November 20, 2015 UPDATE

At least 22 killed on Friday in Bamako, the capital of Mali/ EU states decide to tighten control on the communitys external borders

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Newsroom, 20.11.2015, 14:19

Three weeks after the horrific fire at Bucharest’s Colectiv club the death toll reached 58, after another patient died in a German hospital on Friday. The Romanian Health Ministry announced that 44 people are still in Bucharest hospitals, 11 of whom are in a critical and serius condition. Around 29 people are being treated in hospitals abroad. On October 30 a fire broke out during a concert at the Colectiv club in Romania’s capital city, as fireworks set insulation foam ablaze, triggering a stampede towards the single exit and trapping many inside.

The Romanian authorities in charge of managing the European funds need stability in the coming months in order to end in better conditions the scheduling of the community budget for 2007 — 2014. The statement was made Friday in Bucharest by the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Creţu, after the talks held with the PM Dacian Cioloş. The latter said Romania needed a de-politicized administration that should function based on criteria of transparency and efficiency. The two have also discussed the operational programs of the EU budget for the period 2014- 2020, when Romania can access more than 35 billion euros from the EU.

The American embassy in Bucharest will cooperate with the new Romanian government in order to consolidate the strategic partnership between the two countries. The statement was made Friday in Bucharest by the head of the American diplomatic mission, Hans Klemm, at his meeting with the Romanian PM Dacian Cioloş. Ambassador Klemm also gave assurances that the American embassy would continue cooperation with the Romanian government in the fields of security, consolidating the rule of law and fighting corruption.

The EU member states on Friday decided to immediately tighten control on the community’s external borders checking all persons including the European citizens, according to France Press. The decision was made on Friday at the extraordinary meeting of the EU interior ministers held in Brussels. Also the EU states asked for the rapid revision of the Schengen Space rules, in order to be able to introduce systematic controls of the European citizens. The extraordinary council of the EU interior ministers was convened following the terrorist attacks in Paris.

The president of the Republic of Moldova, Nicolae Timofti, granted to the German chancellor Angela Merkel the title “The Order of the Republic” through a decree published Friday in the Official Gazette of Chisinau. The order was granted to the German official in sign of deep gratitude for her special contribution to the development and consolidation of Moldovan – German friendship relations and for the constant cooperation and support of Moldova’s European integration efforts. We recall that the German chancellor paid an official visit to Chisinau in 2012.

At least 22 people were killed Friday in Bamako, the capital of Mali, after two armed men stormed a hotel, the authorities announced. Initially as many as 170 people, among whom many foreign citizens, were taken hostage. French special troops and American troops coming from the neighboring Burkina Faso participated in the intervention operations of the Malian army. The attack was claimed by a Jihadist group affiliated to Al-Qaida that is operating in the north of the country. The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon condemned the terrorist attacks, which he labeled as horrific.

(Translated by Lacramioara Simion)