October 4, 2015 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 04.10.2015, 12:15
The Romanian PM was received on Sunday in Amman by King Abdullah II of Jordan. The meeting was also attended by the Romanian foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu. The PM Ponta, who paid an official visit to Jordan at the invitation of his counterpart Abdullah Ensour also had talks with other Jordanian high officials about the stage of bilateral relations and the refugee crisis in the region. The Romanian PM hailed the efforts made by Jordan for managing the crisis, a country which hosts almost 1 million refugees from Syria. Romania wants to intensify cooperation with Jordan and also to contribute to the peace efforts in the Middle East by mediating the contacts between Israelis and Palestinians.
A new protest was held in Chisinau on Sunday by civil society against the high level corruption cases in the Republic of Moldova. The protesters want the corrupt leaders of the country to resign and to hold early elections. However the current power says early elections would push the Republic of Modova into a deep political and economic crisis. The protests have been held for about a month, after the three-party government coalition, that claimed to have a pro-western orientation, was seriously discredited by the disappearance from the country’s banking system of one billion dollars, which accounted for about 15% of the GDP. The pro-Moscow socialist and populist opposition has lately joined the protests that blocked traffic in the center of Chisinau.
For a month, 36 thousand soldiers from the NATO member states, Romania included, will participate in the Alliance’s largest drill held in the past 13 years. The exercises will take place simultaneously in areas in Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, Canada, Norway, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Through this exercise NATO wants to prove and extend its capabilities to respond to current and future threats. The drill is taking place against the backdrop of tension between NATO and Russia regarding the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and of the refugee crisis.
The Romanian Eliza Samara on Sunday won the gold medal in the final of the women’s singles of the European Table Tennis Championships hosted by the Russian town of Ekaterinburg. On Sunday in the final Samara defeated the Dutch Jie Li with the final score 4-3 (11-6, 9-11, 3-11, 11-7, 12-14, 11-4, 11-4). Also on Sunday the pair made up of Samara and the Hungarian Georgina Pota got the silver medal in the doubles competition after being defeated by the pair Melek Hu of Turkey/ Yanfei Shen of Spain. For Samara this is the 2nd silver medal won in Ekaterinburg after the silver won alongside Romania’s team.
The Kenyan athlete Patrick Kimeli on Sunday won the 8th edition of the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon on the classical distance of 42.195 kms with 2h13min15sec, which is a new record of the competition. Kimeli was followed by another two Africans, Ethiopian Bonja Gonza and Kenyan Cosmas Kigan. The women’s race was won by Warjik Zeritu of Ethiopia with 2h48min5sec followed by her conational Shewye Deebelu and Gladys Otero of Kenya. The Bucharest marathon was an opportunity to raise money for NGOs operating in the healthcare and environment protection fields.
