The week ahead: November 25 to December 1
A look at what’s coming up on the East Coast and around the world.
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- A guard locks the gates of the court where the trial of the suspects charged with stealing paintings from a Dutch museum is taking place, in Bucharest November 19, 2013. A Romanian court may hand the confessed Romanian ringleader of seven famous paintings stolen from a Dutch museum in October 2012, a seven year jail term when it meets during upcoming parts of a Bucharest trial, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Radu Dogaru and two other Romanians pleaded guilty in the spectacular theft of the artworks including Picasso and Monet from Rotterdam’s Kunsthal museum, one of the art world’s biggest heists in recent years. A court judge told reporters at the end of Tuesday’s session that a ruling sentence for Dogaru and gang member Eugen Darie will be announced on November 26.
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- An American Airlines Boeing 737 airplane takes off from a runway at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. American Airlines and US Airways were the target of a Justice Department antitrust suit set to go to trial on November 25. While that suit has been settled out of court, a private suit is still in progress, according to the Phoenix Business Journal. (File photo by Saul Loebsaul // /AFP/Getty Images)
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- The Pittsburgh Steelers are scheduled to play a Thanksgiving Day game at M&T Bank Stadium on the 28th.
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- A soccer ball is seen on the field before the French Ligue 1 soccer match between AS Monaco and Olympique Lyon at Louis stadium in Monaco October 27, 2013. French soccer clubs will stage a strike at the end of November in protest of the French government’s super tax, the nation’s professional clubs’ union (UCPF) has said.
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- The president will be traveling to San Francisco on Monday, according to The San Francisco Appeal. The news outlet reports that Obama will be met by groups protesting the administration’s alleged war crimes.
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- This file photo shows Giorgos Germenis, lawmaker of the Greek extreme far-right Golden Dawn party, arriving at the police headquarters in Athens. Greece’s parliament in October lifted the legal immunity of three MPs from the Golden Dawn neo-Nazi party who are facing charges of belonging to a criminal organisation: They are likely to testify in front of magistrates this week, according to ekathimerini.com. The chamber also lifted the immunity of three other party lawmakers on lesser charges, amid a month-long crackdown on Golden Dawn’s activities following the murder of an anti-fascist musician in September. Sympathy after what was thought to be a retaliatory attack has gained the party back some favor, according to Reuters.
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- Indian Reang refugees hold up their voter identification cards as they prepare to cast postal ballots at a polling station in the Naising Para Reang refugee camp, some 220 kilometers north of Tripura state capital Agartala, on November 19, 2013. The Indian election commission has organised postal voting on November 19-20 for some 11,500 Reang refugees, also known as the Bru, who are eligible to vote in the forthcoming Mizoram state Assembly elections to take place on November 25. Some 35,000 ethnic Reang people are stranded in six makeshift camps in the area after fleeing neighbouring Mizoram state following ethnic riots in 1997. (AFP PHOTO/ ARINDAM DEYARINDAM)
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- Men look at a Falcon 7X airplane during the Dubai Airshow on November 18, 2013 in Dubai. The city this week is set to host more than 2,000 officials for a different kind of trade gathering, according to The Malaysian Insider: The emirate will try to become the center of an “Islamic Economy” where trade in halal goods and services is regulated, the paper reports.
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- The federal government will release its new residential construction report on Nov. 26. “People are seeing some of the prices go up and they know there’s a lack of inventory, so if they have a decent home they may think, ‘Throw it on the market and see what happens,'” Daraius Irani told The Baltimore Sun earlier this month. Irani is executive director of the Regional Economic Studies Institute at Towson University.
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- A commuter cycles in central London November 15, 2013. The deaths of five cyclists in just nine days on the roads this month in London have prompted calls for the city’s mayor Boris Johnson to speed up road safety measures in the capital; a concerted traffic enforcement puch by police is set to take place this week.
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- An Indian schoolgirl dressed as Telugu Talli (mother of the state symbol) poses during state formation day celebrations in Hyderabad earlier this month. Andhra Pradesh which was created in 1956, was India’s first state to be set up on grounds of a shared language and laid down a precedent for establishing states along linguistic lines. This year’s celebrations for Andhra Pradesh Formation Day may be the last in the state’s history; a report on splitting the state in two is likely to be released to the Union Cabinet this week, according to the Business Standard. AFP Photo by Noah Seelam
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- A man walks past an advertisement for an imported watch brand in Tokyo. The city will this week host a third round of trilateral trade talks including China and South Korea, according to Chinese state news service Xinhua. Host country Japan is also a party to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which received heavy criticism earlier this month when Wikileaks released draft documents from the talks.
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- Novelty runs have been around awhile, but Liverpool has one of the most successful ones: Its Santa Dash is in its 10th year, with more than 5,000 people signed up for this week’s running, according to the Liverpool Echo.
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- Idris Elba and Naomie Harris open Friday in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.” Casting director Pat Moran told The Baltimore Sun in August that Elba has “the appeal of a Clark Gable.” Photo by Keith Bernstein via The Washington Post
By Ioana Patran | Reuters
BUCHAREST – The leader of a Romanian gang that stole paintings from a Dutch museum in one of the world’s biggest art heists could be sentenced this week to up to 18 years in prison, according to a statement by his lawyer Tuesday. Radu Dogaru’s sentencing is among upcoming events this week that also include likely testimony by fascist leaders in Greece, the release of new housing indicators in the United States and the premiere of a new film featuring former Wire star Idris Elba.
Dogaru and three other Romanians pleaded guilty earlier this year to stealing the artworks, insured for 18 million euros ($24.35 million), from Rotterdam’s Kunsthal museum in October 2012.
The judge told reporters at the end of Tuesday’s session of the trial that the sentence for Dogaru and gang member Eugen Darie would be announced on November 26.
Also ahead this week:
The Ravens play on Thanksgiving.
Obama will be in California.
Greek fascists are likely to testify.
Defence lawyer Catalin Dancu said Dogaru and Darie could be sentenced to between two and 18 years, but he expected them both to be handed seven year terms after admitting their guilt.
The trial will continue for the four other defendants: the two others who pleaded guilty as the court did not accept a so-called “simplified procedure” for them; Dogaru’s mother, who is accused of destroying the art and has exercised her right not to comment; and a sixth suspect being tried in absentia.
The works stolen were Picasso’s “Tête d’Arlequin”, Matisse’s “La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune”, Monet’s “Waterloo Bridge, London” and “Charing Cross Bridge, London”, Gauguin’s “Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte”, Meijer De Haan’s “Autoportrait” and Lucian Freud’s “Woman with Eyes Closed”.
Their whereabouts are unknown.
Security camera footage released at the time of the theft showed a gang entering through a back door and disappearing from the camera’s view. Seconds later they reappeared carrying bulky objects and left the building by the same entrance.
A Romanian team of experts said in July three of the paintings could have been destroyed by fire. Dogaru’s mother said she had burned them to protect her son as police closed in, but later retracted her statement.
(Writing by Radu Marinas; Editing by Alison Williams; Additional editing by Baltimore Sun staff)
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