Radio România Internațional

Tag: expelled

  • May 12, 2021 UPDATE

    May 12, 2021 UPDATE

    COVID-19 Romania stays in the so-called green scenario as Bucharest and all counties report COVID-19 infection rates below 1.5 per thousand. In the past 24 hours 930 new cases were reported, out of over 24,300 tests conducted acros the country. The Strategic Communication Group announced another 98 COVID-related deaths, which brings the total death toll to 29,233, and 874 patients in intensive care. The coordinator of the vaccine rollout Valeriu Gheorghiţă said the fall in infection numbers is the result of the immunisation campaign. Over 3.7 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 2.5 million have also got the booster dose. People may get jabs without prior appointment in all vaccination centres in the country. After Timişoara (west) and the capital Bucharest, another major city, Craiova (south), is organising a vaccination marathon, with similar events scheduled this weekend in other cities in Romania.



    RECOVERY The PM of Romania Florin Cîţu reconfirmed, during his
    meeting with the European Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis in
    Brussels on Wednesday, the Romanian government’s goal to ensure economic
    recovery and sustainable post-pandemic economic growth, with a focus on reform
    and investments.Florin Cîţu also voiced gratitude to the European
    Commission for its support, guidance and cooperation, after the talks on
    Romania’s priorities as part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan held
    on Wednesday with Margrethe Vestager, EC executive vice-president. Previously,
    the Romanian PM had also had talks with Adina Vălean, European Commissioner for
    Transport.



    PUBLIC MEDIA As of Tuesday night, Romania’s public radio and TV corporations have new interim directors. Parliament has appointed journalist Liviu Popescu as head of the Romanian public radio, while Ramona Saseanu has become interim director of the national TV. The two are to hold these positions for 6 months, until the appointment of new boards of directors for the two institutions. On Tuesday, Parliament rejected the annual reports submitted by the two institutions for the years 2017, 2018, 2019, which entailed the dismissal of the 2 boards of directors.



    ECONOMY Romanias economy is expected to grow by 5.1% in 2021 and 4.9% next year, according to the spring economic forecast made public by the European Commission. The institution has upgraded its February estimates, when it forecast a 3.8% growth this year and 4% in 2022. Brussels also expects the unemployment rate in Romania to go up from 5% last year to 5.2% in 2021, but to drop to 4.8% in 2022. Inflation is also set to reach 2.9% this year, with a slight decrease to 2.7% predicted for next year. According to the same forecast, the budget deficit will drop from 9.2% of GDP last year to 8% of GDP this year and to 7.1% of GDP next year.



    CONFERENCE Strengthening Romanias Strategic Partnership with Poland underscores the special relationship and the firm commitment to contributing to regional security, the president of Romania Klaus Iohannis said in a message on Wednesday at an international conference devoted to the centennial of the Romania-Poland Defensive Alliance. The event was hosted by the Romanian Embassy in Poland. The head of the Romanian state mentioned that the Romanian-Polish Defensive Alliance signed in 1921 was the first regional collective security project and the first strategic partnership with Poland.



    DIPLOMACY The Romanian foreign ministry confirmed that the Russian Federation declared the deputy military attaché with the Romanian Embassy in Moscow, Alin Iliescu, a persona non grata, in retaliation to a similar measure taken by Romania on April 26 with respect to the Russian Embassys deputy military attaché Aleksey Grishaev. Romanian authorities argued that the decision was prompted by Grishaevs activity, which came against the 1961 Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations. Many central and east-European ex-communist countries made similar decisions to expel Russian diplomats in the past few weeks. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

  • April 19, 2021

    April 19, 2021

    COVID-19 Over half a million Pfizer BioNTech vaccine doses reach Romania today, after nearly 4 million other doses received so far from the American-German producer. Since the start of the vaccine rollout in Romania on December 27, over 2.6 million people have been immunised, 1.6 million of them having also received the booster dose. Romania currently uses Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines. Meanwhile, 2,265 new COVID-19 cases were reported yesterday, out of almost 19,500 tests. This is the lowest number in the last 7 weeks. The authorities also announced 160 COVID-related deaths in 24 hours, and 1,475 patients are currently in intensive care. Again, the largest number of cases were reported in Bucharest, and the highest infection rates are registered in Ilfov County (south-east), followed by the capital and Cluj County in the centre-west, each with over 5 infections per thousand for 14-day periods. Another 7 counties are also in the red zone, with over 3 infections per thousand inhabitants.




    GOVERMENT The right-of-centre coalition in power in Romania, comprising the National Liberal Party, the USR/Plus party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians, convene for the first meeting since the health minister Vlad Voiculescu from USR/Plus was dismissed last week. The USR/Plus leaders criticised the Liberal PM Florin Cîţu’s decision to oust Voiculescu, and requested an emergency coalition meeting to discuss withdrawing political support to the PM. In turn, the leaders of the other 2 parties in the coalition have reiterated their support for Florin Cîţu and underscored that USR/Plus must come up with a new nomination for health minister. On Friday, in a press conference after his dismissal, Vlad Voiculescu made serious accusations against the PM and other Liberal leaders. He claimed that he had uncovered vulnerabilities in the system, which prove the central and local authorities’ inability to handle the pandemic, accused PM Cîţu of disinterest and complained of lack of dialogue on the problems in the healthcare system.




    DIPLOMACY The EU foreign ministers are holding an online meeting today to discuss the latest tensions between Russia and the Czech Republic. Prague accused Moscow of being involved in a 2014 blast at a Czech weapon storage facility. The Russian foreign minister dismissed the accusation as ungrounded and absurd. On Saturday the Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian Embassy staff accused of espionage related to the blast. In turn, Moscow announced on Sunday that 20 Czech Embassy staff are personae non-gratae and have to leave Russia. The EU foreign ministers are also to discuss today the case of Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny, currently detained in Russia. Germany and France asked Russian authorities to provide medical care to Kremlin’s leading critic, whose health is deteriorating steadily. The White House warned that Russia would face consequences if Aleksei Navalny died in prison. The situation in Ukraine will also be on the agenda of today’s meeting. The head of Romania’s diplomacy Bogdan Aurescu will highlight Romania’s support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of neighbouring Ukraine, and will voice the country’s concern with Russia’s deploying troops and military equipment in Crimea, at Ukraine’s eastern border and in the Black Sea region.




    NASA The American space agency NASA today makes the first attempt at powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. The nearly 2-kilo Ingenuity helicopter will attempt to rise 3 m above the surface of Mars, and to stay there for 30 seconds before returning. The main challenge is that the Martian atmosphere is just 1% as dense as Earth’s at the surface, which gives the drone’s rotors little to lift on. This is why the vehicle had to be very light and compact. The rover Perseverance will send confirmation photos to Earth.




    PANDEMIC The total number of COVID-19 infections worldwide is now over 142 million, with 120 million patients recovered and 3 million dead, according to the latest worldometers.info updates. As of today, in Italy, only 3 out of 20 provinces remain in the red zone, with the toughest restrictions. The others are included in the orange zone, but many will be rated as yellow zone as of next week, allowing the reopening of restaurants and resuming travels from one region to another. As of today, 7 million children in Italy return to schools after over a year of absence. Meanwhile, UK reports decreases both in terms of COVID-related deaths and in terms of infections, and the number of people getting vaccines every 24 hours has reached 600,000. In Israel, mass vaccination led to the almost complete reopening of the economy. The infection rate has been staying very low for over a week. Israeli citizens are no longer bound to wear face covering outdoor, and school activities are back to normal. Across the ocean, over half of the total number of adults in the US have received at least a first dose of anti-COVID vaccine. (tr. A.M. Popescu)