April 23, 2016
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Newsroom, 23.04.2016, 12:00
Romania’s capital Bucharest is today seeing the traditional Palm Sunday pilgrimage. Palm Sunday is a religious event that will be celebrated tomorrow, a week before the Orthodox Easter, which marks Jesus Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, before his crucifiction, when he was welcomed by multitudes carrying olive and palm branches. 1.4 million Romanians with flower names are celebrating their name day on Palm Sunday. Last night Jews the world over started Passover celebrations in order to mark their liberation from Egyptian slavery more than three thousand years ago.
Liviu Dragnea, leader of the Social Democratic Party should withdraw from his position — Romanian president Klaus Iohannis has said. In his opinion, for the health of the local political system, a major Romanian party shouldn’t be led by a politician who is serving a court sentence. We recall that yesterday Dragnea got a suspended two-year jail sentence for election fraud in a file called ‘The Referendum’. According to prosecutors, in 2012, while a secretary general of the Social Democratic Party PSD, Dragnea used all the means available calling on PSD representatives all over Romania to illegally bring people to vote in a referendum on sacking the former right-wing president Traian Basescu. The referendum failed due to the lack of quorum. After getting the sentence, Dragnea said he would not step down so that he may not destabilize the party before the upcoming election of June 5th. Romania will also be seeing Parliamentary elections this year in November.
In the past ten days 62 foreign nationals whose stay in Romania was illegal, have been identified by the police, the General Inspectorate for Migration has today announced. Out of these, 28 met the necessary conditions of having their stay prolonged, while 31 have been asked to leave the Romanian territory. At the same time, 240 warnings and fines have been issued for those who violated migration legislation. The measures taken by the Romanian police are aimed at enforcing law and order, at ensuring the safety of the citizens, by implementing a permanent control on observing migration legislation and fighting illegal migration.
Every year on April 23rd, Romania celebrates its ground troops. Events aimed at celebrating this day have been staged during the week, including exhibitions, workshops, presentations of military equipment, exercises, concerts and wreath laying ceremonies; all these have taken place in army units the countrywide as well as among our troops deployed in Afghanistan. The patron saint of the ground forces in Romania is St. George, a general in the Roman army back in the time of emperor Diocletian who was tortured and executed for his Christian belief. Romanians are today celebrating this Christian martyr as more than one million of them are bearing his name.
Romanian tennis players Horia Tecau and Florin Mergea, the odds-on favourites of the doubles contest in the BRD Nastase-Tiriac trophy in Bucharest, with 460 thousand euros in prize money, are today taking on Wesley Koolhof and Matwe Middlekoop of the Netherlands in the semifinals. The two Romanians have qualified for the semis without playing after their opponents, Federico Delbonis of Argentina and Paolo Lorenzi of Italy withdrew from the competition. This is Tecau and Mergea’s fourth participation in this competition and they obtained their best performance back in 2007 when they made it to the quarters.
