August 19, 2020
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 19.08.2020, 13:55
PROTEST Restaurants and beer gardens all over Romania will today close for one
hour to protest the authorities’ lack of support for the Horeca industry in
Romania. Restaurant and pub owners are disgruntled with the authorities’
decision to keep them closed, a measure, which could cause the loss of 400
thousand jobs in the cold season as this industry has been incurring
significant losses. Prime Minister Ludovic Orban says that as soon as the
epidemiological situation has improved in Romania, the government will allow
restaurants to open. According to the Romanian official, the measure was aimed
at protecting citizens and not at dealing a heavy blow to the industry, which
accounts for 5% of the country’s GDP.
COVID-19 Romania has confirmed over 72 thousand infections since the beginning
of the pandemic and a Covid-related death toll over 3,074. According to a
report by the National Public Health Institute, the number of infections and
fatalities last week slightly decreased as compared to the previous week.
Almost a third of the new cases have been reported in the counties of Prahova,
Arges, Bihor and Timis. Bucharest, Suceava in the north-east, and Arges in the
country’s south have reported the highest number of infections since the
beginning of the pandemic. Almost 95% of the deceased had at least one comorbidity
while almost 80% of the victims were over 60 years old.
SUMMIT EU
leaders, including Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis are today attending a
high-level video-conference on the latest developments in Belarus. The opposition
candidate in the latest presidential election in this country, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya,
who fled to Lithuania, has made an appeal to the European Council not to recognize
the rigged election in Belarus on august 9th. Yesterday almost 200
people protested in front of the detention centre in Minsk calling for the
release of Tikhanovskaya’s husband Sergei Tikhanovsky currently detained for
offences against public order. A well-known blogger, Sergei Tikhanovsky had
announced his candidacy for the presidential seat and was campaigning against
incumbent president Alexandr Lukashenko. Protests were sparked off 10 days ago
after the Central Election Commission announced that Lukashenko had won 80.1 %
of the votes in the election. At least two people have been killed and over 67
hundred wounded in the latest anti-presidential protests in Belarus.
FOOTBALL There are no odds-on favourites in the match pitching CFR Cluj against
Floriana FC, Romanian headcoach Dan Petrescu says, adding that each side stands
equal chances to win and qualify for the competition’s next stage. Romanian
football side CFR Cluj will tonight be up against Floriana FC of Malta in the
Champions League’s first preliminary round. The two sides are to play only one round
and the winner will be facing the Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb, in the
competition’s second preliminary round.
US ELECTION Barack Obama’s
vice-president Joe Biden has become the Democratic Party nominee to challenge incumbent
president Donald Trump in the US presidential election on November 3rd.
Most of the Democrats endorsed the former vice-president to run for the
presidential seat during the party’s virtual convention in Milwaukee on Monday
in keeping with the measures against the Covid-19 pandemic. Joe Biden, 77, is
expected to deliver his acceptance speech on Thursday. In turn, president Trump
has visited the states of Iowa, Arizona, Minnesota and Wisconsin and has
renewed his attacks against the one he called ‘Sleepy Joe’ whom he described as
‘a helpless puppet of the radical left’.
(translated by bill)
