Radio România Internațional

Tag: Ostapenko

  • May 15, 2019

    May 15, 2019

    GROWTH In the first quarter of 2019
    Hungary, Romania and Poland saw the most significant economic growth in the
    European Union as compared to the similar period last year, the European Office
    for Statistics has announced. According to the same sources, Hungary reported
    the most significant growth, 5.2%, followed by Romania with 5.1 and Poland,
    4.6. In the first quarter of 2019 Romania’s economy saw a 5% growth against the
    same period last year, says the country’s Statistics Institute in its report
    published on Wednesday. The country’s GDP rose by 1.3% in the first quarter of
    the year and the government counts on an economic growth of 5.5% this year. Last
    week, the European Commission revised Romania’s economic growth this year down
    to 3.3% from a previous 3.8%. The IMF forecast also went down to 3.1% from an
    earlier 3.4.












    GRATITUDE 30 years on from the anti-communist revolution in Romania, the
    country’s president, Klaus Iohannis, has announced that 2019 will be declared ‘The
    Year of Gratitude’. A ceremony to honor the victims of the communist
    dictatorship is due to be held on May 20th, which was the date when thirty
    years ago the post-communist country saw its first free elections.










    PROTESTS Trade unionists from Romania’s
    penitentiary system have today continued the series of protests they kicked off
    on Monday, when protest actions were held at the penitentiaries of Rahova close
    to Bucharest and Aiud in central Romania. Protesters are calling for the
    endorsement of the penitentiary policeman status and the pay of the extra hours
    worked. Trade unionists have announced they are going to stage more protests
    every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until their requirements are met. The
    country’s interim justice minister Ana Birchall on Monday and Tuesday held
    talks with the protesters in a bid to find a solution to their problems.








    MEETING On Tuesday and Wednesday
    Bucharest is seeing the seventh meeting of education ministers from Asia and
    Europe (ASEM), an event part of the series of meetings and conferences staged
    during Romania’s holding the EU rotating presidency. The meeting this year is focusing
    on the type of education that connects: inclusion, mobility and excellence in
    support of sustainable development objectives’. A major issue on the talks
    agenda is the manner in which the ASEM Educational Process is contributing to
    sustainable development. ASEM is a cooperation platform between Europe and Asia
    launched in 1996 with a view to consolidating dialogue between the two regions.
    ASEM currently has 53 partners: 51 countries (28 EU members plus Switzerland
    and Norway, 21 Asian countries as well as two international organizations, the
    EU and the ASEAN secretariat, which brings together nations from South-East
    Asia.












    TENNIS The world’s number two tennis player Simona
    Halep of Romania will today be playing Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech
    Republic in the second round of the WTA tournament in Rome. Also today, in the
    same round of the competition, another Romanian, Mihaela Buzarnescu, will be up
    against Jelena Goerges of Germany. Yesterday in the competition’s first round Buzarnescu
    played Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia who withdrew from the match when the score
    was 6-2, 5-4 to Buzarnescu. The Romanian-Dutch pair made up of Horia Tecau and
    Jean Julien Rojer was outperformed by all-American pair Bob and Mike Bryan, 6-4,
    7-6 in the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Rome. We recall the Dutch-Romanian
    pair on Sunday won the finals of the tournament in Madrid.




    (translated by bill)

  • May 8, 2019 UPDATE

    May 8, 2019 UPDATE

    SUMMIT The
    EU informal summit in Sibiu on Thursday, during the Romanian half-yearly
    presidency of the EU Council, will remain as a remarkable moment in the history
    of the European project – Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday. According
    to him, the summit will have to provide a clear common vision on the EU’s
    future. During the summit, President Iohannis is expected to present
    Bucharest’s vision over the strategic programme for the following five years,
    underlining the fact that the agenda of the political players must be the same
    as that of the European citizens. The European Council president Donald Tusk
    has proposed the participants to adopt a joint statement, which should convey a
    message of trust and unity.












    AMBASSADOR Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu on Wednesday asked the
    country’s president Klaus Iohannis to recall Romanian ambassador to the United
    States, George Maior. A communiqué issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry,
    shows the proposal came after an analysis of the diplomat’s mandate, whose
    actions do not allow him to promote in a credible manner Romania’s interests in
    the USA, which is a strategic partner of Romania’s. In an official report in
    April, a Parliament Committee in charge of controlling the activity of the
    Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) whose director Maior was before his mandate
    as ambassador in Washington, accused the latter of having used the Service in
    his personal interest. The Foreign Ministry is also evoking the recently
    published protocols, which the SRI had concluded with Romania’s judicial
    authorities, through which severe violations of the fundamental rights and
    liberties of the Romanian citizens or the country’s interests were done. President
    Iohannis has announced he is going to make a decision in this respect upon the
    EU summit in Sibiu.












    ARREST Radu Mazre, the former mayor of Constanta, a Black Sea port in
    Romania, was apprehended on Wednesday in Madagascar upon an arrest warrant the
    Romanian authorities issued through the Interpol. The announcement has been
    made by judicial sources in Bucharest. Mazare has been charged with several
    crimes in Romania but some files haven’t been completed yet. An international
    search warrant was issued in his name in February after he had been indicted in
    a file on fictitious land retrocession. The former mayor left Romania in
    December 2017 after claiming that he had been subjected to political pressure
    in the penal cases against him.














    TENNIS Romanian
    Simona Halep, the world’s number three tennis player has qualified for the
    quarter finals of the WTA tournament in Madrid after a two-set win, 6-0, 6-0
    against Viktoria Kuzmova of Slovakia. Simona will be up against Ashleigh Barty
    of Australia in the quarters on Thursday. We recall that Halep won the Madrid
    Tournament twice, in 2016 and 2017. Also on Wednesday Romanian pair Irina Begu
    / Simona Halep was outperformed 6-3, 6-3 by Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina
    Siniakova of the Czech Republic in the round of 16 of the women’s doubles.
    Already qualified for the quarters, Irina Begu and Mihaela Buzarnescu of
    Romania will be taking on Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia and Vera Zvonareva of
    Russia on Thursday.






    (translated by bill)