palace in Bucharest. Queen Anne’s funeral is
scheduled for Saturday and it will be held at the Curtea de Arges monastery,
place of rest for Romanian royalty. Michael I is extremely ill and will not be able to attend his wife’s funeral. Queen Anne died on August 1st
in Switzerland.

BUDGET The
Romanian Government approved on Wednesday the draft executive order to adjust
the current state budget and the social insurance budget
for 2016. The aim is to increase revenues and spending by 2.92
billion lei this year, which is about 655 million Euro. The highest amounts will go to
the ministries of labour, internal affairs, health and education, while the
highest budget slashes are aimed at transportation. This adjustment, the first
this year, was initiated by the Ministry of Public Finance, which justified it
with the fact that the GDP in 2016 has grown, from 167 to 170 billion Euro.

INVESTITURE The new Communications
Minister Delia Popescu, aged 38, was sworn in on Wednesday by Romania’s
president Klaus Iohannis. Since 2003 she has worked in the IT field, developing
and implementing IT systems for electronic public services, for both citizens
and businesses. In 2014 she was appointed president of the ‘Digital Agenda for
Romania’ Agency, a public institution coordinated by the Prime Minister.

ORGANIZED CRIME An early investigation shows that the Sky News report on
Romanian arms traffickers was staged. The Chief Prosecutor of the Romanian
Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism Daniel Horodniceanu
has stated that several searches have been conducted in northern Romania, and
the people appearing in the report were identified. However, they did not have
any assault weapons, as the report had presented them, the suspects being
hunters and legally owning hunting weapons.
According to Horodniceanu, evidence has so far shown that the whole
thing was staged. The person who put the British reporters in contact with the
so called traffickers, a Romanian freelancer settled in England 7 years ago,
told the investigators they had been paid to take part in the video recording
and to say certain things. Apparently, the filming crew gave them the costumes
they were wearing in the report, to make them look like smugglers. The Sky News
journalists claim that, after two months of negotiations, they were headed towards
an isolated area in Romania, where they met with arms traffickers. The weapons
had been allegedly brought from Ukraine, to be further smuggled to Western
Europe and the Near East. The Romanian Embassy in London has stressed the very
imprecise, incomplete and incorrect nature of the information presented by the
report, aimed at projecting a negative image of Romania among the British
audience.

AMERICAN SHELF The U.S.
Ambassador Hans Klemm inaugurated on Wednesday the seventh American Shelf at
Panait Istrati County Library in Braila, eastern Romania. The book collection
includes 136 titles offering access to reference books, classic and
contemporary US literature, English language teaching methodology and English
language learning as well as children’s books. The American Shelves are part of
the US Embassy’s outreach program throughout Romania and complement the nine
American Corners. American Shelves and American Corners offer authoritative
resources about the US and US culture, study in the US, as well as English
learning materials. The other six American Shelves reached Botosani, Galati,
Brasov, Sibiu, Drobeta Turnu-Severin and Arad.