September 4, 2023
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 04.09.2023, 13:55
Crevedia. Another patient injured in the explosions that took place in Crevedia (south of Bucharest) died this morning, the Romanian Ministry of Health has announced. According to the source, the man had burns on 95% of his body. This is the fourth person to die after the Crevedia explosions, where tankers loaded with LPG blew up on August 26. In the latest report, the Ministry of Health had announced that two of the victims of the explosions nine days ago were admitted to hospitals in Bucharest, in critical condition; another 16 patients have been hospitalized for moderate and minor injuries. Regarding the patients abroad: one is in a critical situation in Milan, Italy, two are in a complicated situation in Austria and two others are in Germany, still intubated.
Parliament. Today, Romanian senators and deputies have started the second ordinary parliamentary session of the year. According to the regulations in force, on the first day of the parliamentary session, in the plenary session of each Chamber, the members of the permanent Bureau are elected: the vice-presidents, secretaries and quaestors, with the exception of the president, who is elected at the beginning of the legislature. In the Chamber of Deputies, the interim Speaker is the Social Democrat Alfred Simonis, and the Speaker of the Senate is the leader of the National Liberal Party, Nicolae Ciucă. The priorities of the parliamentary session include the law on special pensions, as well as other bills necessary to fulfill the milestones established under the NRRP, for Romania to receive European money. Also, the package of fiscal measures that is being discussed by the governing coalition and for which Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has announced that he will take responsibility before Parliament is expected. The Opposition representatives also announced several projects in the fields of law, agriculture, health, fiscal facilities.
Drones. The Romanian Ministry of Defense, through a spokesperson quoted by the media, has denied the information according to which Russian drones fell and exploded on Romanian territory, during the overnight attack on the Ukrainian port infrastructure on the Danube. Previously, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kyiv had stated that the drones would have also reached the territory of neighboring Romania, after Russia “massively” attacked, once again, the Ukrainian Odesa region. The local governor, Oleg Kiper, announced that “seventeen drones were shot down by our air defense forces”, but “in several localities of the Izmail district, warehouses and production buildings, agricultural machines and machinery of industrial enterprises were damaged”. The attack, the governor says, lasted three and a half hours and caused no casualties. The port of Izmail on the Danube, close to the border with Romania, has become an important outlet for Ukrainian exports, after Russia withdrew from the agreement on grain transit through the Black Sea in July.
Olympiad. Romanian students won three silver and one bronze medal at the International Informatics Olympiad. The Society for Excellence and Performance in Informatics has announced that the awards ceremony of the 35th edition of the Olympiad took place in Szeged, in neighboring Hungary, attended by over 300 competitors from 90 countries. Romania remains in second place in the world ranking of awards obtained over time at the International Informatics Olympiad, with 127 medals: 33 gold, 58 silver and 36 bronze, together with Poland, after China, which ranks first.
Tennis. The Romanian tennis player Sorana Cîrstea has qualified for the quarterfinals of the US Open tournament, the last Grand Slam of the year, after defeating the Swiss Belinda Bencic in the previous round, 6-3, 6-3. Cîrstea (33 years old, 30 WTA), seed number 30, managed her best performance at Flushing Meadows. She played only one quarterfinal at a Grand Slam tournament, in 2009, at Roland Garros, when she was 19 years old. In the quarters, Cîrstea will face the Czech player Karolina Muchova (27 years old, 10 WTA), who defeated the Chinese Xinyu Wang 6-3, 5-7, 6-1. (MI)
