MEETING The EU and its member states will continue to provide military support
\nto Ukraine the EU’s Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell has announced at the end
\nof the Foreign Affairs Council. The ministers have approved another 500 million
\neuros for the member countries, which offer military gear and weapons to
\nUkraine. The event, which brought together EU defence ministers, was also
\nattended by Romania’s Defence Minister Vasile Dincu. High on the agenda was the
\nimplementation of the Strategic Compass, (the new common defence policy) with
\nemphasis on increasing the effectiveness of the missions and operations run as
\npart of the Common Defence and Security Policy. Romania’s Foreign Minister
\nBogdan Aurescu was also in Brussels on Monday to attend a meeting of his EU counterparts.
\nAmong other things the Romanian official presented measures taken by Romania to
\nsupport Ukraine and said that Bucharest would carry on humanitarian efforts,
\nincluding by providing assistance to the refugees who had come and continue to come
\nto this country and by operating the international humanitarian hub in Suceava,
\nnorth-eastern Romania. Aurescu also voiced support for the sixth sanction
\npackage against Moscow and underlined the need for a stepped-up international
\neffort for the creation of a corridor, including at sea, for shipping Ukrainian
\nproducts, mainly cereals to third destinations via Romania. <\/p>\n
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GAS Starting gas
\nexploitation in the Black Sea represents a major objective in the process of
\nbecoming independent from Russian gas, Romania’s Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca
\nsaid on Tuesday during the talks he had with Eric Faillnet, director of the
\nCarlyle International Energy Partners, the main shareholder of Black Sea
\nOil&Gas. The new offshore law, initiated at the level of the ruling
\ncoalition, and to be endorsed shortly, creates a predictable and stable
\nframework for investors, Prime Minister Ciuca went on to say adding that it
\noffers a ballance between the interests of the state and private entrepreneurs.
\nRomania even has the opportunity of becoming a gas exporter in the region.
\nRepresentatives of Black Sea Oil&Gas have announced the project in Midia is
\nready to kick off in June, after the last test are conducted, with a supply
\ncapacity of one billion cubic meters annually. <\/p>\n
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TENNIS Romanian
\ntennis player Mihaela Buzarnescu on Tuesday secured a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 win against
\nXinyun Han of China in the first round of the main draw of the Grand Slam
\ntournament of Roland Garros. The Rromanian player is to next play Susan
\nBandecchi of Switzerland. Another Romanian player, Irina Bara on Tuesday made
\nit to the competition’s second qualifying round after a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win
\nagainst Jesika Maleckova of the Czech Republic. From the delegation
\nrepresenting Romania at the event, Simona Halep, Sorana Cirstea, Gabriela Ruse,
\nIrina Begu and Ana Bogdan are directly qualified to the main draw. Also on Tuesday,
\nthe Romanian-Russian pair Monica Niculescu\/Alexandra Panova qualified for the
\nquarter finals of the WTA tennis tournament in Rabat, Morocco, with prize money
\nover 251 thousand dollars. The two had defeated Alicia Barnett and Olivia
\nNicholls of Britain. The second-seeded Niculescu and Panova are to be playing next
\nAna Danilina of Kazahstan and Ingrid Neel of the USA. <\/p>\n
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UKRAINE Roughly 265 Ukrainian soldiers who were holed up in the bunkers and
\ntunnels below Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have surrendered to the Russian
\ntroops and are considered POWs starting Monday, Russia’s Defence Ministry has
\nannounced. According to Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the prisoners, some
\nof whom are wounded, would be treated in line with international norms. In
\nturn, Kyiv has said a prisoner swap will be taking place, as soon as the
\nsituation of the wounded soldiers is improved. Ukrainian authorities last week
\nsaid that 1,000 troops, including 600 wounded, according to their commanders,
\nwere holed up in the bunkers and tunnels below the Azov steelworks, which
\nbecame a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance after the Russian invasion of the
\ncountry. They retreated to Azovstal after more than a month siege of Mariupol,
\na strategic port at the Sea of Azov, in south-eastern Ukraine, attacked by the
\nRussian troops since the beginning of the invasion and almost entirely
\ndestroyed. The city on the coast of the Sea of Azov is strategically situated
\nbetween the Moscow-annexed Crimea and the mining region of Donbas, where the
\ntwo pro-Russia republics are and where Russia has stepped up its onslaught. <\/p>\n
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(bill)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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