August 16, 2021 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 16.08.2021, 19:56

Covid Romania – The Romanian authorities on Monday reported over 280 new COVID cases out of 18,700 tests. Most of the cases were registered in Bucharest. Five deaths were also reported. The number of hospitalized patients continues to grow – there are now over 940 people in hospital, of whom 120 are in serious condition in Intensive Care. On the other hand, interest in vaccination remains low, despite repeated calls from the authorities. On Monday, reports showed that only around 12 thousand vaccine doses had been administered in the past 24 hours. All in all, about 5 million Romanians have been fully vaccinated.

Kabul — The Taliban control Afghanistan, and the British and NATO forces will not return to fight the insurgents, the British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Monday as quoted by Reuters. According to a US official, most Western diplomats have left the Taliban-controlled capital, Kabul. At the same time, at least five people died on Monday at the Kabul airport, while hundreds of people were trying to force their way into the planes leaving the capital. It is unclear whether the victims were killed by gunfire or died in the stampede. The U.S. troops are in command of the airport, helping to evacuate the U.S. embassy staff and other civilians. To calm things down, the American forces fired shots into the air. A joint statement, backed by more than 60 countries, asks for the Afghans and foreign nationals wishing to leave Afghanistan to be allowed to leave and for the airports and border crossing points to remain open, Reuters reports, quoting the US Department of State. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also called on the Taliban and all the other groups on the Afghan political scene to show maximum restraint. He called on the Security Council to make use of all instruments available to eliminate the world terrorist threat in Afghanistan and to guarantee the observance the fundamental human rights in that country.

Afghanistan – The Romanian PM Florin Cîţu said on Monday that the 35 Romanians who are still in Afghanistan will be repatriated with an aircraft. Subsequently, President Klaus Iohannis ordered the urgent involvement of the Air Forces in the evacuation of the Romanian citizens. The Romanian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that it had reassessed and raised the alert level for Afghanistan and urged the Romanian citizens to urgently leave the territory of that state and to avoid any travel to Afghanistan. The activity of the Romanian Embassy in Kabul was suspended in 2019, following an attack that severely damaged the mission’s headquarters, MAE reports. We remind you that the Romanian military returned home after almost two decades of uninterrupted presence in Afghanistan. 27 of them lost their lives in missions or attacks by Taliban terrorists, and more than 200 were injured. All in all, more than 32,000 soldiers have taken part in missions in Afghanistan. The total costs of Romania’s participation in Afghanistan amounted to over 3 billion lei (the equivalent of about 600 million Euros).

Baccalaureate – The autumn session of the national Baccalaureate exam started on Monday in Romania with the Romanian Language and Literature test. The compulsory specialization tests will take place on Tuesday, and Wednesday will see the tests for the optional subject matters. Almost 39,000 candidates registered for the current Baccalaureate session, of whom 60% are from among this years high-school graduates, the Education Ministry announced. The final results will be announced on September 3. The pass rate, after the first session held in June-July, stood at 70%, which is almost 5 percent higher as compared to the same session last year.

Rowing – Romania obtained excellent results at the World Junior Rowing Championships in Plovdiv (Bulgaria), held between August 11-15: two gold medals and one bronze, which placed it third in the overall medal standings, the president of the Romanian Rowing Federation, Elisabeta Lipă, said. According to her, for juniors, it was the first major competition this year, still dominated by the pandemic and numerous restrictions. Romania participated in the Championships with 11 crews and 43 athletes. It was outranked by the US and Germany, but finished ahead of Switzerland, Italy, France and Spain.

Fires — The more than 100 Romanian firefighters who were involved in putting out the fires in Greece, as part of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, returned to the country on Monday. The authorities in Bucharest congratulated them during a ceremony and have given them a promotion. The Romanian firefighters were also praised by the Greek press, by the locals, as well as by their Greek colleagues for their intervention manner and courage. On Friday, the team of firefighters who participated in the firefighting operations in Northern Macedonia, during a mission that lasted almost a week, also returned to Romania.(LS)