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ROMANIA
The "wrong" candidate won - now the presidential election in Romania is redone

The first round of the presidential election in Romania is declared invalid. This is announced by the country's Constitutional Court in a press release. The reason is that the winner of the election, Călin Georgescu, who has been accused of being far-right and fascist, allegedly received an unfair amount of support in social media.

During Friday morning, Romanians living abroad go to the polls to vote in the second round of Romania's presidential election, which is scheduled to be held this Sunday. They have two options to choose from:

One candidate is Elena Lasconi, party leader of the Union Save Romania. A liberal party which in the EU Parliament is part of the same party group as the Swedish Liberals and the Center Party.

The other candidate is Călin Georgescu. Georgescu is an independent candidate with a background as a UN diplomat, where he worked as a special rapporteur. He is also a strong critic of both the US and NATO, and he promises voters to end military aid to Ukraine if he is elected.


Calin Georgescu and Elena Lasconi. Photo: Facebook
Court announces new elections
On November 24, Călin Georgescu surprisingly won the first round of the presidential election when he received just under 23 percent of the vote. Elena Lasconi has come in second place with just over 19 percent. That is why the two advanced to the second round of elections.

READ ALSO: EU and NATO critics lead the Romanian presidential election

More than 30,000 Romanians have time to vote early in the second round of elections on Friday before the Constitutional Court in Bucharest suddenly announces that the first round of elections has been declared invalid. The second round of elections is thus stopped immediately.

The court writes in a press release that it "annuls the entire electoral process regarding the election of the President of Romania", and refers to "justice and legal certainty in the electoral process".

The decision of the Constitutional Court is final, and the Romanian presidential election must now therefore be redone from the beginning.

Join the dots, islam is taking over the world

Ukrainian-trained jihadists achieve great success in Syria
Published at 070

The jihadists who in recent weeks have achieved great success against Bashar al-Assad's government forces in Syria have been trained by Ukrainian special forces. It reports Kyiv post.

Last week, Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, was captured by a coalition of Islamist forces led by former al-Qaeda ally Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

The Sunni Muslim jihadists received support from groups which in turn are supported by Turkey.


For the first time in eight years, the war thus came again to the Syrian metropolis. In December 2016, government forces succeeded in recapturing Aleppo after a four-year battle. Since then, the city has been relatively calm, with occasional fighting on its western outskirts.

Help from Ukraine
In the battle for Aleppo in 2016, the Syrian government forces received extensive help from Russia, not least in the form of air support, in defeating the various Islamist groups challenging the government in Damascus for power.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is closely allied with Russia's dito Vladimir Putin. That in itself is an important reason why the Western powers, the USA and the EU, tried to topple him from power by using money and weapons to fuel various rebel movements in Syria.


Assad and Putin. Photo: Government of Syria
And when Aleppo is now once again conquered by an Islamist group, they are also getting help from outside this time. Kyiv post writes that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was trained by special forces from the Khimik group, which belongs to Ukraine's military intelligence service (HUR).

In September of this year, the Ukrainian Khimik group was also said to have been behind an attack on a Russian base outside Aleppo.

Want to access Russians
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS as many abbreviate the name as, is an incarnation of what was formerly called Jabhat al-Nusra. A former branch of al-Qaeda that is labeled a terrorist by the United States and blacklisted by the UN Security Council.

The group has previously been linked to a long list of brutal war crimes, and imposes strict Sharia law in the areas it manages to take control of.


Kyrylo Budanov. Photo: Government of Ukraine
Despite this, the Ukrainian intelligence service has chosen to train the HTS jihadists in order to gain access to Russian forces in Syria.

- We will continue to kill Russians anywhere and everywhere until Ukraine achieves total victory, HUR chief Major General Kyrylo Budanov has previously justified Ukrainian foreign operations.

“Tactical Retreat”
The jihadists' surprisingly large and rapid successes must have been preceded by the fact that the Syrian and Russian units carried out a "tactical retreat".

Due to the war in Ukraine, Russia has withdrawn troops from Syria, and no longer has the same ability to assist its Syrian allies as it did eight years ago. Something which in itself is said to have encouraged "HTS" to launch an offensive.

In the Western world, there are now many who celebrate the success of the Islamists in Syria, and the return to Sharia law for millions of Syrians. They hope that this time it will lead to al-Assad being overthrown from power and that Russia will lose its bases in the country at the same time.