US-RUSSIA US president Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin
\nare to meet in Geneva on June 16th, the White House announced on
\nTuesday. ‘The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues as we seek
\nto restore predictability and stability to the US-Russia relationship’, the
\nWhite House spokeswoman Jen Psaki has said. This is going to be the first
\nmeeting between the two leaders since Joe Biden’s coming to power and will be
\ntaking place amid serious tensions between the two states. The meeting also comes
\nafter the G7 and NATO summits which are expected to have a joint anti-Moscow position.
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
MEETING The Senate and the
\nChamber of Deputies are to convene in Bucharest on Wednesday for talks over the
\nNational Plan of Resilience and Recovery, Ludovic Orban, the president of the
\nChamber of deputies announced on Tuesday. The main opposition party PSD
\ninsisted the government present the plan before Parliament otherwise the Social
\ndemocrats may not endorse a European treaty under which the member states are
\nto pay higher contributions to the EU budget. Romania has pledged to present
\nthe plan to Brussels by the end of May, one month after the date required by
\nthe European Commission. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
CAMPAIGN Romania’s Prime Minister Florin Citu on
\nThursday announced the government would launch a pro-vaccine media campaign.
\nCitu says that his role as head of the Executive is to lead a louder campaign
\nthan the anti-vaccine voices promoted by a couple of TV channels. The Prime
\nMinister has given assurances that non-vaccinated people are not going to be
\ndiscriminated against. According to the RO Vaccination platform, since the
\nvaccine rollout kicked off in Romania in late December 2020, 25.93% of the
\neligible population, 16 years old and over, more than 4,170,000 people have got
\nat least one dose of the anti-Covid vaccine. According to the same sources, 20.69%
\nof the eligible population, accounting for 3,330,000 people, has also got the booster.
\nOn the other hand, the number of Covid infections is on a downward trend. 381
\nnew infections were reported on Tuesday out of 32 thousand tests conducted in
\nthe past 24 hours. 63 new fatalities have been reported bringing the death toll
\nto 30,040. 545 patients are being treated in IC units. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
AGREEMENT
\nThe EU leaders meeting in Brussels have agreed to seal off the bloc’s airspace
\nto Belarusian planes as part of sanctions against the regime of president
\nAlexander Lukashenko, accused to deviating a Ryanair passenger plane flying
\nfrom Athens to Vilnius to arrest dissident
\njournalist Roman Protasevich.
\nThe 27 EU leaders also asked airlines to avoid flying over Belarus, agreed to
\nimpose additional sanctions, including of an economic nature, and called for
\nthe immediate release of the journalist and his partner Sofia Sapega, who is a
\nRussian citizen, both of whom were arrested on Sunday. EU leaders also asked
\nthe International Civil Aviation Organisation to investigate what they
\ndescribed as an unprecedented and unacceptable incident and called for the
\nexpansion as soon as possible of the list of Belarus officials and entities
\ntargeted by European sanctions. Some 88 persons from Belarus, including
\npresident Alexander Lukashenko, as well as seven entities are already banned
\nfrom entering the EU and have their assets frozen for repression against the
\nopposition and the presidential elections of 2020, which the EU believes were
\nrigged. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(bill)<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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":[35684,29614,35389,35374,35309,29934,29310,29523],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-105110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsflash","tag-belarus","tag-biden","tag-citu","tag-covid-19","tag-plane","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-us"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n