ROME Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the
ministers making up Italy’s most right-wing and Eurosceptic cabinet since 1946
were sworn in on Saturday, AFP reports. The head of the League formation,
Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani, a leading figure in Silvio Berlusconi’s
Forza Italia are the country’s new deputy prime ministers. The ministers appointed by Giorgia Meloni, who
obtained with her post-fascist party Fratelli d’Italia a historic win in the
legislative elections last month with 26% of the votes, have shown readiness to
ease tensions caused by the coming to power of a far-right Prime Minister. The
nomination of the former president of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani
for the position of Foreign Minister has been hailed by the president of the
European People’s Party Manfred Weber as a guarantee for a pro-European Italy.
The head of the Romanian government, Nicolae Ciuca, has congratulated the new
Italian Prime Minister, voicing his confidence that the two countries will
continue to develop their Consolidated Strategic Partnership.
COVID The European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control has cautioned against the spread of a new Omicron
subvariant, which is expected to increase the number of infections in Europe,
the EFE Agency has reported. Preliminary surveys conducted in Asia have shown
the aforementioned subvariant could evade the immune response of the human
body. Andrea Ammon, director of the aforementioned institution has called on
European states to remain vigilant about the spread of the new subvariant and
monitor the number of infections as well as the hospital treatment of patients.
According to the same institution, raising the vaccination rate remains a
priority, and that risk groups, such as the elderly and the people with
comorbidities, need additional booster doses.
TENNIS Romania’s best tennis player and
two-times major winner, Simona Halep, has been provisionally suspended after
testing positive for a banned anti-anemia blood-booster called roxadustat at
the latest edition of the US Open. The world’s former number one, Halep
described the ban as ‘the biggest shock of her life’ and denied knowingly
taking any banned substance. Throughout my whole career, the idea of cheating
never even crossed my mind once, as it is totally against all the values I have
been educated with. Facing such an unfair situation, I feel completely confused
and betrayed, the athlete wrote on Twitter. The 31 year old Romanian athlete
and winner of the Roland Garros tournament in 2018, says that her fight was not
about ‘titles and money’ but her honour and that she hoped the truth would
eventually come out.
PERMITS Specialised structures with the
Romanian Interior Ministry have in the past 24 hours issued 302 residence
permits for Ukrainian refugees. A total of 78 thousand such permits have been
issued since March. According to authorities in Bucharest only one Ukrainian
citizen has applied for asylum in the past 24 hours. Roughly 44 hundred
Ukrainians have applied for asylum in Romania since the beginning of the
conflict and they are benefitting from all the rights stipulated in the
national legislation. According to the same sources, 83 thousand people have
crossed the borders into Romania in the past 24 hours, out of which 93 hundred
are Ukrainian citizens.
VISIT The use by Russia of the nuclear
weapon would be ‘an act of hostility against humankind’, Japanese Prime
Minister Fumio Kishida said during his visit to Australia on Saturday, France
press reports. The Russian intimidation concerning the use of nuclear weapon is
a severe threat to the peace and security of the international community and is
absolutely unacceptable, says the leader of the only country ever hit by a
nuclear weapon. In 2023, Kishida is expected to welcome the G7 leaders in
Hiroshima, the town which was razed to the ground by an atomic bomb in 1945
when 140 thousand people died. The city of Nagasaki was also bombed three days
later. In another development, Australia and Japan on Saturday signed an
agreement on security issues aimed at offsetting China’s military power in the
region.
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