July 2, 2016 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 02.07.2016, 12:15
Romania appreciates the excellent friendship relation and the Strategic Partnership with the US, based on such values as freedom, democracy, individual rights and the rule of law — said Friday the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on the occasion of the US Independence Day marked in advance at the US embassy in Bucharest. President Iohannis recalled that Romania expected the Strategic Partnership between the two countries to generate economic opportunities and prosperity for the citizens of the two countries. In turn, the American ambassador Hans Klemm talked about bilateral cooperation both in the field of world security and in fighting corruption and mentioned the two countries’ cooperation in the fields of energy security and political coordination and also at consular level.
The armament department with the Romanian Defense Ministry has selected the companies that will participate in a tender for the modernization of the two Romanian frigates “King Ferdinand” and “Queen Marie”. Three companies from Canada, Italy and France and a Turkish-Romanian consortium will submit their offers by July 18. The ships will be equipped with antiaircraft missile systems and anti-ship missile fighting systems as well as with state-of-the-art electronic equipment as part of the program “The multifunctional frigate- modernization stage II”.
Romania’s women’s handball team won silver at the World University Championship held in the Spanish city of Malaga after having been defeated on Saturday, in the final, by the Spanish team 20-14. The final match was the only one lost by the Romanian athletes in this competition. The Romanians defeated Spain 20-19 in the same group.
The best Romanian tennis player, Simona Halep (5 WTA) defeated on Saturday 6-4, 6-2, the Dutch Kiki Bertens (28 WTA) in the 3rd round of the Wimbledon Grand Slam tournament. The match initially scheduled for Friday was postponed because of the persistent rain. Also on Saturday the Romanian Monica Niculescu lost the match against the Swiss Timea Bacsinsky, 6-4, 2-6, 1-6 in the 2nd round. The match had been suspended on Friday also because of the rain, after one hour and 38 minutes at the score 6-4, 2-6, 1-0 for Monica Niculescu.
Detainees in the Romanian prisons will have better conditions. The Justice Ministry announced this weekend that it adopted together with the National Administration of Penitentiaries a plan of measures regarding access to jobs and social reinsertion of people deprived of freedom. Also the plan stipulates additional medical staff, the sanitization of spaces and dental care services for detainees. The European Court of Human Rights has obliged Romania on several occasions to pay damages to some convicts for the improper conditions they had to face in prisons.
20 foreign citizens were killed in a hostage-taking situation in a restaurant in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, frequented by diplomats and expats — a spokesperson for the Bangladeshi army announced on Saturday. Most of the people killed are Italian and Japanese. The army was involved for 12 hours in the hostage-rescue operations. They said the 6 terrorists were killed. The jihadist group the Islamic State has claimed the hostage-taking situation. cts for the improper conditions they had to face in prisons.