November 16, 2014 UPDATE
A roundup of Romanian and international news
România Internațional, 17.11.2014, 01:29
The candidate of the Christian Liberal Alliance (the center right opposition) Klaus Iohannis has won the presidential election in Romania according to exit polls at 9 p.m. According to the parallel counting of ballots made by the Christian Liberal Alliance, Iohannis obtained almost 54% of the votes. Upon the announcement of the exit polls Klaus Iohanis said: “Dear Romanians, today you have been heroes, the voting was phenomenal, the vote turnout was enormous. Thank you all for going to vote the president of Romania”. His challenger, the PM Victor Ponta, the representative of the ruling Alliance made up of the Social Democratic Party, the National Union for the Progress of Romania and the Conservative Party, has conceded defeat and congratulated Klaus Iohannis, adding that the people is always right. He also said: “I have become a PM with the support of people, of political forces, and if, at a certain moment, now it’s not the case, those political forces will ask it, I will not hesitate to take a step back, but this has not happened”. According to the Central Electoral Bureau the vote turnout across Romania was 62.04%. 294 polling stations were set up for the Romanians in the Diaspora and according to the Electoral Bureau as many as 285 thousand people in the Diaspora had voted until 7 p.m., Romania’s local hour. The Romanian authorities have taken measures to facilitate the voting procedure although no new poling stations were opened as some Romanian associations in the Diaspora had asked. Thousands of Romanians queued for hours to cast their vote in several European cities, some of them not managing to vote, which triggered off incidents that prompted the riot police in Turin and Paris to use tear gas. Thousands of Romanians have protested in front of the Romanian Foreign Ministry and the Romanian Government, as well as in many other cities of Romania in sign of solidarity with the Romanians in the Diaspora that could not vote.
The US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Rose Gottemoller, will be paying a visit to Romania on Monday and Tuesday. She will meet with Romanian officials for talks regarding international security. According to a press release by the Department of State, Mrs. Gottemoeller will give a speech at the National Defense University in Bucharest. Romania is the second leg, after Jordan, of a tour that the US official is taking over November 14th — 26th. The tour also includes India, Russia and Great Britain.
On the last day of the summit held in Brisbane, Australia, the G20 leaders committed themselves to adopting reforms aimed at boosting economic growth. They agreed that world economy is fragile and structural reforms are needed, at a time when monetary and fiscal policy measures are not easy to take. They also committed to adopting reforms that would improve the labour market situation and the member states promised to restrain from using national currencies to get competitive advantages.
The British Prime Minister David Cameron has condemned the latest Islamic State video purporting to show the beheading of a US aid worker as the work of a “depraved organisation”. The French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, has also firmly condemned what he called a new barbaric act. In a video recording posted online on Jihadist sites on Sunday, the terrorist group claims the beheading of 26 year old Kassig, kidnapped in Syria in 2013. The organization has so far beheaded five western hostages, 3 American and 2 British. A French citizen was killed in the same way in Algeria, by a group affiliated to the Islamic State.
The evacuation of fragments of the Boeign 777 aircraft, operated by Malaysia Airlines, which was shot down in July in a conflict area in eastern Ukraine, started on Sunday Dutch officials have announced. The plane fragments are to reach the Netherlands, where they will be examined by the Security Investigation Office, in charge of establishing the causes of that tragic accident. 193 of the 298 victims were Dutch. Kiev and the West claim the Malaysian plane was taken down by a Russian ground-air missile, which the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine got from Russia. Moscow on the other hand, blames the Ukrainian army for the tragedy.
Sunday was the last day of the 32nd Romanian Tourism Fair. Over 200 companies from 14 countries presented their offers for the winter holidays and also for next summer. One first at this year’s edition was the participation of Palestine, through the National Tourism Authority. According to the organizers, the fair is the right place to learn about Romania’s top tourist destination, but also about destinations abroad.
