DIPLOMACY The United States inaugurated
\nthe embassy in Jerusalem, after a controversial decision by President Donald
\nTrump to recognize the city as the capital of Israel. The international
\ncommunity considers that the final status of Jerusalem should be negotiated
\nduring a peace process with the Palestinians. Most UN member states have
\ncriticized the American decision. President Trump’s decision upset and
\ninfuriated the Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem to be the capital of
\ntheir future state. In Bucharest, the Romanian Foreign Ministry has rejected
\nthe EU proposal calling on the member states to refuse that their embassies in
\nIsrael be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Romanian government has already
\nadopted a memorandum on starting procedures to move the embassy, but president
\nKlaus Iohannis said Romania’s embassy can’t be moved to Jerusalem without his
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CLASHES Scores of
\nPalestinians were shot dead by the Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip on Monday during a protest against the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the
\nlocal Health Ministry has announced. According to the same sources, hundreds
\nhave been wounded by the Israeli forces. The Palestinian authority has accused
\nIsrael of carrying out a ‘terrible massacre’. The spokesman for the Palestinian
\ngovernment, Youssouf al-Mahmoud has called for an immediate international
\nintervention to put an end to the massacre. The Israeli army has explained in a
\ncommuniqu\u00e9 that its troops are trying to disperse the protesters using standard
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TENNIS The
\nRomanian-Latvian pair Sorana Cirstea\/Jelena Ostapenko has qualified for the
\nsecond round of the WTA tournament in Rome, a competition with more than 3.3
\nmillion dollars in prize money. The two players have outperformed in two sets
\n7-6, 6-3 the Slovakian-Latvian pair Magdalena Rybarikova\/Anastasija Sevastova.
\nAlso on Monday Romanian Irina Begu and Lara Arruabarrena of Spain were
\neliminated by Alla Kudryavtseva from Russia and Renata Voracova of the Czech
\nRepublic in three sets 3-6, 6-3, 10-5. Another Romanian, Mihaela Buzarnescu has
\nalso been eliminated in two sets 6-3, 7-6 (\/2) by Shuai Zhang of China. The
\nworld’s number one Simona Halep of Romania will be playing directly in the
\ncompetition’s second round. <\/p>\n
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MOTION The Senate in
\nBucharest on Monday turned down a simple motion through which the opposition
\nparties, the National Liberals (PNL) and the Save Romania Union (USR) had
\ncalled for the sacking of Education Minister Valentin Popa. The Minister has
\nbeen accused of having significantly slashed the number of places for students
\nin Romania’s oldest and most prestigious universities. The PNL and USR senators
\nwho have signed the motion argued that Minister Popa acted like that in order
\nto protect certain private interests and not the interests of the national
\neducation. In turn, the Education Minister has described the motion as a mere
\npolitical move. We recall that many prestigious universities in Romania have
\ncomplained about the way in which the Education Ministry has distributed the
\nnumber of tax-free places for students in the 2018-2019 school year. <\/p>\n
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REMEMBRANCE DAY A National
\nRemembrance Day for the Martyrs of Communist Prisons is being marked in Romania
\non May 14. The decision is stipulated in a law promulgated last year. The day
\nhas been chosen as a remembrance of the night of May 14th to 15th
\n1948, when the communists who had just seized power in Romania, arrested over
\n10,000 Romanians who were opposed to the new regime. They were investigated,
\ntried and thrown into prison. The detention system, similar to that in Soviet
\nRussia was characterised by systematic physical and psychological terror. Until
\nthe overthrow of communism, in December 1989, prisons had been an instrument of
\npolitical domination against all opponents: politicians of the inter-war
\nperiod, the intellectual elite, clerics and religious believers. <\/p>\n
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