July 23, 2022

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 23.07.2022, 13:51

Letter. Five EU member states, namely Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Poland have called on the EU to do more to
combat Russia’s reinterpretation and distortion of history to justify its
aggression against Ukraine. In a joint letter, the leaders of the five
countries also urged EU bodies to step up efforts to preserve historical memory
to prevent the manipulation of historical facts. Russia
has never condemned the crimes of the Soviets and its current leadership openly
tolerates and even enthusiastically supports the Soviet legacy, the letter
reads, pointing out that unlike the crimes of the Nazism, the memory and
knowledge of Soviet crimes have yet to find their rightful place in the
consciousness of the Europeans. Without an accurate, honest, and comprehensive
assessment of the past, we will not be able to effectively prevent future
crimes on our continent or investigate the current ones in Ukraine, the five
EU leaders say.

Exercise. Three Romanian Navy vessels are taking
part in the Breeze 22 multinational exercise under way between the 14th
and the 25th of July and organised and led by the Bulgarian Navy in
Bulgaria’s territorial waters, the Black Sea international waters and in the
Bulgarian port of Burgas. Navy and air capabilities and chief of staff officers
from Albania, Belgium, France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Turkey
and the US are also taking part this year. The exercise aims to consolidate
tactical interoperability between navy personnel and the participating units by
exercising operational procedures relating to conventional and non-conventional
warfare and combating asymmetric threats.

Heatwave. Most of Romania is struggling with sweltering temperatures
this weekend. A red code warning for extreme heat is in place in five counties
in western and north-western Romania, where highs of 42 degrees Celsius are
forecast. An orange code alert for heat was also issued for areas in the
eastern part of the country, where humidity is high and temperatures of 40
degrees are expected. The southern part of the country is also under a yellow
code warning, with 34 degrees Celsius already recorded in Bucharest at noon.

Toll.
Extreme heat is also wreaking havoc across Europe. According to Copernicus, the
European Forest Fire Information System, the forest fires that have ravaged the
continent in recent weeks have already destroyed a larger surface area than
last year. More than 27 thousand hectares have already been destroyed in Italy,
almost 40,000 in France, some 200,000 in Spain, 150,000 in Romania and more
than 48,000 in Portugal. The heat-related death toll includes many elderly
people, but also people working outdoors and in extreme conditions, as was the
case of a 58-year-old Romanian national who died in Madrid at his workplace, at
a storage facility where there were 46 degrees Celsius at the time of his
death.

Justice. The justice ministry in Bucharest has submitted to the Superior
Council of Magistracy for approval the bills on the status of judges and
prosecutors, judicial organisation and the Superior Council of Magistracy.
First drafted in September 2020, the bills have seen repeated amendments
following public debate. Justice minister Cătălin Predoiu says passing these
bills is an important step towards modernising the country’s justice system,
being part of both the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism and the National
Recovery and Resilience Plan. The former, which was established in 2007 when
Romania joined the European Union, is aimed at flagging possible shortcomings
in the field of the judiciary and to propose solutions.

Covid-19. Romania saw almost 6,500 new Covid cases and seven
Covid-related deaths in the previous 24 hours, with most infections being
recorded in the capital Bucharest and the counties of Sibiu, Timiş and Ilfov.
More than 2,700 Covid patients are receiving hospital treatment, 170 of them in
intensive care. With respect to immunisation, the World Health Organisation
said new vaccines are needed to stop new infections, as the vaccines produced
so far have saved millions of lives, but have not significantly reduced the
spread of the virus. The organisation has called on researchers to develop new
vaccines to prevent transmission and thus reduce the risk of new variants
against which vaccines may be less effective. (CM)