March 9, 2019 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 09.03.2019, 19:43

COMMEMORATION Former political prisoners and victims of the communist regime in
Romania between 1944 and 1989 were commemorated on March 9th, when
the Romanian Orthodox Church commemorates the 40 martyrs of Sebaste. Religious
services were held in Bucharest and wreaths of flowers were laid at monuments.
The commemoration of the anti-communist political prisoners on this day was
decided through a law approved by Parliament in 2011. It is believed the
communists sent to prisons over one million people, of which tens of thousands lost
their lives to precarious detention conditions.

BURIAL Remains of Romania’s former sovereign, Carol 2nd were reinterred
on Saturday at the Archbishop Cathedral in Curtea de Arges, southern Romania,
where other members of the royal family are also buried. After a religious
service, the coffin was placed into a crypt not far from those of Romania’s
last sovereign king Mihai 1st and his wife, queen Ana. King Carol 2nd
ruled the country between 1930 and 1940 a very controversial period in Romania’s
history characterized on one hand by economic prosperity, cultural development
and loyalty towards Romania’s Western allies, and on the other by the king’s
immoral behavior, the corruption of his associates and the setting up of his
personal dictatorship in 1938. After ceding without fight a third of the
country’s territory to the neighboring USSR, Hungary and Bulgaria, Carol 2nd
was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mihai. He lived in exile and died
in Portugal in 1953.

VISAS The European Union announced that
as of 2021, US citizens will need visas to travel to the Schengen zone. The US
citizens must have a valid passport, a bank or a credit card as well as an
e-mail address to apply for an ETIAS visa. ETIAS stands for the European Travel
Information and Authorization System. Minors will need only a passport and
their name included in the ETIAS database, www.etiasvisa.com
informs. At present, the US citizens don’t need visas for stays up to 90 days.
Europe has recently decided to improve their security system to prevent any
other problems concerning illegal migration and terrorism, the ETIAS webpage
has also announced. In 2016 the European Commission published for the first
time a report calling on the USA to apply a visa waiver in the case of five EU
members, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Poland and Romania, because under the EU
rules all its citizens must benefit from the same rights.

RUGBY Romania’s national rugby team on
Saturday secured a 22 – 20 win against Russia in a match counting towards Rugby
Europe International Championship 2019. In its last match Romania will be up
against Belgium on March 17th on the latter’s home ground. In the
first three matches of this contest, Romania lost to Georgia 9-18, secured a
38-10 win against Germany and conceded defeat to Spain 21-18. The
aforementioned competition is Europe’s second major rugby tournament after the
Six Nations Championship. The Romanians presently come 18th in the
world’s ranking and that’s their weakest performance in the past 6 years.

TENNIS The world’s number two tennis player, Romanian Simona Halep, on Sunday
will be up against Ukrainian challenger Katerina Kozlova in the third round of
the Indian Wells tournament currently underway in the USA. In the second round
the Romanian managed a two-set win, 6-2, 6-4 against Barbora Strycova of the Czech
Republic. Halep won the Indian Wells tournament in 2015. Also on Sunday,
Romanian-American pair made up of Monica Niculescu and Abigail Spears will be
playing Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu of China in the round of 16.
In the men’s doubles contest, Horia Tecau of Romania and his Dutch teammate
Jean Julien Rojer will be up against Marton Fucsovics of Hungary and Guido
Pella of Argentina.

(translated by bill)