May 16, 2015
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 16.05.2015, 12:01
On the last day of his visit to Italy and the Vatican today, the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis is to meet with the leadership of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a church public lay association, which has organised several actions benefiting Romania. On Friday, the president was received by Pope Francis, who accepted the invitation to visit Romania. Klaus Iohannis also held talks with the Vatican’s Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. Both parties voiced satisfaction with the excellent nature of bilateral relations and agreed to carry on developing them, focusing on the promotion of religious freedom and inter-confessional dialogue and on fighting fundamentalism. The visit agenda also included a meeting with the Romanian students enrolled in Rome’s pontifical education institutions. On Thursday, Iohannis visited the Romanian pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Milan and met with representatives of the Romanian community in the peninsula.
NATO MPs are gathering for 3 days in Budapest to discuss the crisis in Ukraine and measures to fight hybrid conflicts, which combine the military component with cyber attacks and political, economic and propaganda actions. These are issues of concern for NATO, which were also tackled at the previous NATO foreign ministers’ summit. The participants will also discuss prospects regarding Afghanistan and its security forces, after NATO passed from a fighting to a training mission in the area. Other topics on the agenda of talks are negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program, the developments in the Balkans and the conflicts in Syria, Libya and Iraq, which have triggered an increase in the number of refugees. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly has 257 representatives from the parliament of the 28 countries that are members of the Alliance.
Ukrainian President Petro Porosenko on Friday promulgated the laws banning any type of communist propaganda and glorifying national combatants, laws that made Moscow furious, France Presse reports. Voted by Parliament on April 9th, the laws are aimed at breaking up with Ukraine’s Soviet past for good, at a time when the authorities are fighting against the pro-Russia separatists, in the east of the country. The laws in question forbid any Soviet symbol, condemn the Communist regime, open the archives of the Soviet special services and acknowledge as fighters for the independence of Ukraine the nationalists who, for a while, fought alongside the Nazis against the Soviet occupation. Passed almost a quarter of a century after the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence, these laws draw an equal sign between the communist and the Nazi regimes. There are similar laws in Poland and the Baltic countries.
In Shanghai, India and China have signed cooperation and trading agreements worth 22 billion dollars, with the Indian Prime — Minister Narendra Modi attending, France Presse reports. The agreements are mainly focused on the banking sector, telecommunications, solar energy, metal works, port infrastructure, the cinematographic sector and an area of industrial development. The volume of annual trade exchanges between the two countries stands at 70 billion dollars.
Tonight, most museums in Romania will open their gates for the public to visit them free of charge. Hundreds of events have been planned for the Museums’ Night, to be hosted by museums, galleries and other alternative venues. The event has reached its 11th edition and is organised by similar institutions across Europe. This year, visitors will be faced with a rather unique form of protest, as many of the works of art on display will be covered in black sheets, in an attempt to draw attention to the fact that soon nobody will be able to see them any more. According to the National Network of Museums, which organised the protest, 110 museums in Romania are to be returned to their rightful owners and thousands of heritage items have already been returned.
Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, the second best in the world according to the WTA rankings, is today meeting the Spanish Carla Suarez Navarro, number 10 in the WTA classification. The two will compete for a place in the final of the tournament in Rome, with 2.4 million dollars in prize money. In terms of direct matches, Simona is ahead of the Spanish player 5-4. In the quarters, Halep defeated her compatriot Alexandra Dulgheru, and Suarez Navarro won the match against the Czech Petra Kvitova.
