August 28, 2017
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Newsroom, 28.08.2017, 13:58
Protests – Several thousand Romanians protested on Sunday evening in Bucharest and other big cities of Romania against the bill for the modification of the justice laws proposed by the Justice Minister Tudorel Toader. The protesters asked for the resignation of the justice minister, chanted slogans in support of the independence of the judiciary and announced that next Sunday they will organize similar protests. The leader of the Social Democratic Party (the main ruling party) Liviu Dragnea told the participants that the draft law was nothing but a proposal and that it needed to be seriously debated first. Sharply criticized by the opposition and the press, the draft law stipulates, among other things, that the president will no longer appoint the heads of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) and the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), that the Judicial Inspectorate will be subordinated to the Justice Ministry and seniority will be increased for the promotion of magistrates. Early this year, the government’s attempt to amend, through emergency ordinance, the criminal codes, brought hundreds of thousands of Romanians into the streets in Bucharest and other cities of Romania as well as in the Diaspora. They accused the government of trying to help influential people from the political and administrative fields, accused of corruption, to avoid legal responsibility.
Washington — A Romanian-born lawyer living in California, Andrei Iancu, was nominated by President Donald Trump as Undersecretary with the Trade Department in charge of intellectual property and as director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Andrei Iancu is currently a lawyer with the American firm Irell & Manella LLP, where his activity focuses on intellectual property issues, a White House communiqué shows. He defended clients from various industries and pleaded before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, of the US International Trade Commission and other courts. According to the communiqué, Andrei Iancu wrote and delivered speeches on issues related to intellectual property and taught Patent Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Tennis — World’s no. 2 tennis player, Simona Halep, will take on the famous Russian player Maria Sharapova in the first round of the U.S. Open, the year’s last Grand Slam tournament, to start Monday at Flushing Meadows, in New York. Halep, second seeded, played a semifinal in New York in 2015 and in 2016 she did not manage to pass the quarterfinals. Sharapova, who started playing again in April, after a ban for doping, won the U.S. Open title in 2006 and she was granted a wild-card invitation for this year’s U.S. Open. After the drawing of lots, Romanian Monica Niculescu (58 WTA) will play in the first round against Kristina Mladenovic (14 WTA).Ana Bogdan (127 WTA) will take on the American Taylor Townsend (21 years old, 119 WTA), also the beneficiary of a wild-card. Sorana Cîrstea (53 WTA) will play against the Dutch Lesley Kerkhove (170 WTA). Irina Begu (57 WTA) will play against Katerina Kozlova (115 WTA) from Ukraine. Romanian Mihaela Buzărnescu (133 WTA), who is for the first time on the main table of a grand slam tournament, will take on the Danish player Caroline Wozniacki (5 WTA). In the men’s competition, Marius Copil (world’s no.88 player), who is also for the first time in the main table of the U.S. Open will take on the French Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (12 ATP).
Education — The PM Mihai Tudose is today meeting with the representatives of the education trade unions to discuss a number of major issues in the education field. The trade unions announced they would talk, among other things, about the drafting of a national education law, the outdate school curricula, the under-financing of the education system and the unfair treatment education employees are being faced with. Also trade unions have warned that if talks end up with no solutions to their problems they will start a large-scale protest in autumn, at the beginning of the new school year.
Cantacuzino Institute — The Cantacuzino Institute in Bucharest, which has a strategic role in ensuring Romania’s independence in the field of vaccine production, needs to become functional again, and for that to happen, the institute will be tuned into a military unit. This statement was made by Mihai Tudose who called on the defense and healthcare ministers to draft, in one month’s time, a bill on the subordination of the Cantacuzino Institute to the National Defense Ministry. The PM recalled that the Institute, set up in 1921, is a Romanian brand with a history of almost 100 years and with many achievements. Before 1990, the Cantacuzino Institute had a substantial portfolio in terms of vaccine production, but later, due to lack of funds, bad management and the failure to observe the norms imposed by the WHO, production was stopped for all vaccines. (translation by L. Simion)
