KING MIHAI I – King Mihai I of Romania turns 96 on Wednesday, and will have a private birthday celebration at his residence in Switzerland, the website romaniaregală.ro reports. On behalf of Romanias former sovereign, Princess Margareta, Custodian of the Crown, will decorate Romanian and foreign personalities and collaborators of the Romanian Royal House, in a ceremony in Bucharest. On Wednesday evening the Romanian Athenaeum will host the 10th annual concert organised by the charity Princess Margareta of Romania. King Mihai I is suffering from two severe forms of cancer, and last spring he withdrew from public life. In 1947, only 7 years after taking the throne, Mihai I was forced by the communist regime to abdicate and to leave the country. He was only able to return to Romania after the 1989 anti-communist Revolution, and he regained his Romanian citizenship and some of his estate. King Mihai I lobbied for Romanias NATO and EU accession, as a special ambassador.
DIPLOMACY – The Romanian Foreign Minister, Teodor Melescanu, was received on Monday in Jerusalem by the Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin. The two officials highlighted the excellent bilateral cooperation, consolidated during the 69 years of constant diplomatic relations. The talks focused on diversifying economic and sectoral cooperation, ahead of resuming the third session of Romanian-Israeli inter-governmental talks. Another important topic had to do with fighting anti-Semitism and promoting education in this respect. The agenda also included an exchange of opinions on topical international matters, such as the Middle East peace process, the crisis in Syria, Iraq and the Gulf region, and the prospects of the Iran nuclear deal. As part of his visit to Israel, FM Teodor Melescanu also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
CONFERENCE – The Romanian capital city Bucharest is hosting today and tomorrow the IAA Global Conference, an international technology, marketing and communication forum. The event brings to Bucharest some of the worlds greatest entrepreneurs and inventors, including Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder alongside with Steve Jobs and the inventor of the first personal computer in the world. Also addressing the hundreds of participants will be speakers from IBM, the Disney studios, Google and the BBC. This years conference is themed Creativity can change the world.
TOURISM – Around 100 Romanian and foreign journalists, bloggers, vloggers, and instagramers are visiting these days places in Romania that are worth seeing but are not properly promoted, as part of Experience România, the largest Romanian tourism promotion project. The guests come from nearly 20 countries, including Australia, Canada, India, the US, Germany, Italy and Spain. A similar project, run in spring and promoting the capital city Bucharest was followed by millions online and attracted tourists from far away places like Alaska, Argentina and Japan.
EU – The EU labour ministers reached an agreement in Luxembourg on Monday night on a proposed reform of the posted workers directive. The participants agreed to limit secondments to 12 months, as France had proposed, but to allow for a six-month extension at the request of the company that posts workers. France also had to accept a compromise with respect to the status of workers in the road transport sector, a particularly delicate point in that Spain and Portugal, as well as the Visegrad Group countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia), were concerned with the negative impact of the reform on their truck drivers.
TENNIS – The Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, no 1 in the world, is playing on Wednesday against Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark (6 WTA), in the second Red Group match of the WTA Finals in Singapore. In the other match of the day, the French Caroline Garcia (9 WTA) will face the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (4 WTA). On Monday, Halep beat Garcia, and Wozniacki defeated Svitolina. In the White Group today, the American Venus Williams (5 WTA), the only WTA Finals winner of this years participants, is playing against Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia (7 WTA), while Garbine Muguruza of Spain (2 WTA) takes on the Czech Karolina Pliskova (3 WTA). On Sunday, Muguruza defeated Ostapenko and Pliskova won the match against Williams.
(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)
