May 3, 2015 UPDATE
A roundup of Romanian and international news
România Internațional, 03.05.2015, 12:15
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 on Sunday met in Doha, the second leg of his tour of the Gulf countries, with high officials from Qatar. The talks focused, among other things, on a possible partnership with the authorities in Qatar regarding the restructuring of the Romanian airlines Tarom and the development of the Bucharest Otopeni airport. In another development, the PM announced the appointment of a commercial attaché in Doha and of another attaché to deal with the Romanians who live or have labour contracts 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.
The Germans will never forget the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi regime in the death camps, said the German chancellor Angela Merkel at a ceremony held Sunday to mark 70 years since the liberation of the concentration camp in Dachau, near Munich. The event was also attended by almost 130 survivors from 20 countries. The Nazi regime set up the Dachau camp in March 1933 after Adolf Hitler took over power, for him to imprison his political rivals there. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners from many countries were incarcerated there along the years and over 41 thousand died there. At least 200 thousand people were in Dachau when it was liberated by the American army in April 1945. The international ceremonies marking 70 years since the liberation of the Nazi camps started in January in Auschwitz.
The 7.8 magnitude quake that devastated Nepal one week ago killed more than 7 thousand people, the national center for emergency situations announced Sunday. They warn that the number of victims could increase. As many as 14,500 people have been injured and another several thousand continue to be missing. The Nepalese government on Saturday excluded any possibility of finding any survivors. Last week’s earthquake was the strongest and most devastating one reported in Nepal in the past 80 years.
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.
The Romanian Simona Halep, the world’s no. 2 player, was defeated Sunday by French Alize Cornet (28th in the WTA ranking) 7-6, 6-3, in the first round of the tennis tournament hosted by Madrid, which has prizes totaling over 4.2 million euros. On Saturday another Romanian tennis player Simona Begu, 33rd in the WTA classification, qualified for the 2nd round of the Madrid tournament after defeating Japanese Kurumi Nara (52nd in the WTA standings). The Madrid tournament is one of the most important tournaments before Roland Garros, the year’s second Grand Slam.
