April 19, 2025
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 19.04.2025, 13:55
HOLIDAY Christians the world over are today observing Holy Saturday, the last day before the Resurrection of Christ. The last preparations are made in silence for the upcoming great Christian holiday. According to Christian faith, while Jesus Christ’s dead body is lying in a tomb, his Spirit descends to hell to offer resurrection to the dead as well as to the living. On this day the religious service of the Holy Fire is being held in Jerusalem, during which, the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem comes out of the Holy Sepulcher with burning candles and share the light with the believers. This light will also be brought to Romania on Saturday evening by the representative of Romania’s Patriarchate to the Holy Land, Father Teofil Anastasoaie. Delegates are to get the light at the Henry Coanda Airport in Bucharest and will be taking it to believers at midnight concurrently with the news that Jesus has risen. We recall that Christians of all denominations are this year celebrating Easter on the same day, April 20th.
MAI More than 24 thousand employees of the Romanian Interior Ministry (MAI) are deployed these days on a daily basis with a view to easing traffic on the country’s roads, ensuring rapid intervention in case of emergency, preventing and fighting illegal deeds and saving lives during this mini Easter holiday. These employees will be supervising 14 thousand churches, where religious services are to be staged on this major Christian holiday, sources with the Ministry have announced. Firefighters have lately stepped up checking activities at churches, religious buildings and accommodation facilities, which usually get crowded on this holiday. 15 hundred suchlike buildings have been checked in the month of April alone in an attempt to prevent any possible blaze that might occur. According to the same sources, over one million Euros in fines has been applied. 16 hundred road policemen are to be deployed to monitor the crowded motorways. They will be using roughly 400 radar speed guns as well as alcohol and drug testing devices.
DRILL Roughly four thousand servicemen and 913 pieces of technical equipment from 10 allied countries, like Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Luxembourg, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal and Romania will be attending the multinational exercise Dacian Spring 2025, also known as DASP 25, over May 5th and 23rd. The exercise is planned and led by the Headquarters Multinational Division South-East and will be held concurrently in several training grounds. DASP 25 brings together structures belonging to all of Romania’s defence forces – ground, air, naval and cyber warfare as well as troops from the Headquarters Multinational Division South-East and other allied structures. The drill’s main goal is to exercise collective defence operations and consolidate the integration of the participant forces into the command and control architecture of the Headquarters Multinational Division South-East. As a premiere, a Belgian battalion will be deployed on the Romanian soil.
WEATHER And now a couple of things about the weather in Romania, which today has highs above the average of this period and an overcast sky almost in the entire territory. Showers have been reported in the mountains and the surrounding regions in the country’s western half. The highs of the day are ranging between 13 and 22 degrees centigrade with a noon reading in Bucharest of 13 degrees.
(bill)
