April 16, 2017 UPDATE

Christians around the world celebrated the Resurrection of Christ

Newsroom, 16.04.2017, 19:20

EASTER – Christians around the world, including in Romania, which is a predominantly Orthodox country, celebrated Easter on Sunday. At midnight, they received the holy light and sang Christ is Risen. This year, Easter, which symbolizes the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is celebrated by all Christian denominations on the same days, which is quite rare, given that western churches celebrate it in keeping with the Gregorian calendar, while eastern churches use the Julian calendar. In the orthodox churches, on Sunday believers attended a mass known as the second Resurrection. Romanias President Klaus Iohannis conveyed a message to all Romanians, saying that the spirit of the Easter holiday should give them confidence and optimism for the future. At the Vatican, during his traditional Urbi et Orbi papal address and blessing, Pope Francis implored God to bring peace in the Middle East and Syria.

REFERENDUM – According to partial results, more than 55% of the Turks voted in favour of the proposed amendments to their Constitution. They said YES to changing the countrys governing system from a parliamentary into a presidential one. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been the main promoter of the reform, which he says its necessary in order to ensure stability, economic growth and security. Opponents, however, argue that these changes will lead to authoritarianism, in a country in which 40,000 people were arrested and 120,000 fired after the failed coup of July 2016. Changing the Constitution will allow Recep Tayyip Erdogan to stay in power for another two 5-year terms, that is by 2029. The office of prime-minister will be abolished and the president will appoint the Cabinet and the vice-presidents, whose number is not certain. Also, he will be able to declare a stage of emergency, without having to ask for the Cabinets approval and will also be in charge of drafting the state budget.

ATTACK – At least 126 people, including 68 children, died in Rashideen, Syria, on Saturday, in a suicide bomb attack on buses that were carrying people evacuated from two besieged government-held towns, according to an updated toll made public by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “The suicide bomber was driving a van supposedly carrying aid supplies and detonated near the busses”, the Observatory said. The attack is one of the bloodiest recorded in Syria in 6 years of conflict. The revolt against Bashar al-Assads regime, which started in March 2011, has turned into a devastating war, which has claimed more than 320,000 lives.

NORTH-KOREA – President Donald Trumps National Security Adviser, General H.R. McMaster, said on Sunday that Pyongyangs latest missile test was a provocation and the US was working together with its allies, including China, to settle the North-Korean nuclear issue. In an interview on ABC, McMaster said that North Koreas consistently antagonistic behaviour “is a situation that just cant continue”. On Sunday, the North- Korean army unsuccessfully tried to launch a missile from a shooting range on the countrys east coast. According to the US Army, the missile exploded within seconds after its launch. The test, which came in violation of the UN resolutions, was attempted just one day after Pyongyang had warned Washington it was not afraid of a potential conflict. In another move, the US vice-president Mike Pence arrived in South Korea on Sunday, the first leg of a 10-day Asian tour, focusing on talks about Pyongyangs weapons programmes. The tension has escalated in the region against raising concern that North Korea might soon conduct the 6th nuclear test.

MEASLES – 700 new cases of measles have been reported in Romania in the past week. According to the Romanian Microbiology Society, the epidemics, which broke out last year, is the result of the severe drop in the vaccination rate against this virus. So far, 21 people have died, and the number of the sick has grown to 4800. In order to prevent the measles from spreading even further, authorities continue the vaccination of children aged 9 months to 9 years.

TENNIS – The pair made up of the Romanian tennis player Monica Niculescu and the Taiwanese Su-Wei Shieh on Sunday won the match against the Swiss pair Timea Bacsinszky/Martina Hingis in the doubles final of the WTA tournament in Biel Bienne, Switzerland, with 250,000 dollars in prize money. This is the eighth doubles title for the Romanian tennis player, after the ones won in Budapest in 2009, Hobart in 2012, Shenzhen and Hobart in 2014, Shenzhen, Washington and New Haven in 2016. This has been the first doubles finals for Monica Niculescu this year, after the one in the singles in January, in the Hobart tournament.

HANDBALL – The Romanian womens handball champion CSM Bucharest on Saturday qualified for the Champions Leagues Final Four. On Saturday they defeated the Hungarian side Ferencvaros 27-26. In the Final 4 in Budapest, on May 6-7, CSM Bucharest will take on Buducnost Podgorica of Montenegro, Vardar Skopje of Macedonia and the Hungarian squad Gyor. These are the same three teams that CSM played against in 2016, when it won the trophy for the first time.