Morning headlines – February 2nd 2021

Coronavirus and vaccines

• Today we find out if schools will reopen. President Klaus Iohannis will meet today with prime-minister Florin Citu and other ministers to decide if kids will get back to schools, starting with the second semester.
• The vaccination of teachers is slow. The Minister of Education issued a press release wherein it is said that only 193.573 employees want to get vaccinated (147.314 people from the compulsory education systems, which is 50,3% of the total of 292.872 people in this field, and 46.259 from the tertiary education, which is 77% of the total of 60.389 people).
• Europol warning. Fake certificates with negative COVID-19 tests are being sold in airports and train stations in the entire Europe, says Digi24.

Global political and military events

• Alexei Navalny might end up in jail. The Russian opponent Navalny is going in front of the judges on Tuesday where, according to the lawyer, he might get a “two and a half year” sentence for breaking the conditions of a three and a half years suspended sentence, from 2014, says Digi24. He had to break those conditions because he was poisoned with a chemical military agent. Navalny’s team asked the population to protest in front of the Court to support him.
• Arrests in Turkey. The Turkish police have detained, on Monday, 159 people who were protesting in Istanbul against the decision of president Tayyip Erdogan to appoint a rector at a university in the region, says AP.
• China is increasing the defence budget and military’s salaries. The Chinese defence budget will be increased with 78 billion dollars, reaching 280 billion dollars, according to aninews.in. Military’s salaries will also be increased with up to 40% to attract more militaries, says the quoted source.

Romania’s defence and security

• NATO certifies the Spanish pilots from Kogalniceanu for enhanced air policing missions. Today it takes place the NATO certification ceremony of the Spanish Air Forces, which was deployed to Romania to execute Enhanced Air Policing missions, from the 57^th Air Base Mikhail Kogalniceanu. The Spanish detachment is composed of 130 military (pilots and technical personnel) and six Eurofighter Typhoon aircrafts.
• Special pensions got parliamentarians’ attention. At the beginning of the new parliamentary session, the leaders of NLP, SRU and DAHR have stated that their political priority is eliminating the public service pension, says Digi24.