July 30, 2024
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 30.07.2024, 13:55
Lebanon. Several countries, including Romania, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands, are urging their citizens to leave Lebanon urgently, due to growing concerns about a possible large-scale retaliation by Israel, after Saturday’s rocket attack that killed 12 young people on the Golan Heights, for which Hezbollah is blamed. At the same time, more and more airlines are suspending their flights on the Beirut route. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited, on Monday, the place where the rocket launched from Lebanon fell and stated that Israel’s response would be harsh. Hezbollah denies the accusation of having masterminded the attack. The White House has voiced confidence that a full-scale Israel-Hezbollah war could be avoided. In a conversation with the Israeli president, Itzhak Herzog, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the importance of preventing an escalation. In turn, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, talked with Masoud Pezeshkian, the president of Iran, Hezbollah’s main ally, who warned that an attack on Lebanon would have serious consequences. The head of the Italian diplomacy has also spoken with his Israeli and Lebanese counterparts, and estimated that stopping violence is possible.
Aid. 500 tents and 2,000 blankets made available by the Romanian National Administration of State Reserves and Special Problems were offered free of charge to the Gaza Strip, the Department for Emergency Situations announced on Monday. The equipment was transported with the help of the European Commission, through the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations. Romania has announced that, in this way, it continues to observe its international commitments, remaining a reliable partner to the states that face major emergency situations. We recall that on April 19, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu convened the National Committee for Emergency Situations, and a Decision was approved on granting free international assistance to the affected civilian population in Gaza.
Turkey. Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, urged NATO to expel Turkey, after its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, threatened that his country could intervene militarily in Israel, recalling previous actions in Nagorno-Karabakh and Libya. Erdogan referred to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, where Turkey supported Azerbaijan with drones and other military support. Ankara also supports the internationally recognized government of Libya with military equipment and personnel. Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas as a “liberation organization” and compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, dpa reports. Once close regional allies, relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated significantly in recent years, especially since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023. Bilateral trade, which has weathered many diplomatic storms, has reached billions of dollars per year. But Ankara has said this month that it will stop all bilateral trade with Israel until the war ends and aid can reach the Gaza Strip unhindered.
Ukraine. Washington has announced a new security assistance package for Ukraine, worth up to 200 million dollars. According to White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby, the package includes “key combat capabilities for Ukraine, including air defense interceptors, munitions for rocket sysetms and artillery and anti-tank weapons”. The US Department of Defense also announces significant funding for the Security Assistance Initiative to support Ukraine’s long-term defense capability. Kyiv has been urging its allies for months to provide more air defense systems so that Ukraine can counter missile and drone attacks by Russian forces on its territory. The US has provided Ukraine with more than $50 billion in military aid since 2022.
UN. The UN has designated July 30 as the World Day Against Human Trafficking, a crime that exploits women, children and men for numerous purposes, including forced labor and sex. In Romania, in May, the authorities launched the National Strategy for the fight against human trafficking (2024-2028), an area in which Romania was harshly criticized in international reports. Romania thus proposes to apply measures to reduce this phenomenon, identify the victims and offer them assistance and punish the traffickers. In the most recent annual report on human trafficking, carried out by the US State Department in the summer of 2023, it was mentioned that Romania did not meet the minimum standards regarding the fight against human trafficking. The document also showed that the judiciary, investigators and child protection authorities in Romania were rather “on the side” of the traffickers and, at the same time, extremely harsh with the victims.
OG. Romanian athletes will compete, today, at the Olympic Games in Paris in several events – boxing, rowing, artistic gymnastics, swimming, polo, table tennis and triathlon. After, on Monday, he became the Olympic champion in the 200 m freestyle, David Popovici qualified, today, for the semifinals of the 100 m freestyle swimming event. He managed to win, last night, the gold, after a dramatic ending of the race, in which the winner was decided in the last meters. With the victory scored by David Popovici, Romania climbed to the 15th place in the ranking of nations on medals from the Olympic Games. Today, the Romanian rowers Ancuța Bodnar and Simona Radiș, the reigning Olympic champions in women’s double scull, qualified for Final A. Romania has two crews directly qualified for Final A at the 2024 Olympics, the women’s four and the women’s eight plus one. Also today, the Romanian rower Mihai Chiruţă qualified for the semifinals of the men’s singles event. (MI)
