April 4, 2016 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 04.04.2016, 12:24
ROMANIAN ACADEMY – The Romanian Academy on Monday celebrated 150 years of existence. A solemn ceremony marked the event, bringing together representatives of the authorities, foreign guests, presidents of European academies, men of culture and Romanian scholars, members of the Romanian academy and contributors from across the country and abroad. Founded in 1866 under the name of the Romanian Literary Society, the institution was later known as the Romanian Academic Society, quickly growing into a landmark of Romanian culture and science. In 1879 the institution changed its name again into the Romanian Academy. Its members include renowned scholars of national and international status in a plethora of fields, from history, philosophy and linguistics to nuclear physics, chemistry, macro- and micro-biology. At present the Academy comprises 84 tenure members, 76 contributors, 45 honorary members, of whom six from abroad.
MOTION – The Chamber of Deputies on Monday started debating, in a plenary session, the first simple motion against a member of the technocratic cabinet led by Dacian Ciolos. The initiators of the document, Romanias Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, accuse Justice Minister Raluca Pruna that the ordinance she promotes, on wiretapping in criminal proceedings would turn Romania into an unsafe state, putting human rights up for debate, instead of fundamentally observing them. While the Liberals dismissed the initiative as “hilarious, the Social-Democrats said they would neither support nor file simple motions, but they would call for a cabinet reshuffle. The motion is to be voted upon on Wednesday.
PROTEST – Part of the family physicians in Romania on Monday continued the strike started last week. They will not issue prescriptions and referrals, as they did on Friday. The protest concerns the delays in signing the framework agreement for 2016 and the lack of funding for general practitioners. Doctors threaten to call a token strike over the following days unless their demands are met.
PANAMA PAPERS – Heads of state and high-ranking officials from all over the world, billionaires, renowned athletes and businessmen, including from Romania, as well as infamous criminal networks all transpire in a huge leak of confidential documents of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, revealing how the company manages the estates of the worlds richest and most famous people in offshore accounts. According to the BBC, the documents were investigated by journalists from 70 countries, and seem to be the hugest information leak on global corruption. The documents mention such names as the President of Argentina, the Prime Minister of Iceland, the President of Ukraine, the King of Saudi Arabia, close associates of the Russian and Chinese presidents, or current and former professional athletes, such as Michel Platini and Lionel Messi
TRANSDNIESTER – The foreign ministers of Russia and the Republic of Moldova, Sergey Lavrov and Andrei Galbur, respectively, on Monday confirmed in Moscow their governments support for the resumption of negotiations in the 5+2 format, in the effort to solve the conflict between Chishinau and Tiraspol. Negotiations in this format – with the participation of Chishinau and Tiraspol, alongside Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE as mediator and the US and the EU as observers – have been suspended since 2014. Andrei Galbur has expressed hope the visits paid to Chishinau and Tiraspol on Tuesday and Wednesday by representatives, mediators and international observers will contribute to the fast resumption of negotiations, without prerequisites. We recall that Transdniester de facto, got out of Chishinaus control in 1992, following an armed conflict that left hundreds of dead, and which ended with the intervention of the Russian troops, on the separatists side.
IMMIGRANTS – Hundreds of illegal immigrants, mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, have been shipped back to Turkey from Lesbos and Chios islands in Greece, FRONTEX reports. This is the first such shipment of illegal migrants being deported to Turkey, based on the readmission agreement Turkey signed with the EU on March 18. The provisions of the agreement apply to all illegal migrants arrived in Turkey via Greece starting March 20. France Press news agency estimates some 6,000 people will be shipped back. Under the agreement, for every migrant deported to Turkey via the Greek Islands, another Syrian will be resettled in the EU. The first Syrian asylum-seekers arrived in Germany on Monday.
CLASHES – Violent clashes continue between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan with a majority Armenian population. The conflict is high on the agenda of next weeks meeting of the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia, the United States and France. Fighting between the two sides over the region started in 1988 and ended in 1994, killing over 30,000 people in the process and displacing hundreds of thousands of Azeri refugees.
SPORTS – Romanian tennis player Simona Halep dropped one place in WTA standings, now ranking 6th. She was outranked by Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, who last week won the tennis tournament in Miami, the US. Halep was knocked out in the quarterfinals, losing to Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland. In news from handball, the womens team Corona Brasov lost to TuS Metzingen of Germany 22-26 on home turf, in the first leg of the EHF Cup semi-finals. The return leg will be played on April 9 in Germany.
(Translated by Vlad Palcu and Diana Vijeu)
