COVID-19 IN ROMANIA – Romania saw 7,304 new
\ninfections and 177 new deaths on Tuesday, so a total of 314,295 people have
\nbeen infected since the start of the pandemic. A record 1,093 people are
\nreceiving hospital treatment in intensive care. President Klaus Iohannis on
\nTuesday evening said Romania is facing a very complicated situation, and until
\na viable vaccine emerges, restrictions are the only way to protect the
\npopulation and to ease pressure on the healthcare system. <\/p>\n
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NATO – NATO cannot remain without nuclear
\nweapons, as long as Russia and China won’t renounce this type of weaponry,
\nSecretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday on the sidelines of NATO’s
\nannual Conference on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Arms Control, Disarmament and
\nNon-Proliferation, hosted by the Romanian Foreign Ministry. Secretary
\nStoltenberg said the world’s nuclear arsenal has been reduced by 90% in the
\nlast 40 years, and only three NATO allies dispose of such weapons, albeit with
\nsecurity guarantees in place. Romania’s Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu in turn
\ncalled for a global non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, adding that China
\nshould join Russia and the United States by taking part in the START nuclear
\ndisarmament programme. The meeting marks the anniversary of 50 years since the
\ntreatment on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons took effect and is a preview
\nof the assessment conference scheduled for August 2021. The event was
\noriginally scheduled to take place in March in Bucharest as a sign of
\nrecognition of Romania’s high profile within the Alliance, but was rescheduled
\nin videoconference format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n
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MOLDOVA – Romania wants to
\nremain a solid partner for Moldova’s civil society, and Sunday’s second round
\nof the presidential election will be closely monitored, President Klaus
\nIohannis said on Tuesday. The president said the results of the first vote,
\nfavoring pro-Western candidate Maia Sandu, is very pleasing, saying it is a
\nvote in favor of an irreversible democratic evolution of the Republic of
\nMoldova, something which Romania has been supporting unequivocally. Former
\nPrime minister Maia Sandu will face off the current president of the Republic,
\nSocialist Igor Dodon, in the second round next Sunday. In the first round on
\nNovember 1, Sandu grabbed 36% of the vote, while Dodon a little under 33%.
\nPro-European candidates who’ve been ousted in the first round have expressed
\ntheir unconditional support for Maia Sandu in the presidential standoff. Renato Usatyi, who grabbed 17% of the vote in
\nthe first round, the third-largest number, has also urged his electorate to
\nvote for Sandu in the second round. <\/p>\n
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FRIGATE – The Romanian frigate Queen Maria has
\ninterrupted its participation to the Standing NATO Maritime Group on Tuesday,
\nleaving the port of Aksaz in Turkey to head home a month earlier than
\nscheduled, due to the high number of COVID-19 cases reported amongst crew
\nmembers. According to the Romanian Naval Forces General Staff, the frigate had
\nbeen taking part in a mission monitoring naval traffic in the Eastern
\nMediterranean starting October 27, a mission due to complete on December 7.
\nHowever, as a significantly high number of people onboard got sick with the
\nSARS Cov-2 virus, the commander decided to return home earlier. <\/p>\n
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PROTEST – Trade unions of the Emergency
\nAmbulance services have cancelled their protest scheduled for Tuesday in
\nBucharest following talks with Prime Minister Ludovic Orban and the minister of
\nHealth and Public finance. The work-in strike scheduled for Wednesday has also
\nbeen called off, the president of the National Ambulance Trade Federations,
\nGheorghe Chi\u015f has said. During the talks the officials agreed to take on an
\nadditional 1,000 staff for the ambulance services, which will be taken up
\nfollowing vacancy-filling contests over an indefinite period of time. The
\namount of ambulance workers are to be evenly divided across the country.
\nGheorghe Chi\u015f also said the authorities are considering the payment of bonuses
\nor medical nurse salaries to ambulance service personnel throughout the
\npandemic. As regards survivors’ benefits to be paid to the families of ambulance
\npersonnel who die to the COVID-19 virus, Chi\u015f said the topic has been tackled,
\nalthough Parliament is already debating a draft law on the status of ambulance
\npersonnel that regulates such situations. In another development, members of
\nSanitas federation of trade unions in the field of healthcare picketed the
\ngovernment building in Bucharest to protest against the authorities’ lack of
\nreaction to the requests for financial, staff and logistical assistance. A week
\nago, dozens of trade union members in the healthcare and social assistance
\nareas held a first protest against what they described as the authorities’
\nincoherent crisis strategies for handling the pandemic. Sanitas
\ndecided to hold such protests outside the government building every Tuesday until
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FILM – The
\nRomanian documentaries My Home directed by Radu Ciorniciuc and colectiv
\ndirected by Alexander Nanau have been nominated in the 33rd edition
\nof the European Film Academy Awards, to be announced during a series of online
\nevents scheduled for December 8 -12. According to the official website of the
\nevent, in order to widen the platform to more European films in what is such a
\ndifficult time for European cinema and artists, the EFA Board has decided to
\nexceptionally increase the nominations in the full length feature film
\ncategories and in the documentary category from five to six. My Home tells
\nthe story of a family who’s lived 18 years in the V\u0103c\u0103re\u015fti Delta in Bucharest,
\nstriving for acceptance and a self-shaped freedom. colectiv tells the story
\nof the first year ensuing the devastating fire of October 30, 2015 at Colectiv
\nnightclub in Bucharest, which killed 64 people. The film is Romania’s proposal
\nfor the 2021 Academy Awards in the best international feature section. <\/p>\n
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FOOTBALL – Romania’s national team on Wednesday
\nis playing Belarus on home turf in a friendly match, in the run-up to Romania’s
\nlast two games scheduled for this year as part of Group 1B in the European
\nNations’ League. Romania will play Norway at home on November 15 and Northern
\nIreland on November 18 away from home. Romania is ranked 3rd in the
\ngroup tables with 4 points, behind Norway and Austria, each with 9 points. In
\nOctober Romania lost its final chance of qualifying to the 2021 European
\nChampionship after losing 1-2 to Iceland in the playoff semi-finals. <\/p>\n
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(Translated by C. Mateescu
\n& V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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":[35852,28963,35374,35854,35136,29000,35853,30990],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-104715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-ambulance-trade-union-protest","tag-bogdan-aurescu","tag-covid-19","tag-efa-awards","tag-nato-conference","tag-president-klaus-iohannis","tag-presidential-election-in-moldova","tag-romanias-national-football-team"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n