January 25, 2018 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 25.01.2018, 19:57
TENNIS The world’s no. 1 tennis player Simona Halep on Thursday qualified, for the first time, for the finals of the Australian Open, the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, after defeating the German Angelique Kerber 6-3, 4-6, 9-7. Simona had one of the best matches of her career, and managed a win after a dramatic match that lasted for more than 140 minutes. The odds-on favorite in Melbourne, in the finals Simona will be up against the world’s number two Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark. For Halep this is the third finals of a Grand Slam tournament in her career, after she lost two finals in Roland Garros in 2014 and 2017. For Wozniacki this is also the third finals of her career, and just like Halep, she did not win any of the previous finals.
PRESIDENCY Victor Negrescu, the Romanian Minister delegate for the European Affairs, on Thursday said that the central element during the upcoming Romanian EU Council presidency due in the first half of 2019 would be the citizen. According to Negrescu, a webpage in Romanian and English, on the preparation for taking over the presidency would be made available in a couple of days. Negrescu has also said that the logo for the EU Council presidency will be established following the vote cast by 10 thousand citizens.
GOVERNMENT Representatives of the ruling coalition in Romania made up of the Social Democrats (PSD) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) are to announce the new government on Friday. The structure of the executive will remain unchanged with 28 members, out of whom three deputy Prime Ministers, one without portfolio. Some of the Social Democratic ministers will carry on their terms in office during the future government. Among them Mihai Fifor at the Defense Ministry, Carmen Dan at the Interior Ministry, Olguta Vasilescu at the Labor Ministry, and Petre Daea at the Agriculture Ministry. Of the ministers from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats who will continue their activity in the new government we can mention Graţiela Gavrilescu, as deputy prime minister and environment minister, Teodor Meleşcanu as foreign minister, Toma Petcu as energy minister and Viorel Ilie as minister for the relationship with the Parliament. On Monday senators and deputies are going to give their confidence vote for the final membership of the Dăncilă cabinet and to the governing program. The Liberal opposition is holding talks with the other political parties to block the investiture of the new cabinet, the third one of the governing coalition.
ECHR Romania is ranking first in terms of the number of complaints its citizens have filed against the state at the European Court of Human Rights, most of them against the conditions in the country’s penitentiaries, the ECHR report on 2017 shows. 9,900 cases of human rights violation had been registered at the court by the end of last year. According to the court’s president Guido Raimondi, most of these complaints are about overcrowded penitentiaries and poor detention conditions. The court ruled in favour of the complainants in 20 cases last year and condemned the Romanian state for inhuman and degrading conditions. Guido Raimondi told a news conference that he had met the Romanian Justice Minister last week. The Romanian official presented him with a plan of measures pledging to solve the problems facing the Romanian penitentiaries by 2024. According to the ECHR report, the Romanian state has been found guilty in 11 cases of depriving individuals of a right to a fair trial, in six cases in which the legal procedures were taking too long and in other five cases of property right violation.
translated by Daniel Bilt
