President to name a new PM to form government after Victor Ponta resigns following protests by 20,000 people

 The Romanian prime minister has announced the resignation of his government following huge protests in the wake of a nightclub fire that killed more than 30 people.

“I’m handing in my mandate, I’m resigning, and implicitly my government too,” Victor Ponta said in a statement. He said he would stay on until a new government is in place.

“I am obliged to take note of the legitimate grievances which exist in society,” he said. “I hope handing in my and my government’s mandate will satisfy the demands of protesters.”

President Klaus Iohannis is to name a prime minister to form a new government, which needs to be approved by parliament. If this fails twice, snap elections will be called. Romania is due to hold parliamentary elections in December 2016.

The deputy leader of the opposition Liberal party, Cătălin Predoiu, hailed the resignations. “This is a victory of the street. It is a lesson for all politicians,” he said.

About 20,000 people took to the streets of Bucharest on Tuesday evening in a spontaneous protest calling for the resignation of Ponta, the interior minister, Gabriel Oprea, and the mayor of the district where the Colectiv nightclub was located.

 

BUCHAREST - NOV. 03. 2015 - PEOPLE ON THE STREETS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT

This summer’s change in outlook means there is now at least a one-in-three chance of a downgrade over the next two years. Britain’s credit rating could be slashed below Austria and Finland's if it leaves the European Union, Standard & Poor’s has warned. Moritz Kraemer, the agency’s chief sovereign rating officer, said Britain would be stripped of its top AAA rating with a one-notch downgrade if it voted to leave the bloc, and possibly double that if relations between Britain and Brussels soured. “Should we conclude that departure from the EU is likely over the medium term, we could lower the rating by potentially more than one notch, depending on the circumstances, such as the expected future relations with the EU,” Mr Kraemer told Reuters. The UK has maintained its AAA rating with S&P since 1978, but Mr Kraemer warned that, if Britain voted to leave the EU and this triggered a Scottish secession, it would also prompt a two-notch downgrade.  While any reduction in Britain’s credit rating would still rank the UK at investment grade, it would mean just a handful of countries are rated AAA by S&P, including Germany and Luxembourg. A two-notch downgrade would also mean Britain would be deemed less credit worthy than the EU, which is currently rated AA+.  Paul Stephenson, a Vote Leave spokesman, said: "Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland all have AAA ratings from Standard & Poor's and are outside of the EU.  "We will negotiate a UK-EU relationship based on free trade and friendly cooperation so there will not be disruption to the UK economy that would warrant a downgrade."   Moody’s and Fitch, the other main rating agencies, stripped the UK of its top rating in 2013.  Moody’s warned in June that it could cut Britain’s credit rating if it left the EU. It said a British exit was likely to have “negative implications for the UK’s growth prospects".

This is hilarious on various levels. Firstly, leaving the EU cannot possibly have a negative impact on credit rating. We heard all of this crap about not joining the Euro. It didn't work then, and it won't work now.  Secondly - there is going to be a popular vote on this. S&P will not get a vote. And the likes of S&P are the most despised people in the world today. So by backing the Remain campaign, they can only help Leave.  But the real fact is this. There has been no substantive discussion of Cameron's "renegotiation". And there never will be because the EU has already made clear, that "renegotiation" is NOT on the table, and it won't be.  Cameron is a liar. The EU is a fascist dictatorship. UK does not have to put up with this. Love Europe. Hate the EU.  Get us out of this sickness...Here come the scare tactics and it will get worst. Look, Cameron has lost the argument with respects to discussions with Brussels as he's not going to get a thing. He will now fire every shot possible about the business and that we will be hit substantially. I tell you what - let's look at the population reaching 75 million in ten years. Let's talk about our standard of living dropping due to wage compression. Let's talk about importing terrorists as the EU can't and won't vet immigrants (oops, sorry refugees. Don't make me laugh). Let's talk about our NHS being overwhelmed. Let's talk about bumper to bumper traffic in our major cities. Let's talk about lack of housing. Let's talk about TB at its highest since Victorian times. Let's talk about the EU 2016 budget increase of £10billion. AND MANY MANY MORE! Get me the hell out of the EU and do so now!

One year ago, Gazprom dropped South Stream after the European Commission announced that the project does not comply with the legislation of the Third Energy Package. The pipeline was supposed to cross the Black Sea avoiding Ukraine and transporting the natural gas through Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria towards Western Europe. Immediately after abandoning South Stream, the Russian giant promoted Turkish Stream, a pipeline also going below the Black Sea, but which connects Russia to Turkey directly. Russia has told Europe that starting in 2019, it needs to connect its infrastructure to the new pipeline because it wants to stop transporting natural gas through Ukraine.  Turkey did its job well and has negotiated very harshly with Russia the price of natural gas that should "flow" through Turkish Stream. Meanwhile, the conflict with Syria has begun, in which Turkey and Russia have diverging interests, and Gazprom has announced in the beginning of the month, that it is postponing the project, after signing a deal in September with five major European energy companies to build Nord Stream 2.  At the end of last week, Ali Riza Alaboyun, Turkish minister of energy, said, quoted by trend.az, that the implementation of Turkish Stream will be clarified soon, mentioning that the intergovernmental agreement would be reevaluated after the parliamentary elections in Turkey, scheduled to take place on November 1st.  Minister Alaboyun felt the need to stipulate that Turkey will support every action that "puts energy resources at work for peace ands security". Besides, for 28 years, Turkey has been one of the main markets for Russia to sell its natural gas on. The official further said: "Currently, 10 billion cubic meters of Russian gas is being imported by Russian private companies and 20 billion cubic meters by state owned company Botas. We are also importing natural gas from Azerbaidjan, Iran, Nigeria and Algeria". Turkish Stream is designed to have four transport avenues, each with 15.75 billion cubic meters each.  The American Energy Information Agency (EIA) showed, in a recent report, that the reason why Turkish Stream "froze" was that Turkey could not agree with Russia on the price of natural gas. Turkish Stream was supposed to be the connection for Eastring, which would bring the Russian gas to South-Eastern Europe, involving, among other countries Slovakia, Hungary and Romania (ed. note: the networks exists and a better interconnection is being built).

     The EIA noted that alternative suppliers for Europe aside from Azerbaijan would Iran and Iraq, but it mentioned that Iranian natural gas would be hard to bring in due to the lack of infrastructure.

Two European airlines announced they would no longer fly over the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday after a Russian passenger plane crashed in this troubled area of Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.  Lufthansa and Air France promised to avoid the airspace over the Sinai until it was clear why disaster had overtaken Flight KGL9268 operated by Metrojet, a small Russian airline. They were later joined by Emirates, which also announced its aircraft would be kept away from the Sinai peninsula "until more information is available". The Airbus A321 took off from Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh at 5.51am local time, bound for St Petersburg. The aircraft vanished from radar screens 23 minutes later, while flying at 31,000ft. The crash was the deadliest aviation disaster in Egypt's history...However, the Egyptian authorities said the pilot of the aircraft had reported a mechanical failure and asked to land at the nearest airport. Experts cautioned that it was too early to say what had caused the disaster and that Isil lacked weapons that could bring down an airliner at such an altitude...“Flight radar data makes clear there was a flight upset, but we have no idea why. There are loads of terrorist factions operating in the area and many affiliated to Islamic State. The Egyptians work very hard on security at Sharm el-Sheikh because if you wanted to destroy the tourist economy that would be the likeliest target. However the plane was too high for a shoulder launched missile, but it was 2,000 feet lower than MH17.”  Voicing caution about the possibility of a missile destroying the plane, Mr Learmount added: "In this case the aircraft appears to have come down in one piece, unlike MH17.”  But Maksim Sokolov, the Russian transport minister, dismissed Isil’s claim, saying: “It can’t be considered accurate”.  Nonetheless, Lufthansa and Air France decided to avoid Sinai until the cause of the crash was established. “We took the decision to avoid the area because the situation and the reasons for the crash were not clear," said a Lufthansa spokesperson. British Airways, however, said it would continue to fly over Sinai. “The safety and security of our customers and crew is always our top priority, and we would never operate a flight unless it was safe to do so,” said the airline. “Our safety team continually liaises with the appropriate authorities around the world, and we conduct very detailed risk assessments into every route we operate.”

 The main points of what has been agreed:

* To increase reception capacity to 30,000 places by the end of the year in Greece. The UN refugee agency will provide rent subsidies and host family programmes for at least 20,000 more people.

* To seek additional capacity of 50,000, reaching a total of 100,000 along the western Balkans route and Greece.

* To deploy 400 police officers within a week to Slovenia.

* To step up efforts to facilitate return of migrants not in need for international protection and step up cooperation on repatriation with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq and Pakistan.

* To scale up the Poseidon Sea Joint Operation in Greece, in particular the EU's border agency Frontex's presence in the Aegean Sea, and strengthen significantly Frontex support to Greece in registering and fingerprinting activities.

* To refrain from facilitating the movement of migrants to the border of another country. It is not acceptable to wave through refugees to another country.

* To set up contact points to allow daily exchanges of information regarding migrant movements.

* To exchange information on the size of movement and flows of refugees. Frontex as well as the EU's asylum office ESAO will put this exchange of information in place.

* To contact financial institutions including the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to secure finances for accommodation of refugees.

* To step up police and judicial cooperation actions against migrant smuggling, engaging Europol and Interpol in Western Balkan route operations.

* To reinforce support of the bloc's border agency Frontex at the border between Bulgaria and Turkey. To set up a new Frontex operation at the external land borders between Greece and Macedonia and Greece and Albania to focus on exit checks and registration of refugees who were not registered in Greece.

* Working together with Frontex to detect irregular border crossing and support registration and fingerprinting in Croatia.