July 28, 2016

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Newsroom, 28.07.2016, 12:00

IMPLEMENTATION The Romanian authorities have started taking the necessary steps to implement the decisions made at the recent NATO summit in Warsaw including the setting up of a brigade on the Romanian territory. Romanian Defence Minister Mihnea Motoc has today said that at least six allies, including Bulgaria and Poland, have shown signs of interest in the new brigade. Poland has announced it can send a company to join the brigade while Bulgaria can participate with 400 soldiers. In another development, Romania announced on Wednesday it would contribute to the anti-daesh coalition in Iraq and Syria with 50 soldiers who are to be assigned a counseling mission in early autumn. The announcement was made in the opening of a large-scale drill in Cincu, central Romania, where 27 hundred troops from 10 countries are training between July 27th and August 7th.

DROUGHT Deputy Prime Minister Vasile Dancu has today held talks with the local authorities over fighting drought effects in several counties in southern, eastern and central Romania. Vegetable and corn crops, sunflower, soy and fodder crops are bearing the brunt of the scorching weather. Furthermore, the irrigation system is still not operational while weather forecasts for August show scarce rains and high temperatures for the Romanian regions. According to Agriculture minister Achim Irimescu, it’s preferable that farmers were given subsidies in advance than paid damages later. Irimescu went on to say that farmers would need 6.7 million euros to irrigate their crops.

FOOTBALL Two Romanian football teams Pandurii Târgu-Jiu and Viitorul Constanta are today playing their first leg of Europa League’s third preliminary round. On home turf, Pandurii take on Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv, while away from home Viitorul go up against Belgian side Gent. In the Champions League’s third preliminary round, Astra Giurgiu managed a 1-all draw in their fixture against FC Copenhagen of Denmark, and Steaua Bucharst ended their away fixture against Czech contenders Sparta Prague, also 1-all. The other Romanian squad CSMS Iasi was knocked out of the Champions League’s second preliminary round by Croatian side Hajduk Split.

TENNIS The world’s fifth tennis player Simona Halep of Romania will today be playing Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic in the eighth finals of the tournament in Canada with 2.4 million dollars up for grab. If she qualified, Halep, the finalist of the last year’s edition of the tournament, would be playing the winner of the match pitting Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic against Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia. Another Romanian, Monica Niculescu has been eliminated in the second round by Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. In the doubles contest, Halep and Niculescu lost nil-two to Ukrainian pair Katerina Bodnarenko / Olga Savchuk.