19 November, 2015
President Klaus Iohannis is in Slovakia to pay tribute to the Romanian soldiers who contributed to the liberation of Czechoslovakia in World War Two.
Newsroom, 19.11.2015, 12:00
World War Two. The Slovakian town of Zvolen, which is home to the largest Romanian
Armed Forces Cemetery abroad and where over 10,000 Romanian soldiers are
buried, today hosts events to pay tribute to the Romanian military who
contributed to the liberation of Czechoslovakia in the Second World War. The
presidents of Romania and Slovakia, Klaus Iohannis and Andrej Kiska respectively,
will lay down flowers and award decorations to a number of war veterans. On
Wednesday in Bratislava, Iohannis said Romania and Slovakia are not
destinations for refugees. The Slovakian president said the European states
must be united and take measures to prevent events like those in Paris from
happening again. Romania’s president also had talks with Slovakia’s prime
minister Robert Fico and representatives of young Romanian professionals
working in Bratislava.
Government. The adoption of a series of administrative regulations will be the first
actions of Dacian Ciolos’ technocratic government that has just come to power
in Bucharest. Ciolos is a former European commissioner for agriculture and his
ministers are mostly people with no political affiliations and with experience
working in the private sector, European institutions and civil society. Ciolos
was asked to form a new government by president Klaus Iohannis following the
resignation of the Social Democrat prime minister Victor Ponta earlier this month
after massive street protests. The Ciolos government was sworn in by Parliament
on Tuesday.
France. The French Parliament is considering expanding the state of emergency
decreed in the wake of last Friday’s attacks to give the security forces more
powers. On Wednesday, the French special police forces carried out large-scale
operations in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis targeting Abdelhamid
Abaaoud, a Belgian citizen suspected of masterminding the deadly attacks in
Paris. The information that he may have been killed in the raid has not been
officially confirmed. Two people were killed in the operation and eight
arrested. The Islamic State jihadist organisation, which claimed responsibility
for the Paris attacks, has warned of more attacks in the future in the
countries fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Fire. According to the latest report by the Romanian health ministry, 45
people are still in hospital with injuries from the fire that broke out at a
Bucharest nightclub on the 30th of October. 12 are in serious or
critical condition and 33 are stable. 30 others are treated in hospitals
abroad. The lives of 56 people were cut short in the deadly fire.
Tennis. The
Romanian-Indian doubles pair Florin Mergea and Rohan Bopanna today face the all
Italian pair Simone
Bolelli and Fabio Fognini at the ATP World Tour Finals in London. Mergea and
Bopanna have already qualified for the semifinals, having defeated the American
pair Bob and Mike Bryan and the British-Australian pair Jamie Murray and John
Peers. Last night, the Romanian-Dutch pair Horia Tecau and Jean Julien Rojer
defeated the Croatian-Brazilian pair Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo in their
second round-robin match to qualify for the semifinals. It is for the first
time that Romania has two players in the ATP World Tour Finals worth 7 million
dollars and featuring the world’s 8 best-ranked singles players and doubles
teams.
Book fair. The Gaudeamus International Book Fair organised by the Romanian Radio
Broadcasting Corporation is under way in Bucharest. Held until Sunday, the fair
brings together over 300 publishing houses and hosts 700 different events. This
year’s guest of honour is the Group of Francophone Embassies, Delegations and
Institutions in Romania (GADIF).
(Translated by: C. Mateescu)
