July 22, 2021

A roundup of domestic and international news.

Newsroom, 22.07.2021, 14:00

ABUSE — Only one in three Romanians who consider themselves victims of an abuse by state institutions has filed complains or petitions to defend one’s rights, according to the findings of a survey dubbed ”Be Informed, Not Abused!” conducted between April and July 2021 by the Foundation for the Defence of Citizens Against State’s Abuses (FACIAS). 72% of respondents say they have been victim of abuse by an institution of the Romanian state at least once. Of them, 32% filed a complaint, 12% made a verbal complaint, 11% opened a court case while 25% did not take any action. Only 9% of respondents say they have never been the victims of such abuse.

CORONAVIRUS — Over 100 new cases of Covid-19 have been reported in Romania, for the first time after two months when the average number of new infections was 40 per day. The number of cases started going up as of July 12, most of them being reported in the capital Bucharest and in the counties of Cluj, Iasi, Ilfov and Constanta, according to the Group for Strategic Communication. According to data made public on the European Forecast Hub, by the end of July Romania is expected to have up to 200 new cases per day. Experts say that immunization is the solution to put an end to this health crisis. Authorities announced on Wednesday that over 15,000 people had the vaccine in 24 hours. More than 4.7 million Romanians have been fully vaccinated so far.

PANDEMIC — China has turned down the proposal of the World Health Organisation (WHO) that the expert team that investigates the origin of Covid-19 should return to the place where the virus first emerged for the second phase of the investigation. China’s National Health Commission answered that the proposal, that includes investigation into the hypothesis that the virus had escaped from a Chinese laboratory, disregards common sense and defies science. The WHO has recently warned that the number of Covid infections worldwide may reach 200 million in the next three weeks if the growing trend maintains. Last week, the number of infections went up by 12% globally, that is almost half a million more cases a day, while the number of related-casualties remained stable. Except for the Americas and Africa, the whole world reported increases in the number of new infections. In Europe, their number went up by 21%. According to the WHO, this is due to more contagious variants of the virus, such as Delta. Across the world, almost 193 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, over 175 millions have recovered and 4.1 millions died.

ORGANISED CRIME – Prosecutors with the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) and policemen have conducted 17 searches in Bucharest and five counties to dismantle a group involved in embezzlement, fraud and money laundering. Some 380 people have been brought in for hearing. The suspects had bank accounts opened in Romania, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, the UK, Germany and other countries. During the search, 100 thousand euros have been confiscated, as well as 250 mobile phones, bank documents issued by other EU countries and the Russian Federation, laptops and bank cards.

FOOTBALL – Romania’s Under-23 national squad take on Honduras today, in their debut match in Group B of the Olympic tournament in Tokyo. Also toady, in the same group, South Korea go against New Zealand. Romania will be up against South Korea on July 25 and the New Zealand on July 28. The Romanian footballers qualified to the Olympics after reaching the semi-finals of the Under-21 European Championship in 2019 held in Italy and San Marino. Romania has sent a 101-strong delegation to this edition of the Olympics. In 17 sports disciplines, 46 athletes will be competing in the womens version of the games and 55 in the mens version. Our athletes are set to prove their mettle in swimming, athletics, rowing, football, artistic gymnastics, 3-on-3 womens basketball, cycling, wrestling, shooting sports, canoeing, table tennis, boxing, judo, archery and lawn tennis. (EE)