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COVID-19 IN ROMANIA – The government has decided to extend
\nthe state of alert by a further thirty days as of Saturday. The head of the
\ndepartment for emergency situations Raed Arafat said the sanitary measures
\nintroduced earlier remain in place and will also apply to the parliamentary
\nelections due on December 6. He said the health and foreign ministries will
\nissue a joint decree referring specifically to the voting stations abroad. Arafat also said the government was planning
\nto temporarily allow medical school graduates and residents to practice
\nmedicine so that they can work, under supervision, on wards treating coronavirus
\npatients. More than 343,700 coronavirus infections have been recorded so far in
\nRomania. Almost 9,500 new cases were reported on Friday. 1,149 people are in
\nintensive care. 174 new deaths were recorded, taking the death toll to 8,694.<\/p>\n
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COVID-19 IN THE WORLD – Over 53.3 million people have been
\ninfected with coronavirus globally and more than 1.3 million have died,
\naccording to the latest worldometers.info update. In many European countries,
\nthe situation remains critical and governments are taking additional measures.
\nA nigh-time curfew came into effect on Friday in Greece and Portugal has
\nexpanded restrictions to more areas. Slovenia has banned almost all public
\ngatherings, and Hungary is in lockdown for at least a month. In Italy, three
\nregions in the north are seeing new restrictions beginning today. France has
\nseen a 16% drop in new cases in the last 7 days, but the situation is sensitive
\nin hospitals, where the second wave is expected to peak next week. In turn,
\nhealth authorities in Belgium expect 10 to 20% of the population to develop
\nSARS-CoV-2 antibodies after the second wave of the pandemic, a percentage they
\nsay will help slow down the spread of the virus, but which would make
\nimpossible attaining herd immunity in the absence of a vaccine. <\/p>\n
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LIST – The National Committee for Emergency Situations has
\nupdated the list of countries with a high epidemiological risk. The amber list
\ncountries include Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
\nFrance, Jordan, Italy, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain,
\nPortugal and Hungary. Arrivals from these countries are requested to isolate
\nfor 14 days. Travellers to Spain from high-risk regions or countries will be
\nobliged to produce a negative result to a Covid test, beginning on November 23.
\nThe Romanian foreign ministry is emphasizing that the test must be taken no
\nlonger than 72 hours prior to entering Spanish territory and that the document
\nmust be written in Spanish or English. The ministry also recalls that all
\npersons travelling to Spain must fill in a form about their state of health
\nbefore travelling.<\/p>\n
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\n
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\n
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MOLDOVA – In the Republic of Moldova, the election campaign
\nfor the second round of presidential elections on Sunday came to a close on
\nFriday. In the first round of the election, former pro-European PM Maia Sandu
\ngot over 36% of the votes, and the incumbent pro-Russian Socialist president,
\nIgor Dodon, under 33%. The candidates favoring the reunification with Romania
\nas well as the pro-European candidates,
\nwho left the presidential race in the first round, made public their
\nunconditional support for Maia Sandu in the second round. The third-placed
\ncandidate, the pro-Russian populist Renato Usatyi, has urged his voters, some
\n17% of those who voted in the first round, to vote for the former prime
\nminister. On Tuesday, Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis expressed joy at the
\nnews of the vote for the West-leaning candidate and deemed it a vote in favor
\nof the irreversible democratic evolution of the Republic of Moldova, a country
\nthat has permanently and unequivocally been supported by Romania.<\/p>\n
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\n
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TERRORISM – The 27 EU Interior Ministers have called for
\nstrengthening the security of the Schengen visa-free travel area and of the EU’s
\nexternal borders in a joint statement adopted on Friday following the latest
\nterror attacks in France and Austria. EU Ministers expressed their willingness
\nto finalize by the end of this year the current negotiations over a European
\nlegislation on deleting online terrorist content within 1 hour. Five years
\nafter the Jihadist attacks of November 13, 2015, the Ministers paid homage to
\nthe 130 people killed in Paris and Saint-Denis and harshly condemned the latest
\nattacks in France and Austria. <\/p>\n
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\n
\n
\n
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UK VISAS – EU citizens will be able to travel to the UK
\nvisa-free after January 1, 2021 for a period of 6 months, according to the new
\nimmigration system made public by the British government. EU citizens can travel to the United Kingdom
\nfor several times during that time span, but they are not allowed to live in
\nthe UK, under the multiple entry and extended visa mechanism, nor are they
\nallowed to work or access public funds. Those willing to work, live or study in
\nthe UK must request a visa. This visa will be granted based on a system of
\npoints, after the applicants submit a visa request, on the website of the
\nBritish government. Points are granted in keeping with a set of requirements
\nthat applicants should meet. <\/p>\n
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\n
\n
\n
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STATISTICS – The GDP dropped by 4.4% in the Eurozone and by
\n4.3% in the European Union in the third quarter of 2020 compared with the same
\nperiod last year. Spain saw the biggest drop, at 8.7%, while Romania recorded a
\n6% drop, according to a report by the EU statistical office Eurostat. The data
\nreferring to Romania were supported by the country’s National Institute for
\nStatistics, which published a report saying the economy shrank by 6% in the
\nthird quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, but it grew
\nby 5.6% compared with the previous quarter.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(Translated by C. Mateescu & V. Palcu) <\/p>\n
<\/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":[35374,33610,35490,35863,35861,30629,35862],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-104721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-covid-19","tag-election-in-moldova","tag-eu-interior-ministers","tag-gdp-statistics","tag-restrictions-in-europe","tag-terror-attacks","tag-uk-visas-for-eu-citizens"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n