FUNERAL
\nMonday was a day of national mourning in France in memory of the former
\npresident Jacques Chirac who died last Thursday at the age of 86. The funeral ceremonies
\nwere attended by President Emmanuel Macron and three
\npredecessors, including Val\u00e9ry Giscard d’Estaing, who is 93 years old. Leaders
\nfrom around the world also attended the funeral where Romania was represented
\nby its foreign minister Ramona Manescu. Jacques Chirac was at the forefront of
\nthe French political scene for 40 years, as mayor of Paris, MP, minister and
\nprime minister. His remarkable career was overshadowed towards the end by a
\n2-year suspended sentence he received in 2011, when he had already left
\npolitical life, for a case of fictitious hiring dating from his time as Paris
\nmayor. One of the key moments the world will remember him for includes France’s
\nrefusal in 2003 to take part in the US-led invasion of Iraq. Romanians will
\nremember Jacques Chirac as a great supporter of their country’s joining NATO
\nand, later, the European Union. <\/p>\n
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CANDIDACY
\nRomania’s Prime Minister Viorica Dancila on Monday announced she would nominate
\nanother candidate for the position of European commissioner after the Legal
\nAffairs Committee of the European Parliament last week had turned down
\nRomania’s candidate, Rovana Plumb, over a conflict of interest. Prime
\nMinister Dancila was invited by Romanian president Klaus Iohannis to have talks
\non this issue on Wednesday. Last week Plumb was asked to clear some
\ncontroversial aspects in her declaration of assets concerning a loan she had
\ntaken to fund an election campaign. On Monday Plumb said she had extinguished
\nthe 168 thousand euro loan over which there was suspicion of a conflict of
\ninterest. <\/p>\n
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TENNIS Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, the world’s number six, on
\nMonday lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia in the second round of the WTA
\ntennis tournament in Beijing. We recall that Halep has qualified for the sixth
\ntime in a row for the WTA Finals due to take place in Shenzhen over October 27th
\nand November 3rd. Also in the doubles on Monday Romanian Monica
\nNiculescu and Vania King of the USA lost to Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia and Dayana
\nYastremska of Ukraine; Raluca Olaru also from Romania and Alison Riske of the
\nUSA conceded defeat to the all-American pair, Sofia Kenin \/ Bethanie
\nMattek-Sands. <\/p>\n
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(translated by bill)<\/p>\n
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