May 12, 2018
A roundup of domestic and international news
România Internațional, 12.05.2018, 14:11
VISIT – The Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila continues her visit to the Vatican, where on Friday she was received by Pope Francis. The Prime Minister thanked his Sanctity for the attention he had always paid to the relations with Romania and voiced hope that the Pope would pay a visit to Romania. The two officials also talked about human rights and religious freedom. Viorica Dancila stressed the need for a deeper cooperation between Romania and the Vatican, especially against the background of Romanias taking over the presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2019. This will provide the opportunity to send a message to the whole of Europe, given Romanias ecumenical vocation, Viorica Dancila also said. The Romanian Prime Ministers visit to the Vatican is taking place at a time of very good bilateral ties, and in the year when Romania is celebrating 100 years since the Great Union, which will be marked by the Holy See through a string of high-class cultural and academic events.
1848 REVOLUTION – Romanias President Klaus Iohannis is today travelling to Blaj in central Romania to attend events devoted to the commemoration of 170 years since the National Assembly of the 1848 Revolution. The head of state will lay a wreath at the Gloria monument on Liberty Field and will participate in the debate titled Blaj 1848-2018: National Consciousness and European Destiny, organized by the Inochentie Micu Clain National College. At the meeting, the president will talk with representatives of the local administration and associative environment, with business people, athletes, cultural personalities, students and teachers. Also, the Romanian president will take part in the inauguration of the Culture Palace in Blaj, one of the most important cultural edifices in Transylvania, built in 1936, but destroyed by fire in 1995. The palace has been rehabilitated and has been awarded the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage.
THEATRE – The “Matei Visniec” Theatre Festival starts today in Suceava, north-eastern Romania. Until May 20th, the event will host some 60 performances, targeting all categories of audience. 300 guests are expected to attend the festival, actors, directors and theater critics from across the country, from the Republic of Moldova and from France. The special guest of the festival, just like every year, is the Romanian writer and playwright Matei Visniec, who has settled in France. His plays have been staged all across the world, including Japan, the US, Brazil and Turkey. In Romania, his works were banned before the anti-Communist Revolution of 1989.
ART SAFARI – Works worth some 10 million Euro, from important private collections, from the Pompidu Museum in Paris and from the collection of the former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu can be seen until May 20th at Art Safari, the largest artistic event in Romania, organized in central Bucharest. The most valuable exhibit is a work by Constantin Brancusi, which is part of a private collection and was evaluated at a seven figure sum as the director of Art Safari Bucharest Ioana Ciocan has told us. The Art Safari Exhibition has reached its fifth edition.
EUROPEAN LITERATURE NIGHT – The Romanian writer Magda Carneci will attend the European Literature Night organized by the Czech Center in New York, under the aegis of the European Union of National Institutes of Culture. This second edition will present authors and books from Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Hungary. Each author will be presented along with a book translated into English, and young American students will read from them. Magda Carneci will participate with the volume “A Deafening Silence”.
RESOLUTE CASTLE 2018 – The Cincu shooting ground, in central Romania, is hosting the multinational exercise Resolute Castle 2018. Its a six-month exercise that involves the participation of military of the Romanian Land Forces and of the South Carolina National Guard. Romanian and American soldiers will carry out infrastructure and refurbishing works in Cincu. Resolute Castle 2018 focuses on building and consolidating training centers in Poland and Romania. This allows the US military units to rapidly mobilize its forces, to carry out rotating drills together with allies and multi-national partners and to demonstrate their deterrence capacity in a security environment.
HANDBALL – SCM Craiova has won the EHF Cup in womens handball, after they defeated on home turf on Friday night the Norwegian squad Vipers Kristiansand 30 to 25. In the first match, Vipers had won 26-22 and were standing good chance of winning, had they maintained the pace in the return game. Fortunately, the goal keeper Yuliya Dumanska managed to defend two shots just seconds before the end of the game. This is the first European trophy won by SCM Craiova, and also the first EHF Cup for the Romanian womens handball. The competition had been won by Romanian teams before under the previous name, IHF Cup, by Chimistul Ramnicu Valcea in 1984 and 1989 and Rapid Bucharest in 1993. In another development, Romanias champions CSM Bucharest are today playing against the Hungarians from Gyor ETO, in the semifinals of the Champions League hosted by Budapest. If they manage to win, on Sunday the Romanian squad will take on the winner of the match between HC Vardar of Macedonia and Rostov-Don of Russia. CSM Bucharest won the Final Four in 2016. (translated by Mihaela Ignatescu)
