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Sunday, February 27, 2005

Bucharest, Romania — 6.6 million tourists visited Romania in 2004, marking an 18% increase over 2003, announced the National Authority for Tourism (ANT). This was one of the highest rates of tourism growth in Europe. However, it remains slightly below the number of Romanians who spent their holidays in other countries throughout 2004 – a figure of 6.9 million.

Carmen Moraru, the promotion and marketing director at ANT said that many tourists came as part of holiday packages or tours, organised around the regions of Maramure?, Transylvania, Moldova, the Prahova Valley and the Danube Delta.

In 2005, the number of tourist arrivals is set to rise further, mainly due to a Romanian promotion campaign launched across Europe. The country’s tourist revival is mainly due to its diversity – it is home to Europe’s largest delta, the Black Sea Coast with its resorts, the Carpathian Mountains with their skiing and winter activities, Transylvania with its ecotourism, agritourism and beautiful landscapes, as well as the medieval history of cities like Sibiu and Sighi?oara.

Monday, October 3, 2005

St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, a large organ transplantation center, reports that a low priority Saudi liver transplant patient received improper priority, and the actions were concealed.

Hospital President Gus Valdespino confirmed that hospital staff members falsified documents several times to cover up the maneuver, pretending that the transplant was for a patient who was near the top of the regional waiting list, when the Saudi patient was 52nd on the state’s liver transplant list.

Priority is believed to have been granted because the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia would pay 25% to 30% more for the operation than U.S. insurance companies would have paid. The medical community views giving preference to one patient for nonmedical reasons as “totally unconscionable,” according to Dr. Douglas Hanto, of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The National Organ Network permits a maximum of 5% of donated organs to go to foreign nations. According to records, St. Vincent provided about 8% of its organs to foreign nationals.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Austrian police today found an estimated 20–50 decomposing corpses in an apparently abandoned lorry.

Roadworkers who spotted the vehicle, which had been there since yesterday at least, alerted police. Responding officers found it full of corpses. The lorry is on the so-called “Eastern Motorway”, the A4, close to the Hungarian border. It was on the hard shoulder between Neusiedl and Parndorf, closer to Parndorf.

The victims are thought to have suffocated. Police are seeking the driver. The Krone published an image of a non-articulated food lorry on the hard shoulder, which they report is the vehicle in question. The photo shows a pool of dark liquid on the ground beside the vehicle.

Video from a passing motorist shows at least one helicopter on-scene. The truck, which has pictures of meat on the side, shows branding for Slovakian food firm Hyza. Earlier today the company’s website sported an apparent anti-immigration graphic, which has since been removed.

Wikinews got in touch with Hyza. “We are truly sorry about [the] tragedy” they told us in a statement. They said they have checked GPS trackers on their fleet and all their vehicles remain in Slovakia. The statement says the lorry in question was one of 21 Hyza vehicles sold on last year. It was then sold again and exported to Hungary, where it is now registered. Hyza told us the new owners have not changed the branding on the vehicle. According to the Bild newspaper, Agrofert — the parent company of Hyza — said in a statement the new owners were required to do so.

Hyza says they will “actively cooperate with Slovak police”, and “express [their] sincere condolences to the bereaved families.”

Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner called it “a dark day” and called for European Union-wide measures to protect immigrant refugees and tackle human traffickers. Neighbouring Hungary is constructing a border fence across its entire frontier with Serbia. Yesterday alone saw a record 3,241 attempts to enter Hungary illegally, according to authorities there.

Conflict in Syria and other parts of the world has led refugees to Europe. Once inside, they can move freely inside the Schengen Area, which covers most of the EU.

Austrian police earlier this week arrested three motorists suspected of people smuggling. One driver is accused of moving 34 people, ten of them children, into Austria from Serbia. The group were left by the roadside near Bruck an der Leitha and reported struggling to breathe in the van.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, February 22, 2010.

Monday, May 30, 2011

FIFA has suspended two of its senior officials amid allegations that they bribed voters ahead of the organization’s presidential election, while Sepp Blatter has been cleared of ignoring these activities and is now set to be re-elected as FIFA chairman on Wednesday.

Mohamed bin Hammam, head of the Asian confederation, and Jack Warner, head of the Caribbean and North American (CONCACAF) federation, were both suspended from any involvement with association football pending an investigation into the alleged bribery.

“Both bin Hammam and Warner were provisionally banned from future activity in football while a full investigation is carried out,” announced Petrus Damaseb, chairman of the FIFA ethics committee. “There, they can confront their accusers.”

At a recent FIFA meeting in Trinidad on May 10 and 11, the committee heard that both bin Hammam and Warner were accused of offering US$40,000 in cash gifts to other national associations in return for their votes in the presidential election.

Blatter was also summoned to the ethics committee following allegations that Warner told him in advance about the payments. The committee later accepted Blatter’s testimony and cleared him of wrongdoing.

This decision clears the way for Blatter to be run unopposed for re-elections as FIFA president on Wednesday.