May 3, 2015
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România Internațional, 03.05.2015, 12:00
The role of the mass media is essential in defending public interest, the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis wrote in a social network post on Sunday, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, which is marked each year on May 3rd. President Iohannis underlined that a free press contributes to strengthening democracy and developing a prosperous society. The US charge d’affairs in Bucharest, Dean Thompson, also said in a message that being a journalist can sometimes be ‘dangerous’ and that press freedom is under siege. According to the American official in 2014 at least 60 journalists were killed and several other wounded, harassed, arrested or threatened. In a report on world press freedom for 2014 published these days by Freedom House, Romania continues to remain among the countries with a partially free press, occupying the 84th position among 199 countries and territories analyzed. The authors of the report draw attention to the fact that press freedom at world level reached, in 2014, the lowest level of the past 10 years.
The Romanian PM is meeting Sunday in Doha, the second leg of a tour of several countries in the Gulf area, with high officials from Qatar as well as with representatives of the Authority for Investments and the Chamber of Commerce. The Romanian prime minister will present the business opportunities in Romania in such fields as infrastructure, energy, tourism, education and agriculture. On Saturday PM Ponta met in Doha with some of the 2000 Romanians working in Qatar. This is the first visit of a Romanian prime minister to Qatar since bilateral diplomatic relations were established 25 years ago. The next legs of the Romanian PM’s tour, after Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The tour will end on May 5th and is aimed at re-launching political dialogue and economic relations between Romania and the countries in the Gulf region. 10 years.
The German chancellor Angela Merkel is participating on Sunday in the events devoted to the liberation of the concentration camp in Dachau, 70 years ago. The event is also being attended by almost 130 survivors. Over 43 thousand people were killed in Dachau, the first concentration camp set up by the Nazis. The camp was opened in 1933, several months ahead of Hitler’s coming to power, and hundreds of thousands of prisoners from tens of countries were incarcerated there along the years. The Dachau camp was liberated by the American army in 1945 at the end of April.
The Romanian athletes Petronela Roxana Borha and Elena Meroniac on Sunday obtained the silver medal in the 500-meter double scull event at the European Championships hosted by Racice, the Czech Republic. On Saturday the two athletes won the gold in the 1000-meter double scull event. In the same competition on Saturday Romania obtained another two silver medals: Florentina Caminescu got silver in the single scull event on 1000 meters and the men’s team made up of Leonid Carp, Petre Condrat, Iosif Chirila and Stefan Strat got the other silver medal in the 1000-meter men’s four event.
