Romania’s
\nPresident Klaus Iohannis is on a visit to the US, until the 29th of September.
\nOn Friday, he will attend the UN General Assembly in New York, where the 2030
\nAgenda for Sustainable Development is to be adopted. This is a commitment, by
\nheads of state and government, seen as historic, as it establishes a set of
\nuniversal objectives for a world in full process of transformation. In
\nWashington, Klaus Iohannis will have a meeting with the US vice-president Joe
\nBiden, with whom he will discuss means of strengthening the strategic
\npartnership between Romania and the US. At the invitation of the US President
\nBarak Obama, the Romanian head of state will also attend the summit on the
\nfight against the Islamic State terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n
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On
\nThursday in London, the Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta presented before
\nthe board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
\nseveral projects seen as priorities by the Romanian government, in fields such
\nas transportation, energy and public works, projects that will have a major
\nimpact on regional development and on the national infrastructure. The EBRD
\nPresident Suma Chakrabarti has stated that Romania has a big potential, and the
\nbank is ready to support the country’s economic development, with a particular
\nfocus on the development of the private sector. So far, the EBRD has invested
\nover seven billion Euros in Romania and has mobilized another 14 billion from
\nother funding sources. A new strategy for Romania, to cover the period until
\n2020, is to be approved by the EBRD board on September 30th.<\/p>\n
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Gathered in Brussels to attend an extraordinary informal
\nCouncil meeting, the EU heads of state and government committed themselves on
\nWednesday night to grant an additional 1 billion Euro to the UN agencies that
\nsupport the refugees settled in the countries neighbouring Syria, namely
\nTurkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The money will mainly go to the Office of the UN
\nHigh Commissioner for Refugees and to
\nthe World Food Programme. Against the background of the current refugee crisis,
\nthe worst since WWII, a decision was
\nmade to strengthen the EU’s external borders. Also, the participants decided
\nthat filtering centres set up in frontline members states such as Italy and Greece,
\nalso known as ‘hot-spots’, will become operational starting late November. The
\n‘hotspot’ approach would facilitate the return of illegal migrants and help
\nrelocate refugees to other EU member countries.<\/p>\n
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The European Committee for the Prevention of
\nTorture of the Council of Europe has called on Romania to combat any form of
\nmaltreatment in prisons. In a report published on Thursday, the Committee
\nexpressed worries over the many allegations of violence against prisoners. The
\nanti-torture committee, whose representatives paid several visits to Romania in
\nJune 2014, received serious complaints from inmates held in high-security
\nprisons in Arad and Oradea, in western Romania, who said they had been
\nmaltreated by the special forces. According to the report, overcrowding is
\nanother issue in the Romanian penitentiary system. According to a report drawn
\nup by the Romanian Justice Ministry in 1990, Romania lost 139 cases at the European Court of Human
\nRights because of the precarious conditions in the Romanian prisons. The
\nRomanian state had to pay 1.1 million Euros to those who complained and won in
\ncourt. <\/p>\n
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In a historic speech on Thursday,
\nthe first by a Sovereign Pontiff before
\nthe US Congress, Pope Francis made an appeal to vigilance against any type of
\nfundamentalism, be it religious or of any kind. He said that the fight against
\nextremism should not be carried out to the detriment of individual freedoms.
\nThe Pope also said that the current migration crisis was the biggest since WWII
\nand called for many difficult decisions. He also made an appeal to the US
\nCongress, divided over the issue of immigration, to reject any hostile
\nmentality towards immigrants and added that the US should not repeat past
\nerrors and mistakes.<\/p>\n
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At least 720 people of various
\nnationalities died and over 800 were wounded on Thursday in an ambush in Mina,
\nnear the Holy City of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, during the annual pilgrimage
\n(Hajj), in which over 2 million people participate. This is the gravest tragedy
\nin the past 25 years recorded during the pilgrimage. In 1990, 1426 people died
\ncrashed in a tunnel near the holy city.
\nThe Mecca pilgrimage, the largest annual gathering in the world, has
\nbeen a stage for disasters before, including stampedes, fires and riots.<\/p>\n
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Romanian men’s tennis team will
\nbe taking on the winner of the match pitting Lithuania against Slovenia, on
\nhome turf, in the first round of the 2016 Davis Cup, according to the drawings
\nof lots in Santiago de Chile. Lithuania and Slovenia will be facing one another
\nsometime between the 30th of October and the 1st of
\nNovember, in Slovenia, in a playoff match counting towards maintaining a place
\nin Group 1. In another development, in Guangzhou, China, the Romanian tennis
\nplayer Simona Halep, ranking 2nd in the WTA classification, was
\neliminated in the quarters by the Czech player Denisa Allertova, ranked 74th.
\nIn the same round of the competition, WTA 49th -placed Monica
\nNiculescu was defeated by the Belgian Yanina Wickmayer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A roundup of domestic and international news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-100484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n