August 21, 2015
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 21.08.2015, 12:00
The Eurogroup President, Jeroen Dijsselboem, voiced hope that the resignation of the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras and the early elections to be staged will not be delayed and will not undermine the agreement that Athens negotiated with the international lenders. Alexis Tsipras on Thursday evening announced his resignation from the PM post and called for early elections. According to the Greek media, the early elections are to be staged on September 20. Also on Thursday Greece got a first installment of 13 billion euros out of the total financial package of 86 billion euros, negotiated by the Tsipras cabinet with the international lenders.
The Romanian policeman injured while on a mission on August 1st by a Turkish businessman has died this morning, in a hospital in Bucharest. Gheorghe Ionescu, aged 44, had undergone several surgeries and the Interior Ministry was planning to pay for his treatment at a hospital in Israel, had he been well enough to be transferred there. The Turkish millionaire who caused the accident refused to stop at the policeman’s sign and ran him over with his car. He was detained on August 3rd pending trial. The move came as military tensions on the divided Korean peninsula soared following a rare exchange of artillery fire on Thursday that put the South Korean army on maximum alert.
The US President, Barack Obama and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan have signed a memorandum of understanding with a view to creating a demilitarized area between two Syrian towns occupied by ISIS. The area will allow the access of the Free Syrian Army members, of the Syrian moderate opposition. The Pentagon chief, Ashton Carter, has recently said that Turkey must do more to counteract the actions of ISIS, such as working on its border security and making its military jets available to the international alliance.
The new fiscal code does not provide the necessary money to cover the pay rises promised by the government in Bucharest, claims economic analyst Daniel Apostol. The pundit say on Radio Romania the new code brings alone a simplification of the fiscal laws, to the benefit of both the tax payers and the state, which better regulates its relation with the tax payer. The parliamentary parties agreed on Thursday to reduce the VAT to 20% as of January 2016, and down to 19% as of early 2017, respectively. Next week, Parliament, convened in a special session, will revise the Fiscal Code, at the request of president Klaus Iohannis. We’ll revert to this issue, later in RN.
The Romanian football team Astra Giurgiu (in the south) on Thursday evening defeated the Dutch team AZ Alkmaar, 3-2, in a match played on home turf, counting for the first round of the Europa League play-offs. Although the guest team had a two goal advantage after the first quarter of the hour, Astra managed to change the situation spectacularly and took the lead by the break. Also on Thursday evening, Romania’s defending champion, Steaua Bucharest was defeated at home, 0-3, by the Norwegian team Rosenborg Trondheim. All goals were scored in the second half. Described by the press as disgraceful, the defeat comes after last month Steaua got eliminated in the third qualifying tour of the Champions’ League by the Serbian team Partizan Belgrade.
Romanian tennis player and Simona Halep, (3rd in WTA ranking), will be facing Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the quarter finals of the Cincinnati tennis tournament, in the US. In the eighth finals, this morning, Halep defeated Andrea Petkovic of Germany in three sets, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. The victory brought her a check worth 57,380 US dollars and 190 WTA points. Romania’s other representative in the US tennis tournament, Irina Begu (ranked 28th), left the competition as early as the second round, after sustaining a surprising defeat from Slovakian Anna Karolina Schmiedlova. In the men’s double, the pair made up of Romanian Horia Tecau and Dutch Jean-Julien Rojer will be facing in the quarterfinals the pair Nenad Zimonjic (Serbia)-Marcin Matkowski (Poland), whereas the pair Florin Mergea (Romania) – Rohan Bopanna (India) will be playing against the winners of the game between Ivan Dodig (Croatia)-Marcelo Melo (Brasil) and Sam Querrey-Steve Johnson (both from the US).
