September 4, 2016 UPDATE
Romanian magistrates ask for justice minister's dismissal / Romania officially joins the European Organisation for Nuclear Research
Newsroom, 04.09.2016, 19:21
JUDICIARY – The Association of Romanian Magistrates (ARM) has called on Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos to dismiss justice minister Raluca Pruna as the topics for debate that she proposes have nothing to do with the objectives of the judiciary. According to a release by ARM, there are irreconcilable differences between Minister Pruna and the magistrates, triggered mainly by the latter’s behaviour, who, without any justification, presents the situations she is informed about in a distorted manner. The judiciary is thus warning over the risks Romania is being exposed to by keeping Minister Pruna in office.
CERN — Romanian President Klaus Iohannis will attend on Monday in Geneva the flag raising ceremony on the occasion of Romania’s joining the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). According to a release by the presidency, Klaus Iohannis will be accompanied by Education Minister Mircea Dumitru and a delegation of Romanian researchers that have been collaborating with CERN. Romania, that has become the Organisation’s twenty-second member, has been cooperating with CERN for 25 years. “These are exciting times for CERN and particle physics, and I am very glad that the Romanian scientific community, in particular the younger generations, will now have increased opportunities to contribute to our truly international research programme,” Fabiola Gianotti, the Organisation’s Director-General has said. Romania’s scientific community at CERN is made up of around a hundred visiting scientists. Founded in 1954, CERN is a European research organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.
CANONIZATION — Pope Francis proclaimed Mother Teresa of Calcutta a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, 19 years after her death. Around one hundred thousand people, among whom twelve heads of state, attended Sunday’s ceremony at the Vatican. A Nobel peace prize winner, Mother Teresa was one of the most influential women in the Churchs 2,000-year history, acclaimed for her work amongst the worlds poorest of the poor in the slums of the Indian city now called Kolkata. Mother Teresa was born of Albanian parents in 1910 in what was then part of the Ottoman Empire and is now Macedonia. She became a nun at 16 and moved to India in 1929, creating her mission in 1950.
G20 – Leaders of the G20 nations are in the Chinese city of Hangzhou for a two-day summit to find ways of boosting global growth. Set to be high on the G20 agenda are strengthening the economic rebound, the Paris climate change agreement and cracking down on corporate tax avoidance, but also Brexit and Syria. Attending the summit, the European Council President Donald Tusk has said: ”We will urge the G20 to seize the opportunity of the forthcoming summits on refugees and migrants hosted by the UN and President Obama to increase aid and resettlements by countries outside Europe. It is even more important in view of the fact that the practical capabilities of Europe to host new waves of refugees, not to mention irregular economic migrants, are close to the limits.” In his turn, the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Junker has said that Brussels “will continue to negotiate” with the US on free trade transatlantic treaty as the mandate of the European Commission to do so remains fully valid.
VISIT – Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos is paying a visit to Germany as of Sunday. Ciolos will meet with officials from Bavaria, North Rhine–Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg,with representatives of German companies with investments in Romania and with potential investors. This is the Romanian PM’s second visit to Germany this year, after a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin in January. Ciolos said at the time that Germany was a partner of strategic importance for Romania and Bucharest’s first commercial partner. Acording to the PM, bilateral trade exceeds 20 billion euros every year.
CLIMATE DEAL – The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, hailed the ratification by the United States and China of the Paris climate deal on Saturday. History will show that the Paris deal will “ultimately prove to be a turning point, the moment we finally decided to save our planet”, President Obama has said at the ratification ceremony in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. The Paris agreement aims to limit global temperature increases to two degrees centigrade, and will be triggered after at least 55 countries, accounting for 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, ratify it. China is responsible for almost a quarter of the world’s emissions, with the US in second place with around 15 percent, so their participation is crucial.
TENNIS — World no. 5 Simona Halep of Romania will be up against Spanish Carla Suarez Navarro on Monday in the fourth round at the US Open, the final Grand Slam tournament of the year worth over 22 million dollars in prize money. On Saturday Halep defeated the Hungarian player Timea Babos. In the mens doubles, the Romanian-Dutch pair Horia Tecau and Jean Julien Rojer also made it to the fourth round and will next play against Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Robert Lindstedt of Sweden.
(Translated by Elena Enache)
