19 January, 2020

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 19.01.2020, 14:05

Holocaust. The Romanian president Klaus Iohannis
will be travelling to Israel from Tuesday until Thursday, the president’s
office has announced. He will make this trip in order to attend the 5th
forum of world leaders dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust
and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camp. The forum, entitled Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting
Anti-Semitism, will take place on the 23rd of January in Jerusalem.
The participation of the Romanian president in this international forum is part
of the efforts made by the Romanian state to consolidate education about the
Holocaust, preserve the memory of the Holocaust, combat anti-Semitism, racism
and xenophobia and promote European values, tolerance and respect for the
fundamental rights and liberties. On the sidelines of the forum, president
Iohannis will also have a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Reuven Rivlin.

IHRA. On Sunday, the Romanian
Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu is attending the ministerial meeting of the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) held in Brussels, where he
is due to give a speech and exchange views with his counterparts on the
increase in the number of anti-Semitic and discriminatory acts, but also on finding
concrete ways to fight such trends. The event is organised by Luxembourg, which
is currently holding the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance. Based in Berlin, this organisation has 31 member states, 11
observatory states and 7 permanent international partners. It was established
in 1998 and unites governments and experts to strengthen, advance and promote
Holocaust education, remembrance and research worldwide. Romania held the
presidency of the Alliance between March 2016 and March 2017.

Bird flu. A new bird flu hotspot has been confirmed at a
commercial chicken farm in the same area in northern Romania where the first
bird flu outbreak was reported on the 14th of January in Romania,
the authorities have announced. Strict restrictions are in place concerning the
movement of people, animals and vehicles at all farms, as well as in the
established protection and surveillance areas. On the 17th of
January, the European Commission announced that fowl from Hungary infected with
the H5N8 strain reached a number of EU member
states, including Romania. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Northern Ireland have
also reported cases of bird flu.

Pets. The international airport in Cluj Napoca,
north-western Romania, has been authorised for the introduction into Romanian
territory of pets arriving from third countries for non-commercial purposes,
beginning in January. This is the first regional airport to provide passengers
with this facility. So far, pets could only enter Romanian territory by air via
the Bucharest international airport.

Tennis. Four Romanian players are on the main
draw of the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tennis tournament of the
year, which gets under way on Monday. They are Simona Halep (no. 4in
the world), Sorana Cirstea (no. 74), Irina Begu (no. 105) and Monica Niculescu
(no. 128). Tournament organisers say they have introduced a scaled air quality
rating to determine when play can be suspended. A number of players withdrew from
the qualifying matches due to poor air quality amid the bushfires taking place
recently in Australia.

Film. The feature film Malmkrog by the Romanian director Cristi
Puiu, a coproduction from Romania, Serbia, Switzerland,
Bosnia and North Macedonia, has been selected for the Berlin Film Festival’s competitive section
Encounters. Now in its 70th year, the festival will take place
between the 20th of February and the 1st of March. Cristi
Puiu is the winner of several international awards, including the Un Certain
Regard award in Cannes for his much celebrated The Death of Mr Lazarescuin 2005 and the Golden Bear for best short film in Berlin for
A Carton of Kentand a Packet of
Coffee in 2004.