January 24, 2022 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 24.01.2022, 18:42

CELEBRATION Romania celebrated on Monday 163
years since the Union of the Romanian Principalities, the first major step in
the formation of the Romanian nation state, paving the way for the Great Union
of 1918. On January 24, 1859, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected ruler of
Wallachia, after on January 5 he had become sovereign of Moldavia. His rule
laid the foundations for modern Romania. Monday was a banking holiday in
Romania. While many people chose to spend the holiday in mountain resorts, the
ones who stayed at home had the option of attending military and religious
ceremonies and celebratory concerts organised around the country under COVID-19
restrictions. Bucharest’s Patriarchal Cathedral hosted a service devoted to all
those who contributed to the 1859 Union. Politicians posted messages on this
occasion. President Klaus Iohannis said the Union on January 24, 1859 proves
the importance of a project able to bring together the energy of the Romanian
nation, and urged people to work persistently to consolidate the country’s
current European and democratic path. The Liberal PM Nicolae Ciucă pointed out
that the Union was the result of the untiring efforts of the politicians of the
time, driven by the nation’s dream of unity and of administrative, economic and
social progress. In turn, the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and president
of the Social Democratic Party Marcel Ciolacu said that, 163 years since the
Union of the Romanian Principalities, what Romanians need more than ever is
unity and stability, if they are to handle current economic, healthcare and
security challenges.

COVID-19 Romanian
authorities announced on Monday 12,082 new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections in 24
hours and 41 related deaths. The incidence rate in the capital Bucharest is on
the rise, reaching 10.23 cases per thousand people. The city has been in the
red tier since January 12, when the incidence rate went over 3 per thousand.
The COVID-19 testing capacity is set to increase this week to 150,000 tests per
day, as over 3,800 family physicians have signed contracts with public health
insurance agencies in this respect. In Bucharest and the nearby county of
Ilfov, where the largest number of cases is reported, testing centres have
already been opened in 20 hospitals. On Wednesday at the latest COVID-19
testing will also be resumed in schools, after more than 10 million test kits
were received by school inspectorates. A batch of 114,000 doses of Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 are set to reach the country on
Tuesday. The health minister Alexandru Rafila expects the current (5th)
wave of the pandemic to reach its peak in Romania in about 3 weeks’ time.

UKRAINE NATO countries are
placing forces on
standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to NATO deployments in
eastern Europe, as Russiacontinues its military build-up
around Ukraine, the Alliance announced on Monday. Denmark is sending a frigate
to the Baltic Sea and is set to deploy four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania,
Spain is sending ships to join NATO naval forces and is considering sending
fighter jets to Bulgaria. France has expressed its readiness to send troops to
Romania under NATO command. The Netherlands is sending two F-35 fighter
aircraft to Bulgaria in April to support NATO’s air-policing activities in the
region, and is putting a ship and land-based units on standby for NATO’s
Response Force. The US also announced it is considering increasing its military
presence in the eastern part of the Alliance. The
president of Ukraine Volodymyr
Zelensky Monday thanked the EU for the 1.2 billion euros in macro-financial aid
provided in order to support Kyev in a prospective conflict with Russia. Strong
Ukraine is the key for European security, he said in a Twitter post. Russia
has deployed around 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, fuelling concerns
about a prospective attack on that country.

TENNIS The Romanian tennis
player Simona Halep lost to Alizé Cornet of France, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, in the round
of 16 of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Monday. For Halep (15 WTA), this
was the first defeat after a string of 8 consecutive wins.Also on Monday, Sorana Cîrstea of Romania lost to seed
no. 7 Iga Swiatek of Poland, in the same competition round, 5-7, 6-3, 6-3.

DOCUMENTARY The French public TV channel France 3 broadcasts
for the first time a documentary on Marie of Romania, the amazing queen
of the Carpathians, as part of its highly popular history series
Secrets of history. The production of the documentary took one year
and a half. Archive photos and footage have been collected, along with
testimonies by historians and members of the Royal House of Romania. Scenes
have been shot at the Peleş and Bran castles in the southern Carpathians, at
the Cotroceni National Museum in Bucharest and at the Curtea de Argeş Monastery
where Royal House members have been buried. Queen Marie, the wife of King
Ferdinand I, was acknowledged in Europe as an ambassador of the Romanian nation
and a supporter of the Romanian nation state. (A.M.P.)