Radio România Internațional

Tag: coach crash

  • January 22, 2017 UPDATE

    January 22, 2017 UPDATE

    FIRE INVESTIGATION – The Romanian authorities have initiated criminal investigations, involving charges of wanton destruction of property, in relation to the fire that Friday night destroyed one of the best known nightclubs in Bucharest, Bamboo. According to the Healthcare Ministry, 44 people received assistance for smoke inhalation injuries, hypothermia, and fractures, but none of the patients reported burns. Only one person is currently in a serious condition. The victims include foreign citizens, most of them from Israel. The causes of the fire that destroyed the building are yet unknown. The owners of the nightclub had not yet obtained the premises license and the fire safety permit for the nightclub. Several witnesses have been heard and fresh inspections have been initiated in all buildings that host activities involving large attendance. We remind you that in October 2015, a fire taking place during a rock concert at the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest killed 64 people. The tragedy sparked large-scale protests to denounce corruption in the public administration.



    IMF – An International Monetary Fund delegation headed by the chief of the mission for Romania, Reza Baqir, is in Bucharest these days for a first meeting with the members of the new Cabinet. The delegation has discussed this years public budgets with the Finance Minister Viorel Ştefan. The mission carries on with technical talks at expert level, including at the National Bank of Romania, where a meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday. Romania does not have a loan agreement with the IMF at present.



    MOURNING – Hungary has announced a day of national mourning on Monday, to commemorate the victims of the crash that took place in Italy on Friday night and which killed 16 people and injured another 26. The coach was taking students and teachers from a Budapest high school back home from a ski holiday in France, and near Verona it crashed into a bridge pillar and burst into flames. The causes of the accident are still to be determined.



    TRUMP ADMINISTRATION – The US President, Donald Trump, is to receive the British Prime Minister Theresa May at the White House on Friday, the press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed on Sunday. The previous day Sean Spicer had announced May was the first foreign leader to visit Trump. Sean Spicer also announced that the President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, will be received by the new President of the USA on January 31. Meanwhile, millions took part on Saturday in anti-Trump protests organised by women organisations around the world. Trump is criticised, among other things, for his anti-immigration rhetoric and sexist statements. In Los Angeles, organisers estimate 750,000 people took part, including dozens of Hollywood stars. 400,000 people took to the streets in New York, 200,000 in Boston, 150,000 in Chicago, and rallies were also held in New Zealand, Japan, Australia and major European cities. The largest protest took place in Washington, where nearly a million people attended the anti-Trump rally, including, among others, the former Secretary of State John Kerry.



    AUSTRALIAN OPEN – The Romanian tennis player Sorana Cîrstea (78 WTA) was outperformed on Sunday by Spains Garbine Muguruza Blanco (7 WTA), in two sets, in the eighth-finals of the Australian Open. Also on Sunday, the Romanians Horia Tecău and Florin Mergea, playing with separate partners, were eliminated from the eighth-finals of the mens doubles competition in Melbourne. Tecău and the Dutch Jean-Julien Rojer, seeded 11, were defeated in 2 sets by the Australians Marc Polmans/Andrew Whittington. In turn, Florin Mergea and Britains Dominic Inglot, seeded 16, lost in 3 sets to the top seeds of the doubles event, the French Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • January 22, 2017

    January 22, 2017

    FIRE INVESTIGATION – The Romanian authorities have initiated criminal investigations, involving charges of wanton destruction of property, in relation to the fire that Friday night destroyed one of the best known nightclubs in Bucharest, Bamboo. According to the Healthcare Ministry, 44 people received assistance for smoke inhalation injuries, hypothermia, and fractures, but none of the patients reported burns. Only one person is currently in a serious condition. The victims include foreign citizens, most of them from Israel. The causes of the fire that destroyed the building are yet unknown. The owners of the nightclub had not yet obtained the premises license and the fire safety permit for the nightclub. Several witnesses have been heard and fresh inspections have been initiated in all buildings that host activities involving large attendance. We remind you that in October 2015, a fire taking place during a rock concert at the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest killed 64 people. The tragedy sparked large-scale protests to denounce corruption in the public administration.



    PROTESTS – Fresh protests against the Romanian Governments plans to table a pardons and amnesty law are announced for later today in the capital city Bucharest and other cities in Romania. Rallies are also planned abroad, such as in front of the Romanian Embassy in Paris, the Romanian Embassy in Copenhagen and in Haugesund Square in Norway. On Wednesday night, thousands took to the streets in Bucharest and other Romanian cities, to protest the Governments intention to pass an emergency order granting collective pardon and amending the provisions of the Criminal Code. The protesters fear that the amendments are designed to help influential politicians or public administration officers get away with corruption. Similar accusations were made by the Opposition parties, civil society organisations and magistrate associations. In turn, the Government claims the changes are necessary in order to solve the problem of penitentiary overcrowding and to bring the relevant legislation in line with rulings passed by the Constitutional Court.



    MOURNING – Hungary has announced a day of national mourning on Monday, to commemorate the victims of the crash that took place in Italy on Friday night and which killed 16 people and injured another 26. The coach was taking students and teachers from a Budapest high school back home from a ski holiday in France, and near Verona it crashed into a bridge pillar and burst into flames. The causes of the accident are still to be determined.



    TRUMP ADMINISTRATION – The US President, Donald Trump, is to receive the British Prime Minister Theresa May at the White House on Friday, the presidential spokesman Sean Spicer announced on Saturday. This is the first foreign leader to visit Trump after he has taken office. Sean Spicer also announced that the President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, will be received by the new President of the USA on January 31. Meanwhile, millions took part on Saturday in anti-Trump protests organised by women organisations around the world. Trump is criticised, among other things, for his anti-immigration rhetoric and sexist statements. In Los Angeles, organisers estimate 750,000 people took part, including dozens of Hollywood stars. 400,000 people took to the streets in New York, 200,000 in Boston, 150,000 in Chicago, and rallies were also held in New Zealand, Japan, Australia and major European cities. The largest protest took place in Washington, where nearly a million people attended the anti-Trump rally, including, among others, the former Secretary of State John Kerry.



    AUSTRALIAN OPEN – The Romanian tennis player Sorana Cîrstea (78 WTA) has been outperformed today by Spains Garbine Muguruza Blanco (7 WTA), in two sets, in the eighth-finals of the Australian Open. Also today, the Romanians Horia Tecău and Florin Mergea, playing with separate partners, were eliminated from the eighth-finals of the mens doubles competition in Melbourne. Tecău and the Dutch Jean-Julien Rojer, seeded 11, were defeated in 2 sets by the Australians Marc Polmans/Andrew Whittington. In turn, Florin Mergea and Britains Dominic Inglot, seeded 16, lost in 3 sets to the top seeds of the doubles event, the French Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • August 9, 2015 UPDATE

    August 9, 2015 UPDATE

    Three counties in western Romania are under a code orange alert for extreme heat until Wednesday, with temperatures expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius. A code yellow alert will be valid in another eight counties and will gradually extend to cover the entire country, while drought will continue to be reported next week as well, according to weather forecasts. Farming areas in most of the country are affected by the lack of rainfalls. Navigation on the Danube is hindered, although not completely stuck. In the Danube Delta, a UNESCO world heritage site, access by boat on several tens of canals is impossible because of the low water level.



    Representatives of the Romanian communities in the diaspora, MPs from Romania and the neighbouring Republic of Moldova, as well as professors from the countrys main universities are attending, as of Monday, a new edition of the Summer University in Izvoru Mureşului. The Romanian Cultural Institute, through the Directorate for Romanians Abroad, supports the participation in this one-week event of 80 leaders of Romanian associations, major personalities of the diaspora. This years theme is “Romania and the Romanians on the EU and NATO borders. The topics include the rights of the Romanian minorities in the border regions and in the Balkans, as well as the stronger ties between Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The President of Romania Klaus Iohannis, PM Victor Ponta and cabinet members are among the guests of the event.



    Romanian police are considering several possible causes of Saturday nights incident on the A2 Motorway connecting Bucharest to Constanta, involving a coach carrying 53 Ukrainian citizens. Two people died and 48 were injured. One of the assumptions is that the Bulgarian driver fell asleep while driving. The passengers included a group of children returning from summer camp, two families and other people coming back from a holiday in Bulgaria. The State Secretary with the Romanian Interior Ministry Raed Arafat said the victims were taken to hospitals in Bucharest.



    Bulgarias security services have started the search of two foreign citizens, a man and a woman, who have allegedly joined the Islamic State group, the Bulgarian public television announced, quoting the site SofiaGlobe.com. According to the source, the man produced a Romanian identity document, while the woman is an Iranian-born French citizen. The Radio Romania correspondent in Sofia says the authorities strengthened security in public areas and raised the alert levels in major transit areas—airports, train and bus stations in the capital and other important cities in the country. In Bucharest, the Foreign Ministry subsequently announced that, for security reasons, the Bulgarian authorities temporarily introduced additional border checks.



    Japan commemorated on Sunday 70 years since the launch, during World War II, of the atomic bomb over the city of Nagasaki, in the west, which killed some 74,000 people. The blast came 3 days after the one in Hiroshima, in which 140,000 people died. The two strikes forced Japan to surrender and ended the war in the Pacific, three months after the conclusion of the one in Europe. The supporters of the decision say that this way an American land invasion was avoided, which would have left millions of people dead. In December 1967, Tokyo undertook to never produce, possess or allow nuclear weapons on Japanese territory.

  • August 9, 2015

    August 9, 2015

    Three counties in western Romania are under a code orange alert for extreme heat, with temperatures expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius. Another eight counties will be under a code yellow alert, while drought will continue to be reported next week as well, according to weather forecasts. Farming areas in most of the country are affected by the lack of rainfalls. Navigation on the Danube is hindered, although not completely stuck. In the Danube Delta, a UNESCO world heritage site, access by boat on several tens of canals is impossible because of the low water level.



    Representatives of the Romanian communities in the diaspora, MPs from Romania and the neighbouring Republic of Moldova, as well as professors from the countrys main universities are attending, as of Monday, a new edition of the Summer University in Izvoru Mureşului. The Romanian Cultural Institute, through the Directorate for Romanians Abroad, supports the participation in this one-week event of 80 leaders of Romanian associations, major personalities of the diaspora. This years theme is “Romania and the Romanians on the EU and NATO borders. The topics include the right of the Romanian minorities in the border regions and in the Balkans, as well as the stronger ties between Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The President of Romania Klaus Iohannis, PM Victor Ponta and cabinet members are among the guests of the event.



    Russia will always try to control the neighbouring ex-Soviet countries, said the Ambassador of Georgia to Bucharest, Ilya Georgadze. In an interview to a Romanian television channel, he added that Russia did not want Georgia to be a democratic, prosperous, Western-leaning country, because the more fragile this republic was, the easier it was to control. The Georgian diplomat also said the Russian offensive in Ukraine is designed to help keep Kiev in Moscows orbit. Georgadze made these statements seven years after the Russian invasion of Georgia, in August 2008, under the pretext of protecting the pro-Russian secessionist rebels in Abkhazia and South Osetia.



    Traffic on A2 Motorway connecting Bucharest to the Black Sea port of Constanta was stopped this morning after a coach crash last night, which killed at least 2 Ukrainian tourists and left tens of others injured. According to the Romanian traffic police, the driver must have fallen asleep while driving. The tourists were returning from a seaside holiday, most likely in neighbouring Bulgaria. Many of the passengers were children, and one of them is in a critical condition. The State Secretary with the Romanian Interior Ministry Raed Arafat announced that the victims were taken to six hospitals in Bucharest.



    Japan commemorates today 70 years since the launch, during World War II, of the atomic bomb over the city of Nagasaki, in the west, which killed some 74,000 people. The blast came 3 days after the one in Hiroshima, in which 140,000 people died. The two strikes forced Japan to surrender and ended the war in the Pacific, three months after the conclusion of the one in Europe. The supporters of the decision say that this way an American land invasion was avoided, which would have left millions of people dead. In December 1967, Tokyo undertook to never produce, possess or allow nuclear weapons on Japanese territory.