Moldova

The voting abroad in the presidential election runoff ended with the closing of the last polling stations on the West Coast of the United States of America and Canada, at 21:00hrs, local (7:00hrs Romania's time).

"He is the first, because the notion of whistleblower did not exist in the Strasbourg Court's vocabulary until then," Vitalie Zama, one of the lawyers in Guja's case, told BIRN.

"And the first question that was asked was whether or not to protect the whistleblowers; whether freedom of expression exists for them or not."

'I suffered the consequences'

Romania's Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu on Wednesday met US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on the sidelines of a meeting in Brussels of NATO chief diplomats. The two senior officials reviewed the agenda of the NATO ministerial meeting and highlighted the importance of advancing NATO's adaptation process in step with developments in security in the Euro-Atlantic area.

Over 14,000 people visited Romanian Tourism Fair, the autumn edition, between 14 and 17 November, where a number of 236 companies from 17 countries presented their offer, the organisers have announced on Wednesday.

The speed with which Chicu was installed, two days after Sandu lost a confidence vote and not long after the Socialists won control of the capital, has led some observers to accuse the Socialists of a premeditated plan. Sandu said the Socialists were running scared of her anti-corruption agenda.

PSD's (Social Democratic Party) presidential candidate Viorica Dancila stated on Tuesday that among her priorities if she is elected President of Romania will be having a referendum on immunity, joining Schengen, obtaining the visa waiver for the United States of America, and that the first visit she will pay abroad as head of state will be to the Republic of Moldova.

The Socialists, together with the Democratic Party whose government they helped topple in June, won a no-confidence vote in the Sandu administration on November 12, unleashing another political crisis in Moldova.

Moldova's Prime Minister-designate Ion Chicu was approved by the country's parliament on Thursday, along with his proposed list of ministers who will form the new cabinet following the collapse of the former government led by pro-Western PM Maja Sandu just days prior.

Having formed a list of proposed ministers overnight, Chicu secured the support of 62 out of 101 deputies.

Moldova has for years gone slow on allowing China to undertake big infrastructure projects in the country - but with a presidential trip to Beijing now penciled in, that may be about to change.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, had a meeting on Friday with the US Ambassador to Bucharest Hans Klemm, and with Terri Sewell, a member of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, elected in Alabama, on which occasion they discussed about the Strategic Partnership between Romania and the United States and the new Romanian Government's firm commitment to continue to earmark