December 26, 2021 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 26.12.2021, 18:25

CHRISTMAS New Style Orthodox Christians, and Greek and Roman Catholic Christians
around the world Sunday celebrated the second day of Christmas. In Eastern
Christianity, this day is devoted to Mary, mother of God. In his Nativity
service on the 25th December, Daniel, Patriarch of Romania spoke about the
meaning of the gifts presented by the 3 kings to the new-born Jesus.At the Vatican, Pope Francis warned that the world is growing so insensitive
to crises and suffering that these now go unnoticed. Old Style Orthodox believers in Russia, Ukraine,
Serbia, and Georgia celebrate Christmas on 7th January.

COVID-19 As many as 349 new SARS-CoV-2 infection cases have been reported
for the past 24 hours, along with 15 related fatalities, the Strategic
Communication Group announced on Sunday. Some 450 patients are in intensive
care, over 90% of them being unvaccinated. One year since the start of the Covid vaccine roll-out in Romania,
nearly 7.8 million Romanians are fully vaccinated, and around 2 million also
have the booster dose. This indicates that interest in vaccination has not been
high, except for a few brief periods of enthusiasm or fear triggered by the
pandemic’s successive waves.

EXPENSES The president of Romania Klaus Iohannis travelled abroad 16
times this year, with expenses totalling over 1.5 million euros, according to
the Presidency’s response to a question sent by AGERPRES news agency. The
President’s office also announced that by 14 December, 971 decorations were
awarded by the President, and 2 of them were returned by their recipients.

STRATEGY The EU has a new
strategy in place to compete with China – Global Getaway is a response to China’s
2013 New Silk Roads, under which investments of 140 billion euros have been
made so far. With the new instrument, the EU seeks to consolidate the digital
sector, transports and the healthcare, education and research systems around the
world. The investments planned until 2027 amount to 300 billion euro. The EU is also
considering the option of introducing a European export credit mechanism to
help ensure fairer competition conditions for EU
companies in 3rd markets.

UKRAINE Germany and Russia have agreed on a
meeting in early January, between the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s foreign
and security policy adviser Jens Ploetner, and Kremlin’s negotiator for Ukraine,
Dmitry Kozak, as part of the efforts to settle the Russian-Western crisis over
the Ukrainian border, AFP reports. For over a month now, Western countries have
been accusing Russia of deploying more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian
border for a possible military intervention, and have repeatedly warned Kremlin
on this topic. Russia claims its military is not a threat to anybody and
demands security guarantees from the West, especially with respect to NATO’s
eastwards enlargement.

SPORTS Romania’s men’s handball
team is taking part as of Monday in a new edition of the traditional Carpați
Trophy, hosted by the city of Cluj-Napoca (north-west). In the opening match,
Romania plays against Turkey. On Tuesday Turkey take on Iran, and on Wednesday
Iran plays against Romania. Originally chosen as the 4th participant,
Switzerland eventually declined the invitation over several COVID-19 cases
found amid its players. After this training tournament, Romanian handballers
are playing in Cluj on 7-9 January in the World Championship qualifiers,
against the national teams of Israel, Cyprus and
the Republic of Moldova. (tr. A.M. Popescu)