COVID-19 IN ROMANIA – On Wednesday another 7,365 new COVID-19 infections and 161 related
\ndeaths were announced. 1,271 people are in intensive care. Most new cases were
\nreported in the capital-city Bucharest, where the infection rate has reached
\n6.5 per thousand inhabitants. The total number of infections has exceeded 532
\nthousand. Nearly 80% of people infected have recovered. The national death toll
\nhas reached 12,821. Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis said the first batch of
\nthe 3 million COVID-19 ordered tests will be arriving within the week. Days
\nfrom now the authorities are also expecting the delivery of the 300 ventilators
\nfor intensive care units.<\/p>\n
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COVID-19 IN THE WORLD – The global number of infections has exceeded 68.5
\nmillion while over 1.5 million people have died to the virus since the start of
\nthe outbreak, the latest worldometers.info update reveals. Over 47 million
\npeople around the world have recovered. The United States is the most affected
\ncountry, with over 15.5 million infections and at least 293 thousand people dead.
\nOn Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive decree, ensuring that
\nAmerican citizens will be the first to be administered anti-COVID-19 vaccines
\ndeveloped by American pharmaceutical companies. American health experts have
\naccused the President’s unethical decision, according to which the rest of the
\nworld will have to mainly rely on European-based drug manufacturers. Meanwhile,
\nthe anti-COVID-19 vaccination campaign started in Great Britain, which is the
\nfirst country in the world to approve the vaccine developed by Pfizer. People
\nover 80 years old and health workers will be the first to receive the vaccine,
\nwhich experts say has a 95% efficiency. Over 62 thousand people have died in
\nGreat Britain to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. <\/p>\n
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NEGOTIATION
\n– As the vote count for Sunday’s parliamentary election is drawing to a close,
\nnegotiations are starting over the structure of the new Government. The
\ncenter-right political parties are trying to reach consensus over forming a
\nmajority in Parliament, ahead of consultations with President Klaus Iohannis.
\nThe Liberal Party, currently in power, the party that grabbed the second
\nhighest number of votes on December 6, claims they can make up a Parliament
\nmajority with the Save Romania Union – PLUS Alliance and the Democratic Union
\nof Ethnic Hungarians. Party officials estimate they can rely on a comfortable
\nmajority of 244 MPs, adding to which will be representatives of national
\nminorities. The three center-right parties must now agree on a governing
\nprogram and distribute the 16 Ministries among themselves. On the other hand,
\nthe Social-Democratic Party has also expressed its willingness to govern,
\nconsidering it grabbed the highest number of votes in the election. The
\nSocial-Democrats said they are entitled to nominate the Prime Minister, based
\non the result in the election, and thus will not be voting for a Liberal
\nCabinet. The Social-Democrats will be proposing Dr. Alexandru Rafila, a WHO
\nexpert, for the position of Prime Minister. The Social-Democratic Party is
\nwilling to accept two options: either a minority Government led by the
\nSocial-Democratic Party, or a technocratic Government led by a Social-Democrat
\nPrime Minister. For the first time in the history of Romania, Parliament will
\nalso include the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, a recently founded
\nfar-right party, which grabbed the fourth-highest number of votes in the
\nparliamentary election. <\/p>\n
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BREXIT -
\nOver 670 thousand Romanians have filed for residence rights in the United
\nKingdom, considering immigration rules will change for European citizens
\narriving in this country starting January 2021. According to data provided by
\nan association defending the interests of European citizens in the UK, citizens
\nfrom Poland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and France also filed a large number of
\nsuch applications. Over 3.9 million applications were filed until September,
\n59% of applicants having received the status of permanent resident. This status
\nis granted to people who can provide proof of 5 years’ continuous residence on
\nBritish territory, allowing them to continue to work and receive social welfare
\nafter Brexit. <\/p>\n
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FOOTBALL -
\nThe Romanian Football Federation has taken note of the incident reported in the
\nChampions League match pitting PSG of France against Istanbul Basaksehir. The
\nmatch was suspended after Romanian Sebastian Col\u0163escu, the fourth official
\ndelegated for that match, used a racist term to describe the assistant manager
\nof the Turkish club, Cameroonian Pierre Achille Webo, whom the central referee,
\nRomanian Ovidiu Ha\u0163egan, showed a red booking. Right after the incident the
\ntechnical staff of the Turkish club and all its players walked off the pitch on
\nminute 16. The Union of European Football Association announced it will launch
\na comprehensive investigation, while the match, counting towards Champions
\nLeague Group H, will be resumed tonight with new referees. In a post on its
\nwebsite, the Romanian Football Federation firmly distanced itself from any
\nracist or xenophobic action or statement. (V. Palcu)<\/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":[14005,35374,28945,32086,31211,32118,35908,35433,32402],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-104778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-brexit","tag-covid-19","tag-klaus-iohannis","tag-negotiations","tag-parliamentary-election","tag-romanian-football-federation","tag-sebastian-coltescu","tag-tests","tag-vaccine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n