A roundup of domestic and international news
COVID-19 - The Group for Strategic Communication on Monday announced some 52 people are being quarantined in institutional centers while over 8,000 are under house monitoring. So far 3 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, of whom one person has recovered, and the other two are in good health. On the other hand, the global death toll of the coronavirus has exceeded 3,000 with 80,000 being infected worldwide, mostly in China, where the number of victims is constantly decreasing. South Korea and Italy are of particular concern right now, reporting dozens of deaths. In Italy 500 new infections were reported in a single day. Several major events at European level have been canceled.
GOVERNMENT - The Liberals are today starting negotiations with parliamentary parties with a view to forming a new majority that would support the investiture of Florin Citu's Cabinet. The Social-Democrats in opposition have criticized Florin Citu and accused the Liberals of continuing to support the idea of early elections. The Save Romania Union will make a decision depending on how negotiations unfold and on the strict observance of their own priorities, namely the election of mayors in two rounds. The Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians has warned that any negotiation made after the presentation of the list of Ministers and the governing program is bound to fail. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats claims the Liberals have presented the list of Ministers to ensure the new Cabinet is rejected by Parliament, while the People's Movement Party says a Liberal Government supported by a minority in Parliament is unlikely to be invested. Florin Cîţu's nomination by president Klaus Iohannis came after the Constitutional Court ruled as unconstitutional the president's first choice, the interim prime minister and leader of the National Liberal Party Ludovic Orban. The latter's government had been dismissed through a vote of no-confidence at the beginning of February.
INVESTIGATION - The head of the Maramures County Council and the president of the Social-Democratic branch in Maramures, Gabriel Zetea, announced he would be appointing today an interim manager of the Emergency County Hospital after its manager and former Health Minister Sorina Pintea was arrested. Zetea wants to exclude Pintea from the Social-Democratic Party along with anyone who might be involved in the investigation, pending the end of the trial. Pintea was placed under pre-trial arrest for 30 days for aggravated bribe taking. According to anticorruption prosecutors, Pintea received 10,000 euros and the equivalent in lei of around 25,000 euros between December 2019 and February 2020 from a company, via an intermediary, accounting for 7% of the value of a contract signed with that company to carry out rehabilitation works at a medical unit.
POLLUTION - The latest spike in pollution levels reported in Bucharest was caused by a number of factors, such as uncontrolled vegetation fires and a fire, but the air quality is currently showing signs of returning to normal parameters, Romania's Environment Minister told a press conference on Monday. National and private networks for monitoring air quality on Sunday night and Monday morning reported record-high pollution levels, exceeding the legal threshold by over 1,000%. Romania was supposed to submit by April 1, 2019 all national programs aimed at controlling pollution to the European Commission. For its failure to do so, the European Commission has launched infringement procedures against Romania.
EUROVISION - Roxen will be representing Romania in the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Alcohol You". The song won Sunday's national selection contest. The jury picked the song out of a total of five songs that were selected for the final, each having prepared a special show. The 2020 Eurovision Song Contest will be hosted by Rotterdam, the Netherlands, under the slogan "Open Up". The semi-finals will take place on May 12 and 14, and the final on May 16. A total of 26 countries will take part in the contest. Last year's winner was Duncan Laurence, the representative of the Netherlands, with his song "Arcade". Romania's best performance in the Eurovision Song Contest was third place, which it obtained twice, in 2005 in Kiev, with "Let Me Try", performed by Luminita Anghel and Sistem, and in 2010 in Oslo with "Playing with Fire", performed by Paula Seling and Ovi.
(Translated by V. Palcu)
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