March 9, 2019
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 09.03.2019, 14:20
TENNIS The world’s second tennis player, Romanian Simona Halep, yesterday
qualified for the third round of the Indian Wells tournament after a 6-2, 6-4
win against Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic. Halep, who won the Indian
Wells tournament in 2015, will next take on Katerina Kozlova of Ukraine. Another
Romanian, Mihaela Buzarnescu conceded a 6-2, 6-2 defeat in the second round of
Indian Wells to Daria Gavrilova of Australia. Marius Copil, also from the
Romanian delegation was also outperformed 6-2, 6-2, by Radu Albot of the
Republic of Moldova.
PROSECUTION The Special Section for the Investigation of Magistrates in Bucharest
has today announced that the former chief of Romania’s main anti-corruption
agency DNA, Laura Codruta Kovesi has been placed under penal investigation in a
second file under the charges of setting up an organized criminal group and
conspiracy to unjust repression. Between 2015-2016 Kovesi would allegedly have
coordinated a criminal group made up of two prosecutors and a police officer,
suspected of abusive investigation, unjust repression, trying to influence
statements and creating confusion between legal institutions. The former DNA
chief has described all these are fabrications aimed at tarnishing her
reputation. Kovesi is being prosecuted in a first file for abuse of office,
false testimony and bribery. We recall that the former DNA chief was sacked
last summer when Justice Minister Tudorel Toader accused her of having defied
Parliament authority and contested Constitutional Court rulings.
BURIAL The remains of Romania’s former sovereign, Carol 2nd are
being reinterred today at the Archbishop Cathedral in Curtea de Arges, southern
Romania, where other members of the royal family are also buried. Last night
the coffin was taken out of the chapel it stayed since 2003, when the body of
the former king had been brought from Lisbon. After a religious service, the
coffin will be placed into a crypt not far from those of Romania’s last
sovereign king Mihai 1st and his wife, queen Ana. King Carol 2nd
ruled the country between 1930 and 1940 a very controversial period in
Romania’s history characterized on one hand by economic prosperity, cultural
development and loyalty towards Romania’s Western allies, and on the other by
the king’s immoral behavior, the corruption of his associates and the setting
up of his personal dictatorship in 1938. After ceding without fight a third of
the country’s territory to the neighboring USSR, Hungary and Bulgaria, Carol 2nd
was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mihai. He lived in exile and died
in Portugal in 1953.
POPULATION Romania’s population continues to diminish due to a decline in
the fertility rate and due to migration, data publish by the National Institute
for Statistics (INS) show. 200 people, mostly men with ages between 30 and 40,
are leaving the country on a daily basis. According to the aforementioned
institute on January 1st 2018 there were 120 thousand people less
than on January 1st 2017. According to the same data, more Romanians
died than were born and the number of those leaving the country was higher than
those who entered it. A 2017 INS survey shows that more children were born in
Romanian families living in Italy than in Romania and the number of children
born in Romanian families abroad is double than in Romania.
(translated by bill)
