The ruling by Romania's electoral bureau to exclude the far-right politician Calin Georgescu from the presidential poll in May sparked clashes between his supporters and police in the capital Bucharest. Watch this report for more details!

Chaos in Romania after far-right Calin Georgescu barred from presidential rerun

Romania: Supporters of Georgescu face off with police

According to law enforcement, a foreign person was caught in Romania's capital Bucharest on Monday after tossing a Molotov cocktail outside the Israeli embassy.&nbsp;

The incident did not result to inflicting no damage or fatalities, according to the authorities.

The Romanian Intelligence Service said anti-terrorism officers apprehended the 34-year-old suspect, who reportedly threatened to light himself on fire, and turned him over to police.

Israel's Foreign Ministry acknowledged the arrest of the man, who is "apparently of Syrian origin". According to the report, he pulled out, lighted, and threw the petrol bomb while being inspected by security.

Georgian Dragan, a police spokesman, informed local news station Digi24 that the suspect's intentions were personal and unrelated to Israel's conflict in Gaza.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/uk-declares-first-rwanda-asylum-seekers-deportation-flight-to-take-off-on-july-24-728358">UK declares first Rwanda asylum seekers' deportation flight to take off on July 24</a>

A police spokeswoman informed local news station Digi24 that the event was driven by "personal grievances" rather than the international backdrop of Israel's ongoing war against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip. Local media stated that the suspect was a Syrian native.

The individual had failed to "obtain a certain visa," the official explained, although a probe into his motivations is still ongoing.

The Israeli embassy acknowledged the event in an official statement, claiming that the guy hurled the Molotov cocktail after being confronted by security.

The embassy complimented Romanian security and police officers for their "swift and efficient response."

(With inputs from agencies)

According to law enforcement, a foreign person was caught in Romania's capital Bucharest on Monday after tossing a Molotov cocktail outside the Israeli embassy. The incident did not result to inflicting no damage or fatalities, according to the authorities.

According to law enforcement, a foreign person was caught in Romania's capital Bucharest on Monday after tossing a Molotov cocktail outside the Israeli embassy. The incident did not result to inflicting no damage or fatalities, according to the authorities. The Romanian Intelligence Service said anti-terrorism officers apprehended the 34-year-old suspect, who reportedly threatened to light himself on fire, and turned him over to police. Israel's Foreign Ministry acknowledged the arrest of the man, who is "apparently of Syrian origin". According to the report, he pulled out, lighted, and threw the petrol bomb while being inspected by security. Georgian Dragan, a police spokesman, informed local news station Digi24 that the suspect's intentions were personal and unrelated to Israel's conflict in Gaza. Also read: UK declares first Rwanda asylum seekers' deportation flight to take off on July 24 A police spokeswoman informed local news station Digi24 that the event was driven by "personal grievances" rather than the international backdrop of Israel's ongoing war against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip. Local media stated that the suspect was a Syrian native. The individual had failed to "obtain a certain visa," the official explained, although a probe into his motivations is still ongoing. The Israeli embassy acknowledged the event in an official statement, claiming that the guy hurled the Molotov cocktail after being confronted by security. The embassy complimented Romanian security and police officers for their "swift and efficient response." (With inputs from agencies)

Foreign national detained in Romania for throwing molotov cocktail outside Israeli embassy

Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate will be extradited to the United Kingdom, a Romanian court ruled on Tuesday. The duo were previously detained in Romania after the British authorities issued an arrest warrant.

Romania: Bucharest court allows UK extradition of Tate brothers

Nine people died on Friday when a fire broke out in an intensive care unit at a Romanian hospital treating COVID-19 patients, officials said, the country`s third deadly hospital fire in less than a year.

Firefighters extinguished the fire at the hospital in the eastern city of Constanta at around 0755 GMT, having brought in additional teams from nearby counties.

Video footage showed patients jumping out of windows from the hospital`s lower levels and firefighters carrying people out.

Interim Health Minister Cseke Attila said 113 patients were in the hospital at the time of the fire, including 10 in the intensive care unit.

Emergency response teams have installed a mobile triage unit near the hospital and 50 patients have so far been evacuated and transferred to other hospitals.

There were more than 12,100 COVID-19 patients, including 315 children, being treated in Romanian hospitals as of Thursday, including 1,364 in intensive care units.

The number of new COVID-19 infections in Romania reached 12,032 on Thursday, a new record high, and intensive care units across the country were running out of space. Romania has the second-lowest vaccination rate in the 27-nation European Union.

In February, a fire killed four patients at a COVID-19 hospital in the capital Bucharest. Last November 10 people died in an intensive care unit at the Piatra Neamt county hospital.

Even before the pandemic, Romania`s health care system had been under pressure, dogged by corruption, inefficiencies and politicised management. The country has one of the EU`s least developed healthcare infrastructures.

The state has built one hospital in the last three decades, spends the least on healthcare in the EU and tens of thousands of doctors and nurses have emigrated.

Nine people died on Friday when a fire broke out in an intensive care unit at a Romanian hospital treating COVID-19 patients, officials said, the country`s third deadly hospital fire in less than a year.

Nine people died on Friday when a fire broke out in an intensive care unit at a Romanian hospital treating COVID-19 patients, officials said, the country`s third deadly hospital fire in less than a year. Firefighters extinguished the fire at the hospital in the eastern city of Constanta at around 0755 GMT, having brought in additional teams from nearby counties. Video footage showed patients jumping out of windows from the hospital`s lower levels and firefighters carrying people out. Interim Health Minister Cseke Attila said 113 patients were in the hospital at the time of the fire, including 10 in the intensive care unit. Emergency response teams have installed a mobile triage unit near the hospital and 50 patients have so far been evacuated and transferred to other hospitals. There were more than 12,100 COVID-19 patients, including 315 children, being treated in Romanian hospitals as of Thursday, including 1,364 in intensive care units. The number of new COVID-19 infections in Romania reached 12,032 on Thursday, a new record high, and intensive care units across the country were running out of space. Romania has the second-lowest vaccination rate in the 27-nation European Union. In February, a fire killed four patients at a COVID-19 hospital in the capital Bucharest. Last November 10 people died in an intensive care unit at the Piatra Neamt county hospital. Even before the pandemic, Romania`s health care system had been under pressure, dogged by corruption, inefficiencies and politicised management. The country has one of the EU`s least developed healthcare infrastructures. The state has built one hospital in the last three decades, spends the least on healthcare in the EU and tens of thousands of doctors and nurses have emigrated.

Fire at COVID-19 hospital in Romania kills nine people

On Oct. 30, 2015, a fire ripped through a nightclub in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, leaving 64 people dead. Almost six years later, a documentary about the fire and its tragic aftermath has been nominated for two Oscars.

It would be the first Oscar win for the Eastern European country, but the film’s success is bittersweet for many Romanians, given its painful subject matter — particularly since many believe not enough has changed since 2015.

“Collective,” which has been nominated for best documentary feature and best foreign film, follows a group of investigative journalists from a sports newspaper as they uncover painful truths about the Romanian health care system.

“The situation was so appalling that basically it should have been a big scandal in the whole of Europe,” said Alexander Nanau, the film’s director.

Events on the night of the fire and its immediate aftermath ricocheted across Romania, toppling the government at the time — led by the Social Democratic Party — and mobilizing civil society into large-scale protests.

In the years since, however, there have been further political scandals, and few health care overhauls. The coronavirus pandemic has also put huge new demands on the struggling Romanian health care system. Two fires in COVID-19 wards in the last six months have left at least 20 people dead.

Many Romanians wonder how much has really changed since “Collective.”

While tragic, the nightclub fire is just the film’s starting point. The blaze claimed 27 lives in its immediate aftermath, but 64 people would ultimately die, many victims of a health care system awash with corruption and willing to hide painful truth from the victims and their families.

Standing outside one of Bucharest’s main hospitals, Nanau recalled: “It was basically in front of this hospital where the minister of health always stood flanked by doctors saying ‘We can treat the burn victims at the highest standards.’”

However, as the journalists found out, the burn unit was not even operational at the time, Nanau said. “It’s incredible that they have the guts to lie to all these people that their kids are being given surgery in the most modern burn unit when in fact this was closed.”

The journalists also discovered that the disinfectant used in hospitals across the country was being watered down, to the extent that it was largely ineffectual, probably resulting in many more deaths. The owner of the company involved drove his car into a tree after the truth was brought to light, killing himself.

The documentary shows in real time the reaction of the journalists after a whistleblower sends them footage from a hospital of maggots crawling in the wound of a burn victim.

The film has been compared to both “Spotlight” and “All the President’s Men,” and in a review for The New York Times late last year, Manohla Dargis described “Collective” as a “staggering documentary” that offered “no moment when you can take an easy breath, assured that the terrible things you’ve been watching onscreen are finally over.”

For people in Romania, however, much of what is shown onscreen is painfully familiar.

Catalin Tolontan, then editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor, is one of the main protagonists of “Collective.” Before the documentary, “We used to receive 10 or 15 messages per day from the public, with scoops or information,” he said in an interview. “After the movie we received 70 to 80 a day.”

Tedy Ursuleanu, who suffered severe burns across her head and body, and had her fingers amputated as a result of the fire, is one of the strongest characters in the film.

In an interview, she said that it was not a hard decision to let the filmmakers follow her, but that seeing the film was a painful experience. “When I saw some of the scenes, the impact was as if I lived those moments again,” Ursuleanu said. “I started to cry. I needed to go outside to compose myself.”

Ursuleanu said she believed that not enough progress had been made in the years since the documentary was filmed. “Changes have taken place, but they are few compared to the needs we have here,” she said. “Sadly, tragedies like this could easily happen again, because even now measures are not respected.”

Partway through the documentary, “Collective” introduces a young, reform-minded health minister, Vlad Voiculescu, who is brought in as part of a short-lived technocrat government.

Voiculescu and his team face strong resistance as they try to bring greater transparency to the health care system, while having to accept that the system was culpable in many deaths.

In a recent interview, Voiculescu, who was reappointed as health minister late last year, said that what frustrated him most was that on his return he found an institution that was “even more collapsed than before.” Now, Voiculescu is more focused on dealing with the coronavirus than overhauling the Romanian health care system.

“Collective,” which appeared on streaming platforms late last year, has resonated strongly with audiences around the world, especially at a time when the pandemic has made health care a central issue globally.

Nanau, a Romanian director who spent much of his life in Germany before moving back to his home country in 2015, has a track record of producing powerful documentaries. His previous film, “Toto and His Sisters,” followed the lives of three teenagers left to fend largely for themselves in one of the poorest areas of Bucharest, after their mother was sent to prison on drug charges.

But with “Collective,” he seems to have found a subject that hit at a perfect moment.

The film’s impact has also been felt outside Romania. Earlier this year in Mongolia, when a woman with COVID-19 was transferred from the hospital in freezing temperatures just days after giving birth, journalists began asking tough questions of the government, apparently encouraging one another on Facebook by referencing “Collective,” which a local television station had shown days earlier. Protests followed, and the government ultimately resigned.

“If you are a journalist in a small country and saw ‘Spotlight,’ you could say, ‘Well, this is the U.S., they have a lot of resources, they have a strong democracy, they have a bond between the public and government,’” Tolontan, the newspaper editor, said. “But if you are in Mongolia or the Czech Republic, Indonesia, and you saw this movie, you think ‘They’re like us.’”

Romanian movies like “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” “Beyond the Hills” and “Child’s Pose” have received top awards at international festivals over the years, but none has won an Oscar.

Andrei Gorzo, a Romanian film critic, said that it was harder for Romanian viewers to see “Collective” as a morally clear-cut tale of a few good people fighting to change the rotten system. Instead, he said, it captures a specific moment in Romania, when urban, middle-class voters believed in a new breed of politician, young and unsullied, who could clean up Romanian politics. “It is impossible for me to watch the film without acknowledging that a lot of that romanticism has turned sour since then,” he said.

Others are more optimistic. “The generation that will change things here is not the generation that is 35-plus,” Nanau said. “It’s the younger generation, and these are the people that write to us, that we have met in the cinemas.”

Tolontan said he saw “Collective” as “a point of no return” for Romanian society.

Whether the film wins at the Oscars ceremony next month, many Romanians still hope that the film’s biggest impact will be at home, and that they can leave its content in the past.

On Oct. 30, 2015, a fire ripped through a nightclub in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, leaving 64 people dead. Almost six years later, a documentary about the fire and its tragic aftermath has been nominated for two Oscars.

On Oct. 30, 2015, a fire ripped through a nightclub in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, leaving 64 people dead. Almost six years later, a documentary about the fire and its tragic aftermath has been nominated for two Oscars. It would be the first Oscar win for the Eastern European country, but the film’s success is bittersweet for many Romanians, given its painful subject matter — particularly since many believe not enough has changed since 2015. “Collective,” which has been nominated for best documentary feature and best foreign film, follows a group of investigative journalists from a sports newspaper as they uncover painful truths about the Romanian health care system. “The situation was so appalling that basically it should have been a big scandal in the whole of Europe,” said Alexander Nanau, the film’s director. Events on the night of the fire and its immediate aftermath ricocheted across Romania, toppling the government at the time — led by the Social Democratic Party — and mobilizing civil society into large-scale protests. In the years since, however, there have been further political scandals, and few health care overhauls. The coronavirus pandemic has also put huge new demands on the struggling Romanian health care system. Two fires in COVID-19 wards in the last six months have left at least 20 people dead. Many Romanians wonder how much has really changed since “Collective.” While tragic, the nightclub fire is just the film’s starting point. The blaze claimed 27 lives in its immediate aftermath, but 64 people would ultimately die, many victims of a health care system awash with corruption and willing to hide painful truth from the victims and their families. Standing outside one of Bucharest’s main hospitals, Nanau recalled: “It was basically in front of this hospital where the minister of health always stood flanked by doctors saying ‘We can treat the burn victims at the highest standards.’” However, as the journalists found out, the burn unit was not even operational at the time, Nanau said. “It’s incredible that they have the guts to lie to all these people that their kids are being given surgery in the most modern burn unit when in fact this was closed.” The journalists also discovered that the disinfectant used in hospitals across the country was being watered down, to the extent that it was largely ineffectual, probably resulting in many more deaths. The owner of the company involved drove his car into a tree after the truth was brought to light, killing himself. The documentary shows in real time the reaction of the journalists after a whistleblower sends them footage from a hospital of maggots crawling in the wound of a burn victim. The film has been compared to both “Spotlight” and “All the President’s Men,” and in a review for The New York Times late last year, Manohla Dargis described “Collective” as a “staggering documentary” that offered “no moment when you can take an easy breath, assured that the terrible things you’ve been watching onscreen are finally over.” For people in Romania, however, much of what is shown onscreen is painfully familiar. Catalin Tolontan, then editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor, is one of the main protagonists of “Collective.” Before the documentary, “We used to receive 10 or 15 messages per day from the public, with scoops or information,” he said in an interview. “After the movie we received 70 to 80 a day.” Tedy Ursuleanu, who suffered severe burns across her head and body, and had her fingers amputated as a result of the fire, is one of the strongest characters in the film. In an interview, she said that it was not a hard decision to let the filmmakers follow her, but that seeing the film was a painful experience. “When I saw some of the scenes, the impact was as if I lived those moments again,” Ursuleanu said. “I started to cry. I needed to go outside to compose myself.” Ursuleanu said she believed that not enough progress had been made in the years since the documentary was filmed. “Changes have taken place, but they are few compared to the needs we have here,” she said. “Sadly, tragedies like this could easily happen again, because even now measures are not respected.” Partway through the documentary, “Collective” introduces a young, reform-minded health minister, Vlad Voiculescu, who is brought in as part of a short-lived technocrat government. Voiculescu and his team face strong resistance as they try to bring greater transparency to the health care system, while having to accept that the system was culpable in many deaths. In a recent interview, Voiculescu, who was reappointed as health minister late last year, said that what frustrated him most was that on his return he found an institution that was “even more collapsed than before.” Now, Voiculescu is more focused on dealing with the coronavirus than overhauling the Romanian health care system. “Collective,” which appeared on streaming platforms late last year, has resonated strongly with audiences around the world, especially at a time when the pandemic has made health care a central issue globally. Nanau, a Romanian director who spent much of his life in Germany before moving back to his home country in 2015, has a track record of producing powerful documentaries. His previous film, “Toto and His Sisters,” followed the lives of three teenagers left to fend largely for themselves in one of the poorest areas of Bucharest, after their mother was sent to prison on drug charges. But with “Collective,” he seems to have found a subject that hit at a perfect moment. The film’s impact has also been felt outside Romania. Earlier this year in Mongolia, when a woman with COVID-19 was transferred from the hospital in freezing temperatures just days after giving birth, journalists began asking tough questions of the government, apparently encouraging one another on Facebook by referencing “Collective,” which a local television station had shown days earlier. Protests followed, and the government ultimately resigned. “If you are a journalist in a small country and saw ‘Spotlight,’ you could say, ‘Well, this is the U.S., they have a lot of resources, they have a strong democracy, they have a bond between the public and government,’” Tolontan, the newspaper editor, said. “But if you are in Mongolia or the Czech Republic, Indonesia, and you saw this movie, you think ‘They’re like us.’” Romanian movies like “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” “Beyond the Hills” and “Child’s Pose” have received top awards at international festivals over the years, but none has won an Oscar. Andrei Gorzo, a Romanian film critic, said that it was harder for Romanian viewers to see “Collective” as a morally clear-cut tale of a few good people fighting to change the rotten system. Instead, he said, it captures a specific moment in Romania, when urban, middle-class voters believed in a new breed of politician, young and unsullied, who could clean up Romanian politics. “It is impossible for me to watch the film without acknowledging that a lot of that romanticism has turned sour since then,” he said. Others are more optimistic. “The generation that will change things here is not the generation that is 35-plus,” Nanau said. “It’s the younger generation, and these are the people that write to us, that we have met in the cinemas.” Tolontan said he saw “Collective” as “a point of no return” for Romanian society. Whether the film wins at the Oscars ceremony next month, many Romanians still hope that the film’s biggest impact will be at home, and that they can leave its content in the past.

Since the Oscar-nominated ‘Collective,’ much and little has changed

Romania's once-mighty opposition party may have lost the race for the mayor of Bucharest in countrywide municipal elections held Sunday, but it celebrated a somewhat bizarre, bittersweet victory elsewhere.

Romania villagers re-elect mayor who died of COVID

Romanian theatres, cinemas and other cultural institutions reopened Tuesday after a six-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Romanian theatres reopen after six-month virus lockdown

American&nbsp;heavy&nbsp;metal&nbsp;band&nbsp;Metallica has donated&nbsp;250,000&nbsp;euros&nbsp;to a&nbsp;Romanian&nbsp;association building the country's first&nbsp;pediatric&nbsp;oncology&nbsp;hospital, they said on Wednesday.

The donation to Daruieste Viata (Give Life), founded in 2012, came ahead of the&nbsp;band's sold-out concert on Wednesday, it's fourth in the European Union state since 1999, the association said on its Facebook page.

The donation was made through the&nbsp;band's non-profit foundation All Within My Hands, it said in a statement.

Construction began in mid-2018 on the&nbsp;hospital&nbsp;in Bucharest, one of the few to be built in Romania over the last three decades.

The project is expected to be completed next year, with donations from 260,000 individuals and slightly fewer than 2,000 companies so far.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/wimbledon-champion-simona-halep-awarded-with-romanias-highest-distinctions-236307">Romania</a> has one of the EU's least developed infrastructure due to weak public administration, corruption, and bureaucracy, despite years of strong economic growth and billions of euros&nbsp;in EU funding.

The current government has repeatedly postponed plans to build three new regional&nbsp;hospitals for which the EU has allocated fund

American heavy metal band Metallica has donated 250,000 euros to a Romanian association building the country's first pediatric oncology hospital, they said on Wednesday.

American heavy metal band Metallica has donated 250,000 euros to a Romanian association building the country's first pediatric oncology hospital, they said on Wednesday. The donation to Daruieste Viata (Give Life), founded in 2012, came ahead of the band's sold-out concert on Wednesday, it's fourth in the European Union state since 1999, the association said on its Facebook page. The donation was made through the band's non-profit foundation All Within My Hands, it said in a statement. Construction began in mid-2018 on the hospital in Bucharest, one of the few to be built in Romania over the last three decades. The project is expected to be completed next year, with donations from 260,000 individuals and slightly fewer than 2,000 companies so far. Romania has one of the EU's least developed infrastructure due to weak public administration, corruption, and bureaucracy, despite years of strong economic growth and billions of euros in EU funding. The current government has repeatedly postponed plans to build three new regional hospitals for which the EU has allocated fund

Heavy metal band Metallica donates 250,000 euros for Romanian pediatric hospital

The 15-year-old victim called the police three times to report she was being held against her will by a man who had raped her in Romania. Police took 19 hours to reach the scene, by which time she was already dead.

Protests flare against Romanian Police after murder of a teenage girl

Anti-domestic violence protesters gathered outside of Romania's ministry of internal affairs building on Sunday, standing in memory of two girls murdered and against the inaction of authorities.

Romania protest after two female teenagers killed

The suspect, named as 65-year-old Gheorghe Dinca, has admitted to killing two teenage girls including a 15-year-old whose disappearance this week shook the country.

Romania suspect admits killing 2 girls, charged with murder

Romania&rsquo;s Prime Minister Mihai Tudose announced his resignation on Monday after his Social Democrat Party (PSD) withdrew its support amid a struggle with the group&#39;s chairman.&nbsp;

The party decided after a meeting, which lasted more than five hours, not to back him in an overwhelming vote, making him the second PM to be ousted in seven months.&nbsp;

Tudose, who was appointed in June, and leader Liviu Dragnea had clashes when the PM asked his interior minister Carmen Dan to quit after accusing her of lying to him. However, she refused to leave.&nbsp;

Tudose said he was quitting &quot;with my head high&quot; just over six months after he took office.

Tudose told reporters after the party vote: &ldquo;They named me, they removed me. I take responsibility for my deeds and I do not regret anything in my actions (as premier).&rdquo;

He said he would confirm his resignation in writing to President Klaus Iohannis on Monday night.

Deputy Prime Minister Paul Stanescu will be nominated to serve in Tudose&rsquo;s place for an interim period of up to 45 days, officials said. Iohannis can endorse Stanescu or propose an alternative.

Dragnea said 60 members of the committee had voted to sack Tudose and four to retain him, with the rest abstaining.

The PSD, which has a comfortable parliamentary majority, will have to nominate a permanent replacement during that period and its nominee needs backing from Iohannis and will face a vote of confidence in parliament.

Dragnea said the committee would meet on Tuesday to discuss proposals for a replacement.

&ldquo;We want to avoid facing the same situation (replacement of a prime minister) for the third time,&rdquo; he told reporters.

Dragnea, whose party swept to an emphatic national election win in December 2016, is barred from becoming prime minister by a conviction in a vote-rigging case.

(With inputs from Reuters)

The party decided after a meeting, which lasted more than five hours, not to back him in an overwhelming vote, making him the second PM to be ousted in seven months.

Romania’s Prime Minister Mihai Tudose announced his resignation on Monday after his Social Democrat Party (PSD) withdrew its support amid a struggle with the group's chairman. The party decided after a meeting, which lasted more than five hours, not to back him in an overwhelming vote, making him the second PM to be ousted in seven months. Tudose, who was appointed in June, and leader Liviu Dragnea had clashes when the PM asked his interior minister Carmen Dan to quit after accusing her of lying to him. However, she refused to leave. Tudose said he was quitting "with my head high" just over six months after he took office. Tudose told reporters after the party vote: “They named me, they removed me. I take responsibility for my deeds and I do not regret anything in my actions (as premier).” He said he would confirm his resignation in writing to President Klaus Iohannis on Monday night. Deputy Prime Minister Paul Stanescu will be nominated to serve in Tudose’s place for an interim period of up to 45 days, officials said. Iohannis can endorse Stanescu or propose an alternative. Dragnea said 60 members of the committee had voted to sack Tudose and four to retain him, with the rest abstaining. The PSD, which has a comfortable parliamentary majority, will have to nominate a permanent replacement during that period and its nominee needs backing from Iohannis and will face a vote of confidence in parliament. Dragnea said the committee would meet on Tuesday to discuss proposals for a replacement. “We want to avoid facing the same situation (replacement of a prime minister) for the third time,” he told reporters. Dragnea, whose party swept to an emphatic national election win in December 2016, is barred from becoming prime minister by a conviction in a vote-rigging case. (With inputs from Reuters)

Romania PM Mihai Tudose resigns after losing support from party

Romanian legend Radu Beligan, who held the Guinness record as the world&#39;s oldest theatre actor, has died at age 97 in a hospital in the capital Bucharest, medical staff said. 
 
After a prolific career spanning more than 70 years, the star passed away in his sleep today, said the director of the Elias hospital, Dana Safta. 
 
Beligan last performed in April at the National Theatre in Bucharest, where he had played a lead role in Jean Anouilh&rsquo;s &#39;Number Number&#39; to sellout audiences since 2004. 
 
Born on December 18, 1918, Beligan made his debut in 1937 in Bucharest in a stage version of &#39;Crime and Punishment&#39;, a classic Russian novel written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. 
 
He went on to star in some 100 plays and films and became a well-known TV and radio personality.&nbsp;But he was also criticised in artists&#39; circles for his membership of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party between 1969 and 1989. 
 
After the fall of communism, he was forced to step down as director of the National Theatre in 1990 after protests from his peers.&nbsp;In December 2013, the Guinness World Records awarded Beligan the title of &quot;oldest active theatre professional&quot;. 
 
The vote raised some eyebrows in Russia, where actor Vladimir Zeldin celebrated his 101st birthday earlier this year on stage in Moscow. 
 
(AFP)

After a prolific career spanning more than 70 years, the star passed away in his sleep today

Romanian legend Radu Beligan, who held the Guinness record as the world's oldest theatre actor, has died at age 97 in a hospital in the capital Bucharest, medical staff said. After a prolific career spanning more than 70 years, the star passed away in his sleep today, said the director of the Elias hospital, Dana Safta. Beligan last performed in April at the National Theatre in Bucharest, where he had played a lead role in Jean Anouilh’s 'Number Number' to sellout audiences since 2004. Born on December 18, 1918, Beligan made his debut in 1937 in Bucharest in a stage version of 'Crime and Punishment', a classic Russian novel written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. He went on to star in some 100 plays and films and became a well-known TV and radio personality. But he was also criticised in artists' circles for his membership of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party between 1969 and 1989. After the fall of communism, he was forced to step down as director of the National Theatre in 1990 after protests from his peers. In December 2013, the Guinness World Records awarded Beligan the title of "oldest active theatre professional". The vote raised some eyebrows in Russia, where actor Vladimir Zeldin celebrated his 101st birthday earlier this year on stage in Moscow. (AFP)

World's oldest theatre actor dies at age 97

Inhabitants of a village in southern Romania kidnapped dozens of vulnerable young men and boys and pushed them into modern-day slavery, chaining, abusing and humiliating them, authorities said. 
 
Police carried out a large-scale raid on Berevoiesti, 170 kilometres (105 miles) north of Bucharest, on Wednesday and freed five people including two minors. They are investigating around 90 suspects. 
 
The captives were &quot;attached with chains and straps... beaten (and) humiliated&quot;, starved of food and fed on scraps, prosecutors from the Direc?ia de Investigare a Infrac?iunilor de Criminalitate Organizata ?i Terorism (DIICOT) organised crime investigation unit said. 
 
Around 40 victims were &quot;captured in public places, near churches or train stations, or at their homes&quot; since 2008 and forced to do household chores, look after animals and do illegal logging, prosecutors said. 
 
(AFP)

Five people were freed including two minors. The captives were 'attached with chains and straps... beaten (and) humiliated', starved of food

Inhabitants of a village in southern Romania kidnapped dozens of vulnerable young men and boys and pushed them into modern-day slavery, chaining, abusing and humiliating them, authorities said. Police carried out a large-scale raid on Berevoiesti, 170 kilometres (105 miles) north of Bucharest, on Wednesday and freed five people including two minors. They are investigating around 90 suspects. The captives were "attached with chains and straps... beaten (and) humiliated", starved of food and fed on scraps, prosecutors from the Direc?ia de Investigare a Infrac?iunilor de Criminalitate Organizata ?i Terorism (DIICOT) organised crime investigation unit said. Around 40 victims were "captured in public places, near churches or train stations, or at their homes" since 2008 and forced to do household chores, look after animals and do illegal logging, prosecutors said. (AFP)

Romanian police raid village of slaves

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