February 19, 2020
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 19.02.2020, 13:55
CORONAVIRUS — Another Romanian citizen on board Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan’s territorial waters has been infected with coronavirus and has been transported to a hospital in Tokyo, the Romanian Foreign Ministry has announced. The condition of the patient, who is part of the crew, is good. The first Romanian on board, infected with coronavirus, is also in a good and stable condition. As regards the Westerdam ship, Cambodian authorities say that eight out of the nine Romanian tourists on board have left Cambodia while the ninth remained in the capital city. It was the owner of the cruise ship that covered the costs. The death toll from coronavirus in China reached 2,000, after authorities in the Hubei province, the epicenter of the epidemic, reported over 130 new deaths. Across the country, there were almost 1,700 new confirmed infections, the lowest figure reported so far in a week. With this new report in Hubei, the number of infections in mainland China reached at least 74,000. Around 900 cases of infection and five deaths have been reported outside China so far.
BRANCUSI — Romania marks today 144 years since the birth of the famous Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, with special events being scheduled to take place in the capital city Bucharest and in Targu Jiu, the city hosting the Sculptural Ensemble of Constantin Brancusi. In Targu Jiu, the Constantin Brancusi National Museum is inaugurated today, to include works such as The Table of Silence, The Gate of the Kiss and the Endless Column. Also, Romania’s National Museum of Art is hosting a high-tech projection show where the public will be able to watch holograms of the sculptor and his famous works. Known as “the father of modern sculpture,” Brancusi, born on February 19, 1976, in Hobita, a small village in southern Romania, was one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century as well as a painter and a photographer. Brancusi willed to the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris an important number of works and everything his workshop contained, on the condition that the workshop itself be moved to the museum and restored to its original condition. Part of this gift included hundreds of photographic prints he took, beginning in the 1920s, of his work and studio. He initially offered all of them to the Romanian state, but the communist government of the 1950s had refused the gift.
INTERVIEWS — Today is the last of the three days when the specialized committees of the Romanian Parliament are interviewing the ministers that would form Prime Minister Ludovic Orbans second cabinet. Only three ministers have received the green light so far: Nicolae Ciucă as defense minister, Virgil Popescu as minister of the economy, energy and the environment and Bogdan Aurescu, as foreign minister. The investiture vote is scheduled for February 24. The Prime Minister Designate has decided to maintain the same membership of the Government because he was satisfied with their activity. The opposition Social Democratic Party has announced it will not vote the candidates proposed to form the new government. The National Liberal Partys plan is to get the two governments rejected, in order to dissolve Parliament and call early elections. Parliamentary elections might thus be held between the 15th and the 30th of June, which is within the same timeframe as the local elections. Romania’s Constitutional Court will rule on February 24th on the notification filed by the speakers of the two chambers, over the fact that President Klaus Iohannis nominated again Ludovic Orban as PM, although he has just been dismissed from this post through a no confidence vote in Parliament. The two say this has created a constitutional conflict between President and Parliament.
TENNIS – Simona Halep, worlds no.2 and the main seed at the competition, is today playing straight into the second round of the Dubai tournament against the Tunisian Ons Jabeur ( 45 WTA). Halep won the tournament in 2015, and last year was eliminated in the quarter finals by the Swiss Belinda Bencic ( 4 WTA). Halep and Jabeur played against each other before, in the first round of the Beijing tournament, when the Romania withdrew after the first set due to an injury. Jabeur is one of the most spectacular players in the circuit, and the first player of Arabic origin to make it to the quarterfinals at Australian Open.
(Translated by E. Enache)
