COVID-19 Romania has
\nso far confirmed 9 infections with COVID-19, the Group of Strategic
\nCommunication in Bucharest has announced. Three of the people infected have
\nbeen declared cured and have left hospitals but the other 6 people are still being
\ntreated in medical centers in Timisoara, western Romania, Cluj Napoca, in the
\nnorth-west, Iasi, in the east, and Craiova, in southern Romania. 16 people have
\nbeen quarantined and other 13 thousand are isolated at home. Almost 6 thousand
\ninfections with the new coronavirus have been reported in Europe, most of the
\ncases in Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. China, the
\ncountry where the virus was first discovered in December, has reported 28 new
\ncases but no infection has been discovered in the Hubei province, the epicenter
\nof the coronavirus outbreak, for the second day in a row. WHO has reiterated its
\nappeal that all the countries should make containment of the coronavirus outbreak their top
\npriority. The virus has so far made it to 97 countries infecting over 100
\nthousand people. <\/p>\n
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GOVERNMENT The Romanian Parliament will next week set a date for
\nthe investiture vote for the cabinet led by Prime Minister Designate Florin
\nCatu. A joint session could be scheduled next Friday at the latest. 16 proposed
\nministers have been interviewed this week and nine of them got endorsement. The
\nCatu cabinet has to muster 233 votes for Parliament support. We recall the
\nfirst Liberal government, led by Ludovic Orban (leader of the National Liberal
\nParty) has been sacked through a no-confidence vote. Orban’s second appointment
\nwas contested at the Constitutional Court by his Social Democratic opponents
\nand the court, which took into consideration the declared intentions of the
\nLiberals and the president to trigger snap elections and not to get a
\nParliament majority for the investiture vote, eventually ruled against Orban’s second
\nappointment. <\/p>\n
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MIGRATION Turkey is repatriating
\nthe Syrian migrants at the border with Greece after a ceasefire for the Syrian
\nprovince of Idlib was signed by the Turkish and Russian presidents, Recep
\nErdogan and Vladimir Putin respectively. Authorities in Ankara have already
\ninformed the migrants that the EU border has been closed down and that buses
\nhave been made available to take them to Istanbul and from there back to Syria.
\nHowever the Greek border forces remain on high alert after Turkish Interior
\nMinister Suleyman Soylu on Friday announced Ankara’s intention to deploy 1,000
\npolicemen along the Evros River at the border with Greece in order to prevent
\nAthens from rejecting the migrants attempting to cross it. Romania’s interim
\nInterior Minister Marcel Vela has informed the Greek authorities that Romania
\nwill increase the number of border police and their equipment in Greece. So,
\nbesides the 21 border police already stationed in Greece, Romania decided to
\nadd 8 more for the ground monitoring as well as a patrol ship with 24 crew
\nmembers and two experts as part of the operational assistance plan for Greece,
\ncarried out under the aegis of the European Asylum Support Office. <\/p>\n
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TENNIS According
\nto the WTA webpage, the world’s no. 2 tennis player Simona Halep of Romania has
\nwithdrawn from the Indian Wells tennis tournament due to begin in California
\nnext week to recover from injuries. In 2015 Halep won her first Premier
\nMandatory title in Indian Wells after a finals win against Jelena Jankovic of
\nSerbia. Last year’s finalist Angelique Kerber of Germany has also announced her
\nintention not to participate for the same reason. This year’s edition of the
\nprestigious sporting event will bring together 73 of the world’s best 80
\nplayers. <\/p>\n
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(translated by bill)<\/span><\/p>\n
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":75903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[31904,35374,29094,35411,31525],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-104192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-china","tag-covid-19","tag-halep","tag-idlib","tag-orban"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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