August 11, 2014 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 11.08.2014, 19:42
The Christian Liberal Alliance, made up of the National Liberal and the Liberal Democratic parties, the main right-wing parties in Romania, Monday nominated the Liberal Klaus Iohannis, currently the Mayor of Sibiu in central Romania, as their candidate in the presidential election due this November. Iohannis said his goal was to restore Romanians’ faith in their country and that the time came for Romania to have a model for its future. Iohannis added that a president must be a role model and act firmly against breaches of the rule of law. According to opinion polls, Iohannis is the main challenger for the Social Democratic PM Victor Ponta in the presidential race. Also on Monday, the Alliance announced that its nomination for PM is the senior vice-president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Catalin Predoiu, a former justice minister.
The Romanians in Ukraine face serious problems in terms of preserving their identity, so the risk of their being assimilated is rather high, participants in the Summer University of the Romanian diaspora agreed on Monday in Izvorul Muresului (central Romania). The representatives of Romanians in Ukraine warned, among others, about the drastic decrease of this 400 thousand-strong community, and the dismantling of Romanian schools. Over one hundred students, teachers and other representatives of the Romanian diaspora are taking part, until Friday, in the 12th Summer University of Romanians Around the World. The central theme of this year’s session is ”European Romania and the Romanians on the EU and NATO borders.”
The NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said on Monday that a Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine was highly probable. He added that the Alliance saw no sign of Russia pulling out the troops deployed on its Ukrainian border. Russia develops the narrative and the pretext for such an operation under the guise of a humanitarian operation, Rasmussen added. Meanwhile, the clashes between Ukrainian troops and the separatists continue, particularly around the pro-Russian stronghold Donetsk. In the almost four months of conflict, over 1,200 people lost their lives.
Representatives of Israel and of Hamas are negotiating in Cairo a long-term solution to the conflict in Gaza. According to international news agencies, talks depend on the success of the latest 72-hour ceasefire agreement, which took effect on Sunday night. The Palestinians want an end to Israel’s 8-year siege on Gaza, but Israel makes this conditional on Hamas disarming its forces. Over the past few weeks, the clashes between Hamas and Israel have killed nearly 2 thousand Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 64 Israeli troops, and have caused damages of around 6 billion US dollars.
The Iraqi president, Fuad Masum, Monday asked the deputy speaker of Parliament, Haider al-Abadi, to form a new government. Haider al-Abadi, nominated prime minister by the main Shia parties, is to replace Nouri al-Maliki, who failed to come up with a solution to the crisis in his country. Meanwhile, the EU, USA and the Arab League deplored the crimes against humanity committed by Islamic State militants in autonomous Kurdistan, in north Iraq. The US Departament of State announced that Kurdish fighters started receiving weapons, probably from the CIA, the BBC reports, adding that the recent American air strikes against Jihadist militants have improved the situation of the Kurds.
