June 9, 2016
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 09.06.2016, 12:00
ELECTIONS – In last Sunday’s local elections in Romania, the leftist Social Democratic Party got almost 1,700 mayor’s seats, while the center-rightist National Liberal Party got about 1,100 seats, the Central Electoral Bureau has announced following the centralization of more than 99% of the votes. Coming next are the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania with almost 200 mayors, and the center-rightist Alliance of Liberals and Democrats with almost 60 mayors. In Bucharest, the Social Democrats have won both the general mayor’s seat and the mayor’s seats of all the 6 sectors of the capital. At the level of local and county councils the Social Democrats got 37% of the votes followed by the Liberals with 32%. The Central Electoral Bureau will announce the final results of the elections by the end of this week.
PARIS — The Romanian PM, Dacian Cioloş, is on a two-day official visit to Paris. Today he will be participating in a special meeting of the Council of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development devoted to Romania. On Friday, Dacian Cioloş will meet with his French counterpart Manuel Valls, when they will sign an updated roadmap of the Romanian-French strategic partnership. Also on Friday, Cioloş will meet with the French President Francois Hollande and together they will attend the opening match of the European Football Championship pitting Romania against France.
WARSAW — The Romanian Foreign Minister, Lazăr Comănescu, is today participating in Warsaw in the Poland-Romania-Turkey trilateral ministerial meeting on security issues. The meeting takes place one month ahead of the NATO summit to be hosted by Warsaw. The Romanian official will look at the situation on the Alliance’s southeastern flank together with his Polish and Turkish counterparts. High on the agenda of talks is also the stage of cooperation between the three countries. The Polish foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski has recently stated that Poland intends to have a direct cooperation with Romania, given that the two states have similar objectives within a strategic partnership.
TEL AVIV — The Romanian Foreign Ministry has firmly condemned the terrorist attack perpetrated on Wednesday in Tel Aviv. According to a Foreign Ministry communiqué, such deplorable acts of violence have no justification and need to be fought against by all means. Four Israelis were killed and five were seriously wounded by two Palestinian militants who opened fire, on Wednesday evening, in a café in central Tel Aviv. The two attackers were arrested. Israel, Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories have been faced with a surging wave of violence which since October 1, 2015 have left behind 207 Palestinian and 28 Israelis dead as well as several foreign citizens, a France Press survey shows. In turn, the US and the UN have firmly criticized the attack in Tel Aviv.
EURO 2016 PARIS — Romania’s national football team are preparing for the opening match of the EURO 2016. On Friday in Paris they will take on the French eleven. The group also includes Switzerland and Albania. Romania will play against the Swiss eleven on June 15 in Paris and against the Albanian side on June 19 in Lyon. The Romanian footballer’s avowed target is to pass the groups’ stage. The last time the Romanian national football team participated in a continental football tournament was in 2008.
BAGHDAD — At least 22 people were killed and several scores wounded on Thursday in two separate blasts that took place in Baghdad. In the first attack, a car bomb was detonated on a commercial street in the east of the capital. The second car bomb attack targeted the main military checkpoint in the town of Taji, north of Baghdad. The two explosions occurred in the context in which the Iraqi forces are trying to eliminate the militants of the Islamic State Jihadist movement from Fallujah, located west of Baghdad. (news translated by Lacramioara Simion)
