January 4, UPDATE

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România Internațional, 04.01.2015, 12:15

Snowfalls are expected as of Monday in Romania in the north, center and northeast of the territory. Temperatures will drop and the weather will become very cold by midweek mainly in the center, east and south of the country. Temperatures will go below minus 10 degrees C. Temperatures are likely to drop under minus 20 degrees C in the east of Transylvania.

Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis on Sunday attended the religious service in the Holy Trinity Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral, located in the center of Sibiu. A Lutheran, President Iohannis said that during his term in office he would periodically attend the religious services of all legally recognized religious denominations in Romania. The Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral in Sibiu was built in the 20th century, being a smaller-scale replica of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

The Romanian tennis player, Alexandra Dulgheru, seed 83 in the WTA classification, was eliminated Sunday by Chinese Saisai Zheng, in the first round of the Shenzhen tennis tournament, which has prizes up for grabs worth 500 thousand euros. Playing in the tournament are 3 Romanian tennis players. Simona Halep, ranked 3rd in the world classification and main favorite of the competition, will play against Annika Beck from Germany. Irina Begu, seed 41, will take on Katerina Siniakova from the Czech Republic, while Monica Niculescu, ranked 46th in the world classification and seed no 7, will play against Polona Hercog from Slovenia. In the doubles, Begu will pair up with Lara Arruabarrena from Spain, being the competition’s 2nd favorite pair. In the first round they will play against the pair made up of the Thai Luksika Kumkhum and the Chinese Lin Zhu. Niculescu will pair up with Kazakh Zarina Dias, and will take on in the first match the pair made up of the Ukrainian twins Nadia and Liudmila Kicenok.

1 out of 5 Romanians, namely almost 5 million people, are faced with poverty, and the Government wants to diminish down to 400 thousand the number of the poor by 2020, shows the draft national strategy on reducing poverty, that has been submitted to public debate by the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Protection and the Elderly. The strategy focuses on the poor people and families whose annual income is under 60% of the average income per one adult person. According to the same document, the largest categories of poor people are represented by children in disadvantaged situations, people with disabilities, lonely or dependent old people and ethnic Roma, all these categories numbering 3 million people.

The turbulence likely to be caused on the financial markets by Greece coming out of the Euro zone will probably lead to the withdrawal of money from the Greek banks and to the collapse of the stock exchange, and the effects might have an impact on other states as well, economists warn. The Greek Parliament has been dissolved and early parliamentary elections will be held on January 25th, in which the radical leftist group SYRIZA runs as favorite. SYRIZA wants to put an end to the austerity policy imposed on Greece by the country’s international creditors. The main banks from Greece are also present in Romania: the National Bank of Greece (NBG), main stakeholder in Banca Romaneasca, EFG Eurobank, which controls Bancpost, Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank and ATE Bank.

The European Central Bank will start in 2015 to directly monitor the banks in the Euro zone and also from other member states that have joined the EU banking union, Romania included. The measure has been taken following the financial crisis that forced governments to financially support the banks that were faced with problems. The European Central Bank, as a monitoring body, will draw a warning signal when a bank in the Euro zone or located in a member state participating in the EU banking union is facing serious financial problems and has to start bankruptcy procedures.

North Korea on Sunday condemned the sanctions imposed by the US saying that the measures imposed showed Washington’s hostility towards Pyongyang. On Friday the US President Barack Obama decided to impose further sanctions on North Korea in retort to the recent cyber attack launched by Pyongyang against the Sony Pictures company. Pyongyang denied being involved in the cyber attack and criticized the US’s refusal to start a joint investigation into the issue.