August 24, 2020 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 24.08.2020, 20:02
BACCALAUREATE — The second session of this year’s Baccalaureate started on Monday with the written exam in the Romanian language and literature. Over 42,700 young people have enrolled for the exam, of whom 18,000 are high school graduates from previous years. The specialty exam will be held on Tuesday and the subject matter at the candidate’s choice on Wednesday. High school graduates from among national minorities will have the native language and literature exam on Thursday. Preliminary results will be made public on September 2nd and the final ones on September 5th.
POISONING — Doctors at Berlins Charite Hospital treating Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny said on Monday that tests indicate he was poisoned. They announced that Navalny, who was transferred to the German capital from the Siberian city of Omsk on Saturday morning, was suffering from “intoxication by a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors,” that he was in an artificial coma in an intensive care unit. “His state of health is serious, but there is currently no acute danger to his life,” news agencies quoted the doctors as saying. Navalnys spokesperson said last week that he fell sick from suspected poisoning on a flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk. Alexey Navalny is a long standing opponent of the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
CORONAVIRUS – 825 new cases of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 have been registered in Romania since the latest report, the Strategic Communication Group announced on Monday. The total number of cases thus reaches 79,330. Another 37 people infected with the new coronavirus have died, one registered in the 10-19 age bracket, and the total number of deaths in Romania has reached 3,309. 7,410 people with COVID-19 are hospitalized in specialized health units and 494 patients are in intensive care. On the Romanian territory, 10,742 people confirmed with the novel coronavirus are in isolation at home, and 5,433 are in institutionalized isolation. Also, 29,404 people are in quarantine at home, and 37 in institutionalized quarantine. As regards the Romanian citizens abroad, 5,920 have been infected, mostly in Germany, Italy and Spain, and 124 have died.
PANDEMIC – The health situation related to the COVID 19 pandemic keeps deteriorating around the world, with signs of recurrence in a growing number of countries. Several countries have reported in recent days the highest daily figures since the spring wave, or even since the onset of the pandemic. The total number of Covid-19 infections has exceeded 23.5 million worldwide on Monday, 16 million of whom are cured patients. At the same time, according to centralized data by worldometers.info, more than 805 thousand people have lost their lives. US President Donald Trump has urgently authorized the use of convalescent plasma on coronavirus patients, a treatment method widely used across the world. The United States, with 5.8 million cases of infection and more than 176 thousand deaths, remains the most affected country in the world. Brazil comes second with almost 2.8 million confirmed infections and over 114 deaths. In Europe, the UK is the most affected country, with over 41,000 dead.
DEBT – Romania has to recover over 650 million US dollars from goods and services exported before 1990, said the former foreign minister Cristian Diaconescu in an interview for Radio Romania. According to him, with about 400 million dollars, Iraq is at the top of the list of countries that still owe money to Romania, followed by Sudan, Mozambique, Libya, Guinea, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Somalia, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and North Korea. In addition to these amounts, Cuba owes Romania over 1.5 billion transferable rubles. Diaconescu stressed that it is a state issue involving very difficult partners, because many of them no longer recognize these debts or even demand political compensation for their payment.
FOOTBALL – CFR will be playing Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb in a home match on Wednesday in the second round of the Champions League preliminaries. We remind you that the Romanians secured a 2-0 away win against Floriana in Malta and have thus qualified for the competitions second preliminary round. At the same time, Dinamo started the new football season with a clear 6-0 win against Lokomotiv Zagreb, the countrys second representative in the Champions League qualifiers. CFR’s coach, Dan Petrescu, is trying to build a strong lineup for the match against the Croatians as many of his players are still recovering from injuries. Petrescu has told a TV channel that one of CFRs most valuable players, French striker Billel Omrani will not be able to play against Dinamo Zagreb. (Translated by Elena Enache)
