October 21, 2018

Ilie Balaci, one of Romania's best known footballers, has died aged 62

Newsroom, 21.10.2018, 13:07

MOURNING – Ilie Balaci, one of Romania’s best known football players, has died today, aged 62. Balaci made his debut at Universitatea Craiova football team, in 1973 and contributed to the team’s winning its first champion title. He was designated Romania’s footballer of the year twice, in 1981 and 1982. He won three national champion titles and four cups with Universitatea Craiova, a team that he played for most of his career, before his withdrawal from football in 1988. He then became a head coach and he had great success in the Arab countries, having won numerous titles in Tunisia, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

INVICTUS – The Romanians who are participating in Sydney in the Invictus Games, the international adaptive multi-sport event, in which wounded, injured or sick armed services personnel and their associated veterans take part, will are today starting the team competitions, said on Radio Romania Colonel Augustin Pegulescu, himself an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran. The Romanian team is made up of 15 wounded soldiers, most of them participating for the second time in the Invictus Games. More than 500 soldiers from across the world have come to Sydeny to take part in the games, created by Prince Harry four years ago.

SALARIES – The Romanian Government is considering freezing salaries in the public sector in 2019. A letter sent recently by the Finance Ministry to Brussels reads that this is one of the measures envisaged for next year, for Romania to observe the deficit target of 2.58% of the GDP and subsequently to correct the deviation from the medium term objectives by reducing the structured balance which will exceed 3% of the GDP this year. According to the document posted on the European Commissions website, the Romanian Government intends to maintain the value of holiday tickets to approximately 300 Euro, and also the number of employees in the public sector.

MARCH — A march for the prevention and fighting of all forms of violence against women took place in the capital Bucharest on Saturday. Alongside the several hundreds participants, were also foreign ambassadors to Bucharest, such as the American ambassador. Organizers signaled the fact that last year alone 26% of the total number of murders were due to domestic violence, and of the 40 thousand violence cases signaled to the police only 4% were brought to Court. A similar march took place on Saturday in the town of Focsani in eastern Romania.

PROCESSION — In Bucharest, thousands of Roman and Greek Catholic believers and priests are today taking parte in a procession with relic and icon of Pope John Paul II. The relic consists in several drops of the Popes blood, a gift to the Saint Joseph Cathedral in Bucharest from Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the former personal secretary of the Pope, currently Archbishop Emeritus of Krakow. Born on May 18th, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland, Karol Wojtyla was elected pope in October 1978 and died on April 2nd, 2005, at the Vatican. Pope Francis declared him a saint in April 2014, so John Paul II was included in the calendar of the Catholic Church, and his liturgical commemoration was set for October 22nd of each year. In 1999, Pope John Paul II came to Romania, on the first visit to a predominantly orthodox country by a head of the Catholic Church.

FESTIVAL – Bucharest is hosting the 28th National Theater Festival. For 11 days, theater lovers have the opportunity to participate in some 100 artistic events: shows, performances, exhibitions, book launches and meetings with special guests. The director of the festival, Marina Constantinescu, has stated that the money collected during the festival will be donated to the Daruieste viata (Give Life) Association, for the building of the first hospital of pediatric oncology and radiotherapy in Romania. Bucharest is also playing host to the event titled Cannes Films in Bucharest, an opportunity for film goers to watch films awarded at the prestigious festival, but also films signed by Romanian directors.

HANDBALL – The Romanian womens handball champions CSM Bucharest on Saturday, away from home, beat the Norwegian squad Vipers Kristiansand, 29-27 in the Champions Leagues Group D. In the first two matches, the Romanian team defeated Ferencvaros of Hungary on home turf, and was defeated by Bietighem of Germany. On Thursday, CSM Bucharest got a new head coach, the Serb Dragan Djukic. He replaced the Swedish Magnus Johansson. Djukic, aged 56, has trained clubs such as Pick Szeged of Hungary, Vardar Skopje of Macedonia and Maccabi Tel Aviv of Israel, as well as the national teams of Montenegro, Israel, Great Britain, Switzerland, Macedonia and Jordan. (Translated by Elena Enache)