August 7, 2016

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 07.08.2016, 12:02

PAY RISE The Romanian Government has
announced it will earmark some 22
million Euro this year to increase the payment of overtime for doctors on call, more precisely as of October 1st. The money is
supposed to be generated by a better management of the system’s resources, as
the Ministry of Health has stated. According to the same source, the advantage will be that these hours spent on call will be considered
work seniority and seniority in the field.
This decision is one of the most important steps made for the doctors’
benefit in the past years. Unfortunately, many of them, because of the low
salaries and lack of funding in the system, choose to leave the country and
work elsewhere.

ROYAL FUNERAL The former Sovereign of Romania
Michael 1st, who is currently in Switzerland, suffering from a
serious illness, will come to Romania next week to attend the funeral of his
wife, Anne, unless he is too weak to travel, the public TV station has
announced. Also, one of the couple’s five daughters, Irina Walker, has posted
on Facebook that she will not be able to attend the funeral, for personal
reasons. Queen Anne died on Monday in a hospital in Switzerland, aged 92. She
will be sent to Romania on Tuesday, August 9th, and the funeral will
be held on the 13th at the Curtea de Arges Monastery in southern
Romania, which is the necropolis of
Romanian royalty. August 13th will be a day of national mourning
both in Romania and in the neighboring
Republic of Moldova.

ENESCU This month we celebrate 135 years since
the birth of the great Romanian composer George Enescu. A violinist, pianist,
conductor and pedagogue he was one of the most prominent personalities of the
20th century. Some of his most famous works are the Romanian
Rhapsodies and the opera ‘Oedipus’. Written on a libretto by Edmond Fleg, based
on the famous Greek tragedy, Enescu’s ‘Oedipus’ is dubbed one of the masterpieces of the
genre. In 1946, George Enescu left Romania, as the Communist totalitarian regime was
starting to settle in. He lived in Paris, where he died in 1955. The first
edition of the now famous ‘George Enescu’ International Festival and Contest was
held in 1958 in Bucharest. The festival is held once every two years.

UNTOLD The famous Dutch DJ Armin van Buuren
performed until dawn today at the Untold festival hosted by the city of
Cluj Napoca in central Romania. Untold is the biggest electro-dance
festival in Romania. Buuren’s four-hour show, held before dozens of thousands of people,
was an exceptional one, judging from the audience’s enthusiasm. One of the guests of this year’s edition of Untold was Kristian Nairn,
known as Hodor in the ‘Game of Thrones’ series. Performing tonight, on the last
night of the festival, will be Lost Frequencies, AfroJack, Martin Garrix and
Ummet Ozcan. Other famous DJs performing at the festival were Hardwell,
Dannic, Tujamo, Scooter, Faithless, Tiesto and Dimitri Vegas, dubbed the
world’s best DJ.

RIO At the Olympic Games in Rio, the Romanian
table tennis players Elizabeta Samara and Daniela Dodean Monteiro have
qualified for the third round of the singles, and Adrian Crisan for the second
round. Artistic gymnast Marian Dragulescu has qualified for the finals of the
vault event, and Andrei Muntean will
perform in the parallel bars final.
Tennis players Florin Mergea and Horia Tecau have qualified for the quarter finals of the men’s doubles. Monica Niculescu has too qualified for the second
round of the singles. Epee fencer Ana Maria Popescu is the only Romanian fencer
to have qualified to the individual quarter finals in Rio. Canoeists Cristi Ilie Pirghie
and George Palamariu have qualified for the semi-finals of the men’s coxless
pair event. At the Rio Games Romania, which will last until August 21st,
Romania is represented by 96 athletes and 7 substitutes.