Radio România Internațional

Tag: terror attacks

  • November 13, 2020 UPDATE

    November 13, 2020 UPDATE


    COVID-19 IN ROMANIA – The government has decided to extend
    the state of alert by a further thirty days as of Saturday. The head of the
    department for emergency situations Raed Arafat said the sanitary measures
    introduced earlier remain in place and will also apply to the parliamentary
    elections due on December 6. He said the health and foreign ministries will
    issue a joint decree referring specifically to the voting stations abroad. Arafat also said the government was planning
    to temporarily allow medical school graduates and residents to practice
    medicine so that they can work, under supervision, on wards treating coronavirus
    patients. More than 343,700 coronavirus infections have been recorded so far in
    Romania. Almost 9,500 new cases were reported on Friday. 1,149 people are in
    intensive care. 174 new deaths were recorded, taking the death toll to 8,694.




    COVID-19 IN THE WORLD – Over 53.3 million people have been
    infected with coronavirus globally and more than 1.3 million have died,
    according to the latest worldometers.info update. In many European countries,
    the situation remains critical and governments are taking additional measures.
    A nigh-time curfew came into effect on Friday in Greece and Portugal has
    expanded restrictions to more areas. Slovenia has banned almost all public
    gatherings, and Hungary is in lockdown for at least a month. In Italy, three
    regions in the north are seeing new restrictions beginning today. France has
    seen a 16% drop in new cases in the last 7 days, but the situation is sensitive
    in hospitals, where the second wave is expected to peak next week. In turn,
    health authorities in Belgium expect 10 to 20% of the population to develop
    SARS-CoV-2 antibodies after the second wave of the pandemic, a percentage they
    say will help slow down the spread of the virus, but which would make
    impossible attaining herd immunity in the absence of a vaccine.




    LIST – The National Committee for Emergency Situations has
    updated the list of countries with a high epidemiological risk. The amber list
    countries include Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
    France, Jordan, Italy, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain,
    Portugal and Hungary. Arrivals from these countries are requested to isolate
    for 14 days. Travellers to Spain from high-risk regions or countries will be
    obliged to produce a negative result to a Covid test, beginning on November 23.
    The Romanian foreign ministry is emphasizing that the test must be taken no
    longer than 72 hours prior to entering Spanish territory and that the document
    must be written in Spanish or English. The ministry also recalls that all
    persons travelling to Spain must fill in a form about their state of health
    before travelling.








    MOLDOVA – In the Republic of Moldova, the election campaign
    for the second round of presidential elections on Sunday came to a close on
    Friday. In the first round of the election, former pro-European PM Maia Sandu
    got over 36% of the votes, and the incumbent pro-Russian Socialist president,
    Igor Dodon, under 33%. The candidates favoring the reunification with Romania
    as well as the pro-European candidates,
    who left the presidential race in the first round, made public their
    unconditional support for Maia Sandu in the second round. The third-placed
    candidate, the pro-Russian populist Renato Usatyi, has urged his voters, some
    17% of those who voted in the first round, to vote for the former prime
    minister. On Tuesday, Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis expressed joy at the
    news of the vote for the West-leaning candidate and deemed it a vote in favor
    of the irreversible democratic evolution of the Republic of Moldova, a country
    that has permanently and unequivocally been supported by Romania.




    TERRORISM – The 27 EU Interior Ministers have called for
    strengthening the security of the Schengen visa-free travel area and of the EU’s
    external borders in a joint statement adopted on Friday following the latest
    terror attacks in France and Austria. EU Ministers expressed their willingness
    to finalize by the end of this year the current negotiations over a European
    legislation on deleting online terrorist content within 1 hour. Five years
    after the Jihadist attacks of November 13, 2015, the Ministers paid homage to
    the 130 people killed in Paris and Saint-Denis and harshly condemned the latest
    attacks in France and Austria.




    UK VISAS – EU citizens will be able to travel to the UK
    visa-free after January 1, 2021 for a period of 6 months, according to the new
    immigration system made public by the British government. EU citizens can travel to the United Kingdom
    for several times during that time span, but they are not allowed to live in
    the UK, under the multiple entry and extended visa mechanism, nor are they
    allowed to work or access public funds. Those willing to work, live or study in
    the UK must request a visa. This visa will be granted based on a system of
    points, after the applicants submit a visa request, on the website of the
    British government. Points are granted in keeping with a set of requirements
    that applicants should meet.




    STATISTICS – The GDP dropped by 4.4% in the Eurozone and by
    4.3% in the European Union in the third quarter of 2020 compared with the same
    period last year. Spain saw the biggest drop, at 8.7%, while Romania recorded a
    6% drop, according to a report by the EU statistical office Eurostat. The data
    referring to Romania were supported by the country’s National Institute for
    Statistics, which published a report saying the economy shrank by 6% in the
    third quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, but it grew
    by 5.6% compared with the previous quarter.


    (Translated by C. Mateescu & V. Palcu)

  • The International Year in Review

    The International Year in Review

    Major issues on the EU agenda



    The government in London launched in March, nine months after the referendum that divided the Kingdom, the procedure to leave the European Union. After months of tough negotiations, Brussels and London finally reached an agreement that wraps up one stage of the process. In December, the European Council noted that enough progress has been made on three main topics: the rights of European citizens after Brexit, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and the UK’s divorce bill.



    Trade negotiations are to follow, which experts expect to be similarly hard. Migration is still an issue, even if the number of refugees flooding Europe has gone down. Greece and Italy are still under pressure, while several EU members in Central and Eastern Europe, in particular Hungary, continue to refuse compliance with the quota system proposed by the European Commission. Spain, though little affected by the refugee crisis, went through a serious political crisis towards the end of the year caused by a controversial referendum on Catalan independence.



    On October 27, the Catalan parliament unilaterally proclaimed the independence of the region, which was not recognised by the EU. Madrid imposed direct rule on Catalonia, dissolved the regional parliament and called for new regional elections, while deposed president Carles Puigdemont fled to Belgium. In terms of foreign policy, the European Union entered a new stage of relations with the US, turning out to be much colder once Donald Trump was elected president.



    It also kept its distance from Russia, especially as economic sanctions were kept in place over Russia’s involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. However, great strides have been made as the trade agreement with Japan, the worlds third largest economy, was finalised.



    In Europe, the rise of the far right continues



    In 2017, the elections held in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria only confirmed the fact that the far right is gaining more and more ground. This year, far right parties repeatedly earned record-polling numbers, though never the majority. In France, the leader of the National Front Marine Le Pen reached the second round in the presidential elections in spring, with almost double the votes obtained 15 years ago by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.



    The pro-European centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron won 66% of the ballot in the decisive round. Heading the En Marche! Movement, set up only a year before, he became the first president not to belong to either of the two political families, the Socialists and the Republicans, that have been in power since the Fifth Republic was established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. In Germany, after federal elections, the Alternative for Germany, a Europhobic and anti-immigration party, gained seats in the Bundestag for the first time, with over 12% of the vote.



    In the Netherlands, Geert Wirlders right wing Freedom Party became in March the second biggest political party in parliament after the Liberals. The Austrian version of the Freedom Party, the oldest among European nationalists, won 26% of the ballot in the October elections. The result guaranteed its presence in the government led by Conservative Sebastian Kurz. At 31, he is Europe’s youngest prime minister. The moderate popularity of Europhobic and anti-immigration parties accelerates the reshuffling of the political checkerboard in Europe.



    The first year of Donald Trump’s term in office



    On January 20, 2017, the Republican billionaire Donald Trump became the President of the United States with the slogan “America first”, but suspicions of Russian interference overshadowed the beginning of his mandate. His unique manner of shaping up the country’s foreign policy shattered the balance struck by his Democrat predecessor, Barack Obama, the US leaving or threatening to leave several international agreements.



    Among them, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, signed with 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific area, Japan included, the Paris Climate Agreement and UNESCO. However, recognising Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel was perhaps the most controversial decision made by Trump.



    The measure was almost unanimously criticised by his country’s western partners and triggered a wave of protests in the Middle East. Also in 2017, President Trump had a very aggressive discourse towards what he called “the brutal regime in North Korea” against the backdrop of North Korea’s ballistic missile tests.



    Attacks in the West



    Hundreds of people lost their lives in the 2017 attacks in the West, mainly in the US and Great Britain, despite the international community’s efforts to fight terrorism. In May, in the city of Manchester, the UK, during a concert by singer Ariana Grande, suicide bomber Salman Ramadan Abedi, a Briton of Libyan ancestry detonated a makeshift bomb killing 22 people and injuring 60. In August, terrorists hit Europe once again, this time Barcelona. 14 people were killed and 100 wounded by a van that ploughed into a crowd in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona.



    The bloodiest attack, however, took place in October in Las Vegas, in the US. 59 people died and more than 150 were injured after a 60-year old man opened fire on the crowd attending a concert. The carnage fuelled debates on the access of American citizens to firearms.



    End of career for famous athletes



    The most famous sprinter of all times, a super star of athletics and a man with a special charisma, the Jamaican Usain Bolt bid farewell to professional sports in August, after the World Championships. He has an extraordinary medal record, which includes 8 Olympic titles and two world records that seem impossible to break. Also, football lovers bid farewell to several legendary players among whom Italy’s Francesco Totti, Germany’s Philipp Lahm, Spain’s Xabi Alonso and Brazil’s Kaka.

  • August 21, 2017 UPDATE

    August 21, 2017 UPDATE

    VISIT – French President, Emmanuel Macron, on Thursday will pay a formal visit to Romania, at the invitation of his Romanian counterpart, Klaus Iohannis. The visit was agreed upon during the bilateral talks the two officials had on the sidelines of the European Councils June session, in Brussels. On that occasion, President Iohannis voiced Romanias determination to remain Frances staunch partner and to support, together with France, the re-launch of the European project. The talks between the two leaders will lay emphasis on ways to develop and deepen the bilateral relation under the strategic partnership and also on focal points of interest on the international and European agenda and on security issues. At economic level, talks will aim at boosting two-way trade exchanges, also by diversifying the fields of cooperation. Given the tradition and cultural affinities between the two states, the talks in Bucharest will also focus on cooperation during the 2018 – 2019 Romania-France Cultural Season.



    MIGRANTS – Romania is a transit rather than a destination country for migrants, facing a relatively small number of refugees, migrant pressure being moreover exerted on Central and Northern Europe, Romanian foreign minister Teodor Melescanu said in Bucharest on Monday. He said Romania didnt accept the idea of a mandatory refugee quota to relocate migrants, but it will comply with its duties entailed by its status of EU member state. Melescanu made this statement against the backdrop of a recent surge in illegal border crossing attempts in Romania by migrant groups. Romanian Coast Guard policemen on Sunday night intercepted, in the Black Sea, a small boat with some 70 illegal migrants on board, among whom 23 children. They were Iraqi and Syrian nationals. On August 13, another boat under Turkish flag with 69 illegal migrants of Iraqi nationality on board was intercepted by the Coast Guard in Romanias territorial waters, and two human traffickers, a Bulgarian and a Cypriot nationals, were taken into custody by the line authorities. On Monday, Romanian border policemen on duty at Nadlac II, in the west, found 42 people from Iraq, Syria and the Comoro Islands hiding in a truck driven by a Turkish national, with the intention of illegally leaving Romania to reach a Schengen country. Another group made up of 24 Syrian and Iraqi migrants who intended to illegally cross Romanias national border, guided by a Romanian citizen, were stopped on Sunday night by border police officers at the Nadlac border crossing point.



    ATTACKS– The Catalan police has
    confirmed that the alleged perpetrator of the Barcelona attack, Moroccan     Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, was shot dead in Subirats, west of Barcelona, on
    Monday. He has been identified as the driver of the van
    who ploughed through Barcelona’s Las Ramblas
    crowd, killing 13 people. Also on Monday     the regional interior minister,
    Joaquim Forn, announced that death
    toll taken by the two attacks carried out last week in the Spanish region of
    Catalonia, in Barcelona and     Cambrils, and claimed by the Islamic State,
    rose to 15. The last victim is a man stabbed to death, found in a car which
    tried to drive past a police road block just hours after the Barcelona attack.
    The policemen haven’t linked the incident to the attacks in Catalonia so far. The
    perpetrators of the two attacks were members of a Jihadist cell comprising 12
    people. On Monday, Romanian political leaders signed the book of condolences
    opened by the Spanish Embassy in Bucharest, in respect and remembrance of the
    victims of the recent attacks.



    TENNIS – Romanias best ranking tennis player Simona Halep was trounced by Spanish challenger Garbine Muguruza 6-1, 6-0 in the finals of the WTA tournament in Cincinnati with over two million and a half dollars in prize money. Halep, the worlds second best tennis player has for the third time missed the chance of becoming WTA number one. We recall the Romanian player lost the Roland Garros finals to Jelena Ostapenko and the quarters in Wimbledon to Johanna Konta. Simona also lost the finals in Cincinnati to Serena Williams in 2015 and was stopped in her tracks last year in the semis by Angelique Kerber.

  • Reactions to Terror Attacks in Europe

    Reactions to Terror Attacks in Europe

    Tragedy marks
    the end of the year. The attack in Berlin and the assassination in Ankara have
    once again proved that no European country stands alone in the face of
    terrorism. After a truck ran into the people attending a Christmas street fair
    in the German capital city on the night of December 19, the presidential
    adviser Bogdan Aurescu sent condolences, on behalf of Romania’s presidency, to
    the mourning families, the German authorities and the German people as a whole,
    for the innocent victims of this unimaginable tragedy.

    In turn, PM Dacian Ciolos
    sent a condolence letter to the federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, voicing the
    Romanians’ solidarity with the German people at this difficult time. Romania,
    reads the letter, firmly condemns any act of terrorism and pleads for
    coordinated and determined international efforts to fight them.


    Attackers may
    strike anywhere, including in Romania, although the risk of violence on
    Romanian territory is lower than in the countries standing at the forefront of
    the fight against the Islamic State terror group, analysts say. The foreign
    security expert Dan Claudiu Degeratu, quoted by the daily Adevarul, emphasises
    the advantages that Romania has, compared to other European countries: it
    receives fewer refugees and it still has a positive image in the Middle East.
    Moreover, the Islamic community in Romania is not radicalised. On the other
    hand, in Germany, which has received more than a million refugees, the
    situation is different.

    Here is Professor Stefan Popescu:


    The fact that for so long, throughout 2015 and in the first half of 2016,
    Germany had an open door policy with respect to refugees, does not make it less
    vulnerable. On the contrary, it is even more exposed… and it was the first time
    it had been targeted by violence, although it did not deploy combat forces in
    sub-Saharan Africa or the Middle East and Near East, as is the case with
    France.


    The situation in
    Syria was the pretext of the assassination in cold blood of the Russian
    Ambassador to Ankara, Andrei Karlov, in a shooting that the Russian Foreign Ministry
    has defined as terrorist. The presidential adviser Bogdan Aurescu spoke about
    an outrageous act, while PM Dacian Ciolos pointed out that such barbaric
    acts targeting diplomatic representatives have no justification and must be
    countered at all costs.


    In a letter sent
    to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, the Romanian Foreign Minister Lazar
    Comanescu also emphasised the importance of the efforts to fight terrorism and
    to prosecute the perpetrators. Don’t forget Aleppo. Don’t forget Syria. Unless
    our towns are secure, you won’t enjoy security, the perpetrator of the attack
    in Ankara shouted as he opened fire on the Ambassador of Russia, a country
    directly involved in the clashes in that Arab state.

  • UPDATE Munich attack: Death toll rises to ten

    UPDATE Munich attack: Death toll rises to ten

    A big security operation is under way in the German city of Munich after shots have been fired in a shopping centre. Police sources say the death toll rose to ten. According to local media, the 10th dead person is believed by police to be one of the killers, a German of 18, originated from Iran. His body was found on a green stretch near the Olympia shopping centre. Police have said at least three gunmen were involved in the attack at the Olympia mall and warned they are still “on the run and dangerous”. Investigators say the “acute terror situation” has sparked the biggest police operation in Munich for more than a decade.



    No details have emerged on who was behind the shooting and no one has claimed responsibility. Authorities told the public to get off the streets as the city – Germanys third biggest – went into lockdown with transport halted and highways sealed off.



    A police spokesman said there was no immediate indication that it was an Islamist attack but it was being treated as a terrorist incident. Fridays attack took place a week after a 17-year-old asylum-seeker wounded passengers on a German train in an axe rampage. Bavarian police shot dead the teenager after he wounded four people from Hong Kong on the train and injured a local resident while fleeing. Friday is also the five-year anniversary of the massacre by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in which he killed 77 people. The attack in Munich is the third major act of violence against civilian targets to take place in Western Europe in eight days.



    In a post on his Facebook page, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has said: “I firmly condemn this evening’s attack in Munich. Unfortunately, innocent people continue to be the victims of extreme and completely unjustified violence. Such coward crimes must be promptly and severely punished. Fresh efforts of the international community are needed to enhance the prevention and action capacity, by using all available means. My thoughts are now with the families and friends of the victims. I’m in touch with the relevant Romanian authorities who deploy all efforts to find out if there are any Romanians among the victims and provide assistance to those who need it.”



    Speaking at the United Nations in New York, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has said: “Everybody is shocked and saddened by what has taken place. Our thoughts are very much with the victims, their families, with the people of Munich, and the people of Germany more widely. If, as seems very likely, this is another terrorist incident, then I think it proves once again that we have a global phenomenon now and a global sickness that we have to tackle both at source — in the areas where the cancer is being incubated in the Middle East — and also of course around the world.”



    The European Council President, Donald Tusk and US President Barack Obama have also voiced solidarity with Germany.

  • Romania condemns terror attacks

    Romania condemns terror attacks

    Romania condemns the terror attacks that made scores of victims in Iraq and Turkey on Monday and Tuesday. Terrorism has unfortunately made numerous victims at the beginning of the year, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said, while condemning the attacks and expressing Romania’s solidarity with the countries affected. The Romanian President has reiterated Bucharest’s commitment to fighting this scourge alongside the international community, adding that all the countries should show more firmness and coordination in their efforts to combat terrorism.



    The Romanian Foreign Ministry has also vehemently condemned the terror attack in Istanbul’s historical district of Sultanahmet, pledging support for the Turkish authorities in their efforts to fight all forms of terrorism. The Romanian Foreign Ministry said that no Romanian citizens are among the victims of the attack.



    According to the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, the Islamic State is behind the attack. President Tayyip Erdogan has said his country is the first target of all the terrorist organisations in the region, but pledged that Ankara would fight all of them equally. The Turkish authorities have announced that the attacker was a 27-year old Syrian who entered Turkey from Syria.



    According to Turkish experts, the place of the attack and its targets are illustrative of the symbolic payload the Islamic State attaches to its attacks. In their opinion the attack came in response to Turkey’s having joined the international anti-Jihadist coalition. The attack in Istanbul came as a follow-up to the bloodiest terror attack in Turkey’s history, which killed 103 people at the central railway station in Ankara in October 2015. Another string of ISIS attacks took place in Baghdad on Monday, where gunmen opened fire on a crowded district, a car bomb went off and other assailants took hundreds of hostages in a shopping center.



    The US President Barack Obama has also mentioned terrorist organisations in his latest State of the Union Address before the US Congress, saying that quote “Our foreign policy must be focused on the threat from ISIL and al Qaeda, but it can’t stop there “. Barrack Obama also said that “instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world—in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia. Some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks” unquote.