April 15, 2017 UPDATE

On Sunday, Christians around the world celebrate Easter

Newsroom, 15.04.2017, 19:10

EASTER – On Sunday, Christians around the world, including in Romania, a country with a predominantly Orthodox population celebrate Easter, the most important Christian festival and holiday. On Saturday, the Patriarch of Jerusalem gave holy light to believers gathered in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, during a special ceremony, which is held every year at the holy tomb. A delegation of the Romanian Orthodox Church has brought the holy light to the country, on a special plane. The holy light symbolizes and recalls the Resurrection of Christ. For 40 days, until the Ascension, Christians use the greeting Christ is Risen, the response to which is Indeed, He is Risen.

SURVEY – 75% of the Romanians say that they usually spend the Easter holidays at home. For this years Easter they have allocated some 110 Euro for food, according to a survey conducted by the Romanian Evaluation and Strategy Institute, published on Friday. 83% of the interviewees say they normally attend the Resurrection mass. Also, according to 92% of the respondents, traditional celebrations are important or very important. Two thirds of them say that there are Easter customs specific to the area they live in, the most common of which are church going (31%), egg painting (20%) and sacrificing lambs (7%). The research was conducted on a sample of 1.084 people, aged over 18.

BORDER TRAFFIC – Some 1.4 million people have crossed the Romanian borders this week, ahead of the Easter celebrations. The border police has reported that, on average, 175,000 people crossed the border checkpoints every day, which is 40% more than usual. The traffic is no longer that heavy as it has been until recently, due to the enforcement of a new European regulation that tightens control on the borders of the Schengen area and of the EU and ahead of the Easter holidays, when lots of Romanians that work abroad have returned home to spend Easter with their families.

CORRUPTION – The former Romanian deputy Sebastian Ghita will remain in police custody in Serbia for two months, as a preventive measure until extradition formalities are ready. Ghita was spotted and detained by the Serbian police in Belgrade on Thursday night, after four months since his disappearance. When asked to show his IDs, he presented a false document allegedly issued by an EU state. Sebastian Ghita went missing on December 21st 2016 and a national warrant was issued on his name, for breaking the terms of the judicial restrictions imposed on him pending trial. On January 10th a European search warrant was issued on his name and he was also put on the Interpol list. Ghita is being tried in two cases of corruption and prosecuted in another two.

MEASLES – 700 new cases of measles have been reported in the past week in Romania. Authorities have warned that the most exposed to getting sick are those who have not been vaccinated. Since the start of the epidemics in September last year, 21 people have died, and the number of the sick has risen to 4800. In order to prevent the measles from spreading even further, authorities continue the vaccination of children aged 9 months to 9 years.

REFERENDUM – A referendum will be held throughout Turkey on April 16th on whether to amend the Turkish Constitution. According to the BBC, amending the Constitution is something that president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long been wishing for. Those who oppose the new draft constitution are afraid that too much power will be thus placed in the hands of just one person. Two opinion polls made public on Thursday show that 50-51% of the voters will say YES at the referendum. Reuters reports that the voting on April 16th will decide on the biggest change in Turkeys governing system since the establishment of the modern republic, a century ago, as the parliamentary system might be replaced by an executive presidency.

BASEBALL – The Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta on Saturday played host to a unique event, a baseball game between the US soldiers from the Mihail Kogalniceanu base and Romanias national team. The game was won by the hosts, 7-2. The US Ambassador to Romania Hans Klemm watched the game. Baseball has been played in Romania for 27 years and this year it has been declared an Olympic sport. The match marked 70 years since the first African American athlete, Jachie Robinson, was accepted as member of the Major League Baseball. He thus became a symbol of equality, justice and fairplay.