October 1, 2023 UPDATE

ATTACK The explosion in front of the Parliament building in Ankara on Sunday morning was a terror attack, the Turkish Interior Ministry has announced. "Two terrorists came with a light commercial vehicle in front of the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of our Ministry of Internal Affairs and carried out a bomb attack" the Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said adding that two policemen were wounded. The same sources have announced that one of the terrorists blew himself up and the other was neutralized. According to the Turkish media, the central district is home to several ministerial buildings and the nearby Parliament. The country's president Recep Erdogan was set to attend the opening of the new session of Parliament, which is these days expected to validate Sweden's entry into NATO. During a series of bloody incidents in 2015 and 2016, Kurdish militants, Islamic State and other groups either claimed or were blamed for several attacks in major Turkish cities.

ELECTION Former Prime Minister Robert Fico and his populist, leftist party, SMER-SD have won the early Parliament election in Slovakia after 99.9% of the votes cast on Saturday were counted. The result contradicts the exit polls, which indicated the victory of the pro-European Progressive Slovakia. SMER-SD, which promoted anti-NATO and EU messages during their campaign and pledged to cut the military support given to Ukraine, has mustered 23.3% of the votes, 6% more than the Progressive Slovakia. Radio Romania correspondent in Slovakia says that a coalition is envisaged involving SMER, Hlas, which is a splinter group from Fico's party and the Christian-Democrats, which together have most of the Parliament seats. Robert Fico was forced to step down in 2018 amid protests caused by the killing of an investigative journalist.

ART Almost 100 works of art by Romania's famous sculptor Constantin Brancusi are on display as of Saturday in Timisoara, western Romania, in the most important exhibition dedicated to this major artist in the past half a century. The exhibition includes sculptures, photos, archive documents and film footages on display at the local National Art Museum until late January. The exhibits' total insured value stays around half a billion euros. Under the suggestive title, "Brancusi, Romanian sources and universal prospects" the exhibition invites the public to explore the way in which Brancusi managed to cross all geographic, historical, formal and gender borders in order to ensure that special place unattached to any artistic current. The exhibition has on view a series of artefacts borrowed from the National Museum of Modern Art, Pompidou Center, in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Art Museum in Bucharest, the Art Museum in Craiova and some private collections. Among the famous artefacts visitors can admire in Timisoara, there is the Bird in Space, the Kiss, Mademoiselle Pogany or Sleeping Muse. The aforementioned exhibition is part of the programme Timisoara - European Capital of Culture.

RUGBY Romania's national rugby side lost their third game in group B of the World Cup in France. On Saturday in Lille, our rugby side came a cropper in their match against Scotland 0-84, the most dramatic defeat in its history. Our players have so far lost to world leader Ireland and the en-titre champions South Africa and will be playing their last game against Tonga on October 8.

TENNIS The Romanian-Ukrainian pair made up of Monica Niculescu and Nadiia Kichenok on Sunday qualified for the round of 16 of the doubles contest of the WTA 1000 tournament in Beijing, a competition with more than 8 million dollars in prize money after a 6-3, 6-3 win against Shuko Aoyama/Ena Shibahara of Japan. In the eight finals Niculescu and Kichenok will be up against the winners of the match pitching Ana Danilina of Kazahstan and Alexandra Panova of Russia to Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil and Veronika Kudermetova of Russia. The main draw of the doubles contest also includes another Romanian, Sorana Cirstea who joined Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the USA for a match against Hao-ching Chan of Taiwan and Giuliana Olmos of Mexico.

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