February 13, 2021 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 13.02.2021, 20:00
ITALY – Italy’s new government, led by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi was sworn in on Saturday, ending weeks of political turmoil, after the former PM, Giuseppe Conte lost majority in parliament. Mario Draghi was sworn in as PM in the context of a serious crisis Italy has been facing, triggered by the pandemic and an economic recession. Draghi managed to form a national union government, supported by almost all parties, except for the extreme right Fratelli d’Italia. News agencies say that what convinced these very different political parties to come together was the promise of a massive injection of European recovery funds – more than 200 billion euros, aimed at rebuilding Italy after the pandemic.
QUAKE – A strong earthquake with the magnitude of 7 hit off the coast of eastern Japan on Saturday, shaking buildings and triggering widespread blackouts, Reuters reports. However, there appeared to be no major damage and no tsunami warning was issued. The epicenter of the earthquake was off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture at a depth of 60 km, and also shook buildings in the capital Tokyo. The quake takes place just weeks before the 10-year anniversary of the quake of March 11, 2011 that devastated northeastern Japan, with material damage exceeding 300 billion dollars.
BUDGET BILL – The draft state budget for the current year has been put up for public debate on the Finance Ministry’s website and is to be passed by the Bucharest Government next week. The budget is based on a deficit of around 7.16% of the GDP and an economic growth rate of 4.3%. Under the draft budget child allowances remain unchanged, pensions increase only from January 1, 2022, there will be no more holiday vouchers this year, and students will only benefit from a 50% discount on rail transport. Also, investment is estimated at 5.5% of the GDP, which is more than last year. The economy, research, transport and energy are the sectors that will receive more money this year, while the budgets for development, finance, justice and healthcare will be smaller. The trade unions criticize the austerity measures proposed by the Government while students have protested in the street against these measures.
VACCINATION – Romania has reintroduced quarantine measures for people arriving from countries in the yellow zone, that is countries where the infection rate is higher than the one in Romania. People unable to present a negative Covid-19 test upon entering Romania will be quarantined for 14 days. If they have such a test, issued by maximum 72 hours prior to the arrival they will be quarantined for 10 days. Exempted from the two-week quarantine are some categories of employees, children up to 3 years of age and people who have recovered from COVID-19 in the last three months or have already received both doses of COVID-19 vaccine at least 10 days prior to entering Romania. The total number of infections exceeded 757,000 in Romania with a death toll of over 19,270. About 1,000 people are in ICUs. The anti-Covid vaccination campaign continues in the country. More than one million vaccine doses have been administered so far. Most people have been vaccinated with Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines are also being administered to the population.
TENNIS – On Sunday Romanian Simona Halep., no. 2 in the world, will play against Poland’s Iga Swiatek 9WTA 17), in the fourth round of the Australian Open. In 2018 Halep played the final in Melbourne while in 2020 she reached the semifinals. On Saturday, the Romanian-Brazilian team Horia Tecau/Marcelo Melo qualified to the fourth round of the Australian Open in the men’s doubles, after defeating the Moldovan/ British team Radu Albot/Daniel Evans. Tecau and Melo will next be up against the pair made up of Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Filip Polasek of Slovakia. (EE)
