WEATHER — Torrential rains on Wednesday affected 30 localities in the counties of Bistrita-Nasaud and Mures, as well as in Timis and Maramures. Over 100 homes were flooded, dozens of people evacuated, and small sized landslides blocked roads and railways. In addition, several rivers have been placed under code red alerts for flooding. Emergency intervention authorities have announced that over 5,000 emergency intervention personnel have been mobilized. The National Weather Administration issued a code yellow alert for several other counties. Last year, Romania got 8.2 million Euros in solidarity funds for damaged infrastructure after weather events in the north east of the country.<\/p>\n
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MEETING- Romania\u2019s Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu will be attending the Council of Europe\u2019s ministerial meeting taking place in Helsinki during Finland\u2019s presidency of this body. The Helsinki meeting will also mark the transfer of the presidency to the French Republic. High on the agenda is the need for shared responsibility with a view to ensuring democratic security in Europe. The Committee of Ministers is made up of representatives of the 47 members of the Council of Europe. The half-yearly body\u2019s presidency is held by every member state in alphabetical order.<\/p>\n
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PARLIAMENT — The campaign for European Parliament elections continues. Voting takes place on May 26. 13 parties compete for the appointed seats, as well as three independent candidates. The candidate taking up the 33rd seat can only occupy it once the UK exits the EU. Romanians abroad have 441 polling stations available, most of them in Italy, Spain, and the neighboring Republic of Moldova. A referendum has been called on the same day as the European Parliament elections by President Klaus Iohannis.<\/p>\n
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TENNIS – Romanian tennis players Simona Halep and Mihaela Buzarnescu have two more games at hand to make it to the quarter finals of the tennis tournament in Rome, a competition with 3.4 million dollars in prize money. The matches the two were supposed to play yesterday were canceled because of the rain. In her first second-round game Halep, the world\u2019s number 2 tennis player, is to take on Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic, while Buzarnescu, 29th WTA, will be up against WTA 18th Julia Goerges of Germany.<\/p>\n
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CANNES — The feature length film La Gomera, by Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu, will premiere on Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. It is competing for the Palme dOr trophy with movies by Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almod\u00f3var, Ken Loach, Terrence Malick, and the Dardenne brothers. Porumboiu is a previous laureate of Cannes for his movie The Treasure, while winning in 2009 a grand prize. In 2006, also in Cannes, his movie Was It or Was It Not got the Camera dOr award. The Cannes film festival runs between May 14 and 25.<\/p>\n
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