July 27
Click here for a roundup of domestic and political news.
Valentin Țigău, 27.07.2013, 14:44
In a special convention of the populist party Greater Romania, held in Alba Iulia on Saturday, the around 700 participants decided to expel the party’s founding president Corneliu Vadim Tudor and elected Gheorghe Funar as the new president. The delegates also elected the members of the party’s leading bodies, the National Council, the Steering Committee and the Standing Bureau. Corneliu Vadim Tudor views the organisation of the congress as illegal and announced he would take the organisers to court.
The Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, said on Saturday at the Summer University in the resort of Tusnad, central Romania, that Hungary’s current policy of protecting national interests must be carried on. Speaking to around three thousand people, he said an important part of this policy is granting dual citizenship to the Hungarians living outside the country. According to Viktor Orban, this is the only solution to the sense of division experienced by the Hungarian nation since its borders were moved, in the 20th Century. Previously, the State Secretary for European Affairs in the Romanian Foreign Ministry George Ciamba had voiced surprise at the statements of some Hungarian officials with respect to the regional restructuring of Romania, and said this was an interference with a democratic, legitimate and sovereign process in Romania.
Tourists are invited this weekend to the 21st Medieval Art Festival of Sighisoara (in central Romania). This year’s theme is “Vlad, the Knight of Justice: Myth and History,” contrasting the actual personality of the 15th Century Wallachian ruler Vlad the Impaler, and the fictional character Dracula. Visitors may attend parades, shows, tournaments and fights, medieval music and dance, recitals, processions and witch-hunts, public trials, carnivals and wine tasting sessions. Taking part in the Festival are theatre companies from Romania, France, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Sighisoara is the only inhabited medieval citadel in south-eastern Europe.
The funerals of the 78 people who died on Wednesday, when a train went off the rails in Santiago de Compostela will take place on Monday night in the cathedral of this north-western Spanish town, a world Catholic pilgrimage landmark. The regional government of Galicia announced they are working to organise the official funerals, but emphasised that their priorities are to provide assistance to the injured and the victims families, and to identify the victims. 75 of the 78 dead had been identified by Friday. Another 178 people were injured in the crash. The engine driver, suspected of taking the train in a dangerous curve at high speed, has been held by the police and will be heard by a judge.
Around 120 people died and close to 4,500 others were wounded in the clashes between protesters and police forces on Friday night in Rabia al-Adawiya Square in Cairo, according to the web site of the Muslim Brotherhood, which quotes medical sources. The Islamist movement describes the events in Rabia al-Adawiya Square as a massacre. This square is a permanent gathering place for the supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi. Major rallies were staged on Friday in several cities in Egypt, by Morsi’s opponents and supporters. According to military sources, some 35 million people took to the streets.
