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President Vladimir Putin on Friday maintained Russian opposition to a United States missile defence system and Nato’s enlargement during talks with alliance leaders, officials said. No progress was reported from the summit but Putin, in his last major international appearance before stepping down in May, and Nato leaders said the talks had been positive.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday started a tense summit with Nato leaders amid mounting tensions over United States anti-missile defence plans and the alliance’s expansion toward Russian territory. In a rare moment of cooperation, Russia and Nato concluded a deal on land transit for non-military freight to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, is expected to propose a radical expansion of the Afghan army and call for his troops to take over security responsibilities in Kabul from Nato, according to officials at the alliance’s summit in Bucharest, Romania. The proposal will be discussed by Nato leaders at a meeting on Afghanistan soon.
United States President George Bush set the stage for a clash at his last Nato summit on Wednesday by pressing reluctant West European allies to set former Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine on a path to membership. He also urged allies to follow the example of France and host nation Romania in providing extra troops for Nato’s battle against Islamist insurgents in Afghanistan.
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/ 25 September 2007
Romanian lawmakers said on Tuesday that the Transylvanian fortress commonly known as Dracula’s Castle was illegally returned to an heir of Romania’s royal family and called on authorities to launch an investigation into the restitution. Lawmakers voted that the process had been illegal, citing procedural errors.
Twelve Romanians died and firefighters, soldiers and volunteers battled wildfires across south-eastern Europe on Tuesday as a heatwave broke temperature records across the Balkans. There was a blackout in many parts of Macedonia and some parts of Albania and northern Greece. In Romania, new deaths pushed the toll from the heatwave up to 30.
A Romanian man who sued God for ”fraud” and ”betrayal of trust” for failing to answer his prayers has had his case dismissed in court, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. Mircea Pavel (40), who is serving 20 years in prison for murder, brought charges against ”the defendant God, who lives in the heavens and is represented in Romania by the Orthodox Church”.
A searing heatwave has killed at least 44 people across southern Europe, while in Britain torrential rain claimed three lives and forced hundreds to flee a creaking dam. Twenty-nine deaths have been blamed on the heat in Romania, where temperatures on Tuesday hit 45 degrees Celsius.
Bulgaria and Romania made it into the European Union on New Year’s on Monday, a historic moment that drew thousands to midnight concerts although leaders warned that painful reforms were still needed. As midnight struck marking the first day of 2007, hundreds of balloons with ”Welcome Europe” written on them rose to the sky from a 30 000-strong crowd in Alexander Battenberg square
The Romanian Senate has opened an inquiry into ”indications” that floods that have battered the country were the result of a ”meteorological war waged by a foreign power”, a senator said Thursday. ”We are planning to check indications … that the extreme meteorological phenomena were caused by human technology controlled from abroad,” Dan Carlan said.
About 1 000 people were evacuated on Monday morning in southern Romania, after high water levels on the Danube opened two cracks in a dyke in Macesu de Jos, flooding about 400 houses in the same village, local authorities said. Local authorities maintained a state of alert in the nearby villages of Bistret and Plosca.
A thousand people fled on Monday and at least another 9 000 were on stand-by for evacuation in Romania after the swollen River Danube burst its banks. As well as the worst-hit country, Romania, flood waters have waterlogged homes, farmland and transport links in Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria.
Romania has ruptured a dyke on the River Danube to save homes elsewhere from floods and launched a 24-hour watch on the bulging embankments during Orthodox Easter as the swollen Danube menaced scores of villages and towns across south-eastern Europe.
Thousands of Romanians prepared on Wednesday to flee homes threatened by flood waters from the rising River Danube, as emergency crews desperately sought to reinforce damaged river dykes. Flood-water levels have broken 100-year records in several rivers across the Balkans this week.
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/ 17 October 2005
The growing threat of bird flu spreading across the continent is set to top the agendas of European Union leaders this week, after the deadly Asian strain of the virus landed in the continent for the first time. In the Far East, where the deadly H5N1 strain first emerged, the top United States health official held meetings with Indonesian ministers.
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/ 16 September 2005
Everton’s miserable start to the season suffered a new low on Thursday when they slipped to a humiliating 5-1 defeat at the hands of Dynamo Bucharest in their UEFA Cup first round, first leg tie. The defeat came in the wake of their elimination in the Champions League qualifying round by Villarreal and followed a depressing start to the Premiership where they are third from bottom.
Heavy flooding has claimed the lives of 13 people in Romania over the past three days and three more are missing, the country’s interior minister said on Thursday, warning that the toll could rise further. Vasile Blaga said 400 houses have been swept away by flood waters.
The days when almost everyone in Romania was a millionaire are numbered, starting on Tuesday when sceptical Romanians were greeted with old and new prices as the country takes the first steps to introducing the ”heavy leu”. The 22-month process will see four zeros zapped from the national currency, weakened after 15 years of high inflation.
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/ 10 November 2004
A Romanian judge on Wednesday resigned after being accused of starring in an X-rated video, officials said. Simona Lungu (36), a judge at the Bucharest Tribunal, was investigated by judicial authorities over allegations that she acted in an adult video that was sold in Denmark.