Constanta

An explosion shook the largest Romanian refinery, Petromidia, located in Constanta County on the Black Sea coast, this morning, as reported by Radio Romania. Fortunately, authorities have confirmed that there were no casualties resulting from the incident, although measures are underway to assess the extent of air pollution caused by the explosion.

The 52-year-old man, who was killed last night in the "Saints Constantine and Helena" resort near Varna, is a Ukrainian citizen, according to unconfirmed information reported by the Bulgarian National Television (BNT).

The Royal Netherlands Air Force will send two fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets in April and May in support of NATO's Black Sea Airspace Monitoring Mission, the NATO Allied Command said on its website.

Russia's Foreign Ministry: NATO forces Must be Withdrawn from Bulgaria and Romania

Nine people died on Friday when a fire broke out in an intensive care unit at a Romanian hospital treating COVID-19 patients, officials said, the country's third deadly hospital fire in less than a year, Reuters reported. Firefighters extinguished the fire at the hospital in the eastern city of Constanta at around 0755 GMT, having brought in additional teams from nearby counties.

Chief of the German Air Force, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Major General Viorel Pana, signed on Thursday, during a ceremony held at the 57th Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, the Declaration of Intent on the Development of Bilateral Relations in the aviation sector.

The first 24 centres to administer in Romania the one-shot COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) will be available in 19 counties and in Bucharest City, and another 20 of them will open at several hospitals nationwide, senior official with the Health Ministry Andrei Baciu said on Thursday.

The vaccination centers of military hospitals in Brasov, Bucharest, Cluj, Constanta, Craiova, Iasi and Timisoara are open, starting Tuesday, 8:00 AM, for the general population that wants to immunize against COVID, people being able to turn up at any time, without prior appointment.

The Google Street View cars are coming back to Romania and they will reach, in the coming months, in over a hundred localities, to update the Street View images of cities, roads and highways on Google Maps, the technology company informed in a press release on Thursday.

The president of the PNL (National Liberal Party, ed. n.), Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, said in an interview with AGERPRES that in democracy the prime minister is given by the winning party, saying that the PSD (Social Democratic Party, ed. n.) is the only formation with which the Liberals have clearly decided not to negotiate after the parliamentary election on 6 December.

A number of 158 persons infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus have been confirmed so far on Romania's territory, the Strategic Communication Group (GCS) informs.