April 13, 2014
A roundup of domestic and international news.
România Internațional, 13.04.2014, 12:56
The president of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies, Valeriu Zgonea, is, as of Sunday, on an official two-day visit to Chişinău, at the invitation of the Speaker of the Moldovan Parliament, Igor Corman. The agenda includes talks with Prime Minister Iurie Leancă, and members of the Foreign Policy Committee and the European Integration Committee in the Moldovan Parliament. Valeriu Zgonea will also have a meeting with Igor Corman, attended by the head of the Chamber of Deputies in the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Jan Hamacek.
Orthodox and Catholic Christians celebrate today Palm Sunday, which commemorates Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, before being crucified. This is the most important moment during Lent, before Passion Week, during which Christians prepare to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. On this day, priests offer believers, in churches, blessed willow branches, as a reminder of the olive branches with which the people of Jerusalem welcomed Jesus to the city. Also on Palm Sunday, close to 1.5 million Romanians celebrate their name day.
Tensions remain high in Ukraine, where clashes are still reported between the pro-Russian separatists and the special Ukrainian forces, which take part today in a counter-terrorist mission in Slaviansk, in the south-east. The pro-European government in Kiev denounced Russia’s aggression, after a number of attacks by pro-Russian armed groups against administrative buildings in eastern Ukraine, which is once again threatened to lose its integrity. Although Moscow denied direct involvement, the unrest in this part of the country gave rise to fears of a scenario similar to that in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula at the Black Sea annexed by Russia. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called for calm, while Washington condemned Russia’s “instigation” and threatened with new sanctions unless Moscow takes measures to reduce tensions and pulls out its troops from the Ukrainian border. The US vice-president Joe Biden will go to Kiev on Tuesday, to reiterate the US support for Ukraine and discuss means to stabilise the economy and to organise free presidential elections on May the 25th.
In Hungary, the alliance headed by the Conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban has secured a comfortable majority in Parliament for another four years, further to the parliamentary election of April the 6th. According to final results, the right-of-centre party Fidesz won 133 of the 199 seats in the Hungarian parliament. The left-wing alliance won 38 seats, the far-right Jobbik party has 23 MPs, and the small green party LMP will have five representatives in the Parliament in Budapest.
The Romanian athlete Andreea Aanei Saturday won the bronze medals in the snatch, jerk and total events of the +75 kilo category, at the European Weightlifting Championship in Tel Aviv, Israel. With a total of 249 kilos, Andreea Aanei came out third in the standings, after Tatiana Kashirina and Iulia Konovalova, from Russia.
