13 July, 2017
A round-up of local and international news.
Newsroom, 13.07.2017, 13:36
Military exercise.
Romanian Navy troops are taking part in the Saber Guardian 17 exercise, the
biggest in Romania’s modern history. 10 battle ships and logistics ships, 12
boats and 18 land combat units of the Romanian Navy are taking part in sea,
land and air activities alongside around 25,000 Romanian and foreign military.
President Klaus Iohannis visited the Mihail Kogalniceanu administrative centre,
in the south-east, to meet the Romanian and British pilots taking part in the
strengthened air police mission and the Chairman of the NATO Military
Committee, general Petr Pavel. The latter is on a trip to Romania until
Saturday at the invitation of the Romanian Chief of Staff Nicolae Ciuca. On
Saturday, president Iohannis will attend a multinational military exercise at
the Cincu shooting range in the centre.
Bastille Day. US
president Donald Trump today travels to Paris for a two-day official visit. He
will meet his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and attend the annual Bastille
Day parade on the 14th of July as a guest of honour. Trump will also
meet US military and civilian staff. According to France Presse news agency,
Macron invited Trump to Paris to attend the Bastille Day festivities last
month, with the parade also including US troops this year to mark the 100th
anniversary of the United States’ joining the allied forces in WWI. The last
time a US president attended a military parade in France was in 1989, for the
anniversary of 200 years since the French Revolution.
Measles outbreak. Romania is confronted with the biggest
measles epidemic in recent years. 31 persons have died and 7,500 have become
sick since September last year when the epidemic broke out. The European office
of the World Health Organisation has recently confirmed that the measles
outbreak continues to spread in Europe. More than 3,300 cases have been
reported in Italy, including 2 deaths, since June last year. One person died in
Germany and another in Portugal, according to national public health
authorities. According to the World Health Organisation, Europe has made
significant progress in recent decades to eradicate measles, which is no longer
endemic in 37 countries. However, there are still areas where the immunisation
rate is very low, which allows this extremely contagious virus to spread among
the people who have not received vaccination.
Football. The Court
of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, has today ruled that FC
Viitorul remain the Romanian football champions, thus upholding a decision of the
Romanian governing bodies. FC Viitorul and FCSB finished with the same number of
points, but Viitorul were declared champions based on a better head-to-head
record during the final phase of the competition. The runner-up side, FCSB, had
appealed the decision saying they should be champions because of a better
record during the entire season. Also today, the Romanian football side Astra
Giurgiu are facing Zira FK from Azerbaijan at home in the first leg of the
Europa League second preliminary round. The second leg will take place on the
20th of July in Baku.
Tennis. On Friday, the Romanian-Taiwanese pair Monica
Niculescu and Hao-Ching Chan are facing the Japanese-Czech pair Makota Ninomiya
and Renata Voracova for a place in the women’s doubles final at Wimbledon.
Niculescu and Chan reached the semifinals after defeating the American-Czech
pair CiCi Bellis and Marketa Vondrousova in two sets. This is Niculescu’s best
doubles result in a Grand Slam tournament, having reached the quarterfinals at
Roland Garros in 2010 and the Australian Open in 2012. Romania’s highest ranked
player Simona Halep, who is number two in the world, was defeated in the
quarterfinals by the British player Johanna Konta.
