Free Republic

George Simion, the leader of the right-wing Union of Romanians (AUR) party, has emerged as the frontrunner in Romania’s upcoming presidential election, polling reveals. Simion is projected to win the first round of voting on May 4 with approximately 29 percent of the vote, according to Politico’s Poll of Polls. This puts him ahead of his nearest rivals, former National Liberal Party leader Crin Antonescu at 22 percent and Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan at 20 percent. Simion’s rise to prominence comes in the wake of the controversial decision to annul the results of the previous presidential election held in December....

A Swiss think tank has reported that U.S. intelligence agencies, allegedly acting under the directives of the Trump administration, are investigating former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his assistant James O’Brien for purportedly pressuring Romanian authorities to annul the country’s presidential election results. According to the report, Blinken—an arch-neocon and influential figure in America’s globalist, interventionist foreign policy establishment—collaborated with former Romanian Foreign Minister Luminița Odobescu to pressure officials in Bucharest into annulling Călin Georgescu’s first-round presidential victory, thereby ensuring Romania remained aligned with pro-NATO and globalist interests. The Diplomatic Affairs, a Geneva-based think tank focused on assessing global...

Romania’s streets are on fire! Nationalist leader Calin Georgescu has been barred from the presidential race, triggering violent protests in Bucharest. With claims of EU interference, accusations against acting President Ilie Bolojan, and shocking support from Elon Musk and JD Vance, Romania’s political future hangs in the balance. Is this the end of democracy in Romania? Watch now for the full story!

A DOG owner was eaten by her pet pugs after dying in her apartment and being left to rot for days. The horrifying scene was discovered after Adriana Neagoe's family members raised the alarm when they had not heard from her in five days. The 34-year-old, from Târgu Jiu, northwest of Bucharest, Romania, had not responded to any phone calls or messages and when concerned relatives visited the flat there was no response. After alerting the police, officers and firefighters broke down the door to find Neagoe's lifeless half-eaten body on the floor. Her two beloved pugs were found beside...

ALL 224 passengers on a plane that was due to take off from Zaragoza Airport on Saturday, September 30, had to be evacuated following an incident. As reported in a statement released by the Guardia Civil this Sunday, October 1, the Wizz Air flight was scheduled to fly to the Romanian capital of Bucharest. The incident occurred at around 9:15 am, while the plane was sitting on the runway in the Aragonese capital. It involved one of the passengers, a Romanian national who is believed to be resident in Zaragoza. While waiting for the flight to depart, the allegedly intoxicated...

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A court in Romania’s capital on Tuesday ruled to extend by another 30 days the house arrest of Andrew Tate, the divisive social media influencer who is charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. The decision at the Bucharest Tribunal comes a month after prosecutors formally indicted the 36-year-old social media star along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian women in the same case. All four defendants — who were arrested in late December near Bucharest and have denied the allegations against them — will remain under house...

On this date in 1962, partisan Gheorghe Arsenescu was put to death at Bucharest’s Jilava Prison. Arsenescu was a leader and co-founder of one of Romania’s several bands of anti-communist resistance units. Arsenescu’s Haiducii Muscelului — the Muscel Outlaws — were a band of 30 to 40 in the Carpathian fooothills who scarcely posed a serious threat to the Romanian state, but who nevertheless managed to elude capture for nine solid years in the 1950’s. (More about the Haiducii in this Romanian pdf.) Arsenescu was finally nabbed in 1960, a few months after his former comrades Toma and Petre Arnautoiu...

Rudy Giuliani: The witness I relied upon if you paid any attention to what I did last week is someone named Victor Shokin. That’s the affidavit I put out plus two others… Those three all say that Joe Biden pressured the president to fire Shokin because Shokin had just come upon a laundered $3 million transaction to Hunter Biden. And he was told by the Serbian government that the United States government would not allow to give that information out. That’s the reason they say they were fired… That’s a lot stronger proof than any silly whistleblower nonsense about something...

The 20-something couple with a history of small-time scams had inadvertently hacked the world’s most powerful nation for a five-figure ransom at a time of high anxiety over national security on Inauguration Day. The Romanians had launched hundreds of thousands of emails embedded with ransomware in an attachment disguised as an invoice, authorities said. The list of email addresses they bought included, by chance, the Washington, D.C., police department. A recipient there apparently took the bait, opening the attachment that locked up the street-camera system. Only a payment could produce the key. Ms. Cismaru sent a message to the Journal...

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. ~ Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965) (speech, Fulton Missouri, 5 March...

26 people have been killed and scores injured in a Bucharest nightclub fire • Bucharest nightclub fire kills dozens • 150 wounded in blast • Fireworks reportedly caused the fire • Foreigners thought to be among the victims

He’s the purr-fect employee: Company in Bucharest hires a CAT as communications director…. And it earns more than a typical Romanian Bossy beat off the competition of 700 other applicants for the top job The fluffy feline was appointed after the company said it was impressed by his attitude Bossy will reportedly receive a salary equivalent to £110 a month plus bonuses By TOM WYKE FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 12:22 EST, 9 June 2015 | UPDATED: 06:45 EST, 10 June 2015 With the competition for jobs fiercer than ever, the director of communications position at a new start up was always...

...During NATO's 2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania, the issue was discussed and, after opposition from France and Germany, a decision was made to offer neither Ukraine nor Georgia a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) — essentially a path for Ukraine to receive membership — at that moment. Vague promises of NATO membership in the future were made, but the United States later appeared to drop its support for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Russia's brief war with Georgia in August 2008 helped underscore the decision's importance, but NATO and Ukraine held further talks in December. Again, however, no specific...

February 2013. It was supposed to be a pleasant night out for urbane movie-lovers. Bucharest’s ethnographic hub, the National Museum of the Peasant, was hosting Lisa Cholodenko’s film “The Kids Are All Right”, starring Annette Benning and Julianne Moore as gay parents of troubled teens. This was part of a month-long festival dedicated to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) rights, and supported by the American embassy in Bucharest. […] A minute later, around 40 members of the audience, who were draped in the Romanian tricolor flag, jumped from their seats yelling and screaming, and brandishing religious icons over...

El Baradei and Chairman of Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani Source: Al Youm Al SabehSeptember 6, 2010The Egyptian Newspaper Al Youm Al Sabeh reports: In a communication to the Attorney General of Egypt, Dr. Yasser Najib Abdel Mabboud, has accused Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, former Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency and a candidate in the Egyptian presidential elections, of receiving funds exceeding $7 million (US) from Iran’s leadership as support for ‘political reform in Egypt’.Abdul Mabboud , a candidate of the National Party and who like El Baradei is also running for the Egyptian Presidential election, was informed of the...

A blast occurred Monday at the Bucharest Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence and Ecology Research Center of the Romanian Ministry of Defense, killing one officer who was working there, the ministry said.Major engineer Octavian – Viorel Mihai received first aid from the unit’s doctor and was immediately taken to the nearest hospital, to receive specialized medical attention, but he passed away.The officer was 37 years old and was working at the center since 2004. Part of his job involved working with powders and explosives. Another two slightly injured in NBC Research Center explosion A woman who was injured in the...

Like pensions and insurance, defence is one of those subjects to which too many people only pay attention when things go wrong. You might think, in the light of the past decade, that this would have changed. But you would be sadly mistaken. Even today, even after Iraq, few mainstream MPs without an immediate personal or constituency interest in the subject turn up in the Commons for defence debates. Many politicians who are thoughtful about a range of domestic issues still pass by on the other side when the conversation gravitates to the military. In this they reflect the British...

A bear attacked a group of U.S. tourists on a remote trail in the Carpathian Mountains, killing a woman and injuring two other people... The bear attacked a 26-year-old woman. After she fell down and tourists threw stones at the bear, it turned its attention to a man, biting him on the leg. The bear then mauled to death the 31-year-old woman, despite more attempts to distract it by throwing stones. The bear had earlier bitten a Romanian tourist on the shoulder and attacked sheep... Three years ago, two men died after they were attacked ...

Militant protesters trying to break up a gay rights march in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, have clashed with riot police who made dozens of arrests. Ten people were reportedly injured in the violence at the GayFest event which saw hundreds of gay rights activists marching against discrimination. They were also calling for the legalisation of same-sex marriages. Hundreds of protesters turned out, some throwing eggs, stones and plastic bottles at the marchers. Correspondents point out that homosexuality is legal in Romania but the public largely accepts the majority Orthodox Christian Church's view that it is a sin. "Romania does not...

Under the agreement on the location of U.S. military facilities in Romania, the United States can launch an attack from Romanian territory without knowledge or approval of the Romanian authorities. Parliament's joint defense and foreign policy committees discussed the accord yesterday with representatives of the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The agreement, signed last year by Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu and visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on December 6 last year, allows U.S. troops access to four Romanian military bases. Mihai Kogalniceanu in Constanta will be the most important U.S. military base, as it...