August 21, 2020
A news roundup
Newsroom, 21.08.2020, 13:55
Corona Ro — More than 76,350 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Romania so far and more than 34,500 patients have recovered. The total death toll stands at 3,196. As to the Romanian citizens from abroad, over 5,900 have been confirmed with COVID-19 and 124 have died. The Romanian PM Ludovic Orban has called for speeding up the procedures for diagnosing and treating the patients with COVID-19.
Corona world — Over 22.8 million cases of coronavirus o infection have been confirmed around the world, according to worldometers.info, with almost 800 thousand deaths having been reported. The World Health Organization says that the COVID-19 pandemic can, from now on, be managed in Europe without restricting social life, given that the authorities are now prepared and have acquired much knowledge about the pandemic over the past months. WHO Director for Europe Hans Kluge has said, in Copenhagen, during an online press conference that it is important for schools to be re-opened as social life is returning to normal.
Motion — The leadership of the Social Democratic Party, that holds the majority in Parliament, is to establish today a timetable for the vote on the motion of no confidence they tabled against the Liberal government headed by Ludovic Orban. The motion, which was read on Thursday in Parliament, criticizes the government for the way it managed the health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The National Liberal Party has today submitted a notification to the Constitutional Court over a possible constitutional conflict between the government and Parliament, in the context in which the Social Democratic Party filed a motion of no confidence in an extraordinary session during the parliamentary break.
Moscow — A private medical plane from Germany reached the Siberian city of Omsk on Friday morning to transfer to a Berlin hospital the Russian opponent Aleksei Navalnîi who is supposed to have been poisoned. Russian doctors say his transfer right now could endanger his life. Aleksei Navalnîi, one of the best known leaders of the Russian opposition, is unconscious in intensive care. He seems to have been poisoned after drinking a cup of tea, says his spokesperson as quoted by the BBC Online. According to the spokesperson, Navalnîi, known for his campaigns against high level corruption and as a fierce opponent of President Vladimir Putin was also the target of a poisoning attempt last year when he was arrested by the police for having participated in an unauthorized rally. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said that if the diagnosis is confirmed, an investigation will be started.
Tennis — The pair made up of the Romanian Horia Tecau and the Dutch Jean-Julien Rojer are playing against the French pair Jeremy Chardy/Fabrice Martin in the first round of the ATP Masters 1000 doubles tournament in Cincinnati which offers total prizes worth more than 4.2 million dollars. The tournament is hosted this year by Flushing Meadows Corona-Park in New York. Tecau and Rojer last year lost in the first round of the Cincinnati tournament to the pair Feliciano Lopez (Spain)/Andy Murray (Great Britain). The Romanian – Dutch pair won a final in Cincinnati in 2016 when they defeated the pair Ivan Dodig (Croatia)/Marcelo Melo (Brazil) 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 10-6. Tecau got a title in Cincinnati in 2012 alongside the Swedish player Robert Lindstedt. (tr. L. Simion)
