Tag: January

  • December 9, 2024

    December 9, 2024

    WEATHER Meteorologists have forecast warmer weather than usual for the entire Romanian territory until January 6th. According to the National Administration of Meteorology, rain showers are expected in the country’s south, east and the regions between the Carpathians. The first winter month includes several weather phenomena such as snowfalls and blizzard most likely in the south and eastern Moldavia. Moderate showers are expected today and snow falls in the mountains. In Bucharest, the sky is overcast with moderate wind and highs of 11 degrees Celsius. The noon reading in Bucharest was 8 degrees.

     

    TIKTOK The Defence Ministry in Bucharest has pointed out new cases of online misinformation, mainly on the TikTok platform. According to the Defence Ministry’s portal known as InfoRadar, Romania’s borders and port infrastructure have been targeted this time. One of the posts falsely states that Romania is going to close its borders and beef them up with military troops and the other presents military equipment that the Romanian army actually doesn’t possess, which has allegedly been deployed to the port of Constanta. The aforementioned posts were aimed at spreading the fake news that Romania is actually getting ready for war. The Ministry has described the information as false adding that its structures will continue to signal any cases of misinformation identified. The National Audio-visual Council and the National Authority for Communication Administration and Regulation have reminded the TikTok, Meta, X and Google platforms the obligations they have on combating misinformation, under the European regulation in the field.

     

    ASYLUM According to the Russian state press, the ousted president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his family are presently in Russia where they have been granted political asylum. A top-ranking Russian official has also confirmed the news. Syrian sources had earlier announced the dictator’s plane could have crashed while the city was being taken over by the rebel forces. The insurgents’ leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa said the public institutions would remain for a while under the surveillance of the country’s former Prime-Minister. Syria’s Premier Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali says he is ready to support the continuity of governance. According to commentators, being busy with the invasion of Ukraine and the conflict with Israel respectively, Russia and Iran, the main supporters of the Assad regime during the last decade’s civil war, didn’t have significant interventions against the rebels this time.

     

    MAE The fall of the dictatorial regime in Damascus is marking a historic moment and a watershed point for the Syrian people, which was subjected to suffering and oppression, the Romanian Foreign Ministry says in a press release. According to the same sources, “Romania reiterates its support for Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time it voices hope that all Syrian people are going to have a free, safe and prosperous future, in which all the citizen rights are respected, including those of the minorities, the same communiqué also says.

    (bill)

  • September 11, 2023 UPDATE

    September 11, 2023 UPDATE

    SCHOOL The Romanian
    President Klaus Iohannis announced that the issue of drug consumption among
    young people will be included on the agenda of the next meeting of the
    country’s Supreme Council of National Defense. Attending the opening of the new
    pre-university year at a school in Bucharest on Monday, he emphasized that this
    phenomenon represents a serious challenge to national security. Klaus Iohannis
    also said that he continued to support the increase in teachers’ salaries as of
    January 1, 2024. He gave assurances that he remained firm and would support all
    measures to make the commitments made by the Government this summer come true.
    The new school year started, in Romania on Monday, for approximately 3 million
    pupils and preschoolers. It will have 36 weeks of courses, and it is organized
    in five modules, just like the previous one. The Green Week and
    Doing School Differently will take place between September 11, 2023
    – April 26, 2024 and can be set by schools in any of modules 1, 2, 3 or 4, in
    intervals of 5 consecutive working days. The school year will end on June 21,
    2024. The pupils entering the 5th grade will be the first to take an additional
    high school entrance exam in the summer of 2027.




    DEFICIT Romania’s trade deficit in the first seven months of this
    year stood at 15.6 billion Euros, 17% lower as compared to the same period last
    year, shows the latest data published by the National Institute for Statistics.
    In this period, Romania’s exports totaled 55 billion Euros, 4.6% higher than
    the similar period of the past year. At the same time, between January 1st
    and July 31st 2023, Romania imported goods of 70 billion Euros, 1.1%
    lower than in the same period of 2022. In July 2023, the country’s exports
    stood at 8 billion Euros, while imports at 10 billion, which created a deficit
    of 2 billion Euros. As compared to July last year, exports in July this year went
    down by 3% while imports by 11.5%.










    DRILL
    The Romanian and US Naval Forces are jointly organizing, as of Monday until
    Friday, September 15, a multinational exercise called Sea Breeze. It will take
    place in the area of ​​responsibility of the Romanian Naval Forces in the Black
    Sea and the Danube Delta and aims to develop teamwork between the participating
    countries in the field of combating explosive devices, especially sea mines, so
    that navigation can take place freely. Soldiers from Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine,
    France and the UK are also taking part in the exercise.




    FOOTBALL
    Romania’s national football side is playing at home on Tuesday the selection of
    Kosovo, in a game counting towards Group one in the preliminaries of the
    European Championship due in Germany, next year. After five matches in the
    group, with two wins and three draws, Romania boasts nine points presently
    ranking second after Switzerland with 11 points. The group also includes
    Belarus and Andorra. The first two sides will be playing in the final
    tournament. Romania last qualified for a European football tournament in 2016
    and our latest participation in a World Cup was in 1998.


    (bill)