Paris

Acting president of the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) Mirel Talos is optimistic that the events scheduled for this fall will be organised live, remarking the Institute's capacity to adapt during the pandemic and diversify the online promotion of Romanian intellectual values.

On May 21, 1904, in the French capital, Paris, representatives of the football associations of France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland signed the documents officially establishing the world's largest football association, whose main purpose was the creation of smaller associations to be national representations of the countries of the world.

An Italian woman has won a Picasso painting worth more than $1 million in a charity raffle to raise money for village water projects in Africa.

The winner of May 20's draw at Christie's auction house in Paris was named as Claudia Borgogno, who was gifted the winning ticket.

Romania needs smart, hands-on public policies, "for instance a promotional (development) bank is necessary, and reviving the idea of a National Development Fund, after the Polish model, should also be considered," Fiscal Council chairman Daniel Daianu writes in an op-ed.

World-famous French writer Jean-Christophe Grangé, who visited Turkey two months ago, has expressed the longing for his time in the country.

"I am sincerely saying, I feel melancholic when I think of Turkey. I will come back very soon," he said in a video message on the French Institute's Turkish Facebook page.

France's national carrier will be resuming flights between Paris and Athens as travel restrictions are gradually lifted across the European Union, it was reported on Thursday.

More and more countries are easing the restrictions, amid the declining spread of the infection.

More than 3 million and 800 thousand people are confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 worldwide. The death toll is 270,000, most in the United States.

Against the background of the declining spread of the infection, more and more countries are easing the restrictions.

Deserted metro tunnels feel like the set of a B movie thriller: 'COVID-19: The Lockdown', perhaps.

Yet Sofia Airport is still running, more than most other airports in the Balkans. And it is not without controversy.

COVID-19: Arriving on time

Sign at Sofia Airport. Photo: Svetoslav Todorov

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on May 8 for an "all-out effort" to end the "tsunami of hate and xenophobia" sparked by the novel coronavirus pandemic, without naming specific countries.

"The pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scaremongering," Guterres said in a statement.

On Thursday, President Klaus Iohannis bestowed on the Her Majesty Crown Custodian's House Association, by presidential decree, a "Centennial of the Greater Union" anniversary medal and a "Centennial of the War for the Unification of the Romanian Nation" commemorative medal.