Tag: Nativity

  • December 26, 2024 UPDATE

    December 26, 2024 UPDATE

    Christmas – For New Rite Orthodox Christians, Greek Catholics and Catholics all over the world, including Romania, which has a majority Orthodox population, December 26 is the second day of Christmas, the celebration of the Nativity, one of the biggest in Christianity. On December 26, the Orthodox Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, one of the oldest feasts in honor of the Virgin Mary. The holiday was established 1,500 years ago. Christmas is a celebration of generosity and compassion, of the revival of hope for a better future, President Klaus Iohannis wrote on a social network. Christmas is a celebration of joy, and true faith is the one that works through love, says the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Daniel. At the Vatican, Pope Francis made a new call for peace in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Old Rite Orthodox believers, who form the majority in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia, celebrate Christmas on January 7.

     

    Government – One of the priorities of the new Romanian government is to draft next year’s budget, which seems to be, at the same time, the main difficulty it will face in the assumed effort to reduce expenses. The draft budget is based on a new emergency ordinance regarding fiscal-budgetary measures, which is to be approved in the following days. In includes a large part of the unpopular measures that the government must implement in order to reduce the deficit. Some of the measures are the freezing of salaries and pensions in 2025 or the taxation of large fortunes. The investiture of the new government in Bucharest, made up of the PSD-PNL-UDMR, sent a positive signal to Romanian businessmen and to foreign investors, claims the Prime Minister and social-democratic leader Marcel Ciolacu.

     

    Schengen – As of January 1, 2025, when Romania enters the Schengen free travel area also with land borders, 33 border crossing points with Hungary and Bulgaria, as well as from the Black Sea and the maritime Danube, will be permanently closed, namely 17 road and rail crossing points located on Romania’s western border with Hungary and 14 road crossing points, including ferry crossings, rail and port crossing points on the border with Bulgaria and two port crossing points from Brăila and Cernavodă. The Interior Ministry has put up for debate a draft government decision in this regard. From the beginning of 2025, there will no longer be checks at the borders with Hungary and Bulgaria at the crossing points. Such checks will only be done randomly, based on risk analysis. Lifting controls at the land borders takes place after the so-called partial accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area, made at the end of March, when they joined the area only with the air and sea borders.

     

    Recovery and Resilience – At the beginning of this week, Romania received over 37 million Euros from the European Commission as part of the second payment request from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan following the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, Romania has received 9.4 billion Euros out of a total of over 28 and a half billion Euros allocated to it. In mid December, the Romanian Government sent the European Commission the payment request number three, which involves a financing of 2.7 billion Euros. The money is given in the form of grants, and a series of reforms must be carried out in return.

     

    Moldova – The Russian Foreign Ministry accused NATO, on Wednesday, of trying to turn the Republic of Moldova into a logistics center for the supply of the Ukrainian army and of trying to bring its military infrastructure closer to Russia. Maria Zaharova, the spokeswoman for the ministry, said that the majority of the population of the Republic of Moldova (mostly Romanian speaking) does not want to join the military alliance. She referred to the extensive arms transfers to Moldova in recent months and to Maia Sandu’s pro-Western views. In Bucharest, President Klaus Iohannis congratulated Maia Sandu on taking over her second mandate. Romania and the Republic of Moldova will continue to work for well-being, stability, European values, resilience and democracy, said Klaus Iohannis. On December 24, Maia Sandu was officially inaugurated as president of the Republic of Moldova. In her speech, she emphasized that European integration and justice reform remain the main objectives in her second term. Despite the regional and global crises, caused by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, external threats and the Kremlin’s energy blackmail, the Republic of Moldova managed to maintain peace and advance on the European path, she said. Maia Sandu is the first woman to hold this position and the first president elected by direct vote, who obtained two mandates.

     

    Tennis – The Romanian tennis player Simona Halep forfeited her matches for the WTA tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, and for the Australian Open in which she had to participate in the following period due to some medical problems. ‘I will rest and I intend to participate next in the tournament in Cluj (north-western Romania, February 1-9), where I can’t wait to play in front of the extraordinary Romanian fans,  said Halep, former world number one player. The WTA 250 in Auckland, with total prizes worth 275,094 dollars, is scheduled from December 30 to January 5, while the Australian Open, next year’s first Grand Slam tournament, will be held in Melbourne between 6 and January 26.

     

    Gaza – A Palestinian television channel, affiliated to the Islamic Jihad group, on Thursday announced the death of five of its journalists in an Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip. The people were allegedly killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the center of the Palestinian enclave, ‘while carrying out their journalistic and humanitarian duty’. In turn, the Israeli army stated, on the Telegram network, that it executed ‘a precise strike on a vehicle with an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell on board in the Nuseirat area.’ The Israeli forces claim that before the attack, measures were taken to reduce the risk of hitting civilians. Last week, the Palestinian Union of Journalists announced that more than 190 journalists had been killed and more than 400 wounded since the start of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023.

     

    Rescue – Three Ukrainians lost in the Maramureş Mountains (northern Romania) were rescued after difficult searches. The three crossed the border into Romania in extreme weather conditions and asked the authorities for help. The rescuers expanded the search area after they did not find the lost people at the place they had indicated. An aerial search was not possible due to bad weather, and searches were carried out only on foot. After several hours, the rescuers found the Ukrainians in a dangerous valley, with mild hypothermia, and one with traumas caused by falling in that rugged area. The three were hospitalized. Ukraine invaded by Russian troops has repeatedly reported cases of men dying while trying to flee the country to escape military service. In particular, the mountain river Tisa, which flows along Ukraine’s border with Hungary and Romania, has made numerous victims. (LS)

  • December 26, 2021

    December 26, 2021

    CHRISTMAS New Style Orthodox Christians, and Greek and Roman Catholic Christians
    around the world today celebrate the second day of Christmas. In Eastern
    Christianity, this day is devoted to Mary, mother of God. In his Nativity
    service on the 25th December, Daniel, Patriarch of Romania spoke about the
    meaning of the gifts presented by the 3 kings to the newborn Jesus: the gold
    means our belief, the incense is a symbol of prayer and the myrrh symbolises a
    clean life. At the Vatican, Pope Francis warned
    that the world is growing so insensitive to crises and suffering that these now
    go unnoticed. Pope Francis, who also called for the Covid vaccine to be made
    available in poorer countries as well, said the pandemic undermines the
    efforts to settle international conflicts. Old Style Orthodox believers in Russia, Ukraine,
    Serbia, and Georgia celebrate Christmas on 7th January.


    COVID-19 One year since the start of the Covid vaccine roll-out in Romania,
    nearly 7.8 million Romanians are fully vaccinated, and around 2 million also
    have the booster dose. This indicates that interest in vaccination has not been
    high, except for a few brief periods of enthusiasm or fear triggered by the
    pandemic’s successive waves. As many as 349 new SARS-CoV-2 infection cases have
    been reported for the past 24 hours, along with 15 related fatalities, the
    Strategic Communication Group announced on Sunday. Some 450 patients are in
    intensive care, over 90% of them being unvaccinated.


    STRATEGY The EU has a new
    strategy in place to compete with China-Global Getaway is a response to China’s
    2013 New Silk Roads, under which investments of 140 billion euros have been
    made so far. With the new instrument, the EU seeks to consolidate the digital
    sector, transports and the healthcare, education and research systems around
    the world. The investments planned until 2027 amount to 300 billion euro. The EU is also
    considering the option of introducing a European export credit mechanism to
    help ensure fairer competition conditions for EU
    companies in 3rd markets. At present, 165 countries have debts of at
    least 385 billion US dollars to China for projects under the New Silk Roads
    initiative, while 42 small and medium revenue countries have debts to China in
    excess of 10% of their GDP.


    UKRAINE Germany and Russia have agreed to
    hold a meeting in early January, as part of the efforts to settle the
    Russian-Western crisis over the Ukrainian border, German governmental sources
    quoted by AFP said. The meeting will be held by the German Chancellor Olaf
    Scholz’s foreign and security policy adviser Jens Ploetner, and Kremlin’s
    negotiator for Ukraine, Dmitry Kozak. For over a month now, Western Europe has
    been accusing Russia of deploying more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian
    border for a possible military intervention, and has repeatedly warned Kremlin
    on this topic. Russia claims its military is not a threat to anybody and
    demands security guarantees from the West, especially with respect to NATO’s
    eastwards enlargement. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

  • December 24, 2018

    December 24, 2018

    Christmas Eve — Orthodox, Greek-Catholic and Catholic Christians from all over the world on Monday mark Christmas Eve and make the last preparations for the Nativity of Jesus, one of the greatest celebrations of Christianity marked on December 25. A famous tradition in Romania on Christmas Eve is caroling, with carolers symbolizing the angels and shepherds who announced the Birth of Jesus. They make wishes of good health and wealth and receive fruit, bagels, sweets or money. The old rite Christians who form the majority in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia will celebrate Christmas on January 7. These days many pilgrims visit the holy sites from Israel and the Nativity Church in Bethlehem.



    Justice — The Romanian justice minister Tudorel Toader announced he would finalize, on Thursday, December 27, the procedure for the dismissal of Romania’s prosecutor general Augustin Lazar, which was started in October. Toader accused Lazar of professional and managerial errors and Lazar took legal action against the justice ministry. The issue is to be judged by the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The opponents of the governing coalition claim that the dismissal of Augustin Lazar, which follows that of the former head of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi, was a form of political vendetta and an attempt to stop the anti-corruption fight. In another development, minister Toader announced he signed the documents for the release from prison of a former Romanian minister Elena Udrea and a former chief of the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism, Alina Bica, who are in prison in Costa Rica upon the request of the Romanian authorities. The two had received definitive sentences in Romania in cases of high-level corruption. The High Court of Cassation and Justice decided on the suspension of the imprisonment conviction in their case, after the Constitutional Court of Romania ruled as illegal the setting up of the panels of 5 judges at the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The ruling also led to the suspension of the imprisonment convictions in many other cases involving former ministers and incumbent politicians.



    Brexit — Romania supports the Brexit deal as well as the political declaration on the future framework of the post-Brexit relation between the EU and the UK, the Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu told the BBC on Sunday. He added that, from Romania’s point of view, it was important for the UK to stay as close as possible to the EU. Teodor Melescanu also said that Romania envisaged to start bilateral negotiations with the UK as part of the strategic partnership concluded by the two sides. Minister Melescanu also reminded that at the meeting held with the former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson he received assurances that the more than 400 thousand Romanians who are in the UK would not be affected by Brexit and he gave the example of the Romanian physicians and nurses who went to the UK. Boris Johnson had stated that if these people left the UK the country’s healthcare system would be severely affected.



    Jakarta — The death toll in the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Indonesia following a volcanic eruption has reached 300 dead and more than 1,000 injured, the National Agency for Disaster Management announced on Monday. Scores of people are still reported missing. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the tsunami that, on Saturday, hit the southern coasts of Sumatra and the western side of the Java island.



    Border traffic — More than 250 thousand people, both Romanian and foreign citizens, have crossed Romania’s borders over the past 24 hours in more than 60 thousand cars, the border police announced. Of them as many as 170 thousand entered Romania while almost 83 thousand left the country. In the same period of time, the border police identified 30 cases of crimes and 37 cases of offences perpetrated by both Romanian and foreign citizens. Also, 29 foreign citizens were denied entry to Romania as they did not comply with the legal provisions, and 16 Romanian citizens were prevented from leaving the country from various legal reasons. (translation by L. Simion)