August 31, 2021

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 31.08.2021, 13:55

COVID-19 Romania is still in the green
tier in spite of the rising number of Covid-19 infections. Authorities in this
country have lately reported 700 new cases and 11 related fatalities. 280
people are being treated in intensive care units and the coordinator of the
country’s vaccine rollout, Valeriu Gheorghita, has cautioned that Romania is
going to have over two thousand daily cases in mid-September. The situation is expected
to worsen as the Delta variant is becoming dominant. On the other hand, people’s
interest in vaccination remains low with only 5.1 million fully vaccinated
Romanians since the beginning of the country’s vaccine rollout in late
December.

PULL-OUT The United States last night
completed the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan putting an end to the
longest war in the country’s history. The last US plane took off at the end of
a two-week evacuation operation complicated by the unexpected Taliban takeover
of capital Kabul. During the 20 year war, 25 hundred US servicemen and over 1,000
allied troops, including 27 Romanians have been killed in the line of duty.
According to Reuters 24 thousand Afghans have also lost their lives. In 2014,
NATO and the USA put an end to war operations in Afghanistan, but foreign
soldiers remained stationed in that country for another 6 years. The withdrawal
was set through an agreement signed with the Taliban in February 2020. The
Taliban got Kabul in mid-August, which caused panic among the Afghans who
wanted to leave the country. 120 thousand people have been evacuated in two
weeks in an operation marked by chaos and tragedies, stampedes, suicide and
rocket attacks. The Taliban are
celebrating the victory but the country is in for a difficult period of time
with assets of 9 billion dollars frozen and an economic and humanitarian crisis
looming large.

DAY The Romanian language will
continue to keep us united and close to the country, Romanian president Klaus
Iohannis says in his message on Romanian Language Day celebrated every year on
August 31st. Iohannis has congratulated all those contributing to
the cultivation and the promotion of the Romanian language and values who are
working in several fields of activity such as literature, science and research,
academia, and various publishing houses. For the Romanian nationals living
abroad, their native tongue is what makes them feel at home wherever they are
and in a Diaspora as large, the language’s linking role is more important than
ever. Dear Romanians from all over the world, do not stop loving the Romanian
language and try to cultivate the love of it among children so that they may
appreciate it and use it correctly, the president went on to say.

MEETING EU interior ministers are
convening today in Brussels for talks over the situation in Afghanistan after
the Taliban takeover and assess the impact of a potential wave of migrants from
that country over the continent. According to news agencies, the EU governments
want to avoid a repeat of the chaotic migratory wave of 2015, which took the
bloc by surprise causing division among its states. Some European countries
fear that Afghanistan may become home to terrorist groups who may mastermind attacks
against the West as it happened on September 11th 2001 in the USA. The EU
ministers are going to assess the ways of evacuating the Afghans who worked
with EU countries and are now expecting reprisals from the Taliban. According
to Romanian Interior Minister, Lucian Bode, the country can receive Afghan
refugees, upon a thorough checking from the state’s structures.

TENNIS Romanian
tennis player Sorana Cirstea is today playing Veronika Kudermetova of Russia in
the first round of the US Open, the year’s last Grand Slam. Another three
Romanians on the competition’s main draw, Irina Begu, Ana Bogdan and Gabriela
Ruse lost the matches they played on Monday, in the competition’s inaugural
round. Romania’s best representative in the prestigious competition, Simona
Halep, a former world’s number one, has qualified for the competition’s second
round after a win against Italian Camila Giorgi and will next be playing
Kristina Kucova of Slovakia.

EVENTS A
series of cultural events simultaneously staged in Romania and the Republic of
Moldova, an ex-soviet Romanian-speaking country on Tuesday, August 31st
marked the Romanian Language Day. President Klaus Iohannis has hailed the
efforts made by a series of institutions to maintain the access of Romanians to
leaning their mother tongue. Set in 2013 by Parliament in Bucharest, the
Romanian Language Day coincides with the national day of the Republic of
Moldova and is an homage paid to the national awakening movement in the
neighboring country. On August 31st 1989, while still under Soviet
occupation, Parliament in Chisinau, surrounded by 750 thousand people, a sixth
of the Republic’s population at that time, declared Romanian a state language
and replaced the Cyrillic alphabet, imposed by the occupants, with the Latin
one.

(bill)