This weekly overview brings you the main topics from Romania, in pictures. Electric Castle, one of Romania's most anticipated music events, held a new edition last week. And first numbers say it was a pretty successful event. Meanwhile, Romania switched to daily COVID-19 reports again as infections started rising fast, the Police shut down a cocaine extraction lab, and Romanian students shined at the International Math Olympiad in Oslo. See the photo collection for the July 11-17 week below. (Opening photo: crowd at Electric Castle concert; photo source: Facebook/Electric Castle)

The 2022 edition of Electric Castle, one of the largest music festivals in Romania, took place this past week. According to Stirileprotv.ro, more than 200,000 music fans attended the event, making it the most successful edition so far. This year's headliners included Twenty One Pilots and Gorillaz, but the lineup was made up of many other international and local artists. The organizers already put on sale passes for the 2023 edition without announcing the exact dates. But, given the previous events, it is safe to say that next year's edition will again gather music fans at the Banffy Castle in Transylvania in the summer.

Romania resumed the daily reports on COVID-19 cases last week amid a rapid and robust rise in new infections. Health minister Alexandru Rafila said the number of new cases doubled from one week to the other - from about 7,700 in the week of June 27-July 3 to nearly 15,000 the following week. According to him, the rising trend is estimated to continue in the upcoming 4-5 weeks.  

France celebrated its national day on July 14 and Romania's prime minister Nicolae Ciuca attended the reception held by the French Embassy in Bucharest. "France remains one of Romania's most important economic partners, but the universe of Franco-Romanian bilateral cooperation is a rich one, in which cultural cooperation has a special role," the PM said at the event. 

On Friday, prime minister Nicolae Ciuca met with Germany's minister for foreign affairs, Annalena Baerbock, in Bucharest. The talks focused on the Ministerial Conference "Support Platform for the Republic of Moldova", which Romania organizes together with Germany and France, the security situation in the region and the war in Ukraine, the energy sector, and Romania's Schengen accession.

The Romanian Police and the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) said last week that they identified and shut down a cocaine extraction laboratory in Bihor county. The lab was set up in an isolated cottage, where the drug was being extracted from coffee by chemical means.  

A foreign tourist died on Saturday, July 16, after being struck by lightning in Romania's Bucegi Mountains. The mountain rescue service Salvamont Busteni made the announcement without disclosing the tourist's nationality. He was reportedly part of a larger group of tourists caught up in a storm on Bucșoiului Ridge. "The first lightning struck very close to the group, but the second one hit the foreign citizen. Witnessing the tragedy, the victim's colleagues called for help immediately," Salvamont Busteni explained. The rescue team sent to the scene could no longer save the tourist's life.

Last Thursday, an American MQ-9 Reaper drone crashed in an uninhabited area close to the Câmpia Turzii airbase in Romania. The incident caused no injuries. 

Great news last week came from Romania's mathematics team, which won first place in Europe and fifth place worldwide at the International Mathematical Olympiad 2022. The Romanian students returned from Oslo on Sunday, July 17, and education minister Sorin Cimpeanu went to the airport to welcome them back home and congratulate them for their amazing performance.  

newsroom@romania-insider.com