January 13, 2015
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România Internațional, 13.01.2015, 12:00
Romanian president Klaus Iohannis and representatives of the political groups in the Romanian Parliament have today signed a national agreement for increasing the country’s defence budget. In the wake of yesterday’s talks, the participants agreed that for the following 10 years beginning 2017 at least 2% of the GDP be earmarked to national defence projects. Iohannis explained the necessity of such an agreement as Europe and NATO are currently facing a major security challenge in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
As of today, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland is paying a two-day visit to Bucharest. According to a state department communiqué, Mrs. Nuland will be having talks with representatives of the Romanian authorities, the business environment and civil society on bilateral and regional issues. The US Assistant Secretary of State will meet Secretary of State John Kerry in Bulgarian capital Sofia from where the two will go to Paris. Mrs. Nuland’s latest visit to Bucharest was in January 2014.
The authorities in France say the terrorist threat is still extremely present and in order to defuse that threat they ordered the deployment of nearly 18 thousand army and police troops to guard sensitive sites across the country in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks. Security forces were sent on Monday to guard more than 700 Jewish schools in France. The country’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls said a phone tapping system should be developed, while radical Islamists suspected of recruiting attackers should be sent to prisons. Manuel Vass explained that 1,400 French Jihadists are part of the networks that sent recruits to Syria and Iraq, including the perpetrators of last week’s attack against satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
German chancellor Angela Merkel is today participating in ceremonies held in Berlin by the Muslims in Germany to commemorate the victims of last week’s terror attack in Paris. The ceremonies take place a day after an anti-Islam rally staged in Dresden by the anti-Islamisation PEGIDA movement. Also yesterday 100 thousand Germans took to the streets to protest the PEGIDA march. The organisation, which has been contested by many politicians along the years, has been periodically staging demonstrations particularly targeting German organizations promoting inter-ethnic dialogue and multiculturalism. The Muslim community in Germany, mainly consisting of Turkish immigrants, has voiced concern over the latest events.
Foreign direct investment in Romania stood at 2.1 billion euros in the first 11 months of 2014, 11% lower than in the same period last year, data released by Romania’s central bank have revealed. According to the bank, November saw the biggest monthly increase in FDI, which was 531 million euros, while the lowest investment was registered in January, only 38 million euros. The same central bank communiqué says that the current account deficit of Romania’s balance of payments dropped by 62% in 2014 down to 302 million euros.
Romanian tennis player Horia Tecau and his Dutch teammate Jean Julien Rojer have today made it into the men’s double semifinals of the Sydney ATP tournament, an event with nearly 440 thousand dollars prize money up for grabs. Tecau and Rojer secured a 6-2, 7-6 win against the all-Australian pair made of James Duckworth and Chris Guccione. The tournament’s number two favorites, Tecau and Rojer will next be taking on German-American pair made up of Benjamin Becker and Nicholas Monroe, respectively. In a separate development, the main favorite to winning the ATP tournament in Sydney Simona Halep, announced he withdrew from competition, because of a stomach flu. In the eighth final on Tuesday Halep was supposed to be taking on Karolina Pliskova of the Czech republic. The Romanian tennis player gets ready for the year’s first Grand Slam event, the Australian Open in Melbourne, due to kick off on January 19th. We recall that last year in Melbourne Halep had to leave the competition as early as the quarterfinals.
