April 27, 2014 UPDATE
A roundup of Romanian and international news
România Internațional, 27.04.2014, 20:21
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from around the world attended Sunday in Vatican City the historic ceremony in which two popes were canonized. During the Mass co-celebrated by Pope Francis and his predecessor Benedict the XVI, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II were declared saints. The ceremony was attended by 150 cardinals, 1,000 bishops and 6,000 priests from all over the world, many heads of state and government and delegations from tens of countries. The Romanian delegation present at the Vatican included the minister delegate for Romanians abroad, Bogdan Stanoevici, the metropolitan archbishop of Bucharest, Ioan Robu, and many priests, nuns, monks and believers.
The NATO states will face many challenges in the coming years targeting the security of the euro-Atlantic space, and the Alliance will have to strike a balance between conventional and asymmetrical threats said the Romanian defense minister, Mircea Dusa, in an interview to Agerpress new agency. According to him, terrorism is a serious, real threat to the security and safety of the NATO member countries, Romania included. Minister Dusa added that terrorism was a challenge for the whole international community, and consequently the answer to this threat should be a collective one. He recalled the participation of the Romanian military in the NATO operations in Afghanistan and in the Balkans, in other air surveillance missions and maritime operations.
The American President Barack Obama, said Sunday that the US and Europe had to join forces in order to pass new sanctions against Russia, meant to stop Moscow’s threats against the east of Ukraine. On Monday, the ambassadors of the EU states are meeting in Brussels to discuss possible new sanctions against Russia. Also on Monday the G7 countries could announce further sanctions against Moscow, as they were accused of taking no concrete action to implement the agreement concluded last week in Geneva. The agreement is meant to easy tension in the east of Ukraine. On the other hand, the OSCE announced Sunday that it sent a team of negotiators in Slaviansk, in the east of Ukraine, in an attempt to obtain the release of the 13 military observes, 8 foreign and 5 Ukrainian, who were abducted Friday by pro-Russian militants. The pro-Russian separatist leader in Slaviansk said that the OSCE observers are “prisoners of war” and, under these circumstances, the authorities in Kiev should release the separatists they arrested in exchange for the release of the observers, In turn, the Ukrainian authorities accuse Russia of having masterminded the abduction of the OSCE observers.
The citizens of the Republic of Moldova who own biometric passports can travel to Romania without a visa, as of Monday, the General Inspectorate of the Border Police announced Sunday in a communiqué. The Moldovan citizens can enter Romania and stay in this country for a total of 180 days in one-year time. They need to provide documents justifying the purpose and conditions of their stay in Romania and documents attesting that they have the necessary means of subsistence for the period of their stay as well as for returning to the country of origin or transiting to another state that is sure to allow their entry. Also as of April 28th the Moldovan citizens will be able to travel without visas to the EU. The EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malstrom, said she was extremely happy that the Moldovan citizens could travel freely, praising the Moldovan authorities for the efforts made to obtain such facilities.
The pair made up of the Romanian Horia Tecau and the Dutch Jean Julien Rojer on Sunday won in Bucharest the BRD Năstase Ţiriac Trophy tennis tournament with prizes up for grabs worth more than 420 thousand euros. In the final Tecau and Rojer, the tournament’s favorites, defeated in two sets the Polish pair Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski. In the men’s’ singles, the BRD Năstase Ţiriac Trophy, the most important tennis tournament organized in Romania, was won by Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, seed no.16 in the world classification. He defeated the Czech Lukas Rosol in two sets.
