October 9, 2017 UPDATE

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hails Romanias contribution to the North Atlantic Alliance. / Romanias Simona Halep is the new world no. 1 in womens tennis.

Newsroom, 09.10.2017, 19:42

NATO. NATO Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg on Monday hailed Romania’s important contribution to the
North-Atlantic Alliance through its participation in missions in Kosovo and
Afghanistan and welcomed the country’s allocation of 2% of its GDP to defence.
On a visit to Romania, Stoltenberg also said NATO did not want a new Cold War
or to isolate Russia, but that it is concerned with Russia’s military build-up
and its lack of transparency. He met president Klaus Iohannis and prime
minister Mihai Tudose and addressed the annual meeting of the NATO
Parliamentary Assembly. The president said Romania has become a relevant
contributor to security in the region, in the Euro-Atlantic space and at
international level and that it would continue to be a responsible NATO member.
The prime minister hailed the importance of Romania’s hosting the meeting of
the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Stoltenberg and Iohannis also paid a visit to the multinational brigade
in Craiova, in the south. The unit, which numbers troops from Romania and
Poland, supports the coordination of NATO training and exercises in the region. Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Italy,
the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain also contribute staff to the brigade’s
general headquarters.

Exercise. A multinational and
inter-institutional military exercise called CETATEA 2017 is under way from Monday
until October 18. Planned by the Romanian Army General Staff and coordinated by
the Army’s IT&C Department, the exercise is aimed at testing, developing,
assessing and confirming the interoperability of command and control,
communications, computers, information, surveillance and research systems.
Alongside IT&C bodies from the Romanian army, detachments from other NATO
member countries, namely Bulgaria, Italy and Poland, are also participating in
the exercise, as well as representatives from Hungary and Greece as observers,
representatives from the Republic of Moldova and defence, public order and
national security bodies.

Ukraine
education law. The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly is to hold an
urgent debate on Ukraine’s controversial education law as it gathers for its
autumn session on Thursday in Strasbourg. The debate was proposed by the Romanian delegation after Ukraine passed
a new education law that restricts the rights of national minorities, including
the Romanian minority, to study in their mother tongue. Senator Titus
Corlatean, who heads the Romanian delegation, said he was hoping for a fair
debate that would persuade the Ukrainian authorities to change the law. Under
this piece of legislation, ethnic minority children can only study in their
mother tongue in nursery and primary school. Almost half a million ethnic
Romanians live in the neighbouring Ukraine, mostly in the eastern Romanian
territories annexed by the former Soviet Union in 1940 through an ultimatum and
inherited by Ukraine in 1991 as a successor state.

Plagiarism. The Save Romania Union and the People’s
Movement Party in opposition demand the resignation of the healthcare minister
Florian Bodog after accusations that he largely plagiarised his doctoral
thesis. They also say that the underachievement and chaos existing in the
medical system during his tenure provide even more reasons for him to resign.
Bodog rejects the plagiarism claim and says he is the author of the passages in
question. Earlier, the National Liberal Party, the People’s Movement Party and
the Save Romania Union filed a simple no-confidence motion against Bodog asking
him to resign. The motion will be debated on Tuesday and go to vote on
Wednesday.

Holocaust remembrance. On
National Holocaust Remembrance Day, the foreign ministry in Bucharest has
emphasised the efforts made in recent years in taking responsibility for the
past and condemning Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. In a press release
published on Monday, the ministry pays tribute to the victims of the Holocaust
around the world and expresses solidarity with the survivors of the tragic WWII
events. The Romanian foreign ministry recalls that between March 2016 and March
2017, Romania held the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance, which adopted a working definition of anti-Semitism during a meeting
in Bucharest. President Klaus Iohannis said in a message that honouring the
victims of the Holocaust proves that Romania has accepted its past and has
positioned itself on the side of democratic values. Various events were held
across the country on National Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorated
the beginning, on the 9th of October 1941, of the deportation to
Transnistria of large numbers of Romanian Jews by the regime of the day, which
was an ally of Nazi Germany.

Tennis.
Romania’s Simona Halep became the new world no. 1 in women’s tennis on
Monday. The 26-year-old becomes the first Romanian player to achieve this
historic milestone since the computer rankings were introduced in 1975, being
the 25th womanto
hold the no. 1 ranking. Her rise to the first sport brings to an end
the reign of Spain’s Garbiñe Muguruza in the top position. Halep made it
into Top 10 for the first time on January 27, 2014, and has been there
ever since. Sorana Cirstea is the second Romanian player in the WTA ranking, at
no. 37. Irina Begu retains her 57th position, while Monica Niculescu
dropped to no. 61.

Transmitter revision. The short-wave
transmitters in Tiganesti, near Bucharest, relaying Radio Romania
International’s broadcasts, are to go into planned revision on Tuesday, October
10, between 08.00 and 16.00 local time (that’s between 05.00 and 13.00 GMT).
Between these hours, you can listen to our broadcasts relayed by
the Galbeni transmitters on short-wave, online at www.rri.ro, or on mobile apps that can be
downloaded from Google Play and App Store, as well as on TuneIn and on your
fixed and mobile phones in some states.