July 15, 2023 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 15.07.2023, 18:45

Exercise. The Romanian Black Sea port of Constanţa on Saturday hosted
the opening ceremony of the Poseidon 2023 exercise, which involves 750 military
from nine NATO members. Under way until the 21st July, this
multinational exercise brings together military from the Romanian Navy, other
national defence structures, as well as military from Bulgaria, Belgium,
France, Greece, Italy, the UK, the United States and Turkey. Complex training
sessions will take place at sea, the exercise being dedicated to counter mines.
The exercise also features an activity to enhance the cooperation between
institutions in the event of collective accidents and disasters with multiple
victims with various national defence structures taking part and held in the
Constanţa military port.

Resignation. The Official Gazette published the decrees signed by
president Klaus Iohannis taking note of the resignation of Gabriela Firea as
minister of family, youth and equal opportunities and appointing the minister
for research, innovation and digitalisation Bogdan-Gruia Ivan as interim. The
Social Democrat Firea on Friday resigned amid an ongoing scandal about the
abuses committed at retirement homes run by people from her entourage. Prime
minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party Marcel Ciolacu said he
appreciated what he described as Firea’s voluntary gesture to tender her
resignation. On Thursday, another Social Democrat minister, Marius Budăi,
resigned as labour minister as irregularities were uncovered in the system for
the protection of elderly persons and persons with disabilities. Deputy prime
minister Marian Neacşu took over his post temporarily.

Protest. An airport air strike in Italy on Saturday disrupted over a
quarter million travellers, including Romanian. The trade unions of airport ground
staff started the strike action over failure to renew the employment contracts,
which expired six years ago. The pilots of two airlines also protested because
of salary dissatisfactions. According to Radio Romania’s correspondent in Rome,
the authorities have criticised the trade unions’ strike, which occurs during
the busy summer holiday, while consumers’ associations said air strikes should be banned during summer. A strike was also
announced in the UK, at Gatwick airport, the country’s second largest in terms
of number of travellers.

Olympiad. Romania ranked first in Europe and fourth in the nations’
ranking, winning five gold medals and one silver at the International
Mathematics Olympiad hosted by Chiba, in Japan. According to a statement from
the education ministry, this is Romania’s best result in the last 24 years,
with only China, the US and Korea ahead of it. David-Andrei Anghel, Andrei
Moldovan, Robert Dragomirescu and Pavel Ciurea from the International
Informatics High School in Bucharest and Andrei Chiriţă from the Tudor Vianu National
Informatics College in Bucharest won the gold medals, while Radu Lecoiu from
the International Informatics High School in Bucharest won the silver medal.
The Romanian delegation was coordinated by professor Cătălin-Liviu Gherghe from
the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of the Bucharest University.

Handball. Romania will play Portugal on Sunday for the bronze medal at
the European Women’s Under-19 Handball Championship hosted by Piteşti and
Mioveni, in southern Romania. Romania on Friday lost to Hungary in the
semifinals, 34-26. The winner of the previous two European under-19 titles,
Hungary dominated most of the match, but Romania did manage to take the lead
twice in the first half. In the final, Hungary will be facing Denmark, who
defeated Portugal in the other semifinal 38-35, after extra time. Romania has
two European Under-19 Championship titles, from 1998 and 2000, while the last
time it won a medal was in 2007, when it came in third. (CM)