FAC – Romania’s Foreign
Minister, Bogdan Aurescu, is today attending the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC)
meeting hosted by Brussels. According to a Foreign Ministry press release,
talks will focus on Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, with Ukraine’s Foreign
Minister, Dmytro Kuleba expected to take part in videoconference format. With
respect to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Minister Aurescu will reassert the
need to continue the EU’s multidimensional assistance to Ukraine, in particular
with a view to getting through the cold season safely and providing military
assistance to the Ukrainian army via the European Peace Facility. The Romanian
official will also call for the introduction of new sanctions against Russia
and additional support to third countries affected by the fallout from the war.
According to the Foreign Ministry, European officials will also look at the
latest developments in Iran, Montenegro, Afghanistan and Venezuela, as well as
the launch of the EU mission to Armenia. The EU will act as an observer and
will report on developments alongside the Armenian-Azeri border, with a view to
facilitating the process of normalizing relations between the two states
through confidence-building measures.
CHERNIVTSI – Chernivtsi could be the first region of Ukraine to
implement a program designed to reintegrate internally displaced people, nearly
a year since the start of the Russian aggression. The top concerns facing war
refugees include access to social services, housing and long-term jobs. To come
to their aid, Kyiv has launched this reintegration program, which will first be
implemented in Chernivtsi, where Ukraine’s Minister for the Reintegration of
temporarily occupied territories, Irina Vereshchuk paid a visit at the end of
last week. The Ukrainian official said this would be a complicated process,
since the integration of internally displaced people entails much more than the
provision of social services. Since the start of the war, over 100 thousand
Ukrainians have moved to Chernivtsi, which is so far the only region of Ukraine
that has not been affected by attacks or shelling. Of these, most were in route
to Romania, although part of them chose to stay. Over 30 factories from Eastern
Ukraine relocated their production here.
GEORGE BANU – The reputed
Romanian theatre expert, George Banu, passed away at the end of last week, aged
79. A graduate of the Theatre and Film Department of the I.L. Caragiale
Institute for Theatre and Cinema arts in Bucharest, George Banu settled in
Paris in 1973. He is three-time winner of the Award for Best Theatre Book in
France. He served as director of the Experimental Theatre Academy, taught at Le
Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Louvain la Neuve in Belgium. His
activity earned him many other distinctions: Les Palmes Academiques and L’Ordre
des Arts et des Lettres, L’Ordre du Merite National (France), the Award of the
city of San Paolo and the Award of the city of Bologna. He was designated Doctor Honoris Causa by several European
universities. In 2006, George Banu was awarded the Honorary Prize by the
Romanian Department of the International Association of Theatre Critics. George
Banu got the award for his exceptional activity in the field of international
theatre criticism and research and for promoting Romanian theatre at European
cultural level.
AUSTRALIAN OPEN – The Romanian-Swiss
pair made up of Monica Niculescu and Viktorija Golubic is today playing Storm
Hunter of Australia and Elise Mertens of Belgium, the competition’s fourth
seeds, in the round of 16 of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open. Also
in the round of 16, Gabriela Ruse of Romania and Marta Kostiuk of Ukraine will
play the all-Czech pair Miriam Kolodziejova and Marketa Vondrousova. Romania
has no more players left in the singles competition. (VP)