October 24, 2014
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Bogdan Matei, 24.10.2014, 12:00
The world’s number four tennis player Simona Halep will today be playing Serbian Ana Ivanovici in her last game in the so-called Group Red of the Champions Tournament in Singapore. We recall that Halep has secured wins against Eugenie Bouchard of Canada and against the world’s leader Serena Williams of the USA, results that ensured her qualification for the semifinals of the competition, which ends the WTA season and brings together the world’s best tennis players. Halep is Romania’s third representative in the Champions Tournament, after Virginia Ruzici in 1983 and 1984 and Irina Sparlea in 1998. In the competition’s so-called White Group the world’s number two Maria Sarapova has outperformed Polish Agnieszka Radwanska, but after two defeats in the first two games, she was eliminated from the tournament. In the other White Group match, Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark will be up against Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.
Friday is the last day of an election campaign for the parliamentary ballot due in Ukraine on Sunday. The political group of pro-European president Petro Poroshenko is the odds-on favourite in the election race, way ahead the pro-Russian parties. However, the separatists in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk are preparing to stage their own election on November 2nd. The US believes Ukraine’s legitimate elections are those for the Rada on October 26th and those on December 7th for designating the local leaders in the region with a special statute, Donbas. The pro-Western Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, who got elected in May after the collapse of the pro-Russian regime, has called snap legislative election in order to consolidate power and rid Parliament of former president Yanukovych’s allies, accused of providing support to the pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, where 37 hundred people have died in the clashes between the rebels and the government troops in the past six months.
Europe’s economic situation, the crisis in Ukraine and the Ebola epidemic are topics high on the agenda of the European summit in Brussels. On Thursday, EU leaders approved a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Romania is being represented in Brussels by its president Traian Basescu, who is expected to hold talks with his counterparts from the neighboring Bulgaria and the so-called Vishegrad Group, made up of central-European states, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The Romanian president will also be attending the summit of the center-right European People’s Party, which boasts the largest number of seats in the European Parliament.
Romania’s Supreme Court has today ruled in favour of the preventive detention of Andrei Hrebenciuc, son of former Social-Democratic MP Viorel Hrebenciuc in a file on the illegal return of large areas of farm and forestland. The ruling is not yet binding but a preventive-arrest warrant has also been issued for Ghoerghe Paltin Sturdza, the beneficiary of the illegal return. Andrei Hrebenciuc has been accused of having put up an organized crime group, of conspiracy to commit influence peddling and money laundering. His father, Viorel Hrebenciuc is also being investigated by the anti-corruption prosecutors, according to whom the prejudice caused to the National Forestry Company Romsilva stands above 300 million euros. A Social-Democratic senator Dan Sova is being investigated alongside Viorel Hrebenciuc in a different corruption file on influence peddling. Hrebenciuc had promised Sova support to get the chairmanship of the Social-Democratic Party in exchange for forwarding a bill on amnesty and pardon.
A first case of Ebola has been confirmed in the USA’s most populous city, New York. A physician who recently returned from the West-African state of Guinea has been diagnosed with the disease. This is the second case of Ebola contamination outside the African continent, after the medical worker in Spain, whose health condition is now stable. The Ebola epidemic, which has been affecting Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal since the beginning of the year, is feared to be about to spread to two other countries, Mali, which has recently confirmed its first case, and the Ivory Coast, where tests are being performed on another patient. According to the latest WHO report, Ebola has killed nearly 5 thousand people out of 10 thousand infected in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the worst affected countries.
Romania’s football champion team Steaua Bucharest on Thursday night snatched a precious 2-1 home win against Portuguese side Rio Ave. It was Steaua’s third confrontation in Europa League’s Group J. In the other game of the same group, Danish side Aalborg took everybody by surprise snatching a 3-nil win against Dinamo Kiev from Ukraine. Steaua are on top position in Group J, with six points out of nine games played. In Europa League’ s Group D, Astra Giurgiu has sadly added the third defeat on its record sheet, as in Glasgow last night, the famous Scottish side Celtic managed a 2-1 win against the Romanians. With zero points out of three matches played, Astra are bottom of the table in Group D, which also includes Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb and Austrian team Red Bull Salzburg.
