ELECTION CAMPAIGN The campaign for the December 11th parliamentary elections in Romania started on Friday. Some 6,500 people, both party members and independent candidates, have registered for the race for one of the 466 seats in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. The system used this year is the party-list proportional representation system, abandoned in 2004. The parties standing the biggest chances of being represented in the next Parliament are the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, the Save Romania Union, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats and the Peoples Movement Party.
MOLDOVA The second round of the presidential elections in the neighboring Republic of Moldova, the former Soviet country with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population, is held on Sunday. Competing are the pro-Russia socialist Igor Dodon and the pro-West reformist Maia Sandu. Some 3 million citizens are expected to the polls to elect their president, for the first time after 16 years in which the president was designated by Parliament. Pundits say that the stake of the ballot is not just political, but also geo-political. Dodon wants his country to join the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Union, while Sandu stands for reform and European integration.
PROTESTS Demonstrations have been held for three nights in a row in big cities and university campuses in the US against the president – elect Donald Trump. Protesters say that, although they know they cannot change the result of the election, they want to draw attention to the fact that there are many reasons for people to be unhappy with the future president, whose campaign included lots of insulting remarks about women, as well as threats such as the one about building a wall between the US and Mexico to keep immigrants away. Initially, Trump said that protesters were professional rioters, incited by the media. Later he reconsidered his position, saying the protesters were people who loved their country and made an appeal to unity.
TALIBAN ATTACK NATO has announced that Bagram, the largest American base in Afghanistan, near capital Kabul, has been hit by an explosion, which killed 4 people. The attack has been claimed by Taliban insurgents. The Bagram airbase is a regular target for the Taliban. Six American soldiers were killed in December last year, when a Taliban riding a motorcycle blew himself up near the base. That was one of the bloodiest attacks against the foreign troops in Afghanistan in 2015.
CORRUPTION Some 260,000 people protested in Seoul on Saturday against the political corruption scandal involving president Park Geun-hye, and called for the resignation of the South-Korean leader, Associated Press reports. Park has allegedly allowed her friend Choi Soon-sil to access government papers without an authorization. Choi Soon-sil is accused of having tried to obtain large sums of money from several South-Korean companies by extortion and is now under arrest, charged with fraud and abuse of power. She is suspected that she used her friendship with the South-Korean leader to that end. Park Geun-hye, the first woman president of South-Korea, has apologized for her relation with Choi, but dozens of thousands of people have protested in Seoul over the past few days, calling for her resignation.
FOOTBALL On Friday night in Bucharest, Romanias national football team lost the match against Poland 0-3. The national squad now stands less chances of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup hosted by Russia. With only 5 points, Romania ranks 4th in the preliminary group E, after Poland with 10 points, Montenegro with 7 points and Denmark with 6. In the same group, also on Friday, Armenia defeated Montenegro 3-2, and Denmark beat Kazakhstan 4-1. On Tuesday, the Romanian national squad will take on the Russian team in a friendly game hosted by Grozny. The next official game of the Romanian national football team is scheduled for March, on home turf, against Denmark.