September 24, 2021 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 24.09.2021, 20:00
CORONAVIRUS – Romania reported on Friday, for the third day in a row, more than 7 thousand new Covid-19 infections, most of them in capital city Bucharest. 145 Covid-related deaths were reported in 24 hours. The number of severe cases in need of intensive care has exceeded 1,100, including 16 children, a situation that hasn’t been reported since May. The infection rate in 60 cities and towns and over 350 villages across Romania, including capital city Bucharest, has exceeded 3 per thousand. The higher infection rate has given a boost to the vaccine rollout. Authorities announced they have exceeded the threshold of 10 million doses administered in Romania.
INS – Romanians last year earned gross salaries of about 5,123 lei, that is one thousand euro, on average, the National Institute for Statistics announced. The most profitable sectors with salaries above the average are IT&C, financial transactions & insurance, public administration and energy. At the opposite end are the hospitality industry, agriculture, forestry, fishery and real estate. According to the same sources, the real salary increase index last year was by 225% higher than in 1990.
TENNIS – Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, tennis player Emma Raducanu on court on Friday to celebrate the latter’s U.S. Open Champions achievement. Raducanu, 18, whose father is Romanian, shot to fame this month after she became Britains first female Grand Slam champion for 44 years. The Duchess is the patron of the Lawn Tennis Association and is often seen in the royal box at Wimbledon. Raducanus win, an extraordinary run from the qualifying rounds to the U.S. Open, was saluted by Queen Elizabeth.
MEETING – Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu who on Friday attended the ministerial meeting of the Alliance for Multilateralism, emphasized the importance of protecting the environment mainly against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Romanian official, climate change, environmental and biodiversity degradation must be approached as interdependent challenges. According to a communiqué issued by the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest, the ministerial meeting of the Alliance for Multilateralism held on the sidelines of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly is a French-German initiative that became official in 2019 and was hosted by the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian and the Germany’s Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas. According to the same sources, also tackled at the meeting was the international response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the human rights and gender equality, the response to climate change and ways to prevent environmental degradation.
ELECTION – The National Liberal Party, number one in the government coalition in Bucharest will elect their new leader during a congress on Saturday. The candidates are the incumbent president Ludovic Orban, who is also head of the Chamber of Deputies and the country’s Prime Minister Florin Citu. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis also announced his participation in the aforementioned congress. The president is backing the Prime Minister whom he believes could lead the Executive until the next election. At the end of a tough election campaign within the party, Orban has voiced confidence he will again be Prime Minister instead of Citu, whereas the latter has accused the Liberal leader of using the USR PLUS alliance in the political battle for the leadership of the National Liberal Party. Co-presidents of the USR PLUS alliance, Dacian Ciolos and Dan Barna, that withdrew from the ruling coalition earlier this month, are running for president of the alliance in a second round of voting due next week, and held online. In the first round MEP Dacian Ciolos got 46% of the votes and Dan Barna 43%.
VIRUS – The National Committee for Emergencies updated on Friday the list of countries with epidemiological risk. The countries or areas are rated as green, yellow or red, according to their COVID-19 incidence rate. Romania was moved from the green to the yellow list, while Croatia, Latvia, Austria and Bosnia-Herzegovina have been put on the red list. Also, Greece, Cyprus, Norway, Lichtenstein, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were moved to the yellow list. Portugal, Island and Japan are on the green list. People fully vaccinated do not have to quarantine if they come from countries on the yellow or red lists. Also, Romanian authorities have decided that children below the age of 12 will no longer need the green certificate for access inside public spaces. Previously, the age limit was 6. (EE)
