August 1, 2016

Queen Anne of Romania dies at 92, Simona Halep is back on 3rd place in the WTA ranking, state employees in Romania get higher salaries

Newsroom, 01.08.2016, 00:00

Princess Anne of Bourbon – Parma, known as Queen Anne of Romania, aged 92, the wife of the last King of Romania, Mihai I, died Monday in Switzerland after a long period of suffering caused by cancer. The daughter of Prince Rene of Bourbon Parma and of Princess Margaret of Denmark met King Mihai in 1947 but the pro-Communist government of Romania did not agree with their marriage and forced King Mihai to abdicate on December 30, 1947. The two got married the next year. After the fall of the Communist regime, King Mihai and Queen Anne could return to Romania in 1992.

Over 650 thousand state employees will have higher salaries as of today. Salaries have been increased by 10% following the coming into force of an ordinance passed by the Romanian technocratic government in June. The employees in the education system will receive only a 5% pay rise this year, with the remaining 5% rise to be operated as of next year. In the healthcare system, over 160 thousand employees will have their salaries augmented while the doctors who work extra night shifts will have benefits of up to 100%.

The south and east of Romania have been hit a wave extreme heat. 7 counties in the south are under code orange alert for scorcher while a code yellow alert has been announced for several counties in the south and east of Romania. Another code yellow alert for extreme heat will be in place on Tuesday in the south east of Romania. In another development, a code yellow alert for unsettled weather has been announced as of today until Tuesday evening for the southwest, northwest, center, north and northeast of Romania and the mountains. The highs of the day range from 28 to 39 degrees C. The noon reading in Bucharest was 33 degrees centigrade.

The Romanian tennis player Simona Halep is back on 3rd position in the WTA classification after defeating, on Sunday, the American player Madison Keys (12th in the WTA ranking) in the final of the Montreal tournament 7-6 (2), 6-3. After the 14th title won in the singles during her career, Simona Halep also played in the doubles final, for the first time, together with her colleague Monica Niculescu. However they were defeated by the pair Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina (Russia). The Montreal tournament had prizes worth 2.4 million dollars. For Simona Halep it was the first final in the doubles in the WTA tournament.

The Romanian athletes have this morning left for Rio de Janeiro, where they will be participating between 5-21 August in the summer Olympics in such events as judo, shooting, athletics, womens handball and tennis. Romania will be represented in 15 sporting events by 96 athletes and 7 substitutes among whom gymnast Cătălina Ponor, winner of 3 gold medals in the 2004 Olympics, who will bear the Romanian flag in the opening ceremony in Rio. Over 2 billion people will watch the Rio Olympics where 10 thousand athletes from over 200 countries will be competing for medals.

The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, has called on the EU to provide a clear date for the visa waiver program to be applied for the Turkish citizens. He has warned that if his request fails to be met, Turkey might give up the agreement on immigration concluded with the EU, writes the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In March the EU had reached an agreement with Turkey related to stopping the migrants flow. In exchange the EU agreed to fund various projects for refugees in Turkey and offered the Turkish citizens the prospect of traveling to the EU without visas, among other benefits. The visa waiver program for the Turkish citizens was to be applied as of July. The European Commissioner Guenther Oettinger has recently stated that he does not think that the EU will apply the visa waiver program this year, because of what is perceived in Europe as a campaign for cleansing political opponents started by the Erdogan regime after the failed coup detat that took place in mid July, Reuters reports. (news translated by Lacramioara Simion)