April 1, 2016

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 01.04.2016, 12:02

Romania’s
President Klaus Iohannis is today attending the nuclear security summit in
Washington, where he has stated that Romania complies with the highest
standards in the field. Also today, the head of state will meet with
representatives of the Romanian community in the US. On Thursday, Klaus
Iohannis said at the Holocaust Memorial in Washington that he would support the
setting up in Romania of a Museum of the Jews and the Holocaust, and that there
should be more focus on education about democratic values. The Romanian
President has warned that the number of xenophobic and racist incidents has
increased against the background of worries regarding security.

Family doctors in
Romania are protesting again, unhappy with the fact that medical services cannot
be reimbursed, as the framework agreement with the National Health Insurance
Agency was not extended. Doctors have announced they will not issue any
subsidized prescriptions and medical letters. They are discontent with the
under funding of their sector and with the fact that they are forced to pay
from their own pockets the errors caused by the health card. Doctors threaten
that if their claims are not solved, they will start a warning strike within 10
days. Last week, family doctors picketed the headquarters of the Health
Ministry.

In January -
March 2016, Romania’s national currency, the leu, managed to appreciate against
13 currencies out of the 16 most important in the region, but also against the
Euro, the USD and the Swiss Franc. The Romanian currency thus registered its
best quarter in the last years. The Euro lost 1.1% to the leu, from 4.52 lei,
the reference rate established by the National Bank of Romania in its last
session of December 2015, to 4.47 lei, as set by the Central Bank on Thursday.
The USD lost 5% to the leu in the first quarter of the year, after depreciating
against the EU against the background of cautious expectations regarding the
monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve, the most powerful central bank in
the world.

The President of
Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, currently on a visit to Washington, has made an
appeal to the European countries to support his government’s fight against the
Kurdish separatists. On Thursday, Turkey was hit again by a suicide attack, the
third in less than three weeks, blamed on PKK. A car bomb exploded in the town
of Diyarbakir, in the south-east, killing 70 policemen and wounding 27 people,
half of them also policemen.

Romanian Monica Niculescu and
Russian Margarita Gasparyan are today playing against the pair made up of Timea
Babos of Hungary / Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan, in the semi-finals of the
tennis tournament in Miami, the US, with 6 million dollars in prize money.
Niculescu and Gasparyian, who have only played in three tournaments together,
defeated the the eight finals’ first seeds, namely Martina Hingis of
Switzerland and Sania Mirza of India. In another move, the best Romanian tennis
player, Simona Halep, did not manage to get by the quarters in Miami, as she
was defeated by the Swiss player Timea Bacsinzky, no. 20 in the WTA
classification. Starting Monday, Halep will take one step down the WTA
rankings, as she will be the 6th
best player in the world.

Romania’s
champion women’s handball team, CSM Bucharest, on Thursday defeated on home
turf the Russian team Rostov Don, 26-25, in the quarter finals of the Champions
League. The return game is scheduled for April 9th in Russia and its
stake is the qualification for the 4th final tournament in Budapest,
on May 7th and 8th. CSM is headed by a Danish coach and
is at its first participation in the most important inter-club competition in
Europe. The other feminine squad, the vice-champion HCM Baia Mare will on
Saturday take on Buducnost Podgorita of Montenegro. The return game is due on
April 10th.