January 17, 2025 UPDATE
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 17.01.2025, 20:16
FAIR Romania will be participating in the world’s biggest fair of bioproducts, BioFach 2025, due in Nurnberg, Germany, over February 11 and 14, the Bio-Romania Association announced on Friday. Bio-Romania is supported by the government through the Romanian Agency of Investment and Foreign Trade. According to the aforementioned association, Romania has been participating in BioFach for the past 20 years. As early as 1990, BioFach became the main meeting point of producers from the world over, offering the participants numerous network opportunities and also being an idea hub for all the main players in the field organic production.
PROTESTS Thousands of police officers and employees from defence, public order and national security institutions, as well as reserve officers from all over Romania took to the streets of Bucharest on Friday. They called on the government to review an order that significantly reduced their incomes. The act scraps overtime pay and payments for days worked on weekends or public holidays. The protesters argue that the income of operational police officers will be severely affected, with decreases ranging between 200 and 400 Euros. Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu pledged on Friday that the issue of overtime pay in the field of public order would be regulated by Parliament in early February.
RUSSIA The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs firmly condemns the Russian forces’ irresponsible attacks that violate all the norms of international law, and emphasizes that Russia’s illegal and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine generates risks for the entire region. The statement was made as the monitoring and surveillance systems of Romania’s Defence Ministry Friday morning noted violations of Romanian airspace, in Tulcea county, after Russian forces resumed their drone attacks on civilian targets and port infrastructure in Ukraine. ‘Respect for sovereignty, security and peace are obligations that the Russian Federation violates systematically and without provocation. The persistent aggressive actions, the illegal occupation of some of the neighboring territories and the illegal full-scale war that Russia has been waging for almost 3 years against a sovereign neighbor are a persistent and serious threat not only to Ukraine but to the entire Black Sea region and NATO’s eastern flank,’ the foreign ministry says. The Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry also mention that they have been informing NATO in real time about the situations caused by these attacks, and remain in permanent contact with it.
FLU Flu vaccination remains the easiest, safest and most effective protection method against seasonal diseases, Romanian doctors reiterate amid increases in the number of respiratory infections. Specialists emphasize that as the percentage of the vaccinated population increased, flu viruses spread in communities decreases. A National Institute for Public Health report shows that the number of people diagnosed with respiratory infections has doubled, with almost 91,000 cases reported in the last week. There are almost 600 patients diagnosed with clinical flu and over 200 for whom lab tests have confirmed infection with the flu virus, most of them in Bucharest, Cluj, Braşov, Constanţa, Alba and Galaţi. Five more people have died from the flu, bringing the death toll since the beginning of the season up to 9.
TENNIS The Romanian tennis players Gabriela Ruse and Jaqueline Cristian, in separate pairs, qualified for the second round of the women’s doubles event at the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, after winning their respective matches on Friday in Melbourne. Ruse and Ukraine’s Marta Kostiuk won against the Australians Destanee Aiuava and Maddison Inglis 6-4, 7-6 (7/2), and in the second round they will face strong opponents in Elise Mertens (Belgium) and Ellen Perez (Australia), seeded 6th. Jaqueline Cristian and her Italian partner Camilla Rosatello defeated Cristina Bucşa (Spain)/Iana Sizikova (Russia) 6-2, 6-7 (2/7), 6-4. Cristian and Rosatello will next face Leylah Fernandez (Canada) and Nadia Kicenok (Ukraine), seeded 16th. In another first-round match in the women’s doubles, Monica Niculescu and Sofia Kenin (US) were defeated by Miyu Kato (Japan)/Renata Zarazua (Mexico), 6-4, 6-4. In the men’s doubles, the Romanian-Argentine pair Victor Cornea/Mariano Navone was defeated in the second round by Germany’s Kevin Krawietz/Tim Puetz, 4-6, 6-1.
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